Veterans' Day 2008

Urban Miyares was stuffed into a body bag in Vietnam and lived to tell about it.

What Miyares, then a 20-year-old Army platoon sergeant, remembers of that day in August 1968 outside Saigon was advancing single file across rice paddy dikes when the silence was pierced by yelling, screaming, gunfire and mortar shells. His last recollection was falling face down into muddy water.

It was like a dream. Everything was spinning. Then I hit the water,” Miyares recalled.

Two days later he woke up in a military hospital. One of his 9th Infantry platoon colleagues checked on him and broke the news: An Army medic had pulled him out of a body bag.

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And this is how you name a warship:

One of the Navy’s largest new surface warships will bear the name of a Navy SEAL who received the nation’s highest award for valor.
“DDG 1001, the second ship in our newest class of destroyers, will be named after Michael Monsoor,” Navy Secretary Donald Winter said remarks prepared for an address to be given Wednesday night in New York.

Garden Grove, California native, Michael Monsoor was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor back in April. Our thoughts at the time, here.

Also, Information Dissemination is encouraging its readers to participate in a fund-raising drive that is operated by Soldiers' Angels. We’ve donated to these folks in the past. They’re a good and worthy outfit. Please read about ID’s experience with Soldier’s Angels.

And finally, a special shout-out to our two older brothers and our brother-in-law who served proudly in this nation’s armed forces. None of what we enjoy today in this, the greatest nation on Earth, is possible without the selfless sacrifices that have been made and continue to be made by the men and women in our armed forces. May God bless all of them.



This picture is a couple years old but remains one of the most moving we've seen. Pearl Harbor survivor Houston James of Dallas embraces Marine Staff Sgt. Mark Graunke Jr. during a Veterans Day commemoration in Dallas. Graunke lost a hand, a leg and and eye when he was injured by a bomb in Iraq.

H/T: BlackFive