Honor and Sacrifice

The murders at VT were a real shame, just as the murders of 406 people in Philadelphia last year and the 120 plus this year. But they were still murder victims. They were not serving their country and some probably never had any intention of serving their country. They did not deserve to be honored any more than any other murder victim, and definitely not honored as much as a serviceman who gave his life for his country.

i watched you story today about lowering the flag everytime a service member gets killed. well here is what i think , you could not do that because we lose people each and everyday. the flag would just stay down. i am a army wife and i think enough is enough.

I think the flag should be lowered until all of our soldiers come home. This is not a political statement at all. It is a reminder to everyone everyday to not forget.

As sad as the VT Shootings were, our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are enduring hardships and encountering life and death situations every day. The troops who have lost their lives should be honored and not forgotten because they made the ultimate sacrifice for their country and what they believed in.
It has become politically correct to not support the troops and that is just wrong!

I understand & sympathize with all family & friends of lost soldiers. But if we were to fly our flag at half staff whenever a soldier was killed in the line of duty we would never fly our flag at full staff. unfortunately soldiers are killed & wounded every day. Sad but True.

Greatly appreciate George Stephanoupulos' In Memorium on Sundays listing the names of fallen soldiers---just need to slow it down a bit so that viewers have an opportunity to at least read their names, learn where they were from, etc. Why not expand it and let people see their faces and learn a bit more about them?

I think that the flag should be lowered for soldiers tha are killed in the communities they lived in. To me that is just showing the family that there service is appreciated by the peole in the community .

As a former Virginia Tech faculty member I was profoundly saddened by the massacre there last week. VT is a school with a strong military orientation and flying flags at half staff to honor the dead seemed very appropriate to me. But failing to similarly acknowledge every soldier and civilian dying daily in Iraq raises a good point. Perhaps we should fly the US flag at half-staff for the duration of this stupid war, as a constant reminder of a flawed and failed foreign policy and a pig-headed administration that refuses to admit a serious mistake that is daily causing American soldiers and Iraqi civilians to just as needlessly die as did the VT students.

President Bush has decreed that no photographers or other media is permitted in areas where the caskets containing the bodies of US troops killed in Iraq are returning to U.S. soil. Out of sight out of mind. This works for Bush. It was impossible to hide the level of carnage at VT. Show us our dead. It may make a difference.

As I recall, it was in an interview a few months back, with Charlie Gibson, that President Bush stated (in response to a question about multiple deployements being an excessive burden) that people need to understand that the military is different today, in that the soldiers are not drafted, but are volunteers.

I think that comment fits in well with my impression of President Bush, that the military is simply a tool for him to use, at his will.

If anyone has tried to score political points with the public in their use of the military, it is President Bush.

I think that the flag should be lowered for soldiers tha are killed in the communities they lived in. To me that is just showing the family that there service is appreciated by the peole in the community .

Our congregation has recently hung a banner from
the front of our historic church that reads,
"Support Our Troops - Bring Them Home!" We are
looking forward to changing the banner to
"Welcome Home Troops!"

Having just viewed you spot on "Honor and Sacrafice," especially the section on flying the flag at halfmast, I feel that this nation
should fly all flags at halfmast until all of our
troops are home.

Rev. John Pastor
Minister
First Congregational Parish Unitarian
Petersham,MA

Although it is a tradgity when a soldier, defending our nation is killed - there is a difference in the expectations of sending your child off to college vs sending the off to the service. A kid heading off to class does not in any way think he/she is entering a battle field. A kid heading off to boot camp knows that it is likely that he/she will see combat. Their death is no less valuble then the college kid gun downed in class, but the horror is not expected and therefore it is more shocking !

Thanks so much to ABC News for this story.
As the wife of a soldier currently serving in Baghdad. I was so angry last week about the attention give to the Virginia Tech tragedy, while soldiers deaths are never given the attention they deserve. Glad to know I wasn't the only one feeling that way.

Dear Charles Gibson:

There should be permanent flags flown at half
staff for all our troops at the White House. There should be two flags - one in the form of
a purple heart and our general American Flag.

I don't agree with the statement that the families
of the troops are the sole sufferers. After
all, they are not only fighting for this Country,
but sacrificing their lives for those of us who
choose not to serve in these wars. We all pay
the price.

I am the daughter of a vet who after 12 years retired volunteered to come back in and serve his country once more. I served 5 years in the army myself, and i am married to a solider who has served for more than 13 years. I have supported my husband through 2 tours of Iraq and 1 tour in Korea. Between 2002 and 2006, my husband was away for more than 3 of those 4 years. I have sacrificed a lot for him, because i love him not because i believe in the President or his policies. I got out of the military because i knew that Bush was going to do something that would hurt the soldiers and their families. I will never regret my choice to leave the army. I am constantly worried that my father or my husband will have to serve another tour in a war torn country. All i want is for this madness to end so that my friends and family can be whole again and not be scared of the next deployment.

I disagree with these people that are saying we do not lower our flags to half staff. We the people of the U.S.A. support our troops very well. Our troops are thought of all the time,our schools support them they collect all kinds of stuff to be sent to them, we have adopt a soilder programs. Our soilders are talked about very highly.
Thanks, Melissa in Michigan

As a military Mom - I believe the flag should be flown at half mast while we are at war. Our brave soldiers are dying everyday. Our hearts go out to the children at VT but our hearts also go out to the children in our military.

Ok listen im 14 and even I know why we lower the flag for the Virginia Tech victims and not the war victims it is simply because the Virginia Tech victims were not expecting to be killed but on the other hand, the war victims took that risk at staring death in the face and decided to risk life and limb for thier country.

We should honor the vets in Afghanistan. But, we don't belong in Iraq; we never did. We didn't go there to fight terrorists. Rather, we went to steal the oil production from French companies and give it to Cheney's buddies. We were stooges in Vietnam but were drafted into that war. It's hard to feel sorry for young men who willingly go off to war but don't study our recent history.