With U.N. monitors in the country, video shows children killed in Houla, Syria. The president denies responsibility.
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Post by: Anderson Cooper Filed under: Keeping Them Honest • Syria |
Fouad Ajami and Fran Townsend discuss the violence against civilians in Syria and options for U.S. involvement.
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Post by: Anderson Cooper Filed under: Fouad Ajami • Fran Townsend • Syria |
Journalist Alex Thomson saw the bodies of children and elderly civilians killed during an attack in Houla, Syria.
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Post by: Anderson Cooper Filed under: 360° Interview • Syria |
CNN's Tom Foreman investigates a teacher who hasn't been fired despite accusations of inappropriate sexual behavior.
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Post by: Tom Foreman Filed under: Education |
The children of troops who died share memories of their parents and talk about coping with the painful loss.
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Post by: Anderson Cooper Filed under: Memorial Day • Military |
Attorney Areva Martin talks with Anderson Cooper about the flaws of our current teacher tenure system and why she thinks it should be changed.
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Post by: Anderson Cooper Filed under: Education |
A North Carolina pastor's anti-gay sermon sparks heated protests, but his supporters aren't backing down.
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Post by: Gary Tuchman Filed under: 360º Follow • Religion |
Reporter's Note: President Obama marked Memorial Day, as presidents do, by placing a wreath in Arlington Cemetery. I am marking it by writing this letter.
Dear Mr. President,
Every year on Memorial Day, I think about Carl Sandburg’s poem, Grass.
“Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work –
I am the grass; I cover all…”
It goes on, of course, and you can read a whole copy online, although I have to prepare myself for that task. Reading those words always brings tears to my eyes.
I have seen some of the most beautiful, thoughtful, and artfully crafted war memorials in the country; countless stone renderings of brave soldiers to remind all who pass of their sacrifices over generations. Many are magnificent, some are plain, all are sobering.
And yet, nothing hits my heart harder than the thought of the battlefields...sometimes filled with grass, sometimes not…left behind when the wars are done. Whether in Vietnam, Korea, Europe, the South Pacific, or the Middle East; on our own soil or some other, forgotten outpost; these are the memorials that touch me the deepest; the empty places where fighting once raged.
President Lincoln paid homage to the idea of the land itself being a tribute when he dedicated the cemetery at Gettysburg. He said, while it was fitting that the cemetery should be honored, “We can not dedicate - we can not consecrate - we can not hallow - this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.”
That’s how I have always felt about such places. Any memorials we hover around on this day are good to be sure, but they are poor shadows of the land itself on which our fellow Americans fought and died for principles that we, as a nation, asked them to defend.
So each Memorial Day, I read Grass and I remember. I don’t think so much about the great monuments that tell us our countrymen died in some given place, but rather about the forgotten corners; the little places where some small group fought and fell with no fanfare, where the only monument is a patch of grass, or a stretch of dirt, or a stand of scrubby trees, and where the wildflowers are the only wreath in tribute to their brave sacrifice.
To those forgotten, quiet, still places, on this day I send my thoughts, gratitude, and prayers.
Regards, Tom
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Filed under: Letters to the President • Opinion • President Barack Obama • T1 • Tom Foreman |
On AC360° this Memorial Day, we'll take you inside a remarkable camp for the families of fallen heroes. Some 500 military children and teens, many who lost a parent in Iraq or Afghanistan, gathered this weekend for the 18th annual “Good Grief Camp” in Arlington, Virginia. Another 1,200 adults took part in the National Military Survivor Seminar. Both gatherings are put together by the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, also known as TAPS. On the group’s website they call it “an amazing weekend of tears, laughter, hugs and hope.”
More than 6,350 U.S. troops have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each brave military member leaves behind family. There are mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters who live everyday with the pain of grief. Each one has a story that deserves to be told. Tonight at 8 p.m & 10 p.m. ET, we'll share the stories of those perhaps most affected, the children.
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Filed under: 360° Radar • Military |
Anderson Cooper goes beyond the headlines to tell stories from many points of view, so you can make up your own mind about the news. Tune in weeknights at 8 and 10 ET on CNN.
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Want to know more? Go behind the scenes with AC361°