LAT: War's Cost for All to See (Flag Half-Staff for Every CA Killed War)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-fallen9apr09,0,1323404.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Inside California's stately old Capitol, the call comes crackling over a state-issued radio. Maintenance man Dustin Peard drops what he's doing and climbs a steep, narrow ladder to the roof.

There, in the shadow of the grand rotunda, the 35-year-old former Marine slowly lowers the building's three flapping flags — the Stars and Stripes, the California bear and a black POW banner — exactly halfway down the pole.

He is acting on orders from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who drops the flags to half-staff each time a service member from the state dies in the war.

"It gets to you," Peard said recently on the rooftop, his words nearly carried off by a stiff April wind. "Each time we come up here, it's because somebody over there has been lost."

<snip>

There is no formula prescribing how elected officials should act during wartime, and Schwarzenegger's public commemoration of the fallen is not without controversy. He has taken heat from some groups that celebrate the flag, with members saying they find it demoralizing to see Old Glory flying at half-staff so much. The flags remain lowered for 72 hours after each death.

Wow - I have to say good for Schwarzenegger on this one - let everyone see some symbol of thcost paid in lives of the citizens of his state. I think they ought to lower the flags at the WH and the Capitol - let them stay at permanent half staff to remind those that sent these troops to war.

[sweetheart]

1. Would the wars cost

What is the cost of conflict in a foreign land,
that our people are now so much hated for,
a brutal rape held down my armed command,
a trillion lost dollars; future world war.

The screaming misery of mourning lovers,
wet teary eyes, swollen Why him? What for?",
nothing left to celibrate with honours,
the crumbling misery, republican incompetence adore.

Straddled astride the dominated earth,
weapons platforms rotate without borders anymore,
Price of war, fertilized and given birth,
to a world of prisons, noble cost of war.
Flags at half mast, a nation cut apart,
The cost at last, a world without heart.

[llmart]

2. It wasn't his original idea.......

our Michigan Governor, Granholm issued a proclamation to do this a long time ago.