This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: BooRadley

  • The 40 Day Focus

     

    Today marks 40 days till my son ships for Navy Boot Camp.  In addition to all the obvious stuff I worry about,  I don’t want him to be gone and then wish I had really taken advantage of the time we still had.   You know how you tell yourself that THIS Christmas you’re going to really relish the season, and then slam, bam it’s New Year’s?   I don’t want that to happen.

    His leaving isn’t in any way comparable to all of the “40 days” in the Bible, but being Christian, 40 days can’t help but  stand-out in my attention as a time to take notice.

    I set the date and started inviting people to Beef’s going away party, I cried like a silly girl when he hugged me this morning and fist pumped the 40-day mark. Then,  we talked about if he would want to be informed if something bad  happened while he was gone.   And, finally,  I picked out the fabric to start sewing my Blue Star.

     

    Day One: Quilting the Blue Star

     

    I’ll keep you updated on my Blue Star’s progress.  I have a bunch of kids and I’m not very consistent by nature.   I  also started writing Beef  letters,  so he will get letters while he’s gone even when I’m scatterbrained or overwhelmed by regular life.

    In my focus on my own family, I don’t want to forget that three families of young men in their 20s changed their blue stars to gold over the weekend, according to iCasualties.org.

    BooRadley

     

  • Good kids out there

    This article on Rivals High tells a story of a kid in Minnesota, Josh Ripley, who carried an injured opponent a half a mile back to the beginning of the Applejack Invite and then ran the complete 2 mile race.

     

    “I didn’t think about my race, I knew I needed to stop and help him,” Ripley said in the school district release. “It was something I would expect my other teammates to do. I’m nothing special; I was just in the right place at the right time.”

    The story just made me think about the kinds of men and women who choose to serve in the military when we’ve got troops on at least two fronts, and they’re virtually guaranteed action.  People who make sacrifices like Josh did, just because it’s right.   He’d make a nice hospital corpsman, don’t you think?

    =

     

    Nice job, Josh.  I am sure your parents are very proud of you.

     

     

  • Marines encourage New recruits

    While I agree with Jonn Lilyea, whole-heartedly,  that the Dan Chois of the world are-and should be- unwelcome in the military.  The distinction is that he wants to be GAY first, and an OFFICER second.
    I loved reading this NYT  article about Marine Corps recruiters who showed up at an “Equality Center,” following an invitation.
    The Marines were the service most opposed to ending the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, but they were the only one of five invited branches of the military to turn up with their recruiting table and chin-up bar at the center Tuesday morning. Although Marines pride themselves on being the most testosterone-fueled of the services, they also ferociously promote their view of themselves as the best. With the law now changed, the Marines appear determined to prove that they will be better than the Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard in recruiting gay, lesbian and bisexual service members.
    That’s how it is– or should be– for members of the military.  We support our country and our country’s laws.  Our personal views may conflict with the law of the land, but when  we wore that uniform, our personal views were left at the door.  THAT is what’s wrong with the activists, and the Dan Chois.
    So, we can get on blogs, talk to our families and fight, legitimately, for what we believe is right.  But the law is now the law and I admire the Marines for their initiative.
    It’s important to note only THREE people were interested, female, and likely unqualified.  The whole point may already be moot.
    —

  • I want that for my kids

    My oldest son is leaving for Navy boot camp three months from today. My second son is leaving for Marine Corps boot camp next summer after he graduates from high school. His final year started today. Also starting 12th grade today is my niece. I’ve had her since she was 12. She’s working on practice ASVABs so she can get the score she wants so she, too, can leave for the Navy.

    About this point in the conversation, people start to wonder what kind of mother I am to encourage all of my children to enlist. Didn’t I want them to go to college? Don’t I worry they’ll be harmed? Brainwashed?

    I go on: my 18 year old step son is desperate to get in. He got into some trouble when he was 13 and he can’t jump through enough hoops to get started with his future with the world’s greatest Navy. (Although, the world’s greatest Army is starting to look pretty good to him, too.) Our son-in-law is a Marine.

    You homeschooled them, sent them to private school, moved into a school district you can’t afford only to send them off to war? What about their faith? What about the cause for Christ? What about COLLEGE?

    Did I mention that I’d really like to see my brainiacsuperstudent apply for an NROTC scholarship? She plays hardcore rugby- the Naval Academy has a team. (Eye roll from said superstudent.)

    I don’t want anything to happen to my children, obviously. I can’t promise that if they die or are maimed I can stand stoic and proclaim I would have done it all the same. But from this vantage point, the service can give them things that growing up in the information age never can. These are things I’ve tried to instill, but need time to develop. Backbone. Honor. Commitment.Courage.Appreciation for hard work. The Pride that comes from finishing something you never thought you could, or completing something after you’ve failed abysmally a half dozen times.

    Nothing on this earth, not even growing up dirt poor in a house with ten siblings and a mom that should have been a drill sergeant, can instill in you that THING that makes you stand and face the tomorrows that come at you with a vengeance with a stability that you know you can take all-comers: nothing, but a little time given up in the service of your country.

    I want that for my kids.

  • Lazy Day Roundup

    Because of the July 4 weekend, the mainstream media and the interwebs seem a little more interested in the military and America than they normal are.    Here’s a compilation of some interesting things going on out there.

    The last draftee retired from the Army after 39 years of honorable service.

    Who doesn’t know someone who married for the benefits, or just to get out of the barracks, and maybe even got caught?   The news finds this newsworthy because they’re lesbians.

    And an Ohio Vietnam vet got the OK from his HOA to fly his flag from a 15 foot pole.

    I borrowed this link,  written by the father of a soldier from Kanani Fong, of  Kitchen Dispatch.

    And if you haven’t, yet, catch up on the twenty-something posts Jonn made before he left!

  • What the Hell is Middle Class, Anyway?

    Recently, the news has been full of stories about the shrinking middle class and explosion of  poverty in the US.  The Department of Commerce has announced new Poverty Guidelines, and you can read two separate perspectives on this decision, here   and here .  Commerce says they will still use the old guides for program eligibility and the new ones to evaluate program effectiveness and such.

     How much poverty is there really  in America.  Listen, I live so far below the “poverty line”, you’d need a back hoe to dig us all out.    What is making people so damn poor?  And while were at it… fat.

    On paper my family is the poster family for poverty in America.  But based on the loose definition of Middle Class– home-ownership, college, kids in college, and vacation (we went on one last year, woo woo)– put us just inside this holy grail.   But while the government tries to “save” other lower income families… they are destroying their quality of life. 

    Here’s an example of real  POVERTY:

    Ok, I don’t want to see people living in America living  like that. Chances are, if they do, its because of something the parents lack, and I don’t mean money. 

    But social manipulation has detroyed the quality of life of those who live with less in the United States.  We’ve told them that life will get better if you put Jr. in Head Start and get a job, but then act shocked when the kids, and moms, get fat . Or we fill their wallets with food cards so they can buy frozen pizza and burritos and pop and use all their extra cash at McDonalds or to pay for cable.  We tell women they don’t need a man, that they can raise a kid on their “own” with Uncle Sam’s help.  We tell them we’ll pay their rent if they will all move in together like so much cattle. 

      We’ve made available to the poor all the things they would be striving to get, if it wasn’t already given to them.   And men?  Well, they’re still getting their share of mindless entertainment, regardless of if they have time for it, or not.

    Maybe, just maybe, we need to stop trying to give the “sorta-poor” in the US everything everyone else has, and  let them learn to LIVE again.  To feel the satisfaction of raising children, saving for a home, or just paying the rent steadily, and know they did it with their own two hands.

  • Assange the wanker [BooRadley]

    Julian Assange seems to be one of those guys who thinks it’s all fun and games until the sites are set on HIM. He’s clearly afraid of the big, bad American government and facing accusations that he a co-conspiritor of espionage. The Telegraph quotes Assange calling the charge “serious.” Is he joking? The ACT of conspiring to commit espionage didn’t seem SERIOUS?
    This guy seems to have the same over inflated ego- devil-may-care– the-rules-don’t-apply-to-me attidute that you see in any low-level criminal– like the hacker, he is.

    I don’t believe for one minute this is a fundamental, idealistic issue with him. He’s a hacker. His gig is to expose or infiltrate information that someone else is trying to keep hidden. That’s what he gets off on. I say his position with Wikileaks is a hacker’s wet dream. You steal and expose people’s information, claim a philisophical reason to do it, and act like some kind of Robin Hood. When really, it’s all just video games to him. Dump tens of thousands of confidential docs–I WON!! But when the US government comes knocking at the door, Assange is ready to piss his pants.Additionally, Assange has said that “you can’t publish a paper on physics without the full experimental data and results; that should be the standard in journalism”.

    Notice is not the case in the Telegraph article when he is claiming to have been informed by White House insiders of talks to arrest him. Who are these “insiders”? Does the public have a right to know, NOW?

    Later he calls Kuwait a “second Guantanamo.” Where is the attribution for that.
    This guy’s just another low level criminal who fell face first into a pretty good gig.

  • Yes, Mr. President

            What is the big deal about the President of the United States’ intended internet address to school children this week? What makes it different than presidents who have addressed kids in the past? Why are parents getting so emotional over the intended address?    

        I sure don’t want Obama preaching to my kids on Tuesday, but WHY? Conservatives all over television, radio and internet are saying that it’s about the “lesson plans.” It is, but it’s more. If the Department of Education had provided glossy lesson plans and instructions to make posters about serving Reagan or Bush the teachers would have been screaming, it’s their classroom, their classtime. They would have simply IGNORED the materials.

    One of the most disturbing aspects of Tuesday morning’s address is number of school teachers wriggling with anxiety over the opportunity to suspend all that laborious reading and writing, to spend time with their beloved leader and share him, and his teachings, with the young people they influence.

        Would teachers be wasting their precious time reading a book to the class G.H.W.Bush suggested they read? I think not. But I’ll lay 20 to your 1, that every library in the U.S. has been emptied of Obama books, and teachers are spending their stipends on them at the bookstore.

        The problem is not that Obama wants to encourage kids to be something great, the problem is this is just one more part of the Obama Blitz: the all-out media onslaught to promote OBAMA. Get his face out there, everywhere, and get his message to feel mainstream.