I know your eyes look down in love!

Six years today, Aaron. We only love you MORE!

Happy 234th birthday, Marines! And thank you!

Fallen Heroes Memorial: Marine Lance Cpl. Aaron C. Austin

Fallen Heroes Memorial: Marine Lance Cpl. Aaron C. Austin: "'I met Cpl. Lee Howard Hampton a few weeks ago. He is a great person and we are good friends now, he says that he and Austin were great friends. I hope to meet Austin someday too, wherever he is, and tell him thanks. Cpl. Lee moved to Austin TX so he could hear Austin's name everyday.

Please know that there are many people out there who greatly appreciate what you Marines do for us.

Thanks.'
Jason Rose of Austin, TX/USA"

Merry Christmas from the Miller's

God bless each of you on this special day and throughout the coming year. Thank you all for your sacrifices. The troops remain in our prayers daily, and particularly during the holidays.

Semper Fi, Marines,

De'on and Greg Miller

Important

I’ve just read an article in our newspaper titled “Suicide Hot Line Got Calls From 22,000 Veterans.” It is an AP writer by the name of Katharine Euphrat who wrote it. The figures are startling and come from the VA and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline evidently.

I just want to take this time to echo a thought and a message I left on Aaron’s message board on May 29, 2006 copied below.

I have to go to Heart’s Desire right now, but this afternoon I’m going to try and get in touch with the VA or the suicide hotline to see if there’s any way I can help from where I sometimes feel stranded. I would be honored to volunteer in this capacity.

If someone knows a connection off-hand that I could speak to, I’d appreciate the info. I called the VA and the nearest regional office near me is in Albuquerque, 5 hours away. But I will check further.

Meanwhile: VETERANS: I LOVE YOU MORE THAN ANY PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD. YOUR SACRIFICE IS FOREVER. THAT IS THE TRUE AND UNSELFISH SACRIFICE.

AND WE STILL NEED YOU. MORE THAN EVER—WE NEED YOU. HANG ON. YOU ARE WORTH SO MUCH—MAYBE YOU ARE THE LIFELINE FOR ONE OTHER, ONE OTHER GENERATION, ONE OTHER SOUL IN TORMENT, ONE OTHER BROTHER!!

Much love,
Aaron’s Mom

--the old message follows—it is still true today!


May 29, 2006

Thank you for your sacrifice, son. Everyone in our country, as well as other countries, owes you and those like you such an enormous amount of gratitude. Some don't realize it at all, and others of us can only speculate, but spending five days in our nation's capital, admiring the portraits and statues of those before you who stood for freedom as well-- and not once was the cost small. Korea-54,000 names (imagine the number of families this sorrow reached out and devastated in the clutches of sorrow). Vietnam-50,000. The white crosses of soldiers and infants killed in the Civil War. Presidents, Lincoln and Kennedy, slain in their prime. Other bodies, unknown, unidentified. Blood, tears, blood, tears, over and over.

The haunting portraits of the Holocaust. The young Jewish boys in the museum with their heads covered by the fabric of their faith. America, at first hesitant to get involved, did involve themselves in Hitler's country and affairs. Thank God we went to save the few, fight for their inch of freedom and discover the atrocities of somebody else’s business. Nosed into a terrorist business and put those on trial for their horrible crimes against the persecuted.

So many cultures filled D.C. to visit the memorials of all that has been given to stroll in the land of the free. Koreans, Pakistani, Panamanians, nearly every race in our free world walked those avenues, snapped digital photos of the cost, and enjoyed the benefit of it all, hopefully a tiny bit more at those solemn moments, perhaps stood still a moment and reflected on something about this country that they were thankful for. That they, with me, were not able to find a precious moment in our history to stop and say, There, there. This is where we should have stopped fighting for our freedom as well as the freedom of those we do not even know. Here is the point where we should have stopped caring for humanity and shouted at Washington, no more...we've had enough. No, there was no point in the tours that I thought to myself: I don't care what all you did before, for us, I just care about me. Damn the future generations.

No, I thought none of these things. In awe, I was thankful and I wanted every tourist there, every free South Korean, every free Panamanian and Pakistani, and especially every American there in D.C. and Virginia to know that, My son has joined those who stood for something.

Thank you, Aaron. From the bottom of my heart, on this third Memorial Day without your laughter to fill our homes, I find it in the wind chimes and birds, and I find it on the streets before my home as young men race in their cars down the street, play their music loud and free, and I look at those kids and I think, you don't know how fortunate you are that so many people cared enough about you to die for you. And then I think that in a way, that too, is a great thing. That so many of us have always lived in freedom.

I will never quit missing you. And I will always be proud of you. Semper Fi, Marine,"Mom" (De'on Miller, Mother of Aaron C. Austin KIA, April, 2004)

Time

Click here for Ecclesiastes 3

Great Conservative William F. Buckley, Jr. - Dead at 82

William F. Buckley, Jr. - 11-24-25 to 2-27-2008. God Bless and Rest in Peace.

CITY
JOURNAL

Myron Magnet

The Unbought Grace of Life: Remembering William F. Buckley, Jr.

27 February 2008

When I saw a headline a few months ago, A WORLD WITHOUT BILL BUCKLEY, my blood ran cold. A smaller, drabber world indeed, I thought. The appropriately adulatory text (a book review, as I recall) calmed me down, but anyone who had seen Bill recently knew that the smaller, drabber world was at hand.

In illness, he became, if possible, even more gallant. At a party he gave a while ago to celebrate the publication of his brother Jim’s memoirs, he spoke with his usual wit, warmth, and eloquence—but seated on the stairs. He apologized for his ridiculous position, as he called it, explaining that he didn’t feel well enough to stand and would now go back to bed. Not so long afterward, he replied to the condolence note I had sent when his vivid and unforgettable wife Pat died. Its whole point was to make me feel good, an act of gracious generosity that, under the circumstances, took my breath away.

When I heard of his death this morning, a phrase of Edmund Burke’s popped unbidden into my mind: “the unbought grace of life.” Many will write, in due course, about Bill’s towering importance in our nation’s political and intellectual life. But beyond that, his whole being provided an answer to that ultimate question, How then should we live? From first hearing him speak at my high school when he was a young man, through watching him in sparkling, imperious, and rather intimidating action as his guest on Firing Line, I saw his character become ever more clearly the unmistakable, irreplaceable Buckley: witty, cultivated, playful, urbane, gracious, brave, zestful, life-affirming, tireless, and gallant—the incarnation of grace. He taught many not only how to think but also how to be.

Myron Magnet is the author of The Dream and the Nightmare: The Sixties’ Legacy to the Underclass. He is City Journal’s editor-at-large and was its editor from 1994 through 2006.

FINALE

February 28, 2008
11:18 AM

Hey folks,

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks going over the decision I’ve ultimately reached. I’m going to quit the blog. It’s been more of a gut-wrenching decision than one would think, but deep in my heart, I know it’s time for a new thing—for me at least.

I will continue writing, as I am working on a book. The first hints of spring have my attention captured already. The reading I’ve left off due to a real lack of concentration fully beckons the need in me for a new story, somebody else’s story—I’m thinking a few belts of Dickens is highly in order. My sister, after thirty years, could be moving to the beautiful state of Texas. I suspect most blog readers are on MySpace and I’m already so sick of politics and all things negative, that I truly don’t know how I’ll make it to November without screaming. (So, Mom, you’ll have to send emails to your comrades! ;)
I’ve started doing just a small bit of volunteer work.

As you can see, I don’t really know the reason, but I do feel like I’m trying to put life into something that I believe has ran its course. Maybe sometimes it really is better to just let things go when their course is finished.

Naturally, I will keep the blog open. I’m always up for any comments from any of Aaron’s brothers or any of my blogger friends, and those will always reach me by my email.

I have so many photos on the blog that it takes a great deal of time for it to load. I’ll keep the photos there as they are a gift from me to any of you who would care to look again or capture some of your own.

I can’t express just yet what this blogging time has meant to me. Just short of two years, it gave me a way out of myself and into the lives of others. So many of those others have become friends that I hope I’ll have forever.

I will always be a Gold Star Mom, and I will always grieve for my son. These things are inseparable from the person I began to grow into nearly four years ago, but even that is changing. Sometimes it’s as hard as it was on that first day (this very moment for example)—I’m not much of one for goodbyes, but still, it is four years later—it becomes more personal, or maybe understood as something that has to be worked out in a multitude of ways.

I’ve reached a stage in my life that I know if I’m to continue healing, then I have to continue growing, searching. Maybe outside of Aaron. I don’t know. It breaks my heart to even think that, and I don’t know what God has in store for me, but somehow, I feel as if I’m going to have to step outside my doors more to find it.

My heart, always,
De’on

Wednesday Hero

Navy Chief Special Warfare Operator (SEAL) Michael E. Koch
29 years old from State College, Pennsylvania
East Coast-based SEAL team
February 4, 2008


"There are only approximately 2,500 SEALs in the Navy and they really are a brotherhood," said Naval Special Warfare spokesman Lt. David Luckett. "This is another unfortunate reminder of the risks and sacrifices these amazing warriors and their families make on a daily basis."

Koch leaves behind his parents and a fiancee. He enlisted in July 1998 and entered SEAL training in January 1999, according to The Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk. He received the Bronze Star, Joint Service Commendation Medal and three Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals.

Navy SEAL Michael E. Koch died Feb. 4 after being wounded by small-arms fire during combat operations in Iraq alongside fellow SEAL Nathan Hardy, who was profiled last week.

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

Title It!--Lisa's Choice

Winning Title Goes Here

Come up with a title you think Lisa will choose as the winning title for this painting.

Winner chooses the next photo and then judges those titles.

One title per player can be left in the comments.

Deadline is Sunday, March 2, 2008 @ 8:00 PM MST

Anyone can play!

Plebis - the People's Dog: Click on Him Now!

Click on Plebis-Snowperson picture, and see that Plebis is doing the People's work. His "work" is a visual metaphor of the Hillary Clinton Presidential campaign. The Snowperson is Hillary..........

Good boy, Plebis! Good boy!

Hillary Clinton: A Dull Version of Bill Richardson, Fast Becoming Duller

Hillary Rodham "Czarina" Clinton - 2007

Hillary Rodham "melancholy-dignity-in-decline" Clinton - 2008

Mark Steyn

National Review Online

http://article.nationalreview.com/q=ZjA4NTk1NTk4Yjg2MDdmNDU5Nzg5Y2MzNWU3ZDViOGQ=
February 23, 2008

Hillary Richardson: The Democratic party has a new star.

By Mark Steyn

On the day that Margaret Thatcher was toppled by her own party, I ran into an old friend, a hardcore leftist playwright, Marxist to the core, who wasn’t as happy as he should have been. He jabbed me in the chest. “You bastards on the right!” he fumed. “You wouldn’t even let us be the ones to drive the stake through her heart.”

I’m sure in America’s Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy there are similar mixed feelings this week. The Clintons have met their Waterloo but it’s not some doughty conservative warrior who gets to play Duke of Wellington, only some freshman pap peddler of liberal boilerplate whom no-one had heard of the day before yesterday.

Such are the vicissitudes of politics. I see from the gay newspaper the Washington Blade that, as the headline writer put it, “Clinton Leads Among Gay Super Delegates.” Only in the Democratic party. I don’t know how many supergays it takes to outvote the non-super primary and caucus voters from Maine to Nevada to Hawaii. They may yet pull Senator Clinton’s chestnuts out of the fire, but they’re looking pretty charred and indigestible right now. Unlike the Fall of Thatcher, it’s nothing so glamorous as an act of matricide, but just the nightly hell of a tired vaudeville act that can no longer find the spark.

Bill Clinton understood a crude rule of show business — that, if you behave like a star, there are plenty of people who’ll treat you like one. The apotheosis of this theory was his interminable ambulatory entrance down mile after mile of corridor at the 2000 Democratic convention in Los Angeles, when Slick Willie finally out-Elvised Elvis — or, more accurately, out-Smarted the opening sequence of Get Smart. Apparently, no-one had thought to tell him to try to get within four miles of the stage before the introductory video ended. He was, by my calculations, outside the men’s room on Corridor G27, Sub-Basement Level 6 of the Staples Center. As he began the long, long, lo-oo-oo-oong televised walk to the podium the crowd watching the monitors cheered — and, 20 minutes later, after he’d strolled down the first three or four windowless tunnels of attractive luminous drywall, hung a left by the water cooler, taken the emergency stairs, cut across the stationery closet, moved smoothly through the boiler room and had still only reached the Coke machine on Sous-Mezzanine Level 4 and there was at least a mile and a half between him and the stage, and the Democratic activists out in the hall were beginning to figure they could get dinner and a movie and still be back in time for the last third of his walk-on, they were nevertheless still cheering. In effect, President Clinton dared them not to cheer. Tom Jones wouldn’t have risked it. Engelbert Humperdinck would have balked. But, after eight years of talking the talk, Bill walked the walk. In the hall, the delegates’ hands were raw, bleeding stumps, but the Slicker knew that if he started his entrance in Idaho those Dems would cheer him every step of the way.

The Clintons turned the Democratic party into a star vehicle and designated everyone else as extras. But their star quality was strictly comparative. They had industrial-strength audacity and a lot of luck: Bill jumped into the 1992 race when A-listers like Mario Cuomo were too cowed by expert advice that Bush Snr. was unbeatable. Clinton gambled, won the nomination and beat a weak opponent in a three-way race, with Ross Perot siphoning votes from the right. He got even luckier four years later. So did Hillary when she embarked on something patently absurd — a First Lady running for a Senate seat in a state she’s never lived in — only to find Rudy Giuliani going into instant public meltdown. The SAS, Britain’s special forces, have a motto: Who dares wins. The Clintons dared, and they won — even as almost everyone else in their party lost: senators, congressmen, governors, state legislators. Even when they ran into a spot of intern trouble, sheer nerve saw them through. Almost anyone else would have slunk off in shame, but the Clintons understood that the checks and balances don’t add up to much if you’re determined not to go: As at that 2000 convention speech, they dared the Democrats not to cheer.

With hindsight, the oral sex was a master stroke. Bill Clinton likes to tell anyone who’ll listen that he governed as an “Eisenhower Republican,” which is kind of true — NAFTA, welfare reform, etc. If you have to have a Democrat in the Oval Office, he was as good as it gets for Republicans — if you don’t mind the fact that he’s a draft-dodging non-inhaling sex fiend. Republicans did mind, of course, which is why Dems rallied round out of boomer culture-war solidarity. But, if he hadn’t been dropping his pants and appealing to so many of their social pathologies, his party wouldn’t have been half so enthusiastic for another chorus of “I Like Ike.”

Hillary is what the Clintons look like with their pants up. Their much-vaunted political savvy turns out to be a big nothing: The supposed masters of “the politics of personal destruction” can’t turn up anything better on Obama than some ancient essay from his Jakarta grade school, plus a few limp charges of plagiarism. And instead of getting the surrogates to crowbar the enemy every time Hillary opens up on him she looks mean and petty and he gets to do his high-minded Obamessiah routine. Their star quality was also, as noted above, mostly a giant bluff. In his heyday, Bill could channel his narcissism into a famously sure “common touch” — he liked to bask in proof of his awesome empathetic powers. But, in the years since he left the Oval Office, he’s played too many gazillion-dollar-a-plate jet-set dinners in France and Switzerland, and the “common touch” has curdled. That was plain even by the 2002 midterms, when you could more or less correlate Democratic losses by his travel schedule. He’s a bust on the stump.

And, worst of all for Bill and Hill, the Dems found a new star — their first in 16 years. Look at it from Hillary’s point of view: She’d expected to run against the likes of Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd — the usual mediocrities and misfits. Then Barack Obama came along, and did what the Clintons did in 1992 — saw his opportunity and seized it. All of a sudden, she’s the Bill Richardson — worthy but dull, earthbound, and joyless, lead weights round her ankles.

She has a melancholy dignity in decline. She knows she would make the better president, but every time she tries to explain why it sounds prosaic and unromantic. Bill gave the party an appetite for slick lounge acts, and this time round Barack’s the guy delivering it in buckets of gaseous uplift. Can Barbra Streisand and the Supergays get Hillary airborne again? I doubt it. Go back to that Staples Center entrance in 2000, and try to imagine Hill walking that walk. How far would she get before the applause died away and she’d be padding that endless corridor to no audible accompaniment but the clack of her heels?

© 2008 Mark Steyn

How’s your Sunday? Pretty good around here. Lisa and Karen both have been by to see me today. Good sisters!

Greg is out digging my hole next to Aaron’s tree in the front. On this Friday, the 29th, I will bury a bunch of certificates, cards, dried flowers, stuff like that which has accumulated over the nearly four years. I guess it sounds a little crazy to bury it, but that way, Aaron and his stuff will always be a part of this house. I’ve kept the flowers semi-clean for just about as long as I can. These are mostly flowers that were sent to me at the time Aaron was killed. I dried them and have saved them in a large red, white and blue basket. When I received more flowers, I’d later dry them and place them on top of the others. It’s been impossible to throw anything away. I’ve tried—and I just can’t let it go out of my hand, even if it’s just his name or a copy of a copy of a copy of a photo…. So, Greg’s digging and Friday I’ll lay it in there and cover it up. No ceremony. Just me and the dirt and probably Cady. The boys will watch from the back, which is where they’ll all be buried. Yes, I have all this thought out. And you’re thinking: It sucks to be you??? LOL!

I know.

But this is my last first. Leap day of leap year was the last time his foot was on American soil—this is my first leap year without him. There was a time I’d never thought I’d have to last this long without him. And then something like the image I have displayed comes in the mail and I realize that I may have a very long time to go and had better buck up.

Our troops. How do they feel? I'll tell you, Semper Fi Mom's son was great to talk to and I am so happy for how things are in Fallujah right now. We've been doing this sort of thing for a long time, folks. Let's keep on keeping on, huh?

We live in a fantastic country. I love America. I love America. I love her troops, her liberty, her land.

Oddly enough, I feel good. Of course, I’m not the one digging the hole!

Mom still doesn’t have her computer and Lisa still doesn’t have her picture. What good are they?

Talk at you later!
De’on

Lundy, Kayla, and Allie

@ Jake's Sports Bar after the Raider's loss.

February 16, 2008

+ + +

Hey everybody,

Long time, huh?

Our vacation time together was great! We didn’t go anywhere (but to Lubbock—Greg actually went three times!) but it was good to be together around here and of course, to visit family and friends. February is always a tough month for me. February 15th is the last time I saw Aaron and February 29, 2004 is the last time he was on American soil. The unit’s plane flew on that day.

Greg and I met Semper Fi Mom and her eldest son, Steven, who has recently returned from Iraq. Steven was a joy to talk to. Everything he shared was positive and the photos he took were fabulous. He spent a great deal of time in some of the same places Richard did. The four of us had lunch at Olive Garden. Gary, the brother-birthday-boy knew we were going and had Greg and I bring him and Karen an order to go! (They live in Brownfield, TX, 36 miles from Lubbock) so when we dropped their order off on the way back home, we got to visit with them. That was a really great day and it felt good inside to set down and listen to a Marine talk. And of course, the Marine’s Lubbock Mom is the cutest thing. She’s always smiling and so busy. She’s the epitome of sweet Motherhood.

On a different trip, Greg and I took Kayla and 2 of her girlfriends to watch the Red Raider (men’s) basketball game against OU. We lost in the last .9 seconds, so bummer, but it was good to be with the girls. They’re all 14—nearly15, so there was a lot of giggling, but I loved it. The photos above were taken at Jake’s Sports Bar in Lubbock. We took them to eat there after the game. I had Greg bring the camera and this is the only photo we ended up with. I really wanted one of the girls standing up so that I could better show-off one of Kayla’s friends. The two blondes and one brunette are all little knock-outs, but it’s Allie I’m talking about today.

Allie is the one sitting in the booth by herself and she’s quite the basketball player herself. She’s scored 30 points in one game of her own. A ninth-grader, her team finished up as the top regional team and now she joins Junior Varsity as they finish up their season.

Allie is important to me for more than one reason. She’s the daughter of Ray and Jody. Ray filmed Aaron’s memorial here for me in Lovington. He was also at the unit’s homecoming party we had here in Lovington when 2/1 made it home in October of 2004. It was there at that party that Ray first began to notice he didn’t feel well at all. After a huge fight for his life, Ray succumbed to lung cancer, leaving behind his wife, Jody, whom I went to school with, and their 4 kids. The two older boys are both college graduates from Las Cruces here; the daughter a little older than Allie is a college student and has been employed throughout her high school and college career. Allie is the baby. She was only in the seventh grade when she lost her dad.

Shortly before Ray (we called him Rapid Ray—an oxymoron for anyone who knew him—he was the most gentle and laid back soul I think I’ve ever known.), but anyway, it was a short time before he left us in that Rapid Ray came to know Jesus. He’d get one of my friends to come to his bedside and he’d tell her, “Say that prayer….” It was the Lord’s Prayer.

What Ray wanted for Allie, she has and is. He wanted her to “dress like a girl” and he wanted her to play basketball. She does both those things and she seeks the Lord in many ways for her life and the life of her friends and family now. She doesn’t talk much about it, but she has told Kayla of how she saw her dad sitting in his chair before his computer one night, and he told her that he was okay—that he was happy and everything was good. It encouraged her greatly and that is when she became interested in this spiritual life that surrounds us all—whether we realize it or not.

It helps to watch her blossom.

I went to Ray’s bedside the day before he died. They had a hospital bed set up in one of the bedrooms. He had his dog in there with him. When I came to the side of the bed, he held out his arm and took my hand. I knew it wouldn’t be long and I held his hand so tight. I thought to myself, this is as close as I’m going to get to heaven and to Aaron for now. I whispered to myself; I didn’t want to startle him, but to myself, I said, “Tell Aaron hello and I love him.”

Mom’s dinosaur computer is finally history. Her new one should arrive today, so, no doubt, she’ll be getting a post in shortly after it’s up. I know she has missed her ranting during these past days.

So, we’re back for whatever that means! And we have missed being here for you. We appreciate you all.

And oh yes, Lisa won Mom’s “Title It” so we’ll get her to get a photo sent to us sometime this weekend.

Happy Friday and I hope you’re wearing RED!

Semper Fi,
De’on

Gary's 46th Birthday Finale

Yes, I've worked my way into Washington's Day as well--so Happy Birthday to you too, George. And Gary, goodnight and we love you. You have always been and will always be the baby.

**Lisa and I warmed his bottle even beyond his third birthday!!

Heroes

We've seen these more than once, but I'll show them again sometime. They are a part of what we have. Our memories in color.Aaron Cole Austin

Gary Glenn Grigsby

July 2003

August 2003

William Harvey Grigsby, Jr.

Gary Glenn Grigsby

**My brother is the last Grigsby in our family. Our dad joined Aaron in Heaven on August 21, 2007. I know you miss your best friend so very badly this first ever birthday without him, Gary, and I am so terribly sorry about that....

He's a Keeper!

Gary Glenn Grigsby

1962

Gary Glenn Grigsby

Christy De'on Grigsby Austin

June 1989

1962! It was a very good year, Gary Glenn...

Click on her name and listen to (one of the many) favorite songs you and I share a love and nostalgia for, Brother Dear!

Patsy Cline "Crazy"

You and your boots... in oil

Painted by your #1 fan: Mom

Birthday Boy Photos

The Grigsby's (bottom right photo is 1964)
This little red rocker is still in our family (a different dress now, but it was mine so, yep, it's an antique!)
How'd you get that big bump on your head?

Some February 21, 1962 Links:

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, February 21, 1962

President's Park (White House) - 1961-1962 National Christmas

Press Conferences of President Kennedy - John F. Kennedy ...

The Perry Como Show: February 21, 1962 - TV.com

Celebrity Link: Birthdays for February 21

FEDERAL FIRE COUNCIL MINUTES OF ANNUAL MEETING, FEBRUARY 21, 1962.
Topics presented: 'Fire prevention and protection within the Department of the Army'; 'The costs, confusion and stultifying effects of building requirements ...

Who can name the years of the Birthday Boy's Pictures?

Isn't there a story behind these drums?
CONOCO-Hottest Brand Going!
Bow ties, blue jeans and big grins.

Punk, punk, we eat food, you eat junk!!

The knot is tied, the garter in place!

The Grigsby's

April 5, 1983

Gary and Long Legs (Karen!)
Guess Who?

October 1988

I was home on PCS leave...

heading for D.C. whoo hoo!

1962...go figure ;)

click here for a Feb. 2004 cnn article about Nat.

and for the lady she played... (I could give you a lot of links here, but we've got to run a clean Marine(?) ship. so, here's her biography, and like Aaron, Gypsy Rose Lee died on April 26th. For more about her, click here...and no, little brother, no one is going to jump out of a cake!!

A little about your name... Gary Glenn Grigsby

Your mother tHE dRamA qUeeN gave your middle name to you because of this man! This cover is from 1962- your year,GG...

P.S. Don't feel bad. My name came from a romance novel her Aunt was reading, and then of course, the first name was dropped from my life... somewhat.

Here's a NASA bio link on John Glenn

46years old!! Whoo hoo!

My

Ro.

Bathing Beauty @ Lake Allen Henry

Back a little later, Bro. Got a few to cut...

Are you with us?

Hillary the *B (for Billary) - She's all about "The Little Guy!"

Hillary the *B (for Billary) - She's all about "The Little Guy!"

Columnist Michelle Malkin is Grateful to be an American. Michelle Obama is not.

Michelle Malkin - NRO - National Review Online

February 20, 2008

2 Michelles, 2 Americas - Shame vs. pride.

By Michelle Malkin

Like Michelle Obama, I am a “woman of color.” Like Michelle Obama, I am a working mother of two young children. Like Michelle Obama, I am a member of the 13th generation of Americans born since the founding of our great nation.

Unlike Michelle Obama, I can’t keep track of the number of times I’ve been proud — really proud — of my country since I was born and privileged to live in it.

At a speech in Milwaukee this week on behalf of her husband’s Democratic presidential campaign, Mrs. Obama remarked, “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country, and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.”

Mrs. Obama’s statement was met with warm applause from other Barack supporters who have apparently also been devoid of pride in their country for their adult lifetimes. Or maybe it was just a Pavlovian response to the word “change.” What a sad, empty, narcissistic, ungrateful, unthinking lot.

I’m just seven years younger than Mrs. Obama. We’ve grown up and lived in the same era. And yet, her self-absorbed attitude is completely foreign to me. What planet is she living on? Since when was now the only time the American people have ever been “hungry for change”? Michelle, ma belle, Barack is not the center of the universe. Newsflash: The Obamas did not invent “change” any more than Hillary invented “leadership” or John McCain invented “straight talk.”

We were both adults when the Berlin Wall fell, Michelle. That was earth-shattering change.

We’ve lived through two decades’ worth of peaceful, if contentious, election cycles under the rule of law, which have brought about “change” and upheaval, both good and bad.

We were adults through several launches of the space shuttle, in case you were snoozing. And as adults, we’ve witnessed and benefited from dizzyingly rapid advances in technology, communications, science, and medicine pioneered by American entrepreneurs who yearned to change the world and succeeded. You want “change?” Go ask the patients whose lives have been improved and extended by American pharmaceutical companies that have flourished under the best economic system in the world.

If American ingenuity, a robust constitutional republic, and the fall of communism don’t do it for you, hon, then how about American heroism and sacrifice?

How about every Memorial Day? Every Veterans Day? Every Independence Day? Every Medal of Honor ceremony? Has she never attended a welcome-home ceremony for the troops?

For me, there’s the thrill of the Blue Angels roaring over cloudless skies. And the somber awe felt amid the hallowed waters that surround the sunken U.S.S. Arizona at the Pearl Harbor memorial.

Every naturalization ceremony I’ve attended, where hundreds of new Americans raised their hands to swear an oath of allegiance to this land of liberty, has been a moment of pride for me. So have the awesome displays of American compassion at home and around the world. When millions of Americans rallied to help victims of the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia — including members of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group that sped from Hong Kong to assist survivors — my heart filled with pride. It did again when the citizens of Houston opened their arms to Hurricane Katrina victims and folks across the country rushed to their churches, and Salvation Army and Red Cross offices to volunteer.

How about American resilience? Does that not make you proud? Only a heart of stone could be unmoved by the strength, valor, and determination displayed in New York, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pa., on September 11, 2001.

I believe it was Michael Kinsley who quipped that a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth. In this case, it’s what happens when an elite Democratic politician’s wife says what a significant portion of the party’s base really believes to be the truth: America is more a source of shame than pride.

Michelle Obama has achieved enormous professional success, political influence, and personal acclaim in America. Ivy League-educated, she’s been lauded by Essence magazine as one of the 25 World’s Most Inspiring Women; by Vanity Fair as one of the ten World’s Best-Dressed Women; and named one of “The Harvard 100” most influential alumni. She has had an amazingly blessed life. But you wouldn’t know it from her campaign rhetoric and her griping about her and her husband’s student loans.

For years, we’ve heard liberals get offended at any challenge to their patriotism. And so they are again aggrieved and rising to explain away Mrs. Obama’s remarks.

Like Lady Macbeth, Lady Michelle and her defenders protest too much.

— Michelle Malkin is author of Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Democrat Presidential Poker

Will Hillary Clinton fold?

THE EAGLE IS READY

THE EAGLE IS READY

Hillary the Movie

The link below will take you to the latest and greatest HORROR movie. Check it out!
http://www.hillarythemovie.com/trailer.html

Ray in Okinawa

Just thinkin'....

Hello everybody!

My hubby is on vacation this week, so I’m going to vacation with him some.

Check back after the 20th of February for further posts from myself or Virgie Bell. Meanwhile, others may or may not post, but anyway, don’t forget to have a wonderful
Sweetheart’s Day and be sure to ply your Valentine with tons of lovely baubles and dark chocolates!

Semper Fi,
De’on

Title It! Virgie Bell's Choice

Another Topper! Scroll down for current posts. (After you've played, of course!) Winning Title Goes Here

***

Come on everybody, play! (And the fold in the photo is not part of the subject to study—I just didn’t want the photo chopped in half!)

Anyway, COME UP WITH A TITLE you think I’ll choose as the best. If you win, you get to pick the next photo and judge the best title.

DEADLINE: Sunday, February 10, 2008 at 10:00 PM MST (It seems a few are missing the 8:00 deadline, so I’m working with you here!)

Winner will be announced within 24 hours of expiration of said deadline. Declared winner has 3 days to email photo to De’on Miller.

Good Luck!

++And Greg, once again, you’ve displayed that even though your titles are well, iffy at best, your judgment is quite sound. I thank you for the honor of winning. And may I further add, it’s about time! ha… -your favorite mother-in-law-

Just another day...

Virgie Bell's View: Rush and (yawn!) naptime

Seems Rush Limbaugh has a problem with the frontrunner of the Republican Party in that he says the candidate is too liberal. Well, I for one, have never worshiped at the shrine of old Rush. He is a big windbag and always has been. He has been vastly overrated as the voice of the Republican Party. The guys in my family listen to him and seem to feel he is right about everything that comes out of his mouth.

One time Jerry came in a few years ago to tell me that I was misinformed because I wasn't being given access to the right reading material. What? If I read anymore and a wider variety, I would have to be fluent in about a dozen languages. But I can match old Rush any day of the week. All he has are his opinions, which are based upon his personal biases just like me and for that matter just like you.

Sure, the economy is a mess right now. By the time the elected president is sworn into office, it will be but a memory. The Great Depression was a terrible time and even though President Roosevelt did his best, he couldn't pull us out of it. World War 2 pulled us out of it. The USA swung into high gear and we pulled together.

The American people are a special breed. We have always had recessions and we always will but that has always been so. I asked my history teacher when I was in high school what a recession is and he explained thusly: When you stand in a line with a bushel basket full of money that will buy a loaf of bread, but by the time your turn comes, you need two bushels of money in order to buy it. I remember when a Ship and Shore blouse cost $4.99 and now it is a bargain at around twenty bucks. I remember paying 25 cents a pound for hamburger meat and now it will run you close to $4.00 per pound and it is not even the same quality as what I could buy in those good old days. Harry Truman said that if you lose your job, that is a recession, if I lose mine, that is a depression. It is not the cost that is hurting the American public; it is buying into the credit fallacy that is killing us. When our children feel that they have to have everything just as good as mom and dad and right this minute, then we are in trouble.

My mom and dad worked to pay off a little house and usually a mobile home at that. The value was in the little bit of land it was on and if the mobile home depreciated out it still kept out the rain and cold and heat. It made a down payment on the next home and lot and then we added on to this. Our kids have a different mind set. Got to have nice cars, in fact, two, because the wife must work also. My great grandson has actually made fun of Jerry's old work car. He bought it new and that was before we married. Truly it is a rusty thing and I am sure the neighbors would love it to not be in this neighborhood, but we live on a silk stocking row and we have improved the house and yard. Something that is called equity. Will Rogers said, buy land because they are not making anymore of it. He was right as it turns out. Jerry’s little rust bucket will take us from one coast to the other and even though we look like the Beverly Hillbillies, it will still get us from point A to point B and doesn’t use much gas. If I want to impress others, and I do sometimes, I just climb into one of my kids cars and can look down at someone else for a change. It is all just a mindset anyway.

When I lived in Sudan, Texas, we mothers took turns carrying our children to school a week at a time, not for the sake of economy, but just so we could enjoy that extra cup of coffee before we started to sort the laundry and go to the laundry and come home and hang them out. I loved to hang out clothes at that time and resisted a dryer for the longest time, because I knew I would take the easy way out. Sure enough I did that. So I will close for now and go put a load in the washer and dryer before I lay down for a little nap.

Feel free to listen to old Rush all you want...me, I will take the simple life over that windbag’s big bank account, but I still will always miss the smell of the fresh sheets that have been on the line and dried in the fresh air. I can then recall how my mother’s sheets smelled every Monday night when I snuggled up to my little sister and when hamburger meat was 25 cents a pound.

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Get back van Gogh! ( and other ear surgeries... :)

Hi!

Well, it’s been, shall we say, a little tight around here.

McCain is ahead! Yea! That’s a good thing. Greg will vote for him because he’s the Republican candidate. He, like most Republicans, appreciates McCain’s service but as I’ve said, my husband is super conservative and that comes from the womb, I suppose. It’s like his ears or nose. It would take surgery to change these and I suppose that’s okay.

I’m Republican and conservative, but I’ve not always been that. I changed my registration after the Clinton’s began to humiliate all of us all the further as they moved from the White House; computers crashed, crystal broken or missing. This is when I got off the boat, and conservative values are my values. But even all the stink during the Lewinsky scandals ended up making me feel sorry for Clinton and mad at all the Ken Starr stuff. Yes, I’m wimpy and weak. But I do hope McCain wins.

I think Obama is very charismatic and handsome. I’m not as taken with him as the lady behind him during his speech on Super Tuesday (my gosh, get a grip, lady!) but charisma and handsome and talk of peace and change, change and more change is not the leader for me during the War on Terror. Give me a little bit ugly and a whole lot of Canned Heat, a little bit of anger for our troops and attacks on them. I voted for the war and never voted against it (!) The war has crushed me deeply, but I do support its higher cause and refuse to jump ship on it. We’ve come a long way I think. It breaks my heart for the troops who suffer from this war. So much. And even then, I’m still willing to risk it.

I have several friends with differing views. Even members in my family hold differing views. I receive e-mails from friends who surely must assume I feel exactly the same as they do. I don’t, but I would never risk losing a friend over this election.

The Bible tells us to pray for our leaders and it also says that God Himself puts ALL rulers in place. I do my part as far as voting and praying, and the rest, I’ll leave to the man upstairs.

Well, that’s probably my one big political statement, so, I’ll just take a moment to apologize for my absence from the blog of late. I’m behind on everything. I’ve been working on my book and though I try not to be, I am obsessive about most things. Right now, it’s the book, so forgive me. I’ve been blogging so long, it took a little bit to get back into the format of writing in a more formal way as far as Point of View and tabs and double spaces. Also, it’s been hard for me to keep from inserting links! How easy would that be and boy, would it cut down on the exposition of things, but, I am back into it and thoroughly happy about that!

In other news, it’s a little tight here with our Famous Bob Knight, AKA “The General” leaving Texas Tech. Not sure what all has happened there. ESPN had little about it last night, but I know Knight has had problems with some of the big guys there all along, so no doubt, it’s probably time for Knight to move on. He’s a staunch Conservative and even at Texas Tech, those over him are probably a little less so—to say the least. So, good luck Bob Knight! We purchased tickets for me, Greg, Kayla, and two of her friends. That’s where we’ll be just a few days from now, so… don’t know that future tickets will be bought. My husband is sure to fill me in when he gets home.

Mom, Karen and I are married to truck drivers. There is nothing quite like it. 12 hours of Talk Radio. I learn more than I ever cared about. Greg doesn’t read the blog much, so… ha!

And do we think we’ve had a bad day? Well, here’s another link to prove it can get worse and to snuff that “itchy link-me” feeling I’ve had for a few days.

Mom: art lessons are this weekend. Prepare a canvas! I’m ready myself. Let’s see, what artsy-fartsy way am I feeling for this weekend. I’ve done snowmen until I think I am one, but I’ve done a few other things as well. Some will be finished this weekend and then I’ll share them with you. Actually, Semper Fi Mom is the only one who has asked, but I’m not shy! The one you see pictured above is the Christmas card I sent to Zach and Jess. Yes, it’s a Southwest Christmas! I was inspired by abstract that day! The card is so heavy with paint I had to use multiple stamps to mail it and I’m not certain a hunk didn’t end up missing out of it.

Oh well.

Here’s your link! Body found during Open-House

Semper Fi,
De’on

Virgie Bell's View: Presence of Mind

This is a post sent to me at 2:00 PM yesterday. Tardiness is strictly busy editor's fault.

It was just a short sound bite on the news, but it seems dear old Ted Kennedy may have cost Obama some votes. It really comes as no surprise to most of us, and as far as being useful to Hillary, the Come Back Kid is falling by the wayside too.

The turn out for voters on Super Tuesday was remarkable with more turn out than has been shown for years. The voters are really and truly sick to death of the politicians and all of the promises that are made to us and yet never fulfilled. Obama and Clinton are still running neck and neck and I really hate that fact. I wanted Hillary to be the candidate for the simple reason I feel she is beatable at least much more so than Obama.

The thing about Obama is that although he has missed 168 senatorial meetings, the only time he has been led to show an up or down vote, he has used the word present. That is how he has gotten where he is today, with the remarkable achievements of showing up and rendering neither a yes or no vote, except when called upon to cut funding for the troops. He is very much against the War on Terror and wants to pull the troops out of the Middle East. Now I have a big issue with that kind of mindset. Everyone else can swoon over him as if he was the Second Coming, but not me. Fund our military or get off the platform campaigning for their Commander in Chief. You have no right to say either yea or nay as far as I am concerned. The carnage of that September day will forever be stamped on my brain and millions of others just like me. I will never forget and I will never forgive.

There is still much being said about the use of water boarding and I want to make myself clear on that little issue. It scares them. Well big BOO HOO. Scaring someone is now considered cruel and unusual punishment. I think of those three thousand souls caught up in the Twin Towers, I see those poor souls jumping from windows to their death instead of being consumed by fire. Scared the holy hell out of them is all I can say. Read the firsthand accounts of those who survived. How about the blind man coming down the stairway with his Seeing Eye dog? Think he wasn't scared? Think the obedient dog was not scared? Ever watch mans best friend when the fire crackers go off on the July 4th? Multiply that by three thousand. Given a choice, the victims of that horrible day would have begged for water boarding.

McCain is against torture but scaring is not torture. The feeling that you are drowning is scary and if it saves one American life, why do we even care? Perhaps we should just cut off heads as do the terrorists, and on camera. That scares me. The latest recruits for Bin Laden use children as young as 6 years old. They will be sent into the enemies’ camp (into us) as human bombs. It was a favorite trick of the Japanese during World War 2 to take babies and lay them out on the ground for our troops who were dug-in to listen to while they waited for the next attack, knowing these helpless babies were the innocent victims. I talked with an old War Horse Marine who was there and it was his worst nightmare. The thing about war is that it just has two outcomes. Win or lose. Oh, you can surrender in something called ‘peace with honor’ as did old tricky Dick, but really, if you are going to be in war, you need to win the darn thing, and if you are attacked as we were on 9/11 while we were giving Peace A Chance, you are in one before you even know it. Peaceniks make me sick, and really they always have. Our military gives their life’s blood so they can march and scream their heads off and do so unmolested.

I will also voice another complaint about illegal immigration. Once I saw flags from other countries as they demanded rights they are not entitled to they lost me. This is America; we have our own flag and long may it wave. Yesterday I read in the paper where some wise old soul said if we would take the money we will spend on the fence trying to seal the border and send it to Mexico, that the illegals will go flooding back home. Billions of dollars—and send it to old Mexico? We have our own goofy government to pay for. So yeah, I am for McCain. I want to win this war that was declared on us. Just like my parents wanted to win when we were bombed in Pearl Harbor. Yes, the war is costing us no telling how much money. Wars just do. It goes with the very essence of war. We did not start this war and I feel that John McCain has been battle-tested to have his place as the Commander-In-Chief. I love my country and I love my freedom to write this post, so excuse me if I don't get all weepy while someone feels they are drowning. After we lost Aaron, I felt that I was drowning many times, but it was tears. Just to write about it, makes me feel that same thing again. So no, I am not for Obama. I am Virgie Bell...PRESENT. How stupid to use taxpayer money and only vote present. Might as well stay home for all the good you do...present! How silly.

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Wednesday Hero

This week's hero is a good one. Robert Cone is the second Cousin of Wednesday Hero's partner in crime, Greta.


Robert S. Cone
85 years old from Delray Beach, Florida
506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division


Surrounded by family, feted by a U.S. congressman and a Veterans of Foreign Wars color guard, one of the few surviving members of the "Filthy Thirteen" was honored on October 8, 2006 in a backyard on Massapoag Avenue.

Robert S. Cone, 85, now of Delray Beach, Fla., finally received the 13 military medals he was due for his service on D-Day during World War II, including the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, POW medal and Presidential Unit Citation.

"To tell you the truth, I never expected it. I'm very honored to get it and really feel good about it," Cone said.

"He's finding it an honor, and he's a little embarrassed, to be honest," said Cone's son, Edward R. Cone, 45, who hosted the family barbecue that included a visit from U.S. Rep. Stephen F. Lynch.

Only a few members remain of the 101st Airborne Division's famed "Filthy Thirteen," an elite parachute and demolition unit that volunteered for a suicide mission on June 5, 1944, the eve of the D-Day invasion of Normandy.

The Filthy Thirteen, who shared a Quonset Hut in England, were a group of "pretty bad boys," Edward Cone said, renowned for hard-living and fierce fighting. They are believed to be the inspiration for the 1967 movie "The Dirty Dozen," although none of the Filthy Thirteen was a convict.

The unit's mission was to parachute behind enemy lines on the night before D-Day to blow up bridges and impede the Nazis.

Many were killed on the drop. The survivors found it difficult to reunite on the ground because the pilots had panicked when the Germans opened fire.

Cone said he spent two days in a hedgerow battle and was shot in the right arm. When he escaped to a French farmhouse, the owner turned him over to the Nazis and he became a prisoner of war.

His unit and his family thought he was dead. His mother, in Roxbury, received a telegram from the War Department saying he had been killed in action.

Cone spent 11 months in three POW camps in Germany before being liberated by the Russians near the Polish border. He fought alongside the Russians as they made their escape, his son said.

Cone walked to freedom through Poland, Russia and Romania, journeyed by ship to Egypt and was eventually flow to Italy, finally making his way home.

All the medal ceremonies had taken place without him.

Cone married Ida, now his wife of 61 years; became a postal worker and plumber; raised three children in Hull; and spoke very little about the war, Edward Cone said.

About four years ago, Edward Cone decided to find out whether any of his father's Army colleagues were still alive.

He found the Filthy Thirteen's leader, Jake McNiece, in Oklahoma, and put his father in touch by telephone. Their conversation was recorded by the BBC and played on the anniversary of D-Day.

Later, the History Channel filmed its own segment on the pair, which still airs, Edward Cone said.

The group reunited in Taccoa, Ga., the home of their jump school.

"My Dad and I drove from here to Georgia. I heard everything on that trip," Edward Cone said. "Three were alive from the unit. They talked and drank and told stories for days."

Three years ago, McNiece published a book, "The Filthy Thirteen: From the Dustbowl to Hitler's Eagle's Nest: The 101st Airborne's Most Legendary Squad of Combat Paratroopers."

It was McNiece who mentioned that Cone was due a few medals. Edward Cone and his fiance, Kate Guthrie of Leominster, who works at the Statehouse, gathered documentation and contacted Lynch.

The result was the Sunday party, also attended by Cone's daughters, Ronna Townsend of Monroe Township, N.J., and Natalie Gaudet of Hampton, N.H., and most of his seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Cone admits he never talked much about the war before.

"I really didn't," Cone said. "But they insisted I tell the grandchildren and the great grandchildren. So I talk to them. I tell them stories. I tell them true stories. They all enjoy it."

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.

We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

'You Shall Know'- God Calling

Walk with Me. I will teach you. Listen to Me and I will speak. Continue to meet Me, in spite of all opposition and every obstacle, in spite of the days when you may hear no voice, and there may come no intimate heart-to-heart telling.

As you persist in this, and make a life-habit of it, in many marvelous ways I will reveal My will to you. You shall have more sure knowing of both the present and the future. But that will be only the reward of the regular coming to meet Me.

Life is a school. There are many teachers. Not to everyone do I come personally. Believe literally that the problems and difficulties of your lives can be explained by Me more clearly and effectually than by any other.

"If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." John 7:17

blessings to you and yours this day and always ...

Virgie Bell's View: The War, the war, the war!

To make myself perfectly clear on how I stand as far as the Democratic candidates are concerned, let me stress that I hope neither Obama nor Hillary become president of my country. Realistically, I have to deal with the fact that there will be one that is in the final run for the White House and since that is the case I would hope that one would be Bill Clinton's little wife with her vast knowledge of how to stand by your man no matter how much he may abuse the sanctity of marriage. She is a documented cuckold in front of the whole world and these two have shown the world that they have nary a care about the safety of the United States of America.

As I have stated over and over again, my concern is to fight the War on Terror and to win that, doing whatever it takes. It is laughable to me that we still hear talk of diplomacy and dialog as if the Islamic Extremists even care. Whoopi Goldberg said at one time that it would be one on one to talk our way out of this war and that was the only way. I said at the time "Dear Whoopi, you go first." On second thought, perhaps you should send the singer who recently divorced Bobby Brown. Cannot think of her name, but Bin Laden thinks she is the sexiest woman on the planet, which of course no one has ever been under the illusion that Whoopi was ever anything but, well Whoopi. Nuff said.

Barack Obama is a blank sheet of paper as far as anyone can tell. Hidden as it were, in what and who he really is or what he stands for. He hasn't made many mistakes and certainly has not made any advances as far as I can tell. He popped-up on the world stage as the Senator of Illinois and as far as his personal life and beliefs, he has written a couple of tear-jerkers that have been published as non-fiction. I don't pay much attention to those kinds of books. They are slanted to the extreme. They are self-serving and most often full of statements that have nothing to do the reality of that person’s life or real intentions. Check out Ted Kennedy's heroic effort to save the little campaign worker who died at the bottom of Chappaquiddick while he made dive after dive risking his life in order to save her. After the-Kennedy-save-the-Kennedy-machine got in full gear, it was almost to the point that I felt sorry for him to have been put into such a hazardous situation. I even worried about his neck brace. Did him hurt his widdle self, that great big hero. He came out later as a candidate for President and almost had to dodge the tomatoes and heads of lettuce that were thrown at him at this announcement.

King of slap-stick comedy is our Ted Kennedy. Elder statesmen? My hind-leg, as my mother used to say. Old gaseous windbag is more like it. I loved his older brothers, but I detest old Ted. As I said, he would not get elected dog-catcher outside his own state. When Ted Kennedy leads the parade, I stay home. Simple as that. I also do not pay much attention to Rush Limbaugh. Actually, I am pretty much a free thinker. The 'G' man was my first choice ,and now McCain is my choice. Simple, really, to come to this conclusion.

I watched with the rest of the world as Giuliani plowed into saving lives and did so tirelessly after 9/11. He proved his mettle, so to speak, and that is what counts to me. The thing with Obama that I do not like is him claiming to be against the war that was declared on us that September Day. If my country is attacked, my country will not surrender without a mighty effort to save us here in the USA. That has been proven over and over again with the precious blood spilled by our beloved military. The most beautiful boy with the most beautiful smile and a ton of personality gave his life for this cause. My grandson, Lance Corporal Aaron Cole Austin.

I don't care what party, race or gender a candidate may be. I want a warrior who will fight to the finish and give his life for my freedom. John McCain may be a little on the liberal side. He may even be friends and agree with a few of the Democratic numbskulls in DC. He spent seven years in Hanoi as a POW. He was even offered by the Viet Cong a release as a way for them to further propaganda. He refused his freedom in order stay with the other Prisoners of War. A hero...a real Hero. He said he would follow Bin Laden to the gates of hell to track him down. So Whoopi can definitely go first in the one on one dialog. I will vote for the man who survived in the hell holes of Vietnam as a tortured and beaten man and one who did not turn his back on his country or my country. As I said Whoopi...you go first and may I add that when you go; Please stay.

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Virgie Bell's View: Uncrossed Lines

Surely everyone remembers Berkeley. You know that city by the bay. The home of the University of California and several preparatory schools. Here in the desert country, our preparatory schools are Future Homemakers and Future Farmers of America. If you are from San Francisco area you may want to get up off the floor and stop your hysterical laughter. I agree in this atmosphere being so far removed from the reality show that is taught at the University of California, or for that matter, many other institutions of higher learning across the country, but if you want to be Way Cool Dude then the city by the bay wherein you left your heart is the place to be. They turned out such luminaries as Taliban Johnny Walker, the Poster Child for Bin Laden. This is the beloved hometown of Prissy Pelosi where she gave birth to her five children. It is headquarters to that sweet little click full of grown men who want to take little boys twelve and over the joy of being a grown man’s little lover.

Taliban Johnny Walker was in his teens when his dad just gave up on having a marriage and took his lover and they jumped out of the closet together holding hands. I have been to this area of California and they have all kinds of religious organizations. I failed to get which denomination one church was but I do recall the name of the Reverend. It was displayed proudly outside in bold letters. The Rev. F--k. You fill in the blanks.

Here in the backward part of the country that just would not go. Might as well be a Nazi and try to be accepted by polite society. Here we have recruiters from every branch of the military, and we welcome them. We know they are all that stands between us and the Islamic Extremists who want us all dead.

Birth place of the true hippy movement. My sister and I were there for a visit and the visit was indeed an eye opener. Dirty, tattered, drug addicts enjoying the free love movement like no other place in the world. Cool...peace...brother. Make Love. Not war. Give Peace A Chance. So we did that. We gave peace a chance with the same candidates in the White House that are doing their best to get back in. Hillary wants to give a million dollars to a Fund for Woodstock. She was refused because some of them in that fair city happened to remember that the FFA and FHA were voters.

We are doing our best to forget this shameful part of history that gave us Charles Manson and the PLO. We pulled out of Vietnam and gave a platform for the John Kerry’s and the Socialist Couple of America Bill and Hillary Clinton, so here we are. Our Marine Recruiters are not allowed at Berkeley but don't get too bent out of shape, Recruiters are not welcome at some of the Ivy Leagues in the eastern part of the USA. No one can out do Warren Churchill. That professor from Colorado. There really is nothing we can do to overcome the one time that we as a nation surrendered to the enemy within. I am so glad my parents were of the generation that would kick someone’s ass over the moon before they would have put up with that stuff. Boundaries are wonderful.

The most wonderful thing to behold is the line you will not cross. The one that separates you from those who know no boundaries and respect no rules. Those like Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Adolph Hitler, Pol Pot, and Mussolini. The list is endless. It stretches back to the beginning of time and it is the infinitely in eternity. The children of those men of old, men of renown. They await you in the depth of hell. The Reverend F--k will welcome you and they will not allow the Marines to try to recruit there. Just the same as there at Berkeley. They are so ignorant and I hate them.

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