Posted on 11/06/2005 7:34:59 PM PST by The Mayor
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T.G.I.F. at the Finest |
Every Thursday at the Finest  |
We have been updating the website for last minute hits, planning the final stratergy, etc....
I have to drive around tonight and place all the signs at the polling areas. They have stolen so may signs I had to drive around last night and pick them up.
Gotta count them and see if I have enough, no word on how things are going, all I know is they are outspending us by $70,000 and are running radio ads etc...
They have been threatening people that if they do any work for us they will be blacklisted etc...
There is a big shake up coming down with the county republican party, the national people are disgusted with what is going on and some heads are gonna roll soon. My name has been discussed on 3 occasions on what level I don't know.
See greed, corruption and special favors for people will come back to bite you in the a$$ eventually. Running campaigns against "Real Republicans" and for the chosen or annointed ones will be the demise of the local leadership.
Last year, our church presented a commemorative coin to each veteran in the two morning services along with the invitation to stop by the visitor's center to pick up additional coins for distribution to our friends and relatives who served our country in the Armed Forces.
We counted the number of vets in our family and gathered up 10 more coins. Each one was distributed personally throughout the year, the last 4 in September to my brother, father-in-law, his brother and his son. Each coin came in a small white gift box with a red, white and blue ribbon attached.
Uncle Ron, a WWII Navy veteran, said this is the first thing he's ever received recognizing his service.
Each coin is inscribed "A Grateful Nation Thanks You" and the reverse side, "In Appreciation of your Courage and Sacrifice to Protect our Freedom."
Back in '91, at the end of the Gulf War, our church presented a program titled "American Homecoming" - an evening of music and drama. I was in the choir as well as one of the drama presentations. As the program came to a finish, veterans in the service were asked to stand as the orchestra played the songs of their branch of the service. I proudly stood as Anchors Aweigh filled the worship center.
After the program, a young lady came up to me and said, "Thank You for your service to our country." Her words didn't sink in until I got home and gave more thought to hearing "Thank You."
A flood of tears came upon me when I realized that that was the first time I ever heard those words from someone who actually took the time to say it. Twenty four years after my separation from active duty.
Looking back, from that day forward, whenever I have seen someone wearing a ball cap or other garment reflecting that person's military service, they will receive a Thank You from me. Even last weekend, I had the opportunity to extend the greeting to two WWII veterans at the grocery store. One of those gentleman commented, this is about the third or fourth time someone has offered those words.
Thank a Vet every chance you get, y'all. Your words of gratitude and encouragement may be the first time he or she has heard it. They deserve nothing less.
moving story Dave. How nice your congregation makes this an emphasis. Too many churches don't want to "mess w/politics" as they see it. Sad, very sad. Ours does some token things.. memorial day, 4th July.
good luck FRiend!
Thanks for the Word.
Mail deadlines coming up
WASHINGTON - With Halloween over, many folks are turning to their holiday shopping. If gifts are being mailed overseas or to military personnel, the time to mail may come soon.
Parcel post items addressed to APO and FPO ZIP codes need to be sent by Nov. 12, the Postal Service reports. The recommended deadline is Dec. 5 for Priority Mail and first-class cards and letters to APO and FPO ZIP codes beginning 093.
Making a wager none of you can top the atmosphere here in this small town!
It simply could not BE more pro Real America - Military - Veterans - Faith - Families - "Chilren" !!
The newspaper is a weekly one that always features pictures of new babies and any birthday children submitted up to about 5 or 6..:))
It has a standing offer form to post the photograph and short bio of any active duty military.
It has a huge section for all school happenings, with pictures and writings and sports and whatever... covers the frequent community parades, Christmas Parade, pep rallies, etc.
For Veterans Day, a special recognition ceremony, complete with JRROTC Color Guard and Veteran speaker, is held in the high school auditorium.
Any area veterans are seated in a special section, front and center, and the school band plays the service songs, Dave, those belonging to theirs standing up, of course..:))
Afterward, the veterans are invited to a special lunch in the cafeteria.
Churches cater to the youth groups, mine having a Fifth Quarter after some of the home football games, open to ALL youths in the area for pizza, contemporary religious band music, speakers...
They, too, always have a special presentation by the choir honoring us (and sing the service songs, those belonging to theirs standing up, of course) - again veterans are seated down front and center - and at one memorable one, a Sunday School teacher took her 5 year old group to sit on the carpet by the stage...explained to them who they were honoring special persons who had tried to keep them safe, and then asked them to go to a veteran and thank them!!
There was *nothing sweeter* than a little girl who made a beeline to me on my end of the row seat and rendered an enthusiastic, loving hug....
A mile from my door is an under development Veterans Park, with a running track encircling it.
They procured a Huey helicopter that had been used in Nam, and mounted it on a high pole, as if landing! Behind it are tall poles with the American and State flags, and over to the side a tank...commerative bricks may be submitted.
There is great joy in Mudville..:))
How very nice !
This picture is just too much.
Marines unload Humvees in Iraq in this file photo from January 2004.
Dis regard my post # 51 please.
Marines' Iraq Humvees to be 'up-armored' by December
By: DARRIN MORTENSON - Staff Writer
While the bombs used against them keep getting bigger and the development of the next best vehicle may still be five more years away, officials say the Marines who drive Iraq's deadly roads in the meantime can at least count on having the best available armor on all of their Humvees by next month.
Several thousand Camp Pendleton Marines are currently in Iraq, stationed primarily in and around a string of towns along the Euphrates River west of Baghdad. There, improvised bombs buried in roadways and hidden in roadside trash continue to kill troops, including a Pendleton Marine on Tuesday near Ramadi.
A fresh force of as many as 20,000 local troops is scheduled to head there in January, taking over for the East Coast-based II Marine Expeditionary Force and the existing fleet of Humvees.
Capt. Jeff Landis, a spokesman for the Marine Corps Systems Command at Quantico, Va., said that by December all but a handful of those vehicles will have the newest armor, as promised by Marine brass last summer.
Armored up
The ups and downs of armoring Humvees have challenged the Marines almost since the war began.
Even as the threat of improvised bombs began to plague Army units months after the invasion of Iraq in late 2003, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Michael Hagee decided not to buy the factory "up armored" ---- reinforced ---- Humvees before the Marines returned in force to Iraq early last year.
The Marines instead rushed to tack on the first generation of add-on kits ---- mostly steel doors and steel plates to protect Marines in truck and Humvee beds ---- before the troops rolled into Iraq from Kuwait in early 2004.
That armor often proved inadequate or caused malfunctions, and Marines continued dying from even basic roadside bombs.
When nearly a year had gone by with few improvements in protection, media stories, public outrage and hearings before Congress in June forced Marine officials to admit that they had not done enough to get new and better armor to the troops.
They promised to have the fleet re-armored by the end of the year ---- a promise Marine officials say they will keep.
At least 3,153 of the 3,362 Humvees in the Marines' Iraq fleet are either the heaviest factory "up-armored" versions or standard models recently outfitted with the latest model add-on armor kits, Landis said in a telephone interview Thursday.
Of the 891 models of the M-114, or factory "up-armored" Humvees ordered by Marine commanders in western Iraq, at least 801 have been delivered to the field, with the rest scheduled to reach the troops later this month, Landis said.
Just 120 short of their goal, Marine crews at bases in Kuwait and in western Iraq have added the latest "Marine Armor Kits" to at least 2,352 of the standard A2 Humvees, according to Landis.
He said the rest are on the way.
"By the end of this month that requirement of Humvee replacement will be in place," Landis said. "We're real close."
The armor kits replace three-sixteenths of an inch thick steel with three-eighths of an inch steel panels that were hurriedly added to the fleet when the Marines first returned to Iraq in early 2004. The kits also increase underbody protection, add ballistic glass and other protective features.
The extra steel and Kevlar armor adds unwieldy weight to the otherwise aluminum-bodied A-2, the standard model, so the vehicles are also refitted with sturdier suspensions, better cooling systems and engine improvements, Landis said.
Deadlier bombs
Still, even the factory-installed protection is no match for some of the insurgents' more sophisticated bombs, which have recently included lethal suicide car bombs, daisy-chained series of bombs and charges that focus the blast beneath a vehicle.
The Humvee, the military says, was designed in the 1970s for transportation in hilly Europe rather than for the close urban combat and high-speed, hot-weather convoys of Iraq.
The Humvee, officials have said, was the best they had for Iraq and Afghanistan.
In a recent hearing before the House Armed Services Committee, Marine officials said the this latest version of add-on armor, called "level 2," is the most weight that the chassis and engines can stand.
"We are at the 98 percent point. We can't put any more armor on these things," said Brig. Gen. William Catto, director of the Marine Corps Systems Command, according to United Press International.
Other officials, including Lt. Gen. James Mattis, said all the extra plating and glass bogs down the Marines' vehicles and limits visibility, restricting the Marines' ability to detect and avoid the bombs in the first place.
As Marines and soldiers continue to struggle with the limitations of even the best-armored Humvees, military officials have embarked on an aggressive search for a bigger and better tactical vehicle that can handle more tasks and survive bigger blasts.
Mattis is the commander of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command, which is using stories and suggestions from the front lines to help develop a replacement for the Humvee.
Mattis' experts are working with private industry to produce a new tactical vehicle, dubbed the Combat Tactical Vehicle, by 2011, according to the Marine Corps press service Thursday.
Next generation transport
"The Humvee A2 is a great vehicle, [but] it has outlived its usefulness," said Kevin M. McConnell, deputy director of the Fires and Maneuver Integration Division, according to the article on the Pentagon's public Web site, www.defenselink.mil.
"We have added very capable armor to the Humvees in Iraq. But for every pound of armor you add, that's a pound less capable the vehicle is," McConnell said, according to the article. "We have done a lot of modifications to the vehicle, and it's at the end of its capabilities. There is just no more you can do for that vehicle."
McConnell said the Humvee's replacement would have to accommodate up to six Marines, as opposed to the current Humvee's four, with their combat gear, three days of food, water and ammunition.
Other officials have discussed using a v-shaped undercarriage to deflect blasts, or creating a faster vehicle that can steer through danger zones at higher speeds.
McConnell said the Marine Corps is working with the Army, Navy, Air Force and U.S. Special Operations Command to find ways to collaborate on a vehicle that could be useful to them all.
His team hopes to have a draft of exactly what the Marine Corps and other services need in a tactical vehicle by December.
"Why we're doing this now is because no time in the last 20 or 30 years have we had such a wealth of information coming in about what the Marine Corps needs to run a war," he said. "Now is the best time to make it happen."
talking to yourself huh? formtting blues.. such fun!!!
It is a profound image, isn't it?
I used the pix in the Finest memorial day thread. It is a large pix that I can't reduce in size too much as the attached wording gets difficult to read.
I cried when I saw it/read it the first time & It still gives me shivers. Decided to add it to my profile page and that is why I posted it.. did some work yesterday on it & this was the set up I added.
Soldier views birth via Net
N.C.’s Dyer in Iraq when his twins were born
PINEHURST - The 6,500 miles that separated Army Cpl. Jesse Dyer and his expectant wife, April, became mere inches Friday.
As the nervous dad-to-be squinted at a computer screen in Balad, Iraq, repeatedly asking if his wife was OK, April Dyer was on an operating table at First Health Moore Regional Hospital in Pinehurst.
Then, at 1:58 p.m. Friday (9:58 p.m. Iraq time), it happened.
A physician’s assistant lifted a newborn infant into the Web camera’s view. Cpl. Dyer saw his daughter for the first time.
A minute later, he saw his son.
The Caesarean section births of Nathaniel Allan Dyer and his twin sister, Ashlee Faye, mark the first time the hospital has streamed video of a birth over the Internet.
One of Cpl. Dyer’s superior officers told him the Army would allow him to watch the twins’ birth over the Internet as long as Moore Regional could accommodate it.
That wasn’t possible when April, 23, checked into the hospital on Thursday. But after she asked about it, a hospital worker went out and bought a couple of digital video cameras.
In the delivery room, a nurse held the video camera, which had been sterilized and connected to a laptop. The couple could see each other and talk over Yahoo! Messenger.
The children are the couple’s first. They married nearly three years ago.
Cpl. Dyer, 28, is a former Marine now serving in the Army’s 320th Field Artillery of the 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, Ky.
Jesse Dyer said he hopes his children follow the family tradition of military service, April Dyer said.
"Even if they don’t go into it, he wants them to support the service," she said.
By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Nov. 7, 2005 - Decisions being made today about how troops are recruited, equipped, trained and stationed will have far-reaching implications during future operations, the Marine Corps commandant said here today.
The future battlefield is likely to be much like today's -- uncertain, chaotic and full of fog -- so it's critical that the military continue to recruit and retain smart men and women and train them to operate in such an environment, Marine Gen. Michael Hagee told reporters at the National Press Club.
Tomorrow's military members, like today's, will need to be able to think quickly on their feet, often making decisions with less information than they'd like, he said. And that applies regardless of the type of operation they're conducting, from high-end combat operations to humanitarian- and disaster-relief operations.
If history is any guide, the military will again he called to fight a future conflict, Hagee said. And just as certain, the military will be called to respond to humanitarian crises, including tsunamis, hurricanes and earthquakes like those witnessed around the world during the past 10 months alone, he said.
Decisions in shaping the force for the future will be guided by findings of the upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review, which will look 10, 15 and more years into the future, Hagee said.
Predicting the future is no easy task, he acknowledged. "We're doing everything we can to get it right or not get it wrong as we design the force of the future," he said.
That means recruiting the best troops possible, continuing to provide them the equipment they need, and replacing it as needed when it's seen heavy use, such as in Iraq, "so it's ready to go for the next contingency," he said.
It also means positioning troops where they can operate most effectively and giving them the capabilities to deploy quickly to hot spots when they're needed, Hagee said.
At the same time, it requires giving troops the education and training they need to perform on a battlefield that requires quick thinking and good decision making, he said.
Hagee cited the success of this formula during the battle of Fallujah, Iraq, where, he said, Marines "absolutely crushed the insurgency" last year.
"There's still a great deal to do," he said of operations in Iraq. "It's still very hard, and it is still quite dangerous over there."
Improvised explosive devices continue to be the biggest challenges troops in Iraq face, he said. But with many of these weapons becoming increasingly complex, Hagee said, they're no longer improvised at all. "Some are very sophisticated," he said.
No one technology or solution is likely to counter the IED threat, Hagee said, noting that weapons like these will probably remain the insurgents' weapons of choice. "No one out there is willing to take us on one on one or even squad to squad," he said. "If they do, they know they will lose."
That military superiority will remain critical to the military of tomorrow as its members face new threats and missions, Hagee said.
As they prepare for the future, Hagee said, the Marines will retain the fighting edge that's been their trademark for the past 230 years. "The most dangerous weapon on any battlefield is a United States Marine. There is no doubt about that," he said.
Biography:
Gen. Michael Hagee, USMC [http://www.dod.mil/bios/hagee_bio.html]
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