Dan Wever sent this in:
- Memorial Day is a day for remembering and honoring military personnel who died in the service of their country, particularly those who died in battle or as a result of wounds sustained in battle. In other words, the purpose of Memorial Day is to memorialize the veterans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.
He asks “Why did the EPISD schedule 3 graduations on this day?”
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Because they can. EPISD pays lip service to the military but is more concerned how to squeeze more federal dollars from them, or land. While they make a big show of honoring veterans in November, they have consistently ignored the Armistice Holiday in past years. And their contempt for the military and veterans is carried over to the students, who for the most part have no idea what a veteran is, or really what all the battles that were fought represent.
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Yes, it’s very disrespectful to have graduation ceremonies on Memorial Day. It disrespects the community that scarified and is totally unjust for those forced to work.
But it is not unexpected. The key to understanding EPISD graduation procedures is to think about what is convenient for Juan Cabrera and his staff? It’s simple. Remember that Cabrera does not generally attend commencement ceremonies; what is more convenient than not bothering to attend? As for his staff, they will be clustered in a hospitality room at the Haskins Center between shows, they work in shifts while on stage to shake hands so nobody gets too tired, then some of them will grudgingly move to El Paso High for the last ceremony of the day. They will gripe to themselves all day long about having to be there. This is considered grueling work for them, not the proud culmination of their year’s efforts. There will be strict orders to keep the ceremonies to a very minimum in order that they should happen quickly – no more than an hour an a half. Remember, the Super’s cabinet has families too and since the campus based minions of administrators who put the ceremonies together report to these people, they will comply. The Super will claim all this, like his first class flights, is because he shot himself in the foot once. If he only knew how true that statement really is!
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This sounds like the protests about the players in the NFL that kneel during the anthem. How many of the supposed “patriots’ actually stand in their living rooms during the national anthem as opposed to getting another plate of hot wings? How many of you will be “honoring military personnel who died in the service of their country” as you go to Walmart and get your groceries, sit down to watch Avengers for the third time, or think about veterans as you grill your steaks or mow your lawns? Not many I suppose.
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Hey, anon. I’ve gone to two funerals at Arlington National Cemetery. My father and my husband. You can bet your sweet ass I’ll be observing Memorial Day. And btw, I’ve been standing for the National Anthem in the living room since I was a small child because that’s how my parents raised me. That’s something that happens in career military houses, but it is pretty obvious it didn’t happen in yours. EPSID has schools that serve Ft. Bliss. Brutus is correct in his criticism. I realize that since only a small percentage of our population actually serves in the military holidays like Memorial Day are becoming no big deal. But trust me, without those willing to sacrifice their lives for this country, we’d live in a very different and much uglier world.
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You sound like a public school teacher. Hate much? You should insult people in person, you would probably do less of it.
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Hate? Look in the mirror. Anon made a legitimate point. All one has to do is drive past Walmart, Home Depot, Target and the movie theaters and you will see what Anon meant. If you believe what you say you believe, you should be agreeing with Anon, not taking it personally. Unless of course, Anon hit a nerve.
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What we object to is anon’s assumption that none of us will be honoring veterans. His or her statements hit two nerves equally–those who fit the description but don’t like being called out, and those who are offended by the assumption that everyone in EP fits the description because that is incorrect. Plus, the first step in erasing a holiday is to suggest that it is really no longer relevant to bulk of the population.
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The academic community, as a whole, has nothing but disdain for military service. This is simply another sign of their hostility towards all things military. Soon there will be no recruiting activities allowed on any local school campus.
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Actually, it’s a Yankee idea by Federal Gen. John Logan who declared it as, “The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion…”
Rebellion – that kind of positions it, but it is good that it has evolved to honor all veterans of our many wars. Do they teach American history anymore except maybe some PC version where everyone’s a victim? Is that why EPISD dishonors the day with graduation ceremonies.
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The President is on TV and Twitter every day whining about being a victim and the leaders of his party proudly, loudly endorse his belief. And on the left, you have Ocasio Cortez claiming to be victim of vicious attacks. So the victim self-image is not unique to academia or liberals or conservatives.
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In Madison, WI, where I lived for 8 years in the 70s, there is a Confederate cemetery with the graves of 140 POWs (lot of teenagers) who died at Camp Randall during the Civil War. In the 1890s, a cenotaph was erected there with their names as an act of reconciliation, funded in part by Union vets. Would you believe the libtard Madison city council had it removed to a warehouse early this year after much debate about how offensive, micro-agressing and traumatizing it is for the local PC snowflakes to know it is even there.
By the way, same mayor today as then when I lived there! He was very effective in the 1970s at getting some public development underway that had stalled for decades. I am sorry to see his priorities have “evolved.” Never mind history and its lessons. Who controls the past, controls the present as George Orwell wrote in his book, 1984.
Memorial Day is very important.
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Context:
“The cenotaph was installed in 1906 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy — an organization Soglin has called “racist and bigoted.”
Due to a delayed flight, Soglin was absent from the discussion Tuesday night.
“The Daughters of the Confederacy are a pernicious, racist, active group,” said Kathleen Nichols, a former Dane County Board supervisor. “It needs to go.”
https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/madison-city-council-votes-to-remove-confederate-monument-at-forest/article_23bb9ab1-eb46-526d-8bbc-88a25f8a9c00.html
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Lots of people are called “racist.” doesn’t mean that they are.
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It was removed in January of this year and my source was the coverage around that. The 140 Confederates died in Union captivity. I am convinced that among the PC Left, any white person who lived more than a 100 years ago is now considered a de facto pernicious racist. Maybe Vicksburg could remove the many Union monuments on the historic battlefield (been there) for the civilians who lost their lives in the siege that cut the Confederacy in half?
Madison was always sort of the Berkeley of the Midwest, but it was a great place to live in the 70s with its four lakes in the city and surrounding natural beauty. Soglin was a very effective “bricks and mortar” mayor then. Sorry to see this, but then they erected a downtown statue honoring gay lovers; got their priorities in order.
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Actually, while a Yankee helped establish it as a recognized holiday it evolved from a tradition of Civil War widows (in both the North and the South) cleaning and placing flowers on the graves of Civil War dead. While I’ve never seen this done in the North, members of the UDC (which is not a racist organization) still do it in many parts of the South. I belong to the UDC and have since the 80s. I’ve never seen any focus other than studying history and honoring War dead. We all have an American story and systematically erasing the history of one part of our country, particularly when it involves removing privately funded monuments to veterans the US government has recognized as veterans is totally wrong. The VA actually places free headstones for Confederate soldiers whose headstones have been destroyed or are missing as long as service can be proved. Often the groups that help get those headstones ordered and placed for families wanting the headstone are chapters of Confederate ancestor societies. The VA ships the stone, but the family must pay to have it placed unless organizations like these volunteer their time. Post-WWII we have engaged in a number of wars and conflicts with questionable ideologies. Ask yourself if a movement grew to remove monuments to veterans of these conflicts because they were immoral wars or reflected American colonialism or inappropriate projection of American power, how would you feel? That is the path the erase the Confederacy movement has started down. How long will it be before its culture of victimhood expands to new targets? Would that impact your ancestors? History is history. Rewriting it to suit political agendas just means we are doomed to repeat its mistakes.
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