A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day....10-28-03...God Bless the USA ~ Lift Every Voice

Billie | various

[Billie]

A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day

Free Republic made its debut in September, 1996, and the forum was added in early 1997.   Over 100,000 people have registered for posting privileges on Free Republic, and the forum is read daily by tens of thousands of concerned citizens and patriots from all around the country and the world.

A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day was introduced on June 24, 2002. It's only a small room in JimRob's house where we can get to know one another a little better; salute and support our military and our leaders; pray for those in need; and congratulate those deserving. We strive to keep our threads entertaining, fun, and pleasing to look at, and often have guest writers contribute an essay, or a profile of another FReeper.

On Mondays please visit us to see photos of A FEW OF FR'S VETERANS AND ACTIVE MILITARY

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We're having fun and hope you are!
~ Billie, Mama_Bear, dansangel, dutchess, Aquamarine ~

Lee Greenwood wrote those words in a song in 1983 to bring people together. In the introduction of his booklet entitled "God Bless the USA", which includes a CD of that song, he also wrote:

"I'm sometimes overwhelmed by this vast nation and wish I could see how America will change in the next one hundred years. As long as we continue to dream, create inventions, and solve the challenges of an ever-expanding population, we will have the power to create a better society. But it is inevitable that the freedom, liberty, and can-do attitude that characterize us will be challenged, sometimes in ways that leave us no choice but to defend ourselves and the land we love. It happened in 1941 at Pearl Harbor and again in 2001 at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon."

Through the years countless songs have been written and words spoken that celebrate the breadth of the American experience. Recalling a few, who can dispute the simplicity and beauty of such words as these:

~ from "America", by Samuel Francis Smith ~

"My country, 'tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing:
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims' pride,
From every mountainside
Let freedom ring."





~ from "America the Beautiful"
words by Katherine Lee Bates Martin
music by Samuel Ward ~

America! America!
God mend thine ev'ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control
Thy liberty in law."




~ Martin Luther King's American Dream ~

"I have a dream that one day...the sons of
former slaves and the sons of former slave
owners will be able to sit down together
at the table of brotherhood...I have a dream
that my four little children will one day
live in a nation where they will not be
judged by the color of their skin but by
the content of their character."




~ from Alistair Cooke ~

"It has always been cited as an irrepressible
symptom of America's vitality that her people,
in fair times and foul, believe in themselves
and their institutions."





~ from "The People, Yes", by Carl Sandburg ~

"The free man is willing to pay and struggle and die
for the freedom for himself and others
Knowing how far to subject himself to discipline
and obedience for the sake of an ordered society....
This free man is a rare bird and when you meet
him take a good look at him and try to figure him
out because some day when the United States of
this earth gets going and runs smooth and pretty
there will be more of him than we have now."

THIS WEEK'S THREADS 10-27-03 Military Monday

Opinions by our own 'King of Ping' The guy's good, folks!

Thanks, Mixer!

1) Click on the graphic to open the Calendar.
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Click on the photo to view the album. To
submit your photo, please contact dansangel or .45Man
at
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and include Freeper Photo Album in subject line.

[JustAmy]

West Coast Good Morning, Donaeus

Still saying prayers for your friend. Keep us posted.

[Billie]

It's nice to see you again. Thanks for stopping in.

[Billie]

Thanks for your post, Amy. That's such a pretty picture of Lady Liberty. and I love the poem. There really is no place like home, when home is America. :)

[Billie]

Thanks, Dutchess - glad you had a chance to come by and hope to see you after work. :)

[FreeTheHostages]

Here's to the nation that freed the slaves. Here's to the Union.

Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us,
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun
Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?

We have come over a way that with tears have been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.

Lest our feet stray from the places, Our God, where we met Thee;
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand.
True to our GOD,
True to our native land.

[DollyCali]

FReeper requests prayer for his wife..

Our dear friend Mustang asked to have this prayer request posted for him.

Prayer Request For My Wife From Mustang | 10/28/2003 4:49 AM EST

Last month, we found out that my wife, Pat, has lung cancer. etc..

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1009634/posts

[Donaeus]

Bless your heart, I know it hasn't been easy. My father spent 5 years taking care of his mother, driving weekly from DFW to Lufkin which is a 4 hour drive, after she suffered a massive stroke. I can definitely sympathize. I hope one day you can return to Texas.

I recognize the Hermann name from growing up in the Beaumont/Port Arthur area but I'm not sure about mergers with Southwest General or Methodist. I wouldn't be surprised though. I worked in the Baylor Healthcare System when they were hatching the merger with Presbyterian HCS and I think Southwest.

[JustAmy]

I've been spending so much time at P & P that now all I ever post is poetry.

Glad you liked the one I chose for the Finest.

[Aquamarine]

Sorry about the quality of that midi. Two of my favorite wav sites have shut down recently. Don't know why.

[Donaeus]

A Lesson For Americans by Mike Dalka

My Grandfather was a glider infantryman in WWII, an advisor in Korea, and lost one of his sons, my uncle Gary Edwards, in Vietnam. I worked in his auto repair station during high school and he flew his flag in front daily. One day while I was sweeping the oil dry out of the bays it began to sprinkle rain. He told me to go get the flag and I said "gimme a second." He said, "It is raining, go get the flag NOW." Well I popped off my mouth about how he should cool it, it isn't going to melt or some such typical teenage comment.

My grandfather is the toughest man I've ever met. He explained once that he thought basic training was some sort of country club during WWII, because he was used to hard work anyway, and at home he didn't have indoor toilets or hot running water! And when I said whatever it was that I said to him, he turned deep crimson and I thought, "God save me, he's going to kill me for talking back." Instead tears welled up in his eyes and he squeaked out "You don't understand what this family has paid for the right to fly that flag." Then he turned his back on me and went out and got the flag. I just stood there feeling like the smallest person to ever live. Those words cut me so deep. I wish the entire country could have heard them.

[ I ] hope that this Nation might yet have enough people who understand the cost of liberty to turn things around. http://www.usflag.org/

I've read this story several times but it makes me teary eyed and gives me a lump in the throat every time. I don't think anybody better tell the Dalkas and Edwardses they're planning on changing the flag because the response won't be a squeak, more like a blood-curdling battle cry as they come down like a ton of bricks. And that goes for me too.

[Donaeus]

Good afternoon from Texas!

Jim is en route to the hospital and will be in surgery in about 3 hours. Thank you for the much needed prayers. I'll give an update as soon as I hear something.

[GailA]

Love today's thread. America is the ONLY place I'd choose to live.

DK, Rocky and I had a nice quiet weekend camping, the first time we'd gone camping in several years.

Went to the doc's this morning. I got water in my ears from showering with out my ear plugs..needless to say I got an ear infection (you'd think at 55 and being plagued with 'swimmer's ear' for years and years, I'd REMEMBER to use those ear plugs when I shampoo my hair. He also says I've OA in my finger joints, to take tylenol one week then asprin the next, to use warm moist heat on my hands and to baby them. And to get one of those therapy squeeze balls and use it.

[GailA]

From my email this morning

Read to the very last line. LETTER FROM A FARM KID, NOW AT SAN DIEGO MARINE CORPS RECRUIT DEPOT

Dear Ma and Pa:

I am well. Hope you are. Tell Brother Walt and Brother Elmer the Marine Corps beats working for old man Minch by a mile. Tell them to join up quick before maybe all of the places are filled.

I was restless at first because you got to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m., but am getting so I like to sleep late.

Tell Walt and Elmer all you do before breakfast is smooth your cot and shine some things. No hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to split, fire to lay. Practically nothing.

Men got to shave but it is not so bad, there's warm water.

Breakfast is strong on trimmings like fruit juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc., but kind of weak on chops, potatoes, ham, steak, fried eggplant, pie and other regular food. But tell Walt and Elmer you can always sit by the two city boys that live on coffee. Their food plus yours holds you til noon, when you get fed again.

It's no wonder these city boys can't walk much. We go on "route" marches, which the Platoon Sergeant says are long walks to harden us. If he thinks so, it is not my place to tell him different. A "route march" is about as far as to our mailbox at home.

Then the city guys get sore feet and we all ride back in trucks. The country is nice, but awful flat.

The Sergeant is like a schoolteacher. He nags some. The Capt. is like the school board. Majors and Colonels just ride around and frown. They don't bother you none.

This next will kill Walt and Elmer with laughing. I keep getting medals for shooting. I don't know why. The bulls-eye is near as big as a chipmunk head and don't move. And it ain't shooting at you, like the Higgett boys at home.

All you got to do is lie there all comfortable and hit it. You don't even load your own cartridges. They come in boxes.

Then we have what they call hand-to-hand combat training. You get to wrestle with them city boys. I have to be real careful though, they break real easy.

It ain't like fighting with that ole bull at home. I'm about the best they got in this except for that Tug Jordan from over in Silver Lake.

He joined up the same time as me. But I'm only 5'6" and 130 pounds and he's 6'8" and weighs near 300 pounds dry.

Be sure to tell Walt and Elmer to hurry and join before other fellers get onto this setup and come stampeding in.

Your loving daughter,

Betty Sue

I thought the ladies would enjoy this!!!!

[JustAmy]

Good Morning, Gail!

Sorry to hear about your ear infection.
Let me know if the squeeze ball and the warm, moist heat helps the joints. My sister is having lots of trouble with the joints in her hands.

[Billie]

Oh My Gosh! That is a hoot, Gail!

[Billie]

Oh, thank you, Free - I can see you're into today's red, white and blue, stars and stripes, Oh Beautiful, Old Glory thread! I'm so glad!

[DollyCali]

touching story.. thank you Don..

[Billie]

Thank you for posting the request, and the link, Dolly.

Mustang, prayers for your wife, and for you and your family, that the chemo and radiation can rid Pat's body of the cancer. Our prayers for strength for you all.

[Billie]

The one you chose for the Finest today was perfect! You have some of the prettiest and/or cutest graphics - had never seen that Statute of Liberty before, nor one even similar to it. ;)

[DollyCali]

Gail, I had swimmer's ear ONCE about 25 years ago.. and you are right.. It is a profound lesson.

I was told by my doc to put rubbing alcohol in my ears daily.. well, I do it 2 to three times a day. Use Q-tip. if travelling, vodka will do. I am sure other "high test" alcohols will do but somehow the scent of gin or scotch out of ones ears is not the most impreesive scent!


Funny when I go for ear exams the docs always tell me I have the "cleanest ears" they have ever seen !