What was Mitt Romney referring to when he clicked his Twitter send button this morning?

Stallone is right. US does apologize too much. Hope he doesn’t get in trouble with Hollywood friends: http://bit.ly/bco0ND

An explanation from The Hill - Tweets you need to read:

Former Massachusetts Gov. and potential 2012 White House contender Mitt Romney (R) took a cue Wednesday from Sylvester Stallone when he tweeted: “Stallone is right. US does apologize too much.”

The quote referred to a comment the veteran film star made Aug. 19 to Bill O’Reilly while promoting his new film “The Expendables” in an appearance on Fox News.

O’Reilly opened the segment by referring to a Los Angeles Times review arguing the film taps a vein of “apple-pie patriotism … [that is already] behind the success of a cable news network,” taken to mean Fox.

Stallone denied the film, which he directed, has any intended subtext at all.
“Some people read [into it] that I was maybe putting the focal point on the American intrusion into other countries. You know, ‘We tend to overstep our boundaries.’ I don’t believe that at all.”

“I think America apologizes too much,” he added quickly, as O’Reilly began to reply.
[…]

(my emphasis)

A stroll down Obama memory lane… Shortly after President Obama was coronated, he embarked on his ‘sackcloth and ashes’ tour to apologize for America to the world. To the French, he stated that America “has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive” toward Europe. He went to Prague to proclaim that America has “a moral responsibility to act” on arms control because only the U.S. had “used a nuclear weapon.” He told Londoners that decisions regarding the world financial system were no longer being made by “just Roosevelt and Churchill sitting in a room with a brandy.” Latin Americans heard our president’s apology when he said that the United States had not “pursued and sustained engagement with our neighbors” because we “failed to see that our own progress is tied directly to progress throughout the Americas.” Do you remember when Obama gave a full-waist bow when greeting the King of Saudi Arabia? How about his deep head dip to the Japanese Emperor?

Mitt Romney agrees with Stallone. In fact, you may have heard, Romney wrote a 305 page best-selling book entitled No Apology: The Case for American Greatness (released last March):

“This is a book about what I believe should be our primary national objective: to keep America strong and to preserve its place as the world’s leading nation. And it describes the course I believe we must take to strengthen the nation in order to remain prosperous, secure, and free.” ~Mitt Romney

Excerpts from Jedediah Bila’s (Human Events) No Apology review 3/2/10:

In No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, Mitt Romney discusses many foreign policy and domestic issues facing America and suggests solutions he believes will lead to a more safe and robust nation. Special attention is paid to national security, economic productivity, education, energy, and cultural fortitude.
[...]
Romney warns against American complacency by outlining the manner in which other nations have, throughout history, declined from greatness. The Ottomans, Spanish, Chinese, and British — among others — serve as potent examples of just how easily a great nation can fall from grace by virtue of such destructive policies as economic and cultural isolation, a withdrawal from the international marketplace, and spending far and above one’s means.

Romney’s declaration that, “We tend to repress the possibility of catastrophic events” is dead on. People tend to see what they feel they can handle, and the rest — despite potentially disastrous effects if not addressed — is often ignored. See our 2008 financial crisis for details.

Romney adeptly expresses America’s need for both “soft power” and “hard power” involvement in the international community. He doesn’t sugarcoat alarming realities with respect to China, Russia, radical jihadists, and Iran. Despite economic challenges, he rightfully prioritizes national defense and criticizes the UN’s “inclinations toward authoritarian regimes.” Romney unapologetically defends updating our nuclear arsenal, developing a powerful missile-defense system, adding a minimum of 100,000 soldiers to the Marines and Army, and pursuing new technologies to combat the likes of cyber-warfare.

Romney also proclaims American exceptionalism, defends the notion that, “The world is a safer place when America is strong,” and praises our hard-working roots. He duly cites welfare without work and entitlement program abuses as threats to the industrious character that birthed our unrivaled success.

Romney gives detailed emphasis on economic productivity, innovation, research and development, reducing taxes on investment, and curbing government’s growing deficits: “We need to stimulate the economy, not the government.”
[...]

All in all, Romney’s book provides a well-organized display of his stand on key issues. His Obama critique is well executed, including commentary on Obama’s abandonment of our missile defense program in Poland and the Czech Republic, his repeated apologies for America, his expansion of our debt, and his September 2009 UN address. Romney’s intermittent anecdotes with regard to business experiences, hands on encounters as governor, and the trials and tribulations of his own family, add a nice personal touch to his policy and statistical explorations.

My two favorite lines from the text include “But for most Americans, the pulse of freedom beats in our very DNA” and “The greatness of America lies not simply in what we have done with our power; it is also informed by what we have not done with our power”

Romney’s No Apology: The Case for American Greatness is a sound expression of his approach to some of our nation’s greatest present challenges.

While in Europe last year, Obama was asked if he believes in American exceptionalism. After thinking about it, he answered that he… did — in the same way that “the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks in Greek exceptionalism.”  In other words, ”No.”

As for Obama’s comments to the French that America “has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive” toward Europe,  this is how arrogant, dismissive, and derisive we’ve been:

It is time for America to pursue the difficult course ahead, to confront the looming problems, to strengthen the foundations of our prosperity, and to secure the sources of our liberty and safety. The sacrifice and hard work will not sap our national energy; they will restore it. I’m one of those who believe America is destined to remain as it has been since the birth of the Republic – the brightest hope of the world. And for that belief, I do not apologize. ~Mitt Romney No Apology p. 34

(my emphasis)

If you haven’t read No Apology, DO. If you have read it, keep it handy. It is THE reference book for getting America back to running circles around the world.

► Jayde Wyatt

Update by Luke: Video of Bill O’Reilly’s interview with Stallone can be found at GOP12

Ground Zero NYC - proposed mosque location

Ben Smith of Politico rounds up the statements of potential 2012ers regarding the building of a mosque at Ground Zero. Among the entries is a statement from Mitt Romney’s official spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom:

Governor Romney opposes the construction of the mosque at Ground Zero. The wishes of the families of the deceased and the potential for extremists to use the mosque for global recruiting and propaganda compel rejection of this site.

Very short and precisely to the point, in expected Romney fashion. And, of course, he is exactly right.

Extended info on the Ground Zero Mosque (the Cordoba House) can be found at Wikipedia.

~Nate G.

UPDATE by Jayde:
Raheel Raza, a Muslim woman born in Pakistan, now residing in Canada, who is the author of Their Jihad, Not My Jihad, was a guest on Bill O’Reilly’s The Factor last night. She voiced her opposition to the Ground Zero mosque:

Raza:

Building a mosque or a place of worship in particular spot across the street from Ground Zero is a slap in the face upon Americans. I mean, New Yorkers have experienced this pain, and the people who are behind this project are themselves Americans and New Yorkers. I can’t begin to imagine how they would even conceive an idea that building a mosque there, which is an exclusive place of prayer for Muslims, would in any way build tolerance and respect.

Mayor Bloomberg and other bleeding-heart white liberals like him don’t understand the battle that we moderate Muslims are faced with in terms of confronting radical Islam and Islamization and political Islam in North America, which has only grown since 9/11 because of political correctness and people because of their politically-invested agenda not speaking out against issues like this.

Bill O’Reilly complimented Raza for expressing “the most articulate indictment of this whole crazy thing that I have ever heard.”

Obama Vader

Episode 1: Mitt’s Hope – In an Op-ed at the Washington post Mitt Romney urges the Senate to vote against ratification of the New START treaty signed by President Obama and President Medveved in April. The Op-ed is entitled Obama’s Worst Foreign-Policy Mistake.

Episode 2: The Lugar Menace – Dick Lugar of the Galactic US Senate rebuts Romney’s op-ed calling it a hyperbolic attack.

Episode 3: Romney Strikes Back – Mitt Romney provides “further discussion” to Senator Lugar’s thoughtful critique. In this discussion Mitt outlines eight serious problems with the New START treaty. This time NRO is Mitt’s weapon of choice.

From NRO:

My criticism of the New START treaty generated both praise and disparagement. Sen. Richard Lugar’s thoughtful critique of my position deserves further discussion.

1. New START does limit U.S. missile-defense options. First, New START’s preamble not only references missile defense, it accedes to Russia’s insistence that there is an interrelationship between strategic offensive weapons and missile defense. While the Bush administration steadfastly refused to accept this Russian position, the Obama administration bows to it. The statement of interrelationship in the preamble, in addition to the specific missile-defense measures in the body of the treaty, amount to a major concession to Russia.

The treaty’s advocates dismiss the preamble reference as non-binding. But the significance of including missile-defense provisions in an offensive-weapons treaty is not lost on either signatory. Further, the Russians assert that the preamble does indeed constitute a binding limit on our missile-defense program, both in their Unilateral Statement and in subsequent public statements. Gen. Yevgeniy Buzinskiy, who served as the chief of the International Treaty Directorate in the Russian Ministry of Defense during the treaty’s negotiations, insists that any increase in our ABM system could be claimed as a breach of the treaty. Such ambiguity and pressure, and fear of being accused of violating the treaty, could strongly restrain American presidents from aggressively developing and deploying missile defense. The 1972 ABM Treaty provides historical precedent for such a chilling effect: Fearful that U.S. theater-missile-defense systems would be viewed as violating the treaty, we pulled back from realizing the full potential of such systems.

Further, the treaty prohibits our conversion of ICBM and submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) launchers for the launching of defensive interceptors. Such conversions may well not be part of the Obama administration’s current plans, but they could surely be part of a subsequent administration’s. Past missile-defense agency directors and naval planners have objected to precluding SLBM-launcher conversions, capable as they could be of defending America and our allies from diverse and undisclosed locations. Such conversions were prohibited by the ABM Treaty during the Cold War — a treaty from which we have withdrawn — but the Obama administration is consenting to their renewed prohibition by New START. Under its terms, there could be an average of four or more SLBM tubes on each of our strategic submarines that no longer contain ballistic missiles but may not be converted for defensive interceptors, and so are empty.

The sixth agreed statement of the treaty’s protocol suggests that telemetry data on missiles governed by the treaty is not to be used for strategic-missile-defense purposes. In the long term, agreeing to this limitation could prove to have been very short-sighted.

Finally, treaty analysts at the Heritage Foundation have opined that “the most serious threat to missile defense in the New START treaty is contained in the power given to the Treaty compliance forum, the Bilateral Consultative Commission. . . . Missile defense is directly within the purview of the BCC.” Treaty proponents note that substantive changes to the treaty cannot be made by the BCC. But the BCC can — without Senate advice and consent — make changes to the treaty’s definitions and agreed statements, including those involving missile defense. The treaty Protocol assigns to BCC the defining of missile defense and key terms relating to the conversion of ICBM silos for defensive interceptors. An administration that wished to further limit missile defense without the advice and consent of the Senate could do so through the BCC. In the past, under START I, the JCIC, a body comparable to the BCC, did indeed make substantive changes to that treaty’s terms without Senate consent.

Read the other seven problems with New START here.

Governor Romney is showing himself to be an extremely serious foreign policy buff and potential presidential candidate. We shall continue to watch his career with great interest.

…Will Emperor Obama succeed in his efforts to weaken the USA? Can Mitt Romney defeat Barack Obama in 2012? Tune in next time….

~Nate Gunderson (Thanks, Aaronius for some of the formatting of this post.)

Milky Way and Jupiter

Other episodes in the saga:
Romney’s Op-ed on START Ignites a Flurry of Debate, Support, and Criticism

Attack of the Kerry

Senator Talent: At Last the Debate Has STARTed

The Heritage Foundation Supports Mitt Romney

NRO Editors Join Mitt Romney in Condemning the New START Treaty

This post has been moved here.

The editors at National Review Online are the latest to back-up Mitt Romney on his op-ed about the failures of the New START treaty. They join former Senator Jim Talent in putting up a very strong defense for Mitt. In fact the wording of the editorial is so focused on Governor Romney’s criticisms of New START it shows it is meant more to prove that Romney is right rather than proving that New Start is wrong, but it accomplishes both at the same time. Romney’s name is mentioned in 8 of the 10 paragraphs in the editorial. Their back-up evidence points are the clearest yet that I’ve read.

It is a great thing to have such a largely read website like NRO coming to bat for Mitt. An unsourced claim on Wikipedia says, “The website receives about one million hits per day—more than all other conservative-magazine websites combined.” (The “dead tree” version has a bi-weekly of 190,000. It is also well known that the website’s editor Kathryn Jean Lopez (affectionately know as K-Lo) is a big fan of Mitt Romney and she was highly vocal proponent of his 2008 presidential bid. You can see from this magazine cover image that the National Review Magazine also endorsed Mitt in 2008. Should Governor Romney run in 2012 I think it’s almost certain that highly valuable endorsement will be coming his way again.

Some sneak peaks from the NRO editorial :

New Start: Romney Is Right

Mitt Romney caused a furor last week when he wrote a Washington Post op-ed opposing the New Start treaty. Democrats and liberal commentators rushed to accuse Romney of bad-faith politics, of ignorance, and of a dangerous extremism. He’ll never get into the Council on Foreign Relations now.

The squealing is a sign that Romney hit his target: New Start is a bad deal for the United States, and the Senate should send the administration back to the negotiating table.

Romney pointed out that the linkage in the preamble of the treaty between strategic offensive weapons and missile defenses could limit our defenses. His critics scoff, It’s just a meaningless preamble. They should tell that to the Russians. The Russians believe that if we increase our strategic defenses, we are in violation of the treaty and that they will be justified in withdrawing from it. Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said, “Linkage to missile defense is clearly spelled out in the accord and is legally binding.” Members of the Duma have said the same thing.

[...]

This gets to the crux of the matter: The treaty imposes a mutually agreed upon ceiling (in theory) on both sides, but it forces new reductions only from us. For those in thrall to arms-control theology, this is the product of brilliant negotiation. For anyone who can truly calculate our interests, it’s a travesty. All honor to Mitt Romney for setting out the case against the treaty so cogently. We hope Senate Republicans are listening.

Read the whole editorial at NRO.

~Nate Gunderson

Unrelated side-note: Bill Maher (shudder) would “bet the house” that Romney will win the GOP nomination in 2012 and has even odds of beating Obama. (source)

UPDATE by Jayde: From Romney’s Free and Strong America PAC blog today:

New START is a non-starter
President Obama’s New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New-START) with Russia could be his worst foreign policy mistake yet.

The treaty would give Russia an even greater advantage in its total number of nuclear weapons. It calls for restraints and reductions on us that would not have to be matched by the Russians. And inexplicably, it limits our ability to deploy an effective missile defense system. As such, it fails to address the looming threats posed by Iranian and North Korean nuclear proliferation.

By all indications, the Obama administration has been badly out-negotiated, as noted yesterday by the National Review. Perhaps the President’s eagerness for global disarmament led his team to accede to Russia’s demands, or perhaps it led to a document that was less than carefully drafted.

Whatever the reason for the treaty’s failings, it must not be ratified: The security of the United States is at stake.

(emphasis mine)
Read more here.

From The Atlantic (Chris Good):

Romney has built his foreign-policy ideology on the notion of American greatness and exceptionalism, interwoven with a hawkish national-security approach; that’s the foreign-policy niche he carved for himself while running for president in 2008 with business and management credentials as his main selling point. The treaty with Russia, and the notion that it proves Obama’s foreign-policy weakness, seems to be the chosen point of entry into foreign policy debate for Romney this year.

UPDATE 2 from Jayde: Baker Spring from the Heritage Foundation spoke with Josh Rogin from FP(Foreign Policy) today (714/10):

[...]On START, Romney is clear in what he wants to happen. “Whatever the reason for the treaty’s failings, it must not be ratified: The security of the United States is at stake,” he said.

That position is shared by his ideological cohorts at the Heritage Foundation, who are starting a nationwide anti-ratification grassroots effort via their new 501c4 group, Heritage Action for America. Romney has been working with this group.
[...]
[Spring] …think[s] the article signals a theme that many Republicans will now use to oppose not only START, but other arms-control initiatives the Obama team has plans to push forward.

“There’s now, in play, two fundamentally different views regarding arms controls in the post-Cold War world,” Spring said. “The question, simply and straight forwardly, is: Is the U.S. going to fashion an arms control policy based on at least the possibility if not the likelihood of a proliferated environment? Or is it going to go back to essentially the tried and true verities of Cold War-style, retaliation-based deterrence as a defining mechanism for what arms controls should obtain, as a fundamental goal?”

Spring acknowledges that his and Romney’s views differ from those of most leading Senate Republicans, including Jon Kyl, R-AZ, and John McCain, R-AZ, two key GOP voices on START. Both Kyl and McCain are keeping their powder dry, bargaining for concessions on missile defense and nuclear modernization before they will say which way they intend to vote.

According to The Hill, Kyl and Vice President Joseph Biden are in negotiations over the treaty now.

Spring says that the basic positions of the two camps of Republicans are the same, but that senators are holding their fire as part of their strategy to get the most concessions possible.

“When you look at the Kyls and McCains of the world, I don’t think there’s at this point in time much difference between their position and where [South Carolina Sen. Jim] DeMint and Romney will be. I think that’s a simple matter of legislative tactics,” said Spring.

Senate sources said that various senators are preparing two types of measures that could impact the START debate, whenever it does get to the Senate floor. One type, an amendment to the resolution ratifying the treaty, would, if passed, force the document to go back to the Russians for another round of negotiations. That could be a ratification killer in a practical sense, by overcomplicating the process until it loses steam.

Another, less controversial way to express concerns would be a statement of reservation that a senator could try to tack on to the treaty. This could allow the GOP to air its complaints while still allowing ratification to go forward.

What’s clear is that the Obama administration is working the GOP caucus hard to try to firm up the eight to 10 votes they will need to reach the 67-vote threshold. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Sen. Bob Corker, R-TN, Tuesday and Defense Secretary Robert Gates went to talk with GOP senators about START as well.

Read more here.

From National Review Online (Jim Geraghty):

55 Percent of Likely Voters Find ‘Socialist’ an Accurate Label of Obama?

The latest poll by Democracy Corps, the firm of James Carville and Stan Greenberg, has Republicans leading on the generic ballot among likely voters, 48 percent to 42 percent.

Deep in the poll, they ask, “Now, I am going to read you a list of words and phrases which people use to describe political figures. For each word or phrase, please tell me whether it describes Barack Obama very well, well, not too well, or not well at all.”

On “too liberal,” 35 percent of likely voters say it describes Obama “very well,” 21 percent say “well,” 21 percent say “not too well,” and 17 percent say “not well at all.” In other words, 56 percent of likely voters consider Obama too liberal.

When asked about “a socialist,” 33 percent of likely voters say it describes Obama “very well,” 22 percent say “well,” 15 percent say “not too well,” and 25 percent say “not well at all.”

In other words, 55 percent of likely voters think “socialist” is a reasonably accurate way of describing Obama.

From today’s Rasmussen’s Daily Presidential Tracking Poll:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday (7/9/10) shows that 26% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-three percent (43%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -17.

Mitt Romney:

“President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and their team have failed the American people, and that is why their majority will soon be out the door.”

Sharron Angle’s new ad against Harry Reid:

UPDATE: Republican National Committee’s latest ad re Harry Reid, Obama

Obama's Worst Foreign Policy Mistake

This opinion article by Mitt Romney appeared in The Washington Post on 07/06/2010. It is entitled Obama’s Worst Foreign-Policy Mistake

Given President Obama’s glaring domestic policy missteps, it is understandable that the public has largely been blinded to his foreign policy failings. In fact, these may have been even more damaging to America’s future. He fought to reinstate Honduras’s pro-Chávez president while stalling Colombia’s favored-trade status. He castigated Israel at the United Nations but was silent about Hamas having launched 7,000 rockets from the Gaza Strip. His policy of “engagement” with rogue nations has been met with North Korean nuclear tests, missile launches and the sinking of a South Korean naval vessel, while Iran has accelerated its nuclear program, funded terrorists and armed Hezbollah with long-range missiles. He acceded to Russia’s No. 1 foreign policy objective, the abandonment of our Europe-based missile defense program, and obtained nothing whatsoever in return.

Despite all of this, the president’s New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New-START) with Russia could be his worst foreign policy mistake yet. The treaty as submitted to the Senate should not be ratified.

Obama & Medvedev Sign the New START Treaty

The Heritage Foundation now has a video featuring Mitt Romney promoting a petition. Watch the video, sign the petition and tell the Senate to reject this dangerously naïve treaty.

Many Americans do a mental holiday fly-over from Memorial Day to July 4^th.  Flag Day gets lost on the ‘summer plans’ horizon. We’re busy trying to make ends meet, finishing up late spring cleaning, figuring out a way to squeeze in some sort of summer vacation, and gussying up the yard for the upcoming Independence Day wing-ding. Planting last-minute petunias and scrubbing winter grime off patio furniture takes precedence over hauling out a ladder to hang up a piece of cloth in the middle of JUNE. Who has time to do that, especially when it’s just 19 days until the big three-day sparkler weekend in July? 

We should change the way we think about Flag Day and National Flag Week. It’s a time set aside specifically to honor all that our beloved flag represents. With the winds of weakness billowing across America, threats from within our own nation assaulting our Constitution, and our military in daily danger, wouldn’t it be a good idea to fly Old Glory this week? Shouldn’t we deck our homes, businesses, and vehicles in red, white, and blue as a reminder of the freedoms we’ve been blessed with? And, the freedoms we’re losing?

Crucial mid-term elections this fall will further America’s decline or generate her re-birth. Acknowledging all that is at stake, let’s show unity in our determination to preserve liberty. Fly the Stars & Stripes high this week!  

Our flag means all that our fathers meant in the Revolutionary War. It means all that the Declaration of Independence meant. It means justice. It means liberty. It means happiness…. Every color means liberty. Every thread means liberty. Every star and stripe means liberty. -- Henry Ward Beecher

It is time for America to pursue the difficult course ahead, to confront the looming problems, to strengthen the foundations of our prosperity, and to secure the sources of our liberty and safety. The sacrifice and hard work will not sap our national energy; they will restore it. I’m one of those who believe America is destined to remain as it has been since the birth of the Republic – the brightest hope of the world. And for that belief, I do not apologize. -- Mitt Romney (No Apology: The Case for American Greatness p. 34)

Fort McHenry flag War of 1812

The Fort McHenry Flag inspired Francis Scott Key to pen words which would later become our national anthem. To learn more about this important time in America’s history click here.

UPDATE: Remember this from November 2007? Standing in front of a HUGE United States flag while the national anthem is being sung, who doesn’t have his hand over his heart?

Memorial Day.

Designated as a day to remember those who gave their lives defending our nation, Memorial Day is increasingly becoming a time to salute those currently serving in the U.S. military, as well. Our heroes! We must never forget them! Let’s make time to fly our stars and stripes, attend a Memorial Day Parade, visit a Vet, thank a soldier, attend a Memorial Day ceremony, have a Memorial Day movie night to watch related movies, visit military families, donate money to veteran organizations, visit veterans’ graves, or observe the National Moment of Remembrance held at 3:00 PM local time (on Memorial Day) to pause from whatever we’re doing to be silent, reflect, or offer prayers on behalf of America’s defenders.

Thanks to the selfless sacrifices through the ages made by our indomitable, fierce, do-or-die United States military we are free to enjoy…

Memorial Day 2010.

A few Memorial Day happenings in Washington DC:
Arlington Cemetery

WHAT: National Memorial Day Observance at Arlington National Cemetery
When : Monday, May 31, 2010
WHERE: Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Va.
ORDER OF EVENTS:
10:30 a.m. – United States Navy Band begins the prelude concert inside Memorial Amphitheater.
11:00 a.m. – Wreath-laying ceremony is conducted at the Tomb of the Unknowns
11:15 a.m. – Observance

Rolling Thunder Returns to DC

You may hear them before you see them. Hundreds of thousands of motorcyclists will be in the D.C region this weekend for Rolling Thunder’s Ride for Freedom. They’re in town to bring attention to veterans and POW/MIAs of the Vietnam War, riding from the Pentagon across the Memorial Bridge, to the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial on Sunday.

National Memorial Day Concert:
Live on PBS from the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol in High Definition!
Sunday, May 30, from 8:00 to 9:30 pm ET (check local listings).

The 2010 National Memorial Day Concert will focus on three main themes: honoring the sacrifices, suffering and love of a new generation of young military widows whose fallen spouses served in Iraq and Afghanistan; paying tribute on the 60th anniversary of the Korean War to the heroic service of the soldiers who fought and perished; paying homage to the more than 125,000 WWI and WWII service members who did not come home but rest in 24 military cemeteries in the foreign lands where they fought for liberty.

For more than 20 years this top-rated annual program has honored the service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform, their families at home and all those who have given their lives for our country. The show is broadcast live in High Definition from the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol before an expected live audience of hundreds of thousands, to millions more at home and, via American Forces Network to the nearly one million American service men and women, Department of Defense civilians and their families overseas, stationed at bases in 175 countries as well as 140 U.S. Navy ships at sea.

UPDATE: Fox and Friends VIDEO May 30, 2010
“They’re all my kids” says 82 year old female patriot who writes letters to 52 soldiers:

FOX News: We Want Your Parade Pictures! Saluting our troops this weekend? Send your pictures from Memorial Day parades to friends@foxnews.com

UPDATE 2: May 31, 2010 Troops observe Memorial Day in Kandahar, Afghanistan

*Top Photo: March 24, 2007 Arlington Cemetery Section 60, Virginia -- Mike Rosen visits the grave of his friend, Sgt. Michael Carlson, who was killed while fighting in Iraq.