Illinois Tea Baggers Cheapen and Shame Our Nation's Service Men & Women's Sacrifice and Service

[mikekohr]

In 1941, shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor two brothers, related to six US presidents, enlisted in the Army.

In 1944, these brothers, Stanley and Ralph Durham went ashore at Normandy and served their Nation fighting the Nazi’s across France, Italy and Germany. Another young American, Stanley’s, brother-in-law, Charles Payne, fought with Patton’s Third Army and was among the troops that liberated the prisoners at the Nazi Death camp of Buchenwald.

In 1945, upon return from Europe, Stanley and his wife Madelyn, who had served the nation’s war efforts by working on a B-29 assembly line, settled down and started a family.

In 1961, a grandson was born to the Durham’s at the Kapi’olani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital, in Honolulu United States.

In 2008, that grandson won the election for President of the United States by a 9,522,186 plurality.

In 2009, on the 5th day of the 9th month, a group of Americans gathered at Bureau County’s Soldiers and Sailor’s Park in Princeton Illinois, a park dedicated to honor the service and sacrifice of all of America’s service men and women. On that day, the grandson of Stanley and Madelyn Durham, on this hallowed ground, was compared to Adolph Hitler, his name was mocked and his citizenship questioned.

Today, Sergeant Stanley Durham rests in the Punchbowl National Cemetery where he was buried with full military honors. The light from Sergeant Durham’s, and his family’s sacrifice, and service, will brighten the shadow that one day darkened Bureau County's place of honor on that regrettable day in 2009, a day that will be not long remembered and quickly tossed on the trash pile of history.


mike kohr
Princeton, Illinois

[Critters2]

1. Nice post! Thanks!

Bureau County, and a large chunk of La Salle County, is just stupid for Republicanism. I have parishioners who share no values with current Republicans--aren't the Religious Right, don't hate gays, aren't racist. But they wouldn't leave the Thug party if you held a gun to their heads. So, they vote for the crazies.

Now, we have a newspaper editor (The Ottawa Times) who is a Beck look alike--Mormon, Libertarian, hates birther, the whole deal. I fear his influence on my sane Republican friends, neighbors, and parishioners.