How Great Thou Art

The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.
Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight.

The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.
My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.

The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear.
Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know, Then the
sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.
My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near.

Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.
A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.

"What are you doing?" I asked without fear,
"Come in this moment, it's freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!"
For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts…

To the window that danced with a warm fire's light
Then he sighed and he said, "Its really all right,
I'm out here by choice. I'm here every night.
"It's my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.

No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I'm proud to stand here like my fathers before me.
My Gramps died at 'Pearl on a day in December,"
Then he sighed, "That's a Christmas 'Gram always remembers."
My dad stood his watch in the jungles of 'Nam',
And now it is my turn and so, here I am.
I've not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he's sure got her smile.”
Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red, white, and blue... an American flag.
“I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home.

I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.
I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother..
Who stand at the front against any and all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall."

"So go back inside," he said, "harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I'll be all right."
"But isn't there something I can do, at the least,
"Give you money," I asked, "or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you've done,
For being away from your wife and your son."

Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
"Just tell us you love us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled.
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us."

PLEASE, would you do me the kind favor of sending this to as many
people as you can? Christmas will be coming soon and some credit is due to our U.S service men and women for our being able to celebrate these
festivities. Let's try in this small way to pay a tiny bit of what we owe. Make people stop and think of our heroes, living and dead, who sacrificed themselves for us.

LCDR Jeff Giles, SC, USN
30th Naval Construction Regiment
OIC, Logistics Cell One
Al Taqqadum, Iraq

Destroy The Fed - Destroy, Destroy, Destroy - (Hey Sue, you should study up on this so you won't make anymore ridiculous comments.)

...also note the comment about the New World Order. It's important Sue...your buddy Clinton is one of it's leaders.

Happy Thanksgiving

Sometimes we search for all the right and meaningful words...and sometimes a good friend just happens to read your mind. Thank you Ron for being you...and along with all that you are thankful for, I am too...thankful for all my friends, just like you. - Norm




The following was sent by a good friend.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I have so much to be thankful for. My family is well. I'm blessed with wonderful friends. I was born in America. I have a wonderful wife, and intelligent, well-behaved children. I have food, water, shelter, transportation, a job, and so much more. I am truly blessed beyond anything I deserve. I am a living example of GOD's mercy and grace on one of his children. Stumbling through life as a young man, making some mistakes along the way, it was hard to see what life was all about. Coming from two alcoholic parents who fought continuously, I had know idea what a family was. I eventually learned what a family is, and what love really is when I met my wife Shelia, and we had our children. My wife's family was just that, a family. There is a real love in their family. GOD has aloud me to be a part of that family. Why, I do not know. I can only thank him for the many blessing He had allowed in my life.
I am a living example of GOD's grace and mercy.

Please be thankful for your blessings. They may be everywhere, and you don't even see them.
Ron

But Most Of All, I Remember Sarah

It was the first time in my adult life that I could say, "I was not proud of my country."
...and that's sad. Even so called friends and relatives were so naive and mesmerized by the false prophet...
The prophet of socialism would be true, for as it was in the beginning, Obama declared his intentions with every utterance of his forked-tongue driven mouth. And they were all blinded by their own ignorance; following their leader to the sea of death as surely as lemmings do.
This too, was the first time in the history of our once great country that the majority of voters were outwardly ignorant and racist. For no matter what the excuse they never had any knowledge about the ideology of the man, but they all knew the tone of his exterior. ...and that's sad.

And sad it was, when all the time there was an alternative to the pied piper. Lady Liberty otherwise known as Sarah...

Sarah, better than Obama a million to one!

Bail Out !!! My butt !!!

Commentary
It's Not an Auto Bailout, It's a Union Payoff
Democratic leaders, media push for more cash to help liberal voting bloc.

By Dan Gainor
The Boone Pickens Free Market Fellow
Business & Media Institute
11/19/2008 8:54:16 AM

When America battled for economic supremacy against Taiwan, Japan, Germany and others, many of us adopted a patriotic battle cry. “Buy American!” we exclaimed and many of us did.

In 2008 we are still buying American, but that phrase has taken on a whole new meaning. We don’t just buy TVs, or soap or cars from U.S. companies. We now buy the companies themselves. And the many of our so-called “leaders” in Washington want us to buy even more.

Bailout fever has become a full-fledged epidemic inside Washington and the list of bailouts is still growing. Now the Big Three automakers – Ford, GM and Chrysler – and their congressional allies are lobbying for $25 or $50 billion or more from the government.

Only it has little to do with saving Detroit and a lot to do with helping out the Democratic Party’s political machine. The chief recipient of this deal isn’t the companies, it’s the union. A bailout of Detroit would secure that the Big Three continue to fail and pay exorbitant sums to thousands of union workers.

The Los Angeles Times says unions funded the Democratic victory to the tune of more than $80 million just this election. The San Francisco Chronicle puts the number a bit higher – $450 million. Either way, they want their payback. They already have two things in mind – eliminating secret ballots in union elections and saving their 139,000 brothers and sisters in the United Auto Workers.

The New York Times quoted Gary N. Chaison, professor of labor relations at Clark University, saying without a bailout the union will “be a shadow of what it was 50 years ago.” “The future of the U.A.W. will be determined over the next two weeks,” he explained in a Nov. 17 story.

Labor knows it doesn’t have to budge. The Nov. 17 Financial Times made that clear. “The US United Auto Workers (UAW) union has ruled out concessions – at least for the time being – to help rescue the ailing Detroit-based car industry.”

That refusal should be front and center in the news, but it’s not. This week, we can expect more pro-bailout coverage from a news media that thinks government should run all private industries except the media. Watch the spin as auto executives and their temporary union allies are coming to Washington to beg for more of our cash.

It’s certainly not new. Watching the news, you’d wonder why anyone opposes it. CNBC’s money madman Jim Cramer keeps warning viewers that the loss of GM will cause a market “meltdown.” “Well you know we would have closed GM and have 10 percent unemployment – then really have some fun,” Cramer said in his Nov. 11 “Stop Trading” segment on CNBC’s “Street Signs.”

The reason for Cramer’s rant: He says he wants to prevent Great Depression II. Not a downturn, mind you, but another Great Depression.

Other stories have basically taken the attitude of everything else got bailed out, why not the auto industry? ABC’s “World News with Charles Gibson” on Nov. 11 even listed other troubled industries to pose the same question. “If we’re bailing out autos, why not U.S. steel companies, airlines or newspapers?” asked ABC correspondent Chris Bury. And one Detroit Free Press columnist complained that the industry is being forced to fail and that he “never knew Detroit was a dirty word.”

In a front-page list of eight recommendations to the president-elect, even the financial weekly Barron’s seemed to reflect the media mindset. It urged the president to “invest $25 billion each in GM and Ford.” But the kicker was the publication said Obama should “demand concessions from labor, management and shareholders.”

Labor give concessions with their candidate taking over in Washington? Never!

At least Republicans are raising the points the media is missing. "Just giving them $25 billion doesn't change anything," Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Senate's second-ranking Republican, said on Fox News Sunday. "It just puts off for six months or so the day of reckoning."

Kyl is right. There is no guarantee even $50 billion will do anything. It’s an unfortunate reality, but companies fail. Some times you can blame bad management, other times intractable labor. In this case, you can blame both as well as products that are inferior to their competition at Honda and Toyota.

Still we’ll be urged by the Democratic leadership and the media to “buy American.” What they really want us to buy is a bill of goods. Ordinary car shoppers make that decision every day and when they buy a car, they no longer buy what Detroit’s selling. Now they’re supposed to buy the same line from Hill Democrats?

I don’t buy it.