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They Can Only Dream of Holidays at Home

Published on Friday, December 24, 2004 by USA Today
by Al Neuharth, USA TODAY Founder
http://www.usatoday.com/

Most of us love to spend Christmas with our families, but many cannot.
Some
numbers of this year's can-dos and cannots:

· More than 62 million of us will travel 50 miles or more to be with
family.

· Most of our 2.4 million military men and women will be unable to go
home for
the holidays.

· More than a half million troops serving overseas will have little
holiday
happiness, especially the 138,000 in Iraq.

My saddest Christmases came when I was ages 19, 20 and 21 serving in
the Army in
World War II. The 86th (Blackhawk) Infantry Division took me far from
my South
Dakota home, first to Texas and California for training, then to
France, Germany
and the Philippines.

Some of my Blackhawk buddies and I often were watery-eyed when we heard
the
holiday hit song of 1943 and 1944 - Bing Crosby singing, I'll be home
for
Christmas if only in my dreams.

Despite unhappy holidays, nearly all of us who served in WWII were
proud,
determined and properly armed and equipped to help defeat would-be
world
conquerors Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy and Hirohito in Japan.

At age 80, I'd gladly volunteer for such highly moral duty again. But
if I were
eligible for service in Iraq, I would do all I could to avoid it. I
would have
done the same during the Vietnam War, as many of the politically
connected did.

"Support Our Troops" is a wonderful patriotic slogan. But the best way
to
support troops thrust by unwise commanders in chief into ill-advised
adventures
like Vietnam and Iraq is to bring them home. Sooner rather than later.
That
should be our New Year's resolution.

copied from:
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1224-07.htm


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Patriotism is supporting your country all the time
and the government when it deserves it.
-Mark Twain

...................................

Pictures Bush, Cheney. Rumsfeld, and the American corporate news
industry owners don't want you to see:

http://mindprod.com/iraq.html

http://www.einswine.com/atrocities/iraq/

===============

A few good sources for news that are not controlled by insanely greedy
and deceptive Americans:

http://DemocracyNow.org
http://www.TruthOut.org
http://www.BuzzFlash.com/
http://www.CommonDreams.org/
http://Alternet.org
http://www.tompaine.com/
http://www.americanprogress.org
http://informationclearinghouse.info
http://www.Share-International.org

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"The developed nations of the world cannot remain secure islands of
prosperity in a seething sea of poverty. The storm is rising against
the privileged minority of the earth, from which there is no shelter in
isolation and armament. The storm will not abate until a just
distribution of the fruits of the earth enables men everywhere to live
in dignity and human decency."
Martin Luther King, Jr

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"...mankind [will advance] into a civilization and a state of
consciousness in which right human relations and worldwide cooperation
for the good of all will be the universal keynote."   Djwhal Khul
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