Posted on 08/23/2004 4:44:37 AM PDT by The Mayor
Read: 1 Corinthians 9:19-27
I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified. —1 Corinthians 9:27
Bible In One Year: Psalms 113-115; 1 Corinthians 6
Eighty years ago, Eric Liddell electrified the world by capturing an Olympic gold medal in the 400 meters—a race he was not expected to win. Liddell was the favorite at 100 meters, but he had withdrawn from that race after learning the qualifying heats would be on Sunday, a day he observed as one of worship and rest. Instead of lamenting his lost chance in the 100, he spent the next 6 months training for the 400—and set a new Olympic record.
Paul used a sports metaphor to emphasize the Christian's need for spiritual discipline. "Everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things" (1 Corinthians 9:25), that is, goes into strict training. "Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown." Paul longed to remain faithful to Christ because he wanted to bring the message of salvation to others (vv.19,27).
Throughout Liddell's life, he disciplined himself spiritually each day by spending time in God's Word and in prayer. He remained faithful until he died of a brain tumor in a Japanese internment camp during World War II.
Strengthened by the grace and power of God, Eric Liddell ran well and finished strong in the race of life. And so can we. —David McCasland
HI NIKKI!
This is Pippin, reporting for duty! Saluting all veterans ans active military. (If civilians are permitted to)
I know I'm not on much but I've been busy and when I'm not I'm usually on the DITLOPB thread.
But I'm "cooking" up something to post on FR, I can't make up my mind weather to post is on this or any other thread or put it up on the blogger page as a separate thread.
Well, Yall have a blessed day!
THANKS TO THE MILITARY BOTH ACTIVE AND VETERAN.
Good morning FInest, I'm still computerless. Thank goodness for the library.
Mon, Aug. 23, 2004
A deadly trap in the streets of Ramadi
By David SwansonJoseph L. Galloway
Knight Ridder News Service
RAMADI, Iraq - The Marines of Echo Company jumped from their trucks into Ramadi's narrow streets and alleys and ran toward the sound of the guns.
They followed their commander, Capt. Kelly D. Royer, through palm trees and warrens of cinder-block buildings.
One of Echo's sniper teams had come under fire, and Royer's "quick-reaction force" was on its way to reinforce the pinned-down Marines.
Before they'd gone far, headquarters called on the radio. The snipers had repulsed the attackers. But now Echo Company's 1st Platoon, which had been sent out earlier to clear the main supply route through Ramadi, was taking fire.
Royer radioed 2nd Lt. John Wroblewski. As Royer's team moved on foot, "Lieutenant Ski," as his men called him, was leading a second Echo quick-reaction force in Humvees through the chaotic streets of Ramadi.
Pick us up at the intersection at the marketplace, Royer told Wroblewski.
The day before, Wroblewski had told his men to be alert. Something's not right, he said. In this neighborhood, the residents didn't wave and the children didn't flock to the Marines, as they did in other parts of the city.
They only stared.
Although neither Royer nor Wroblewski knew it, earlier that morning, April 6, Iraqi and foreign fighters had slipped through the marketplace, telling shopkeepers to close their stores and kiosks and issuing a warning:
"Today, we are going to kill Americans."
If the Iraqi insurgency has a center of gravity, Ramadi -- a bastion of Saddam Hussein's military and intelligence services -- probably is it. The city sits astride the main road from Baghdad to Jordan, and the insurgents in Ramadi were far better organized and far better schooled in guerrilla warfare than the Marines originally realized.
Gunfire rattled to the east, where Royer's force had been moments earlier. Marines appeared to be under attack everywhere.
Royer and his men started running to reinforce their comrades in the 1st Platoon.
Two Marines from the 1st Platoon, Pfc. Benjamin Carman, 20, of Jefferson, Iowa, and Lance Cpl. Marcus Cherry, 18, of Imperial, Calif., were already dead.
Back home in Iowa, Carman's exploits were legendary.
His high school coach said he was "one of the hardest-working football players I've ever had."
Five large tires lie in a field near Jefferson-Scranton High School. Four are for tractors; the fifth and largest is for a combine. It's 5 feet tall and weighs 80 pounds. As part of their daily workout, the football players had to flip each tire 10 times.
Medium-sized Ben Carman ran straight to the big tire every day. He flipped it 12 times.
Like Carman, Marcus Cherry had wanted to be a Marine. But he had to practice that Marine Corps stare. He would stand in front of a mirror at home, jaw forward, eyes hard, and hold it as long as he could before his trademark grin gave him away.
In a letter home from boot camp, Cherry wrote: "I knew, Mom, the Marine Corps was the best decision for my life at the time I joined. It's a fast way to grow up, but I was made for it."
As Royer and his men raced to help the 1st Platoon, Wroblewski rolled past with his convoy. Royer radioed Wroblewski again: Stop and pick us up.
"Roger, Six," Wroblewski responded, using the military term for "commanding officer."
Royer and his men heard Wroblewski's Humvees and trucks slow as they approached the marketplace.
Then, they heard the staccato sound of AK-47 rifle fire, the deeper growl of a machine gun and the thuds of rocket-propelled grenades.
Like Cherry, Wroblewski was where he'd always wanted to be: leading Marines in combat. He'd even named his Alaskan malamute pup Semper, after the Marine Corps motto, Semper Fidelis ("Always faithful").
Six-foot-two, with piercing blue eyes and a linebacker's build, Wroblewski, 25, was a natural leader, popular with his men and respected by other officers. Royer called him "one of my best."
The day before the firefight, "J.T." had talked about home as he led a 10-mile foot patrol through Ramadi. He talked about fishing, about the Marines, about his wife, Joanna.
He grew up in Morris County in northern New Jersey, where he was a high school football and baseball standout, and he graduated from Rutgers University before he joined the Marines in 2002.
Wroblewski had caught Joanna's eye at the County College of Morris in Randolph, N.J.
"Wow, that guy's hot," she thought. He was also shy. "I had to ask him out," she said. They were married in July 2003.
He had been at home with her in Oceanside, Calif., on Valentine's Day when he got his orders to Iraq. She was making waffles with strawberries for breakfast when the call came. He had to leave the next day.
His last phone conversation with her had been April 3. Instead of signing off as usual by saying, "I'll see you soon," he'd told her, "I'll always be with you."
In the Ramadi marketplace, on all sides of the intersection, Iraqi fighters with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenade launchers had taken positions on the roofs of the one-story buildings.
A heavy .50-caliber Russian-made machine gun was on one corner rooftop, where the gunner could sweep the street. Other fighters were hidden behind trees just beyond the market stalls.
In all, about 50 well-armed insurgents were waiting for Wroblewski and his Marines.
Editor's note: The Marine force in the central Iraqi town of Ramadi, the 2nd Battalion of the 4th Marines, has had the highest casualty rate of any U.S. battalion since the war began. This is the story of Echo Company, which has lost 22 of its 185 men, more than any other Marine or Army company.
REMEMBERING THE MEN OF ECHO COMPANY
Lance Cpl. Marcus Cherry, 18
Hometown: Imperial, Calif.
Died: April 6, 2004 in Ramadi, Iraq
In a letter to Cherry's mother after his death, one of his superiors described him as a "fast-burner" who could have risen in the ranks. 2nd Lt. V.S. Valdes praised his dedication and more.
"Whenever we would run platoon or squad PT (physical training), he would get out to the side of the formation and just sing. His singing was beautiful, and it motivated those Marines in the formation to step a little smarter and to hold their heads just a little higher," Valdes wrote. "He never complained, did things at one hundred percent and always had an infectious smile on his face."
Pfc. Ben Carman, 20
Hometown: Jefferson, Iowa
Died: April 6, 2004 in Ramadi, Iraq
Marie Carman remembers the day in December 2002 when she and her husband watched their son graduate from boot camp. When Carman saw him in the sea of dress blues that California day, she whistled her ear-piercing whistle, the one that brings the horses around from the pasture. The one she used to call her children when they were little. Ben looked up into the crowd and smiled. His mother smiled as she remembered, then the tears came.
"What he could have been ... what he would have been, you just don't know."
2nd Lt. John Wroblewski, 25
Hometown: Parsippany, N.J.
Died: April 7, 2004 in a helicopter over Iraq
Mike Wroblewski remembers when his big brother called last winter and told them he'd be leaving for the Persian Gulf in 24 hours, heading to Ramadi, Iraq.
"It's real American-friendly," John Wroblewski told his brother, who was crying on the other end of the line. "Don't worry. Don't worry about it, Mike. Everything's going to be fine."
WWW.STAR-TELEGRAM.COM
Experience a multimedia presentation including photographs, profiles of the dead Marines and interviews with the reporters and photographers.
Good morning, everyone. Hope everyone is well this fine Monday morning. Good scripture, Mayor.
I hope you get back on line soon!
Good Day to you!
Me too, FReeping only 1 hour a day is the PITS! And NO email makes it worse.
I just cleaned out my 55 emails..
http://www.rusthompson.com/index.html
look what I did this weekend!
Sorry if this has been posted already. It was sent to me today.
What a wonderful story about a remarkable young lady you have given us, and I cannot tell you how profoundly I appreciate it.
Just when the Swift Boat Vets have dredged up the treasonous conduct of Kerry after the war, and my own memories of related things, you have her breezing across our landscape strewing hope - - thank you.
Watching Bob Dole say Kerry owes us all an apology for what he did, smearing hundreds of thousands of good and decent men with a common tar brush, labeling them war criminals, sent me through the roof, wholeheartedly agreeing.
My husband was one of them, and I knew why he was there (then in the Air Force, as a forerunner of their Special Ops) and what he did personally for a year, alleviating misery and terror inflicted upon the the villagers around his base by communist forces.
As for Kerry's three Purple Hearts for paltry scratches, every man who was hurt in battle should be deeply offended.
There were many thousands who shrugged off wounds and never made mention of them - others with worse ones who never had them written up.
I happen to live with a man who in Korea as a Marine, going up the spine of the country on foot, night after night survived small units of them overrun by thousands of drugged up Chinese combatants.
In one of those, he played 'dead' in the frozen winter mud while they bayoneted him three times in the side. The scars are there still.
The Chinese quickly moved on, ill-equipped with WW II fire power and starving, and he sucked it up and the few remaining Marines simply went on. Who would be able to stop and write up such things on the move?!! They were fortunate to have even archaic radios to transmit information, before the electronic age.
They had few corpsmen, and helped patch up one another, and shoved pain and the memory deep down where it ceased to hurt... without enough chopper support to evacuate other than the fully incapacitated, they reverted to being MARINES...
Did you ever stop to think why so many men in WWII and Korea do not and will not talk openly of their experiences?
(He did not speak of Korea for 20 years, and then only to me for a long while.)
And Vietnam veterans and Desert Storm and the present campaigns?
Only self-obsessed types stick their thumb in their vest and brag - - and even the actual heroes who speak of themselves are regarded by Their Own as wrong.
I can tell you that is the reason why McCain lost to Bush in South Carolina, confident coming in he had the heavy veteran population here in the bag.
The turning point was in the debate with Bush where McCAIN spoke of his P.O.W. status!
Among the military, it is an unwritten code that only OTHERS should speak of such heroism, and it was deeply resented that he **used** it for political gain.
We veterans and Southerners saw that, and handed George Bush his first win on the road to the White House!
Thank and hug as many veterans as you can, and pray not only them, but for all those out there taking 'their turn' - - -
Afternoon!
And that's pretty accurate.
The DrillSars I had in Basic and AIT refused to talk much about what war was like/ what they had experienced and seen.
My DrillSars had been in Desert Storm. Even though it wasn't horrific as wars go, from what little I understand, they didn't speak much about it.
What little I did pick out of one of my DrillSars was that the people he saw looked absolutely miserable, yet looked relieved to see our troops.
That was the sum and extent of what I got my one DrillSar to say.
Thank you, Your Honor, for your daily devotionals, and for profiling Nikki today! :)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.