I am more than a little upset with people that have decided to unload on President Obama for not being at Arlington National Cemetary to lay a wreath, which in his place he sent Vice President Joe Biden, which is part of the VPs job to be places where the President can't be for some reason or another.
President Obama made the choice to take a well earned vacation at his real home in Chicago, where he spent Friday on the Gulf Coast seeing up close and personal the mess from the BP disaster.
Obama had readied a similar message of gratitude for his appearance at the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Illinois, and actually had taken the podium to give the address when the skies opened up with a quintessentially midwestern late-spring downpour — thunder, lightning and high winds.
Under the cover of a large umbrella, he told thousands gathered before him that while "a little rain never hurt anybody," nobody wanted "anybody struck by lightning." He asked people to return to their cars for their safety, and he retreated briefly to an administration building on the cemetery's grounds. Obama a few minutes later boarded a pair of buses to greet military families that came for the event.
Within the hour, reporters who accompanied Obama to the cemetery in Elwood, Ill., were told the speech had been called off. The White House had released copies of Obama's prepared remarks in advance of his talk, but they were pulled back when the event had to be canceled.
Before the storm hit, and in advance of his appearance at the podium, Obama had visited a section of headstones where two Marines awaited him. After laying a wreath, he bowed his head in a moment of silence, his hands tightly clasped. Then a lone bugler played Taps.
This above quoted article is from USA Today
Yes, there are National Cemetaries all over this nation where we have war dead buried, also other veterans and their spouses who served this nation in the past 150 years President Lincoln did create the first National Cemetary at Arlington, the choice was a slap in the face to General Robert E Lee, they took his home and his fields and made Arlington National cemetary out of it.
Many other Presidents have not bothered to even go to any National Cemetaries on Memorial Day President Bush 41 always sent VP Quayle to lay the wreath, where was the out cry then? When President Ronald Reagan spent Memorial Day at his ranch cutting wood, were was the out cry then at the disrespect being shown to the war dead?
I for one am VERY pleased that President Obama is showing that we have National Cemetaries all across this nation, we have veteran cemetaries in many foriegn countries that we buried them where they died in WW1 and WW2, Hawaii, isalnds all over the Pacific.
My step father and my mother are buried at Riverside National Cemetary one of the busiest National Cemetaries in the nation. I will be buried at the National Cemetary they just opened last year at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.
All of our national cemetaries are important, not just Arlington, it is the one in our nations Capitol and the first one created during the Civil War, but to try and shame President Obama because he did not appear at Arlington is just plain petty, he did go to a National Cemetary in Illinois, where all the families of the nations war dead buried there are just as proud of their family members as thoughs of the men and women buried at Arlington.
The veterans organizations and the veterans themselves who are talking trash should be ashamed of themselves, President Obama did go pay his respects to our fellow veterans, he just didn't do it where you think he should have, think how proud the people of Ilinois are that a President visited the National Cemetary named after President Lincoln, I hope next year he does the Memorial Day service at Riverside national Cemetary, or maybe the one near San Francisco where Admiral Nimitz is buried, isn't he an American veteran deserving of a Presidents respect, what about the Privates and seaman and airman buried there, all veterans deserve to be so honored, Arlington is not the end all of veterans cemetaries.
Thank you President Obama make these shallow Americans realize all Veterans Cemetaries are just as important.
Fox News does it's best to disparage Biden and Obama
Biden then assumed the air of a commander-in-chief, saying that the United States has the best fighting force ever assembled.
"This is the finest military the world has ever produced. Period," Biden said from the memorial amphitheater.
Biden said he's visited U.S. troops in several locations that currently serve as the world's battlefields.
"Every time I can say without fear of contradiction, I come away impressed with the intelligence, the grit, the resolve and the patriotism of our young and men," he said.
Here they go on to question why the President would appear at a national Cemetary that only holds 17 Iraq and Afghanistan soldiers and as they put it The majority of those interred there are World War II veterans who died in old age. This nation has 26 million veterans, are not the old veterans deserving of Presidential recognition? Or is it Fox's belief that only young men and women deserve the President's respect, would Fox executives please care to explain what they truly mean by this report?
Biden's remarks come at the most famous ceremony on Memorial Day, but observances to honor the fallen are being carried out at hundreds of locations around the country.
Some had questioned the president's decision to skip Arlington in favor of a local event that would coincide with his family's holiday weekend at their home in Chicago. Obama spoke before at the Lincoln cemetery while a U.S. senator in 2005.
Lincoln is one of the newer cemeteries run by the National Cemetery Administration, which manages the burial plots for honorably discharged troops and their families.
Lincoln cemetery was dedicated in 1999. It has just 17 troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The majority of those interred there are World War II veterans who died in old age.
At the Vietnam Veterans Wall, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also held a separate ceremony.
Is Fox news really calling the "Greatest Generation" of WW2 veterans a bunch of "old men" what do they mean by this? Are not veterans of any war deserving of a Presidential visit? Or are they dismissing the 17 Irag and Afghanistan veterans buried there as not being of such a number to justify a Presidential visit? How many is enough? One, or 100, or is it 1000? What numbers does it take to justify to Fox to make a Presidential visit worthwhile?
I realize it is becoming a Republican television station or a propaganda outlet for the Tea Party which they have spent the past 18 months promoting but are they even going to propagandize Memorial Day and Veterans Day from now on? Is this what we want as a nation? I don't and as a disabled veteran I vow to never watch a Fox news show ever again, I have had enough with their lies, inuendo and BS which do nothing to help the American public, they are obviously not pro American rather pro Tea Party which is not the same thing.