The CNN Daily Mash-up is a roundup of some of the most interesting, surprising, curious, poignant or significant items to appear on CNN.com in the past 24 hours. We top it with a collection of the day's most striking photographs from around the world. Today being Memorial Day, the CNN Daily Mash-up focuses on those who have served and are serving and defending America with honor.
Memorial Day is the day America sets aside to honor the sacrifices of our armed forces. Many have given their lives; many have given limbs; some have sacrificed any hope of ever living a normal life again.
Karl Marlantes was a member of the U.S. Marine Corps who fought in Vietnam. His haunting reminder to us all:
When the peace treaty is signed, the war isn't over for the veterans or the family. It's just starting.
Rose Mary Sabo Brown's late husband, Leslie Sabo Jr., recently was awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor for his heroic actions in the Vietnam War, as he gave his life to save his comrades. She said:
I've never stopped thinking about him. My heart is filled with pride that you can't even imagine.
Many of our readers have recognized these sacrifices in their comments, none more eloquently than myweekends, who wrote:
A veteran is someone who, at one point in their life, wrote a blank check made payable to 'The United States of America' for an amount of 'up to and including my life.' Thank you to all our troops, veterans and their families for all the sacrifices they make every day for us. You have my admiration and appreciation.
CNN iReporter Stephan Spilkowitz shot this photo of children at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington on May 15. “The memorial was crowded with tour groups and visitors, yet of all the monuments and historical sites we visited in D.C., the crowd possessed a level of dignity, silence, and respect unmatched by any other monument,” he said.
Yep, men in uniform sure look good. They often sound good, too. Another CNN iReporter, Faith DeCeglia, shot a series of good photos of the Quantico Marine Corps Band performing in New York's Times Square for Fleet Week. "I hope the members of our armed forces enjoyed the events as much as the civilians," she said. "It looked to me as [though] they did."
A deafening parade of motorcycles in our nation's capital is meant to honor military members who were captured by enemy forces, some never to be seen again. These riders make sure they're never forgotten.
The Greatest Spectacle in Racing generates great quantities of trash, CNN affiliate WTHR reports. The quarter of a million people who jam the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the Indy 500 on the last Sunday in May leave a whole lot of junk behind. So at 8 a.m. Monday, another tradition takes place, as nonprofit groups pull on gloves, pull out the trash bags and pull together to clean the place up. In exchange, the IMS donates money to their causes.
President Barack Obama will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to a sizable roster of recipients on Tuesday. The Medal of Freedom is our nation's highest civilian honor, presented to individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors, according to the White House.
The recipients are: diplomat Madeleine Albright, civil rights lawyer John Doar, singer Bob Dylan, public health pioneer William Foege, astronaut/senator John Glenn, civil rights advocate Gordon Hirabayashi, workers' rights activist Dolores Huerta, Polish resistance hero Jan Karski, Girl Scouts founder Juliette Gordon Low, novelist Toni Morrison, Israeli public servant Shimon Peres, former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens and retired University of Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summitt.
Tuesday birthdays: Actor Anthony Geary, 65; V. Gene Robinson, first openly gay Episcopal bishop, 65; attempted assassin John Hinckley Jr., 57; singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge, 51; basketball player Carmelo Anthony, 28.
© 2012 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
| Advertising practices | Advertise with us | About us | Work for us | Help
I didn't know if I read that line correctly. President Ronald Reagan's attempted assasin of 1981, is getting the Presidential Medal of Freedom?
What? He doesn't have one to honor Sirhan Sirhan, Lee Harvey Oswald, and perhaps John Wilkes Booth?
Why don't we just give one to George Zimmerman right away.
Jeff Frank, how's reading comprehension working out for you?
Let's just give a medal to Charlie Manson also...he's nuts too.
Seriously, Jeff?
They were listing Hinkley's birthday.
C'mon, now...lol...
A veteran is someone who, at one point in their life, wrote a check made payable to 'The United States of America' for an amount of 'up to and including my life'.
Yes.
That is exactly what 'myweekends' wrote in the article above.
Evocative, isn't it....and so true.
Thanks you, veterans.
What hand do YOU use, splasher6?
And M.O. did no such thing.
Absolute tripe!
THank you to all the veterens and their families. without you our country would never be Great. Your great for risking your life for all of us. God bless you all with peace always
so many lost in wars. God Bless Us All
I'm curious about something. Here in Utah, on Memorial Day the tradition is to decorate all graves, not just those of service members. A friend of mine originally from Ohio found that to be so unusual that she declared it "A Utah Thing." Is it?
We do that at the cemetary my son is buried...we always use Memorial Day to visit and clean-up our family's sites.
Memorial Day for our area didn't just mean veterans; it meant everyone who has passed.
I don't live in Utah, either.
we do the same thing all graves
Memorial Day is a Federal holiday meant to honor military men and women who have died while serving their country, most of them of course during a war or conflict. Over the years it seems it's true meaning has changed and many people now use it to honor and remember their own.
.....and I as a Veteran have no problem with that...Peace
Someone who knows:
Now I'm curious: •is• it just a Utah thing?
My step dad places flowers on my moms grave on Memorial weekend as well. I think a lot of people do it to honor their loved ones because they don't have a military man in the family to honor. I know my family doesn't. It's a nice gesture but it is suppose to be for the people who died serving our country.
Thanks Rox. You posting that does honor to my heart, and the memories of my, OUR, fallen brothers and sisters. You are right, both ways, and i truly want to thank you for remembering the fallen service members first, but not only. THANK YOU !!!!!!
let’s also remember the ones who didn’t die, just got maimed and brutalized and traumatized: The guys and gals poisoned with DU and experimental vaccines, who were given evil orders, whose bodies and/or souls were injured “in the line of duty.”
And let’s not forget their victims – the brave people fighting on the other side…and the “innocent” ones who weren’t fighting, just existing in the wrong place at the wrong time. The people our troops killed are open wounds, bleeding holes in our flag, and there are millions.
But of all of war’s many victims, maybe the ones we should remember most are the victims of 9/11. Those thousands of souls snuffed out on 9/11 are still screaming at us from the other world, screaming out for truth and justice.
A black man is president , get over it already.