A hero reprimands Obama.

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   OLYHOOCHposted 12 years ago

   This venerable and much honored WW II vet is well known in Hawaii
   
   for his seventy-plus years of service to patriotic organizations and causes all over the country. A humble man without a political bone in his body, he has never spoken out before about a government official, until now. He dictated this letter to a friend, signed it and mailed it to the president.
   
   Dear President Obama,
   
   My name is Harold Estes, approaching 95 on December 13 of this year. People meeting me for the first time don't believe my age because I remain wrinkle free and pretty much mentally alert.
   
   I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1934 and served proudly before, during and after WW II retiring as a Master Chief Bos'n Mate. Now I live in a "rest home" located on the western end of Pearl Harbor , allowing me to keep alive the memories of 23 years of service to my country.
   
   One of the benefits of my age, perhaps the only one, is to speak my mind, blunt and direct even to the head man.
   
   So here goes.
   
   I am amazed, angry and determined not to see my country die before I do, but you seem hell bent not to grant me that wish.
   
   I can't figure out what country you are the president of.
   
   You fly around the world telling our friends and enemies despicable lies like:
   
   " We're no longer a Christian nation"
   
   " America is arrogant" - (Your wife even
   
   announced to the world," America is mean-
   
   spirited. " Please tell her to try preaching
   
   that nonsense to 23 generations of our
   
   war dead buried all over the globe who
   
   died for no other reason than to free a
   
   whole lot of strangers from tyranny and
   
   hopelessness.)
   
   I'd say shame on the both of you, but I don't think you like America, nor do I see an ounce of gratefulness in anything you do, for the obvious gifts this country has given you. To be without shame or gratefulness is a dangerous thing for a man sitting in the White House.
   
   After 9/11 you said," America hasn't lived up to her ideals."
   
   Which ones did you mean? Was it the notion of personal liberty that 11,000 farmers and shopkeepers died for to win independence from the British? Or maybe the ideal that no man should be a slave to another man, that 500,000 men died for in the Civil War? I hope you didn't mean the ideal 470,000 fathers, brothers, husbands, and a lot of fellas I knew personally died for in WWII, because we felt real strongly about not letting any nation push us around, because we stand for freedom.
   
   I don't think you mean the ideal that says equality is better than discrimination. You know the one that a whole lot of white people understood when they helped to get you elected.
   
   Take a little advice from a very old geezer, young man.
   
   Shape up and start acting like an American. If you don't, I'll do what I can to see you get shipped out of that fancy rental on Pennsylvania Avenue . You were elected to lead not to bow, apologize and kiss the hands of murderers and corrupt leaders who still treat their people like slaves.
   
   And just who do you think you are telling the American people not to jump to conclusions and condemn that Muslim major who killed 13 of his fellow soldiers and wounded dozens more. You mean you don't want us to do what you did when that white cop used force to subdue that black college professor in Massachusetts , who was putting up a fight? You don't mind offending the police calling them stupid but you don't want us to offend Muslim fanatics by calling them what they are, terrorists.
   
   One more thing. I realize you never served in the military and never had to defend your country with your life, but you're the Commander-in-Chief now, son. Do your job. When your battle-hardened field General asks you for 40,000 more troops to complete the mission, give them to him. But if you're not in this fight to win, then get out. The life of one American soldier is not worth the best political strategy you're thinking of.
   
   You could be our greatest president because you face the greatest challenge ever presented to any president.
   
   You're not going to restore American greatness by bringing back our bloated economy. That's not our greatest threat. Losing the heart and soul of who we are as Americans is our big fight now.
   
   And I sure as hell don't want to think my president is the enemy in this final battle...
   
   Sincerely,
   
   Harold B. Estes
   
   Snopes says: http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/haroldestes.asp
   
   Here is what Truth or Fiction has to say about this email: http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/h/ … Letter.htm
   
   When a 95 year old hero of the "the Greatest Generation" stands up and speaks out like this, I think we owe it to him to send his words to as many Americans as we can. Please pass it on

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      S Leretsehposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      This was a GREAT read OLYHOOCH!! If this guy wants to run for president, I'd vote for him.  I'd truly love to meet him , thank him for his candid honesty … and service to America; and to shake his hand.  What island is this guy on? Does he mention? I vacation a few times every year in Hawaii and I’d truly like to try and look this guy up

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         OLYHOOCHposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Hawaii Loses a Great Patriot - Harold B. Estes, U.S. Navy (ret.)
         
         BY DUANE A. VACHON, PH.D. - Harold B. Estes and many of his peers are part of a generation that is known as “The Greatest Generation."  Estes, a World War II veteran credited with helping bring the USS Missouri and Bowfin museums to Hawaii, and who gained Internet fame with a letter written to President Barack Obama telling him to "shape up and start acting like an American," died Tuesday May 17, 2011.
         
         Bringing the battleship Missouri to Pearl Harbor started as an idea tossed around in 1994 by Estes, retired Adm. Ron Hays and Navy veteran Edwin Carter, according to the museum.
         
         It was a day in mid-February 1994 when Ronald Hays, a retired four-star admiral who had headed all U.S. forces in the Pacific, said to Estes, a retired chief boatswain's mate, something like: "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could get the Missouri here?".
         
         Anyone who has served in the United States Navy knows that the people who get things done in the Navy are chief boatswain’s mates.  This includes four-star admirals.
         
         Estes,  who had been out of the Navy since 1954, had worked with Carter to arrange for the deactivated submarine USS Bowfin  to be brought to  Pearl Harbor as the centerpiece of a submarine memorial complex.
         
         Estes served over 20 years in the Navy.  He took to the Navy like the proverbial duck takes to the water. Estes loved the Navy and the Navy returned that love.  His first ship was the battleship California, later sunk at Pearl Harbor.
         
         When Estes called Carter about the Missouri, Carter arranged for Estes and Hays to meet with him for lunch at the Waialae Country Club. "Cheap lunch," Carter has been quoted as saying.  "Nobody ordered booze."
         
         All three - the admiral, the chief boatswain's mate and the naval reservist - agreed it should be possible to get the deactivated Mo here. Hays, who was going back east on a business trip, said he would  talk to our congressional delegation (all approved) and to the vice chief of naval operations, Stanley Arthur, who had been a fighter pilot over Vietnam with Hays.
         
         Arthur approved, too. Interestingly, he shared a story about a Japanese delegation that  had startled him by asking to have the Missouri towed to Tokyo Bay in 1995 for the 50th anniversary of the surrender ceremonies on the battleship.
         
         “Why?” Arthur asked them. The Japanese delegation told him that the Missouri represented a new beginning.  It turned the rhetoric of democracy, freedom and prosperity into reality for Japan.
         
         This idea was welcomed by the three. As it has turned out, the Japanese have become major visitors to the Missouri.
         
         It’s interesting to note that when the Missouri opened as a museum ship at Ford Island, it become a "bookend" to the Arizona Memorial. The beginning and end of the Pacific war is dramatically portrayed by these two ships.
         
         This Author of this article had the pleasure of meeting Estes. I can attest that he was a true gentleman. He didn’t have a political bone in his body, and  he loved America and his fellow veterans.  I have no doubt that Harold Estes and Fred Ballard are sitting together with the Supreme Commander talking story.
         
         A letter critical of Obama penned by Estes several years ago went viral on the Internet and references to it are still numerous. Estes began his letter with these words, "One of the benefits of my age, perhaps the only one, is to speak my mind, blunt and direct even to the head man.”
         
         Estes will join his wife Doris at Court 11, niche 129P,  at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

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         Paul Wingertposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         "We're no longer a Christian nation" and " America is arrogant" So what's this guy's (Estes) point? Both are statements are very true. Open up a history book and anyone will that that we shown our arrogence since colonial times. The US has countless different religions. Estes needs to get over himself and get with the times.

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            shoganposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            I'm pretty sure Obama's actual quote was “we are no longer a Christian nation; we are now a Nation of Christians, Muslims, Buddhists,” which changes its tone immensely.

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               lovemychrisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               He's too senile to understand...and the rest of them are too full of intolerance. IMO

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      Paul Wingertposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      That old guy isn't very observent.

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   thooghunposted 12 years ago

   I enjoyed the read, I have to say. Despite the fact that I both agreed and disagreed in turns with the points he makes.
   
   The problem here is that, as squalid as it sounds, political strategies such as focusing on the economy will end up saving the lives and likelihoods of more than a single American soldier (as he put it). We can debate policy till kingdom come, but to flatly assume that "the best" political strategies should involve no risks (taken voluntarily to boot in terms of the military) is a little over-the-top in my mind.
   
   Secondly, despite the pretense of a humble, simple man I find him to be quite condescending. I.E
   
   "One more thing. I realize you never served in the military and never had to defend your country with your life, but you're the Commander-in-Chief now, son. "
   
   Allow to say that as President of the United States, he HAS placed himself in harms way. Just because he doesn't wear a uniform does not mean he is not on a front-line.
   
   I think he makes some interesting points, and others are food for thought. But it rings like any other political tirade to me.

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   TMMasonposted 12 years ago

   A true American Patriot.
   
   God bless him for telling it like it is.

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   lovemychrisposted 12 years ago

   Senile old fart.

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      OLYHOOCHposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      That is one of this country's biggest problem's today.
      
      You youngsters have lost all respect for you elders.
      
      Remember one thing, if you can.
      
      If it was not for us SENILE OLD F****, you young whippersnapper's would not be here, TODAY.
      
      OLY

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         lovemychrisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Hey--I'm an old fart myself....and I still think he's senile.
         
         Listen, at least I didn't say he was a racist pig who hates America....what would you have said then??

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   TMMasonposted 12 years ago

   Racist American haters.
   
   
   http://www.theblaze.com/stories/america … e-war/?amp

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      lovemychrisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Glenn Beck is as legit as Rupert Murdoch......and that means not at all.

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   TMMasonposted 12 years ago

   I have found proof of Leftist Evolution!...
   
   http://www.theblaze.com/stories/nazis-n … -liberals/
   
   From NAZIs to Liberal Socialist/Democrats.

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      John Holdenposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Two nineteen year old girls! Yeah, that proves it doesn't it.

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         lovemychrisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         It's Beckles World.....cue clown music.

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         TMMasonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         From NAZIs -National Socialists-, to Liberals -Socialist Democrats-... the natural order of things.
         
         Yes, it does pretty much sum it up.
         
         Sort of like, Micro-Evolution, proves, Macro-Evolution... see... simple leant leftist logic, which I have learned here.
         
         It works good.

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            John Holdenposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            That's no logic that you've learnt here, in fact that's no logic at all.
            
            I wonder, had the two girls seen the error of their ways and become conservative, would you have been so quick to carp?

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   lovemychrisposted 12 years ago

   Where do the Neo-Kooks fit in?

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