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I have some things I hope to blog later today, but there is a local story that I want to share with our readers. One of the great things we have here in Boston is a very rich history, and part of that history is the battleship USS Constitution berthed in Charlestown. On Saturday news broke that some of the residents of Charlestown hate the fact that Old ironsides fires off their cannons twice a day and they want the Navy to find some way to silence, or at least tone down, the sound of the cannon fire. Needless to say this has brought out a rather understandable response from others in the city, including some residents of Charlestown itself.
I tried to find a better link for this information, but as Richard Weir wrote in an article in the Boston Herald,
The tradition of its daily gun salute, which dates to 1798, was halted in the early 1900s but then revived in 1975. It requires naval officers serving on the ship to fire one of its working guns every day at 8 a.m. and again at sunset.
You can read all of Mr. Weir’s article, and you can also see read two stories from WBZ TV here in Boston. You can also an article by David Robichaud on WBZ’s Conversation Nation blog as well as comments from other viewers. Hopefully before long we will also be treated to a nice video about the matter on the station’s YouTube channel.
Image courtesy of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs
For the record, I am one of the commenters on the Conversation nation post who suggest that the complainers could easily move elsewhere. Especially with today being Veterans Day here in the States it’s an interesting bit of timing that the story should be out as we celebrate the work done by my fellow veterans of our armed forces. Not all of them were able to come home as I was (although I did serve with the Air Force during peace time) and we should be be thanking our service men and women for their service, not kvetching about how the noise of the daily cannon fire interrupts the serenity of their days. I say Let Freedom Ring, including with the firing of cannons from our commissioned warships.
And to our service men and women, as well as their families and loved ones, I have just one thing to say:
THANK YOU!
And yes, I know those words don’t come anywhere near close to expressing the appreciation we feel for your making our country safe to live, work, and yes even complain in. There’s no way we’d be the same without your service and sacrifice.
