Finally, it's over! Faithful Warrior is complete at 21 episodes.
Three months of recording around the schedule of a full time job, 3 kids, wife, youth group, and rewriting another novel and finally..WHAMO! It's done!
Give it a listen and let me know what you think!
Special Thanks to Jackie L. for her suggestions on the draft manuscript, great advice from across the globe. Merci!
OK.
So you were once fit but the years the have crept up on you.
You want to take off some weight, get back in some decent kind of shape and keep that ticker ticking but the knees can't do anymore 2 mile runs. For that matter the knees can barely make up a flight of stairs without the face wincing in pain several times.
Although the knees can't make it up the stairs, you're not ready to get into the water with a bunch of grandma's doing slo-mo water aerobics to the cadence of a 40-something former prep-school drill instructor who shouts "Lift that Butt! Come-on! Yeah!" .
Here's the manly solution for your fitness woes. Pool running.
I'm one of those 40ish guys who played hard while young and whose knees are getting worse with time to the point that running has become a probably thing of the past unless I can shed a good bit of weight. The path I recently remembered from a long time ago in the military was to run laps in the pool.
As long as the pool water isn't over your head you can run laps back and forth instead of swimming and may be astonished at the work out you'll get. If you do it, make sure you run against the water, don't just walk or float, push your body against the water as if it were an obstacle and you'll find it quite a workout.
Warning...use caution...it's harder than it looks.
233 years of Combat Excellence
Keep up the good work
Teufelhundes!
SEMPER FIDELIS
Well one major good thing about the outcome last night is that the Dems didn't win a super majority in the Congress. Therefore sweeping change won't be too swift and crazy wild. And, I believe that if the new president tries to push too many radical agenda items and fails to regulate the economy and finish the war as promised, or God forbid, we get attacked again, things will happen as they did two years into the Clinton presidency and the Republicans will retake the house and senate and effectively keep the president in check.
Obama seems like a nice guy, let's pray that he is a wise man as well. The One who empowers men to positions of importance knows what He's doing, let's pray for wisdom to make the right choices ourselves as we work with our newly chosen leaders.
On Nov. 15, 2003, an 85-year-old retired Marine Corps colonel died of congestive heart failure at his home in La Quinta, California, southeast of Palm Springs.
He was a combat veteran of World War II. Reason enough to honor him. But this Marine was a little different. His name was Mitchell Paige.
It?s hard today to envision, or for a fast dwindling few, to remember what the world looked like on 26 Oct 1942.
The U.S. Navy was not the most powerful fighting force in the Pacific. Not by a long shot. So the Navy basically dumped a few thousand American Marines on a lonely beach at Guadalcanal and, after losing several destroyers, high-tailed it out of there.
On Guadalcanal the Marines pressed forward and took the islands airfield. As they struggled to complete the repairs needed to land aircraft there prepared a massive counter attack.
Japanese Admiral Yamamoto knew that if the Marines kept that airfield they would endanger his ships in their advance towards Australia. No effort would be spared to dislodge the Marines. Relentless Japanese counterattacks had driven supporting U.S Navy from inshore waters.
The Marines were on their own.
As Platoon Sgt. Mitchell Paige and his 33 riflemen set about carefully emplacing their four water-cooled .30-caliber Brownings, manning their section of the thin khaki line which was expected to defend Henderson Field against the assault of the night of 25 Oct 1942, it?s unlikely anyone thought they were about to provide the definitive answer to that most desperate of questions:
How many U.S. Marines does it take to hold a hill against 2,000 desperate and motivated attackers?
Nor did the commanders of the mighty Japanese Army, who had swept every nation in their path before them for decades, expect their advance to be halted on some jungle ridge manned by one thin line of Yanks in khaki in October of 1942
The Japanese focused their attack on the hill manned by Paige and his platoon. Among the 90 American dead and seriously wounded that night were all the men in Mitchell Paige?s platoon; every one. As the night of endless attacks wore on, Paige moved up and down his line, pulling his dead and wounded comrades back into their foxholes and firing a few bursts from each of the four Brownings in turn, convincing the Japanese forces down the hill that the positions were still manned.
The citation for Paige?s Congressional Medal of Honor picks up the tale:
"When the enemy broke through the line directly in front of his position, P/Sgt. Paige, commanding a machinegun section with fearless determination, continued to direct the fire of his gunners until all his men were either killed or wounded. Alone, against the deadly hail of Japanese shells, he fought with his gun and when it was destroyed, took over another, moving from gun to gun, never ceasing his withering fire.?
In the end, Sgt. Paige picked up the last of the 40-pound, belt-fed Brownings?the same design which John Moses Browning famously fired for a continuous 25 minutes until it ran out of ammunition, glowing cherry red, at its first U.S. Army trial?and did something for which the weapon was never designed. Sgt. Paige walked down the hill toward the place where he could hear the last Japanese survivors rallying to move around his flank, the belt-fed gun cradled under his arm, firing as he went.
The weapon did not fail.
Coming up at dawn, battalion executive officer Major Odell M. Conoley was first to discover the answer to our question: How many able-bodied Marines does it take to hold a hill against two regiments of motivated, combat-hardened infantrymen who have never known defeat?
On a hill where the bodies were piled like cordwood, Mitchell Paige alone sat upright behind his 30-caliber Browning, waiting to see what the dawn would bring.
By the time the night was over there were nearly a thousand enemy soldiers dead or wounded.
Thereby answering the above question.
One hill: one Marine.
Years later the Hasbro Toy Company telephoned then retired Colonel Mitchell Paige asking permission to put the retired Colonel?s face on some kid?s doll.
Mitchell Paige had thought they must be joking.
But they weren?t.
His face became an icon for a generation of boys destined for the military.
They saw it on their dressers, on the living room floor and crawling through their backyards every time they looked at the little warrior they called ?G.I. Joe.?
And you probably thought that was an ARMY Doll....!!!
What a person reads speaks volumes about their personality and style. While I am not sure what books the candidates do read I believe them both to be readers of literary works versus commercial fiction. There's a good chance neither reads much horror. I also have a feeling that I will probably not get famous via them as I am sure neither reads too many thrillers (like Reagan with Clancy).
Obama doesn't seem like the type who would read a thriller, and most people like McCain who have been through a traumatic experience in war or violence don't get into books that replay their nightmares.
While I don't know for certain what they read today I would guess that both read comic books as kids/teens. Most likely BObama's Muslim parents didn't allow comics, but if they did, those are my guess.
Obama = Green Lantern, Spiderman, maybe Incredible Hulk
McCain = Batman, Fantastic Four, Daredevil
What do you think?
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