Thread: Go crazy in here!!!

Hey Tiff! Been missing ya! Hope your party over the weekend was great! You know I want all the details!

SOOOOOO Much FUN Choochie!!!

I have to figure out how to crop my husband out of the pictures...then I'll post one...he'd have a FIT if he saw himself online! lol! An "Absolut" riot! My costume said "Saucy Pirate"...but you could call me a "Sauced Pirate"! Hey....once a year won't kill me, right? lol! I told the husband that if I could spread out my madness over a few times throughout the year, then perhaps I could be a tad more controllable .....(lol! Who am I KIDDING!!! ) At one point they ran out of Coke and 7-up at the bar so we were drinking Bacardi on ice.....a girls gotta do what a girls gotta DO!

Sounds like you had a blast! I thought about you, while I was at bowling Saturday night, and got pretty sauced myself. Bowled the best ever! We were doing shots, and I thought, I wonder what kind of shots Tiff will be doing? Not really! But, I did toast to ya a couple of times. Everyone kept looking at me like I was nuts. I just told them that you were a friend of mine, and we were partying together! Glad you had a good time!

Thank God the bowling alley bar didn't run out of pop! I don't think I could have done Bacardi on ice!

Emailed you......

Didn't want to post this in the news section so I thought I'd post it here for anyone who would like to read it.

A horrifying story from Iraq: 14 Year Old Assyrian Boy Decapitated By Muslim Group.

lgf: 14-Year Old Boy Decapitated by Islamic Terrorists

Such EVIL EVIL people (if you can call them that...more like demons wearing clothes! )

Tears!
(no Cheers! this time)
DayDream

I just got off the phone with B of A. The first person I talked to (George) said that my question on the Dinar trading on the 13th was the second call he had today regarding that same question. He transferred me to the Foreign currency dept and I spoke with Trish. She stated that they do not give official notice of future currency transactions. But she did state that she heard a rumor in the break room that they would be dealing in it soon and there have been several calls today.

Just thought I would add.

OSOK

Originally Posted by OneShotOneKill

I just got off the phone with B of A. The first person I talked to (George) said that my question on the Dinar trading on the 13th was the second call he had today regarding that same question. He transferred me to the Foreign currency dept and I spoke with Trish. She stated that they do not give official notice of future currency transactions. But she did state that she heard a rumor in the break room that they would be dealing in it soon and there have been several calls today.

Just thought I would add.

OSOK

Interesting story worth sharing given the fact so many of the forces are the same young age fighting in Iraq.



Tale of Six Boys

Each year I am hired to go to Washington, DC, with the eighth grade class from Clinton, WI. where I grew up, to videotape their trip. I greatly enjoy visiting our nation's capitol, and each year I take some special memories back with me. This fall's trip was especially memorable.

On the last night of our trip, we stopped at the Iwo Jima memorial. This memorial is the largest bronze statue in the world and depicts one of the most famous photographs in history -- that of the six brave soldiers raising the American Flag at the top of a rocky hill on the island of Iwo Jima, Japan, during WW II.

Over one hundred students and chaperones piled off the buses and headed towards the memorial. I noticed a solitary figure at the base of the statue, and as I got closer he asked, "Where are you guys from?"

I told him that we were from Wisconsin. "Hey, I'm a cheese head, too! Come gather around, Cheese heads, and I will tell you a story."

(James Bradley just happened to be in Washington, DC,to speak at the memorial the following day. He was there that night to say good night to his dad, who has since passed away. He was just about to leave when he saw the buses pull up. I videotaped him as he spoke to us, and received his permission to share what he said from my videotape. It is one thing to tour the incredible monuments filled with history in Washington, D.C., but it is quite another to get the kind of insight we received that night.) When all had gathered around, he reverently began to speak. (Here are his words that night.)

"My name is James Bradley and I'm from Antigo,Wisconsin. My dad is on that statue, and I just wrote a book called "Flags of Our Fathers" which is #5 on the New York Times Best Seller list right now. It is the story of the six boys you see behind me.

"Six boys raised the flag. The first guy putting the pole in the ground is Harlon Block. Harlon was an all-state football player. He enlisted in the Marine Corps with all the senior members of his football team. They were off to play another type of game. A game called "War." But it didn't turn out to be a game.

Harlon, at the age of 21, died with his intestines in his hands. I don't say that to gross you out, I say that because there are people who stand in front of this statue and talk about the glory of war. You guys need to know that most of the boys in Iwo Jima were 17, 18, and 19 years old.

(He pointed to the statue) "You see this next guy? That's Rene Gagnon from New Hampshire. If you took Rene's helmet off at the moment this photo was taken and looked in the webbing of that helmet, you would find a photograph...a photograph of his girlfriend. Rene put that in there for protection because he was scared. He was 18 years old. Boys won the battle of Iwo Jima. Boys. Not old men

"The next guy here, the third guy in this tableau, was Sergeant Mike Strank. Mike is my hero. He was the hero of all these guys. They called him the "old man" because he was so old. He was already 24. When Mike would motivate his boys in training camp, he didn't say, 'Let's go kill some Japanese' or 'Let's die for our country.' He knew he was talking to little boys. Instead he would say, 'You do what I say, and I'll get you home to your mothers.'

"The last guy on this side of the statue is Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from Arizona. Ira Hayes walked off Iwo Jima. He went into the White House with my dad. President Truman told him, 'You're a hero' He told reporters, 'How can I feel like a hero when 250 of my buddies hit the island with me and only 27 of us walked off alive?' So you take your class at school, 250 of you spending a year together having fun, doing everything together. Then all 250 of you hit the beach, but only 27 of your classmates walk off alive. That was Ira Hayes. He had images of horror in his mind. Ira Hayes died dead drunk, face down at the age of 32 .. ten years after this picture was taken.

"The next guy, going around the statue, is Franklin Sousley from Hilltop, Kentucky. A fun-lovin' hillbilly boy. His best friend, who is now 70, told me, 'Yeah, you know,we took two cows up on the porch of the Hilltop General Store. Then we strung wire across the stairs so the cows couldn't get down. Then we fed them Epsom salts. Those cows crapped all night. Yes, he was a fun-lovin' hillbilly boy. Franklin died on Iwo Jima at the age of 19. When the telegram came to tell his mother that he was dead, it went to the Hilltop General Store. A barefoot boy ran that telegram up to his mother's farm. The neighbors could hear her scream all night and into the morning. The neighbors lived a quarter of a mile away.

"The next guy, as we continue to go around the statue, is my dad, John Bradley from Antigo, Wisconsin, where I was raised.. My dad lived until 1994, but he would never give interviews. When Walter Cronkite's producers, or the New York Times would call, we were trained as little kids to say,"No, I'm sorry, sir, my dad's not here. He is in Canada fishing. No, there is no phone there, sir. No, we don't know when he is coming back." My dad never fished or even
went to Canada. Usually, he was sitting there right at the table eating his Campbell's soup. But we had to tell the press that he was out fishing. He didn't want to talk to the press.

"You see, my dad didn't see himself as a hero Everyone thinks these guys are heroes, 'cause they are in a photo and on a monument. My dad knew better. He was a medic. John Bradley from Wisconsin was a caregiver. In Iwo Jima he probably held over 200 boys as they died. And when boys died in Iwo Jima, they writhed and screamed in pain.

"When I was a little boy, my third grade teacher told me that my dad was a hero. When I went home and told my dad that, he looked at me and said, 'I want you always to remember that the heroes of Iwo Jima are the guys who did not come back. Did NOT come back.'"

"So that's the story about six nice young boys. Three died on Iwo Jima, and three came back as national heroes. Overall, 7,000 boys died on Iwo Jima in the worst battle in the history of the Marine Corps. My voice is giving out, so I will end here. Thank you for your time."

Suddenly, the monument wasn't just a big old piece of metal with a flag sticking out of the top. It came to life before our eyes with the heartfelt words of a son who did indeed have a father who was a hero. Maybe not a hero for the reasons most people would believe, but a hero nonetheless.


We need to remember that God created this vast and glorious world for us to live in, freely, but also at great sacrifice. Let us never forget from the Revolutionary War to the current War on Terrorism and all the wars in-between that sacrifice was made for our freedom. Remember to pray praises for this great country of ours and also pray for those still in murderous unrest around the world. STOP and thank God for being alive and being free at someone else's
sacrifice.

REMINDER: Everyday that you can wake up free is a blessing.

Don't know how many have been to Washington D.C. to visit some of these monuments, but I have been there first hand. I would have to say that the Iwo Jima memorial and the Vietnam memorial have some of the most awesome energy. You can just feel it when you are there.

Originally Posted by choochie

Don't know how many have been to Washington D.C. to visit some of these monuments, but I have been there first hand. I would have to say that the Iwo Jima memorial and the Vietnam memorial have some of the most awesome energy. You can just feel it when you are there.

I've been to D.C. twice in the last 8 months, and I have to agree with you about the monuments. Although the Vietnam Memorial was very moving, I thought the new Korean and WWII Memorials were just as powerful.

I felt serious energy in the Lincoln Memorial. To stand there and look at the massive statue of such an incredible President and leader, and to gaze upon the enscribed walls that surrounded him, and reflect on some of the most powerful speeches ever written , made me feel like I was actually there experiencing the man himself breathing life into a new United States of America. Then to come out of his chamber, and stand in the very place that Martin Luther King Jr. presented his "I have a Dream" speech, overlooking the reflecting pool and onto the Washington Memorial, was the pinnacle to the experience.