Who Moved My Cheese Metal?

Our greatest wish at WMMCM for Memorial Day 2010 is for all our Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Airmen and Coast Guardsmen to remain safe while away serving this country.

And a quick return home.

This is the official song of the U.S. Army, based on the early-20th-century “Caisson Song” — it went through a couple of mutations along the way And to people of my age and older, it’s hard not to think, “Over hill, over dale…”

But the official version, dating to 1956, begins on a more positive note:

First to fight for the right
And to build the nation’s might
And the Army goes rolling along.

And the second verse — rarely sung — gives some specifics:

Valley Forge, Custer’s ranks,
San Juan Hill and Patton’s tanks,
And the Army went rolling along
Minute Men, from the start,
Always fighting from the heart,
And the Army keeps rolling along

They’re not great lyrics, but they’re memorable and singable and make the point, and it is a grand martial melody.

United States Coast Guard Shield

Always Ready!

“Semper Paratus” is the motto of the United States Coast Guard and the name of the Coast Guard anthem. Written by Captain Francis Saltus Van Boskerck in 1922, Semper Paratus seems to have just somehow become the official anthem without anyone really knowing about it or officially doing anything about it either.

(You have just got to love Captain Van Boskerck’s middle name…)

There is something fully appropriate about that as the Coast Guard is always, and unfairly, looked down upon or largely ignored by the other larger services.

The “Coasties” just do their job, very well I must add, and are somehow always there when civilian or military maritime problems crop up.

The United States Marine Corps has the unique distinction of having been formed on November 10, 1775 eight months before the signing of The Declaration Of Independence. As the oldest service it is only natural that the Marine Corps has the oldest anthem.

The Marine Hymn

The authorship is unknown but the Marine Hymn has been in official use in the Marine Corps since the late 19th century with the Marine Corps copyrighting the song in 1891.

The Marine Hymn refers to many of the early actions of United States Marines on the Barbary Coast and in the Mexican-American war and over the decades since it’s first use as the official anthem, the words have been changed from time to time to reflect the current history and missions of the Corps.

“From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli
We fight our country’s battles in the air, on land, and sea;
First to fight for right and freedom and to keep our honor clean;
We are proud to claim the title,
Of United States Marine.”

Sometimes the words are not necessary…  

The official name of this, the official song of the U.S. Air Force, is “The U.S. Air Force.” It was written for and originally named after the Army Air Corps, with the change coming in 1947, after the Air Force had become a separate service.

Hear it sung once, and the opening line will be with you forever:
Off we go,
Into the wild blue yonder,
Climbing high into the sun,
Here they come
Zooming to meet our thunder,
At ‘em boys, give ‘er the gun
Down we dive, spouting our flame from under,
Off with one hell of a roar!
We live in fame or go down in flame. Hey!
Nothing’ll stop the U.S. Air Force!

“The U.S. Air Force” is brave and blunt, cheerful and realistic, and eminently suitable to the service it represents.

“Anchors Aweigh” was written in 1906 by U.S. Naval Academy Bandmaster Charles A. Zimmerman and Midshipman Alfred Hart Miles. Originally written as the Academy football team’s fight song, Anchors Aweigh has gone through several lyric changes since it was first composed.

(For you Navy buffs, please ignore the F-16s near the end of the video… I didn’t make it.)

Although not the “official” Navy anthem, “Anchors Aweigh” has been associated with the Navy through the academy football team and it’s use in movie after movie as a metaphor for anything Navy, even becoming the movie for 1945′s Anchors Aweigh starring Gene Kelley, Frank Sinatra and Kathryn Grayson.

Here are a group of First Class Petty Officers on thier selection ceremony for Chief Petty Officer.

“Anchors Aweigh my boys, Anchors Aweigh!
It is farewell to foreign shores, we sail at break of day day day day
Through our last night on shore, drink to the foam
Until we meet once more,
Here’s wishing you a happy voyage home!”

Vera Lynn was not just popular in Britain during the war, she was beloved in a very personal way, for her warm, rich voice and for her tireless dedication to supporting the troops — through her radio show, in visits to hospitals, and in tours to perform for soldiers overseas.

“We’ll Meet Again” has simple enough lyrics:

We’ll meet again,
Don’t know where, don’t know when,
But I know we’ll meet again,
Some sunny day.

With so many people watching the men they loved go off to war, that hopeful message was very welcome. But of course everyone knew that the hoped-for meeting might not come in this life.

And there’s something about the remarkable vocal on this version that expresses both that hope and the ghost of possible sorrows to come. She really was an extraordinary singer.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is perhaps the most capable of all the war memorials in Washington D.C. at producing strong emotions. 

Written by Jamie O’Hara, “50,000 Names” brings those emotions to the surface. 

The long black marble wall with all those names has a power that is difficult to understand. 

The Wall At Night

For this hour, a modern country song, Trace Adkins’ “Arlington,” from 2007. Adkins can be a bit overwhelming at times, but this one he sings with taste and restraint, behind a simple arrangement that relies most on a gentle fiddle.

I love rock ‘n’ roll, but this kind of direct tribute is one of the things country just does so much better. Not quite sentimental, not even political, just straightforward and dignified. See if you can listen — and watch this very well done video — today without getting a little misty.

And every time I hear twenty-one guns,
I know they brought another hero home to us.

We’re thankful for those thankful for the things we’ve done,
We can rest in peace,
‘Cause we were the chosen ones,
We made it to Arlington.

In February of 1945, with the Second World War winding down to its bloody conclusion in Europe, much still needed to be done in the Pacific. The decision was made to invade an island barely eight square miles in size, nearly 650 miles from the Japanese coast. The importance of this desolate and isolated island lay in the fact that the Japanese had built two airfields on her tiny surface and were constructing a third.

The Allies needed these airfields as a safety measure for the B-29 bombers as they flew nearly one thousand miles from Tinian to the Japanese home islands. Without possession of Iwo Jima, any American aircraft damaged in the attacks or suffering a mechanical failure would simply have nowhere to go except into the water.

On the fourth day of the battle, the Marines had finally suppressed fire sufficiently from Mount Suribachi to make a climb to the top. Once there Mike Strank, Franklin Sousley, Harlon Block, Rene Gagnon, John Bradley, and Ira Hayes would be photographed raising the American flag at the summit.

Mount Suribachi Flag Raising

Of these six men, Mike Strank, Franklin Sousley, and Harlon Block would never make it off the small volcanic rock in the middle of nowhere.

At the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Rene Gagnon, John Bradley, and Ira Hayes were sent back to the United States for the 7th war bonds drive, each becoming a celebrity in the remaining months of the war. Rene Gagnon unsuccessfully tried to use his celebrity status in the post-war years but he eventually succumbed to alcoholism and bitterness, passing away in 1979. Ira Hayes had been found dead in his hometown on the Gila River Indian Reservation in 1955.

John Bradley became a mortician and lived out a peaceful life, dying at the age of 70 in 1994.  James Bradley, John’s son, observed in his excellent book about the Iwo Jima battle and the lives of those six men, that his father was the only one to truly survive Iwo Jima.