Thank you Uncle Kenny. And thanks Dad - for making sure we knew who he was.

On Monday, our nation will observe Memorial Day -- a day which is incredibly solemn and sacred, especially to those of us who served our nation with military service.

For one day, WesPAC and our friends at VoteVets.org and the National Security Network will put politics completely aside, and stand in solidarity with the rest of our nation to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice for the United States.

Whether you are a Democrat, Republican, or of another party or no party at all, we are all still Americans, and on this day, we should solely be focused on honoring those who died in service. We're also asking that people not protest at Memorial Day events; we have 364 other days to argue policy and politics, but this day belongs to the fallen and their memories.

Today, please consider making a donation to the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund (http://www.fallenheroesfund.org), which is dedicated to helping the families of those who died in service. The Intrepid Fund has already provided $60 million in aid to families, but can only continue to do so with your support.

Above all, take a day to learn more about someone who died in defense of America. If you're at a parade or prayer service and you see a veteran or military family member, ask him or her who they are honoring. Learn more about that hero, so their memory can endure. Too often, we talk about the fallen in terms of numbers. We forget, each of those numbers were real people, with real lives, and real families. The names on the thousands of memorials across America are more than letters etched in stone -- they are lives lost with honor. The best way we can honor those who sacrificed their lives is to ensure that the memory of who they were as human beings is never forgotten.

Please, on Memorial Day, do your part to ensure their memory lives on.

Thank you for your support of our troops and veterans.

Sincerely,

Wes Clark

read more

…if for no other reason than their Index. Here’s June’s: http://harpers.org/archive/2007/06/page/0015

HARPER’S INDEX

• Percentage change since 2000 in the number of Americans living at less than half the federal poverty line: +32

• Factor by which uninsured children in U.S. hospitals are more likely to die of their injuries than are insured children: 2

• Chances that a large U.S. metropolitan area has seen its homicide rate increase since 2004 : 7 in 10

• Rank of New Orleans among cities with the highest per-capita murder rate last year: 1

• Rank of Houston and Atlanta, respectively, among U.S. cities with the most Fortune 500 headquarters: 2, 3

• Number of the sixteen states of the South where more than 25 percent of adults are clinically obese: 12

• Number of all other states where this is true: 5

• Number of states in 1990 and 2005, respectively, where more than 14 percent of adults were clinically obese: 0, 50

• Ratio in 1985 of the number of new homes with two or fewer bedrooms to the number with four or more: 4:3

• Ratio today: 1:3

• Minimum number of copies sold of Flipping Houses for Dummies since its publication last year: 17,000

• Chance that the buyer of a U.S. home in 2006 now has “negative equity,” i.e., the debt on the home exceeds its value: 1 in 6

• Percentage of CEOs of S&P 500 companies whose homes are at least 10,000 square feet or sit on more than ten acres: 13

• Average percentage by which growth in their companies’ stock prices lagged behind that of CEOs with smaller homes: 7

• Percentage of white-collar Americans who brought work with them on vacation in 1995 : 23

• Percentage last year: 43

• Percentage change since 1900 in Americans’ average amount of leisure time: 0

• Percentage of U.S. households that will have a Nintendo Wii by 2011, according to Merrill Lynch: 30

• Portion of all Internet traffic today that is file sharing of music, films, and videos: 2/3

• Percentage change since 1990 in worldwide demand for newsprint: +18

• Percentage change in North America: -26

• Minimum number of different books sold in the U.S. last year, as tracked by Nielsen BookScan: 1,446,000

• Number of these that sold fewer than 99 copies: 1,123,000

• Number that sold more than 100,000: 483

• Days after the DVD release of Borat that it became the top item shipped to Kazakhstan by Amazon.co.uk : 4

• Percentage of British Muslims aged 16 to 24 who advocate death for Muslims who convert to another faith: 36

• Percentage who say they “admire organizations like al-Qaeda that are prepared to fight the West” : 13

• Number of months that mud has been erupting from the ground in eastern Java, Indonesia: 10

• Amount that is currently emerging per day, in gallons: 36,900,000

• Number of recent computer models that a team of climate experts studied to assess Arctic warming: 15

• Number of the models that showed the North Pole having ice-free summers by 2100: 7

• Grant that NASA has given an Arizona astronomer to study how to block solar rays with a cloud of small spacecraft: $70,000

• Number of two-foot-wide spacecraft he says would be required: 16,000,000,000,000

• Chance that a watt of U.S. nuclear energy is generated in part by material from former Soviet warheads: 1 in 2

• Number of UFO sightings in France since 1950, according to newly released French government documents: 1,650

• Portion of these sightings that France has classified as inexplicable: 1/4

• Cost, from a California company, for a headset that can control a video game with brain waves: $50

• Number of different moods it can read, in order to select an appropriate MP3 plavlist : 3

• Amount that Lockheed Martin has spent so far on Polecat, a new unmanned stealth aircraft: $27,000,000

• Date on which the only prototype crashed when the self-destruct mode was accidentally activated: 12/18/06
  

Figures cited are the latest available as of April 2007. Sources are listed on page 94.
“Harper’s Index” is a registered trademark.
HARPER’S INDEX 13

Today, VoteVets.org launched its second of three ads. There’s a common theme to these ads - that despite President Bush’s comments to the contrary, he does not listen to his commanders on the ground - and that’s an enormous problem. Civilian control of the military is one thing - civilian deafness due to arrogance is quite another…and it’s getting our troops, and Iraqi civilians, killed and maimed daily, not to mention blowing the Hell out of one of the cradles of civilization. (Yes. I’m still pissed about the looting of the museum in Baghdad!)

This second ad features Maj. General Paul Eaton (ret.), whose most recent operational assignment was Commanding General of the command charged with reestablishing Iraqi Security Forces 2003-2004, where he built the command and established the structure and infrastructure for the Iraqi Armed Forces. (re: votevets.org)

The first ad featured Maj. General John Batiste (ret.), who resigned from the Army in order to speak out about the failed strategies the Bush Administration has for Iraq. These strategies are breaking our armed forces, who are doing everything they can to prop up a fatally flawed plan.

Maj. General Batiste’s (ret.) final assignment in the Army was commanding general of the 1st Infantry Division from August 2002-June 2005. During this timeframe, the “Big Red One” conducted successful peace enforcement operations in Kosovo and combat operations in Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom II. In Iraq, the division was deployed to north-central Iraq from February 2004 until February 2005 and included 22,000 soldiers from active and reserve component units from throughout the United States. (re: votevets.org)

I’m telling you about the final assignments of these two men for obvious reasons - they know what the hell they’re talking about when they tell you Bush doesn’t listen to his commanding generals on the ground. They were two of those generals! So, it behooves us to do what our president repeatedly fails to do: listen,learn and react accordingly.

These videos are targeting several key members of Congress, who are finally demonstrating an ability, at long last, to listen and learn from these commanders who have been in Iraq leading our troops and tried repeatedly to tell the President what’s going on, as well as to the only General who fought and won a war without losing a single American life. Next week, they will air a third ad featuring that particular general - General Wesley K. Clark (ret.), and I’ll post it here.

It’s about damn time everyone in Congress listens. You can help nudge them in the right direction too. Here’s how:

1. Click the StopIranWar.com picture to the right. It’ll take you to the www.stopIranWar.com, where you can sign a petition asking both the President and Congress to listen and think before they escalate us right into another war, with a far better equiped and trained army than Iraq ever had.

2. StopIranWar.com (which is a joint project of VoteVets.org and General Clark), is also asking people to call or write these members of Congress who are the targets of the current ads. A different member will be featured each week. This is a great grassroots effort by General Clark’s volunteers - please give them a hand with it by going to http://securingamerica.com/ccn/node/12090 and reading the following posted by Susan Meara:

WE ARE GOING TO GIVE THIS CAMPAIGN A BOOST WITH A GRASSROOTS PHONE AND EMAIL BLITZ!

Some of our elected officials are going to be treated to a SPECIAL DAY
when they will be showered with attention for the purpose of delivering a message. By joining us, you can help MAKE THEIR DAY!
They need to know that people are paying attention to what they’re doing.

The message is this:

Do not support the Presidents failed policy!
A MILITARY ONLY STRATEGY WILL NOT WORK IN IRAQ.
We need POLITICAL help from the Maliki government, and REGIONAL DIPLOMACY with Iraq’s neighbors, including IRAN.
Please support diplomatic & political efforts–we owe this to our troops.

(It doesn’t matter if you live in a different state or district. They know you can provide support for their opponents in the next election if they continue to defy the will of the American people!)

Today’s Special Day belongs to…SENATOR JOHN WARNER of Virginia!
(tomorrow or the next day is okay too)

CALL:
Washington office: (202) 224-2023
TOLL FREE NUMBERS (ask the operator for Senator Warner’s office):
800-828-0498, 800-459-1887 or 800-614-2803

EMAIL: You can also use the online contact form to send this message to Senator Warner in email instead of calling.

http://www.senate.gov/~warner/contact/contactme.cfm

From ArmyMom08’s Diary on Dailykos today…(thanks for doing this ArmyMom08!!) 

MariaWells has also posted multiple polls on this subject here.  Please vote in them.  Then order buttons from her and Ice, to give out while you gather signatures.  Um remember…signature first, then they get the button ;-)  No trick, no cookie.

Last week, deadmessengers posted a diary called “Do Petitions Work? Wes Clark Thinks They Can” (linked - for those who missed it), and in the course of the conversation, a great question was asked:  

Why have so few Kossacks signed the stopIranWar petition (a joint effort of Wes Clark and VoteVets), given the number of posts about the subject, and the warm welcome General Clark and Jon Soltz always receive when they’re here?

• ArmyMom08’s diary :: ::

Some possible answers to this question were identified in the Do Petitions Work? diary  ( including the “Watch list” comment).  So, we thought we’d follow up on that and ask Kossacks all over, why they haven’t signed it.

Sorry for the short diary but we really do appreciate your answers to this.

Note:  at a commenter’s request, I added one additional question…it’s the first one.