Monday, September 11, 2006

Freedom Walk OKC and Luke Stricklin

Went to the Freedom Walk this evening. (Missed the entire speech at the Murrah Memorial, so can't say anything about that.) There were a guesstimated 150 troops marching, and probably two hundred or so civilians, though I'm no expert in crowd counting and wouldn't be too surprised to hear it was more or less.

The main reason I went was to see Luke Stricklin play the songs he wrote during his year in Baghdad with the Army National Guard.

Stricklin didn't give any speeches, just a little background on his own songs, and a thanks to the troops. He sang a little Merle, Waylon, and Willie, and two of his own songs written while in Iraq. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was good to see him live.

(PS His band was good, too, but seemed to be a pickup band, not a regular group.)

I guess for journalistic purposes I should mention that Great Divide, a rockin' country band, played next. They were good and played hard.

PS Photos will be forthcoming, but I'm having problems with my photo hosting service.

2006 October 18: Nope, no photos forthcoming. It seems I can't access my flicker account, and I don't have time to go through all the nonsense to get them posted right now.

Remember, or Never Forget?

Why are we not supposed to forget 9/11? Is it so that the victims will never be forgotten? And maybe a few heroes as well? A DJ on the radio today said, "It's been five years since nine eleven, but we're still proud to be Americans."

What the heck does that mean? Ya know, I was proud to be an American before it was the "in" thing, before we could classify ourselves as a victim group. But we're STILL proud. Was that pride supposed to go away? Oh, but we're still hanging on, stretching this out as lo-o-o-ng as we can! Is that the sentiment?

I got into a brief argument with a friend over seeing United 93. He refused to see it.

"Yeah, it's all about 'oh, we can't ever forget the poor victims, waaaa waaaa waaaa.' The crybabies," was his basic argument.

"No," I replied, "It's not that at all. It's 'Remember Pearl Harbor!'"

We restated our positions a few times, glared at each other, dropped it, and carried on with a pleasant evening.

So which is it? Never forget, waaa waaa waaa? Or Remember!