OUR MILITARY.

February 2 marks the 114th anniversary of the inception of the Army Nurse Corps.
If you meet an Army nurse, tell them Happy Birthday!
 
VAN T. BARFOOT THANK YOU & RIP...... 
Van T. Barfoot died  Dec 17, 2014
...................................................
Remember the guy who wouldn't take
the flag pole down on his Virginia
property a while back?
You might remember the news story several
months ago about a crotchety old man in
Virginia who defied his local Homeowners
Association, and refused to take down the
flag pole on his property along with the large
American flag he flew on it.
Now we learn who that old man was.
On June 15, 1919, Van T. Barfoot was born in
Edinburg , Texas . That probably didn't make
news back then.

But twenty-five years later, on May 23,          1944,
near Carano , Italy , that same Van T. Barfoot,
who had in 1940 enlisted in the U.S. Army, set
out alone to flank German machine gun
positions from which gunfire was raining
down on his fellow soldiers.
His advance took him through a minefield but
having done so, he proceeded to single-handedly
take out three enemy machine gun positions,
returning with 17 prisoners of war.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ix-lSLEY2l0/VG5AzehzFxI/AAAAAAAAWx4/pcXyrRvyrrs/s1600/van1.jpg
And if that weren't enough for a day's work,  he later
took on and destroyed three German tanks
sent to retake the machine gun positions.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pIEZMB_O8bY/VG5A9N7pMhI/AAAAAAAAWyA/1438at4E1iQ/s1600/van2.jpg
That probably didn't make much news either,
given the scope of the war, but it did earn
Van T. Barfoot, who retired as a Colonel after
also serving in Korea and Vietnam , a well
deserved  Congressional Medal of Honor.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jn1BzMfwH5E/VG5BIF2PVmI/AAAAAAAAWyI/TiAEDRnOHMQ/s1600/van3.jpg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_UOXTdiTZfY/VG5BTRT-W_I/AAAAAAAAWyQ/9W7__5f4LjY/s1600/van4.jpg
What did make news...Was hisNeighborhood
Association's quibblewith how the 90-year-old
veteran chose to fly the American flag outside
his suburban Virginia home. Seems the HOA rules
said it was OK to fly a flag on a house-mounted
bracket, but, for decorum, items such as
Barfoot's 21-foot flagpole were "unsuitable".
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-D7VpjwqT3cU/VG5BkhA1NXI/AAAAAAAAWyY/aCxsMEQBw-g/s1600/van6.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vYCN6U7drsA/VG5BrQfY-bI/AAAAAAAAWyg/9hexE7NBmVc/s1600/van5.jpg
Van Barfoot had been denied a permit for
the pole, but erected it anyway and was facing
court action unless he agreed to take it down.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yKj9yx-_-EQ/VG5CLmmQSdI/AAAAAAAAWyo/2YLFwNvW1b8/s1600/van8.jpg
Then the HOA story made national TV,
and the Neighborhood Association rethought
its position and agreed to indulge this
aging hero who dwelt among them.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SzKKCNFF-sQ/VG5CWqwpZ0I/AAAAAAAAWyw/weKElA3ITUk/s1600/van9.jpg


"In the time I have left", he said to the
Associated Press, "I plan to continue
to fly the American flag without interference."

As well he should.

And if any of his neighbors had taken a notion to
contest him further, they might have done well to
read his Medal of Honor citation first. Seems it
indicates Mr. Van Barfoot wasn't particularly
good at backing down.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vBe5N9w9fyI/VG5CgOG3SnI/AAAAAAAAWy4/s4n4VhR24yA/s1600/van10.jpg
Van T. Barfoot's Medal of Honor citation:
This 1944 Medal of Honor citation, listed with the
National Medal of Honor Society,
is for Second Lieutenant Van T. Barfoot,
157th Infantry, 45th Infantry:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_6CaWge2vF8/VG5CwNkLprI/AAAAAAAAWzA/j96wNpp-Eag/s1600/van11.jpg


WE ONLY LIVE IN THE LAND OF THE FREE BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE! AND, BECAUSE OF  MEN LIKE VAN BARFOOT!
  LOVE LIFE AND ENJOY YOURSELF TODAY LIKE THERE WILL BE NO TOMORROW.
"IN GOD WE TRUST"




 
IN RECENT TIMES THE WORD "HERO" HAS BEEN USED A LOT....THE FOLLOWING POST AS WELL AS THE YOU TUBE VIDEO BELOW IT CHRONICLES A TRUE "HERO".....On Nov. 15, 2003, an 85-year-old retired Marine Corps Colonel died of congestive heart failure at his home in La Quinta, Calif., 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.

This Marine was Mitchell Paige. It's hard today to envision -- or, for the 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 Marines on the beach at Guadalcanal.

As Platoon Sgt. Mitchell Paige and his 33 riflemen set about carefully embracing their four water-cooled .30-caliber Browning machine guns, 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 able-bodied U.S. Marines does it take to hold a hill against 2,000 desperate and motivated Japanese attackers?
Nor did the commanders of the Japanese Army, who had swept everything before them for decades, expect their advance to be halted on some jungle ridge manned by one thin line of Marines in October of 1942.

But by the time the night was over, The Japanese 29th Infantry Regiment has lost 553 killed or missing and 479 wounded among its 2,554 men, historian David Lippman reports. The Japanese 16th Regiment's losses are uncounted, but the [US] 164th's burial parties handled 975 Japanese bodies. ... The American estimate of 2,200 Japanese dead is probably too low.

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 Browning's in turn, convincing the Japanese forces down the hill that the positions were still manned.

The citation for Paige's Medal of Honor Citation defines the event: "When the enemy broke through the line directly in front of his position, P/Sgt. Paige, commanding a machine gun 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 Browning's (the same design which John M. Browning fired for a continuous 25 minutes until it ran out of ammunition, glowing cherry red, at its first U.S. Army demonstration) 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. 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 Japanese 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.
One hill: one Marine.
But "In the early morning light, the enemy could be seen a few yards off, and vapor from the barrels of their machine guns was clearly visible," reports historian Lippman. "It was decided to try to rush the position."
For the task, Major Conoley gathered together "three enlisted communication personnel, several riflemen, a few company runners who were at the point, together with a cook and a few messmen who had brought food to the position the evening before."
Joined by Paige, this ad hoc force of 17 Marines counterattacked at 5:40 a.m., discovering that this extremely short range allowed the optimum use of grenades. They cleared the ridge.
And that's where the previously unstoppable wave of Japanese conquests finally broke and began to recede. On an unnamed jungle ridge on an insignificant island no one had ever heard of, called Guadalcanal
.
But who remembers, today, how close-run a thing it was, the ridge held by a single Marine, in the autumn of 1942?

Sometime after, when the Hasbro Toy Co. telephoned asking permission to put the retired Colonel's face on some kid's doll, Mitchell Paige thought they must be joking.
But they weren't.

That's his face on the little Marine they call "G.I. Joe."

Rick Conn, US Navy Seabee Ret

http://www.pbs.org/weta/americanvalor/stories/paige.html#

 
ANOTHER "STOLEN VALOR" POS.....6 MONTHS SUSPENSION ? ...FIRE HIS ASS (but it is the media so that won't happen)......QUOTE..NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams has been suspended for six months without pay following his false claims about an experience he had during the Iraq war, NBC News president Deborah Turness announced Tuesday night.

"We have decided today to suspend Brian Williams as Managing Editor and Anchor of NBC Nightly News for six months. The suspension will be without pay and is effective immediately," Turness wrote in a memo to staff. "We let Brian know of our decision earlier today. Lester Holt will continue to substitute Anchor the NBC Nightly News."

In addition to Williams' false claims about Iraq, Turness said she the Comcast/NBCUniversal brass had "concerns about comments that occurred outside NBC News while Brian was talking about his experiences in the field."

Steve Burke, the CEO of NBC Universal, said Williams' actions "are inexcusable and this suspension is severe and appropriate." However, Burke also said Williams "deserves a second chance and we are rooting for him."

The full memo from NBC News President Deborah Turness:

All,

We have decided today to suspend Brian Williams as Managing Editor and Anchor of NBC Nightly News for six months. The suspension will be without pay and is effective immediately. We let Brian know of our decision earlier today. Lester Holt will continue to substitute Anchor the NBC Nightly News.

Our review, which is being led by Richard Esposito working closely with NBCUniversal General Counsel Kim Harris, is ongoing, but I think it is important to take you through our thought process in coming to this decision.

While on Nightly News on Friday, January 30, 2015, Brian misrepresented events which occurred while he was covering the Iraq War in 2003. It then became clear that on other occasions Brian had done the same while telling that story in other venues. This was wrong and completely inappropriate for someone in Brian?s position.

In addition, we have concerns about comments that occurred outside NBC News while Brian was talking about his experiences in the field.

As Managing Editor and Anchor of Nightly News, Brian has a responsibility to be truthful and to uphold the high standards of the news division at all times.

Steve Burke, Pat Fili and I came to this decision together. We felt it would have been wrong to disregard the good work Brian has done and the special relationship he has forged with our viewers over 22 years. Millions of Americans have turned to him every day, and he has been an important and well-respected part of our organization.

As I?m sure you understand, this was a very hard decision. Certainly there will be those who disagree. But we believe this suspension is the appropriate and proportionate action.

This has been a difficult time. But NBC News is bigger than this moment. You work so hard and dedicate yourselves each and every day to the important work of bringing trusted, credible news to our audience. Because of you, your loyalty, your dedication, NBC News is an organization we can ? and should - all be proud of. We will get through this together.

Steve Burke asked me to share the following message.

?This has been a painful period for all concerned and we appreciate your patience while we gathered the available facts. By his actions, Brian has jeopardized the trust millions of Americans place in NBC News. His actions are inexcusable and this suspension is severe and appropriate. Brian?s life?s work is delivering the news. I know Brian loves his country, NBC News and his colleagues. He deserves a second chance and we are rooting for him. Brian has shared his deep remorse with me and he is committed to winning back everyone?s trust."

Deborah...UNQUOTE.

 
On March 8, 1965, elements of the Marines 9 MEB, the First and Third Battalions came ashore @ DaNang. Their mission was to provide security at the airbase. Well we all know now that was just an excuse from the politicians to get more troops in place. Soon the names of Con Thien, Khe Sahn, Hue, Phu Bai, Chu Lai, the Rockpile would be added to the USMC vocabuary.
 
Con Thien  in Vietnamese  a "Place Of Angels"......more like hell....one Angel was my Radio Operator .....Continued RIP US Marine Manuel Nieves only a few hours on the hill.
 
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