Free Republic

Photos by Plea Deal and [Mrs] Trooprally Washington, November 17, 2006-- There is a faraway, yet penetrating look in the eyes of parents who have buried a child, no matter how well they have gotten on with their lives, no matter how much they are doing to honor their hero. It is a look that says, "Nothing is worth getting worked up about. Can you not see that small matters are insignificant? I am here, but part of me is here no longer; I live to honor that part." This 83rd week of the DC Chapter's Friday night troop-support rally...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 23, 2006 - Jim Mayer is “lovin’ it.” Yesterday, with Ronald McDonald on hand, a Washington-area McDonald’s restaurant honored the “Milkshake Man,” as Mayer is better known, for providing injured servicemembers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center here with their shakes and his support for more than 16 years. “It means the world to me. I’m just tickled,” Mayer, who delivers an average of 45 shakes a week -- mostly chocolate -- and has dropped only two, said. “The first 16 years are the hardest, and then you get a day like this.” David DeLacy, director of operations...

Corporate Hillton Apparatchiks have given credence to the old adage, “No good deed goes unpunished” by their not renewing Fran O’Brien’s renewable lease. Since October of 2003 Hal Koster, a two-tour Vietnam veteran and Jim Mayer, a combat injured Vietnam veteran and long time advocate for veterans and a small group of volunteers have been hosting a dinner each and every Friday night for the severely injured patients of Walter Reed Army Medical Center's Ward 57 and severely injured sailors and Marines at Bethesda Naval Medical Center and their families. This was begun as part of a promise to insure...