"FALL IN" to the FReeper Foxhole!
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Brad Fletcher~To All Our Mothers Children
I am constantly amazed at the work that goes into this thread. Bump for reading tomorrow.
Letting the folks know WASHINGTON -- An Army and Air Force Hometown News Service team interviews 1st Lieutenant Christina Moore after a U.S. Air Force Band rehearsal Jan. 5, 2005. The Band at Bolling AFB, D.C., is practicing extensively for upcoming ceremonies during the 55th Presidential Inauguration Jan. 20. Lieutenant Moore is the band's flight commander, and the team is from San Antonio. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jacob N. Bailey)
I like the photo of your store posted a few days ago. Those windows and the natural light are going to help. The stock is attractively laid out.
I don't know a thing about advertising to bird feeders, or whatever the correct name is. Wish I could help, got two kids in college and another in two years.
A story you might like:
A short distance away from the place where a young medic named Petrarca was dying, the 148th Infantry Regiment was making a sweep along the north flank of the Japanese fortifications. A 20-man patrol was sent out under a lieutenant and Platoon Sergeant Walter Rigby early in the morning, working its way along a seemingly deserted trail that was heavily overgrown. The patrol was well into the enemy held area, perhaps as much as a mile forward of the rest of the American force. Among the young enlisted men who followed Sergeant Rigby deeper and deeper into the fortress of the enemy was his boyhood friend, Private Rodger Young.
It was nearing 4:00 in the afternoon when the lieutenant began withdrawing his platoon, hoping to return to the Company B bivouac area before darkness set in. As the patrol moved silently down the trail, high above them five Japanese soldiers monitored their movement from a well-concealed machinegun nest. The well placed enemy position gave the Japanese a commanding view of the trail, and they held their fire until the patrol was well into the open and only a short distance in front of the muzzle of their guns. Then they opened fire.
Two soldiers fell dead in the initial volley, as the remaining eighteen men dug frantically for cover. Above them the enemy soldiers held down the trigger of their machinegun, pouring unrelenting death on Sergeant Rigby and his men.
The lieutenant attempted a mass maneuver to remove his men from danger. It was an utter failure, and two more Americans fell to the deadly fire. All the sixteen survivors could do was press their bodies to the earth and pray. They were trapped from above, unable to move, and darkness would set in before long. "We didn't know how we were going to get out - we were surrounded by the Japanese," Private William Ridenour later recalled. "We were all in a semi-circle, and we lit up our ammunition. We had to burn it up. That's one of the lessons you learn, not to leave any ammunition for the enemy to use on you."
Sergeant Rigby did his best to rally his men, but it was heart-rending. "We (had) walked right into a trap," he remembered. In the opening moments, four young men from his home-town area had fallen. Unlike the regular Army, when a National Guard unit goes into war, a company or a platoon is often heavily made up of a group of young men who all come from the same city or region.
As the young NCO struggled to carry out his orders: "We had been ordered to burn our rations when we were told to withdraw," he noticed movement from another of his hometown soldiers. It was his boyhood friend, Private Rodger Young.
"Rodger was bound and determined to get that Japanese machine gun. In his position he had to know he was going to get killed. When I gave the order to retreat, I saw one of the boys beside him poke him with a stick and tell him to draw back but he had his sight on that pillbox and started after it."
Inching forward, his rifle cradled in his arms, the young private with the thick glasses had come to another of those tough choices in his life. As he slithered past the lieutenant, the officer reached out to try and stop him by grabbing his leg. Roger shook himself free and pushed on. The Japanese saw the flicker of movement and loosed a volley of fire in that direction, one round singing the lieutenant's hand and causing him to pull it back. Rodger Young continued crawling forward.
"Come back here!" The Lieutenant shouted. "It's suicide." The young private ignored the lieutenant's concern. If someone didn't knock out that enemy gun, the entire patrol would probably die. "Come back Private Young....THAT'S an ORDER!" The lieutenant shouted again.
For a moment the young private paused, turned to look back at his lieutenant....and smiled. "I'm sorry sir," he said. Then he smiled again. "You know sir, I don't hear very well." And then Rodger Young turned away from his lieutenant to continue crawling forward.
From their vantage point the enemy could see the movement of the grass as the American soldier crawled towards them, and unleashed the full fury of their machinegun. The other 15 men of Young's patrol returned fire, hoping to keep the enemy gunners pinned down as their friend and comrade continued his intrepid advance.
A sudden blow struck Private Young in the shoulder, rendering his left arm useless. The same round shattered the stock of his rifle, and he left it along with the trail of blood that marked his painful progress as he continued to crawl determinedly forward. Miraculously he was getting closer to his goal, when another stream of enemy fire raked the left side of his body from thigh to ankle. "Stay where you are," the lieutenant shouted above the din of battle. "We'll get you out somehow!" Rodger just shook his head.
The pain must have been unbearable, but it couldn't deter him. As always, Rodger Young had more HEART than body, and today his heart would carry him. Five yards from the enemy position, Rodger Young had dropped his shattered body into a depression in the ground deep enough to place him below the muzzle of the machinegun. Slowly, painfully, he used his good right hand to reach down and pull a grenade from his belt and raise it to his face. With his teeth he pulled the safety ring, released the lever and rose to his feet. Fifteen feet directly in front of the machinegun, there was no hope for the young man from Green Springs, Ohio. The full force of the automatic weapon caught him full in the face. But Rodger Young, even in death, had more heart than body. As his thick glasses imploded upon his young face, and moments before his 5'2" body slumped to the ground, he mustered the strength to throw the grenade. It was a throw that would have made any athlete proud, strong and true...destroying the enemy position and saving the lives of his comrades, including his boyhood friend, Sergeant Rigby.
It was after nightfall when the fifteen survivors of Sergeant Rigby's patrol finally reached the Company B bivouac area. Between them they carried a heavy burden wrapped in ponchos, the bodies of five hometown boys of the Ohio National Guard.
The company commander sat down and wrote letters home to the mothers of five young Americans who had given everything they had in the defense of freedom. That completed, he began writing a special report on one of them. It was the recommendation for the Medal of Honor, to be awarded posthumously to Private Rodger Young. In the recommendation he included the sentence, "Disregarding the orders of his platoon leader to come back, Rodger Young moved forward into the face of enemy fire."
The commander of the 148th Regiment reviewed the recommendation, and approved it with one minor change. He altered the previous sentence to say, "Not hearing the orders of his platoon leader to come back, Rodger Young moved forward into the face of enemy fire."
No one in his regiment disobeyed orders.
http://www.homeofheroes.com/profiles/profiles_young.html
Good morning
February 17, 2005
A man arrested for the murder of a 12-year-old girl was also suspected of other killings. When police searched his computer, they found a file labeled "My Sins," but it couldn't be opened because it was protected with a password. A computer expert went to work using software to break the code. After 16 hours and billions of combinations, he found this password: "Godhelp." The file detailed six brutal crimes, including rape and murder.
I wonder if that man had created the file and its unique password because of the overwhelming burden of guilt for what he had done. Perhaps he knew that only God could help him deal with the enormity of his crimes.
We all have past sins that weigh us down. We may feel as David did when he wrote that God's hand was heavy upon him day and night and that his "vitality was turned into the drought of summer" (Psalm 32:4). Yet relief can come. David said, "I acknowledged my sin to You . . . . I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,' and You forgave the iniquity of my sin" (v.5).
The miracle of God's forgiveness does not remove the consequences of our sins. But when we confess our sins to Him, He will forgive us and cleanse us (1 John 1:9). His mercy and help are sure. -David McCasland
When God forgives, He removes the sin and restores the sinner.
Morning Snippy.
Good morning, Snippy and everyone at the Foxhole.
