Hey, Pat Boone- Quit Molesting Dead Soldiers

Is such an inflammatory title really appropriate, you may ask? You be the judge:

I feel obligated, actually drawn, to visit some of the ones who bought and preserved these freedoms that many take for granted. Each Memorial Day, each Independence Day, each Veteran's Day, I spend some time walking slowly through the countless headstones decorating the green hillsides of the veterans cemetery in Westwood, California. Each year, the Boy Scouts do the wonderful job of placing little fluttering American flags at each marker and headstone, tens of thousands of them.

God bless those kids, and their leaders.

I hope each one feels some of the same emotions I do. Every time.

I stand in front of each marker, as many as I possibly can, and read the names out loud. I feel it's important that each person in one of those grassy beds have his or her name pronounced loudly and gratefully, perhaps for the first time in many years. And so I do, and I cry. I don't intend to, but as I try to picture that patriot and what he or she imagined life held after the war, and how all those dreams were abruptly erased, and how the loved ones back home gave up their hopes and plans, too; I feel the very least I can do is thank them, from my heart and soul, out loud.

Yeah, never mind if he can actually pronounce names like Köortz, Nagahashamika, or Cohensteinbaumowitzberg, the important thing is he's saying them out loud, dammit. And he's "drawn" to them? I'm sorry, but I'm picturing a weird-looking Pat Boone, dressed in some bizarre Liberaci-style American flag shirt, slightly weeping with a creepy smile as he mind-gropes our fallen troops. No means no, Pat.

There's more. Pat's eager to show off the latest slang he learned at "50 Cent Fantasy Camp":

Others just ''kick back,'' rest, putter around in the yard or garage or patio, watch sports or something on TV. You know, just relax.

You know, 'kick it', 'chill out', 'strangle the king cobra', pimp some hoes, and so on. Man, that Pat Boone is hip.

Pat has one last point to make- apparently Americans like America! And why?

what prompted some our finest young men and women to forfeit their lives and surrender their personal hopes and dreams?

Oh, do tell, Mr. Boone!

It's a heritage, a history; it's a consciousness, a shared sense of identity, of purpose, of sacrifice and daring and vision and accomplishment. There's justified pride in our industrial and economic innovation, our centuries of leadership in world affairs, our military victories and our even greater humanitarian aid to virtually every other country on Earth in times of crises and needs.

Um, actually, America's humanitarian aid really isn't that impressive when you compare it to its GDP. Sorry, I forgot, real patriots don't do math.

These attributes and activities, a simple matter of history, have become so commonplace, so expected of us, that the whole world takes us for granted, and credits us little. After all, that's just who America is, and what a big blessed country does.

And they're right.

If by "right" you mean "full of shit", "full of themselves" and "utterly clueless as to the rest of the world's perception of themselves". But that was a good try.

But the world, and to an alarming degree now, we ourselves, are losing sight of the most important and bedrock source of the unique pride that has motivated all of our patriots, those living and those heroes in the lovely quiet graves across our land.

It's our sense, our conviction, that the hand of God Almighty is upon us.

...[skip total revisionist BS about Founding Fathers, religion and American uniqueness reg. various crap]

This faith, this ingrained sense of who and what we are, has made us the greatest nation in the world. It has emboldened millions of young American patriots to enlist and train and put their personal goals aside to risk, and too often,to sacrifice, their very lives, to protect and perpetuate our way of life. Under God.

Um, actually fucknut, the only person in my whole Cohensteinbaumowitzberg family who died fighting in American uniform (WWII) came from the committed Communist side of the family. The relative in question, who I'll call "Uncle Sam", didn't choose to fight (or die) for any cause: he was 18 years old, dropped out of high school, got drafted, and was essentially used as cannon fodder. Sorry to put a damper on your red-white-and-blue circle jerk.

Read the whole article, if you can stand it, it's quite informative and amusing- though a little sad, too.