Category: Support the troops

David “Big Papi” Ortiz of some small-time baseball team named the Boston Red Sox took time out from running the bases on a two run homer to celebrate with some troops sitting near the BoSox’ dugout.

The soldier in the picture above is Army Ranger Sgt. Lucas Carr. The South Boston native threw out the first pitch before the Red Sox’s 9-5 win over the Los Angeles Angels and also led the crowd in chants of U-S-A! U-S-A! during the game.

Later, the man they call Big Papi treated him to Fenway’s version of the Lambeau Leap because of an encounter the pair experienced earlier in the game.

From the Associated Press:

Ortiz said the soldier gave him a patch from the uniform of a buddy that “went down” after the slugger walked back earlier in the game.

“Maybe it was good luck,” he said, smiling.

Pretty cool story.

Thanks to Tman for the link.

An 11th grader from TexasStafford, VA has done what the Army couldn’t do at Arlington National Cemetery – he’s recorded images and text of the honored dead’s memorials at Arlington (LA Times link);

Richard “Ricky” Gilleland III — 11th-grader and Junior Future Business Leaders of America computer ace — has succeeded where the Army failed: He has created the only digitized record of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans laid to rest at Arlington. His website, preserveandhonor.com, is a reverent catalog of the fallen, and one young man’s response to a scandal of Army mismanagement, mismarked graves and unmarked remains that has rocked this hallowed place for two years.

There’s hope for America yet when we can produce children like this despite the toxic climate in which we live.

I guess it’s a work in progress, I searched for some of my friends and they weren’t in the database yet.

Thanks to Ken for the link.

A soldier whose face was left horribly disfigured when he touched a live electrical wire while rescuing a woman from a car accident, (he pushed the live wire off of the woman) has received the gift of an organ transplant from a young boy during 14 hours of surgery. The family of the boy, who wishes to remain anonymous, made this statement;

We are very proud that our beloved son’s wishes were to donate his organs and tissue, helping as many people as possible. We are honored to respect his wishes. When we heard that there was a match for his facial tissue, we were overwhelmed and did not hesitate to say yes. We are so very happy that the transplant is progressing well. It is a gift to us to know that another young man’s life could be so positively changed because of our son’s giving spirit. Though we grieve our loss, we are also joyful that his passing has made this miracle possible.

We wish Mitch Hunter, a 30-year-old Army Private from Indianapolis, the best of luck and thanks to the family of the donor.

Thanks to ROS for the links.

ROS sends us this link to a post on I Hate the Media which links to The Hayride Blog which links to a message board description of the events in Brandon, Mississippi when the Westboro fags tried to disrupt the funeral of Staff Sgt Jason Rogers this past week;

A couple of days before, one of them ran his mouth at a Brandon gas station and got his ass waxed. Police were called and the beaten man could not give much of a description of who beat him. When they canvassed the station and spoke to the large crowd that had gathered around, no one seemed to remember anything about what had happened.

Rankin County handled this thing perfectly. There were many things that were put into place that most will never know about and at great expense to the county.

Most of the morons never made it out of their hotel parking lot. It seems that certain Rankin county pickup trucks were parked directly behind any car that had Kansas plates in the hotel parking lot and the drivers mysteriously disappeared until after the funeral was over. Police were called but their wrecker service was running behind and it was going to be a few hours before they could tow the trucks so the Kansas plated cars could get out.

A few made it to the funeral but were ushered away to be questioned about a crime they might have possibly been involved in. Turns out, after a few hours of questioning, that they were not involved and they were allowed to go on about their business.

Rankin deserves a hand in how they handled this situation.

You can watch the parts that the Westboro fags missed;

Jeff Schogol from the Stars & Stripes sends us this tip;

CavRick sends us a link to the reports that 30 people were injured at Camp Lejeune during the rash of tornadoes in North Carolina yesterday.

Fort Bragg was also closed to everyone except essential personnel this morning and suffered power outages;

“There are no reports of loss of life or significant injuries on post.”

Womack Army Medical Center was operating on backup power sufficient to support its medical operations.

Army officials said power was not expected to be restored to Fort Bragg until at least noon Sunday. Progress Energy utility crews were working to restore power late Saturday night.

Marine Josh Himan was wounded in Afghanistan when an IED went off near his vehicle. After years of treatment at Walter Reed, he returned home yesterday to Dale City, Virginia;

Virginia Community Surprises Returning Wounded Marine: MyFoxDC.com