Opining Online

Soldiers’ Angels is one of the best all-volunteer military support groups and their Project Valour-IT is my favorite project of theirs. It provides laptops and other technology that supports physical and psychological recovery for severely wounded service men and women.

The fundraiser is fueled by friendly competition among the services, but all the money goes to same cause, not to a specific service. I hope John and Al understand why I’m putting up the Marine Corps button instead of Army or Air Force.

Kick in a few bucks, OK?

The Few, The Proud are celebrating their 233rd birthday.

This is one of the days I honor my Uncle Willie. He joined the Marines before Pearl Harbor and was either in or sent to Manila immediately after the raid and ended up on Corregidor.

After the fall of Corregidor, he spent the next several years in the Japanese prison camp at Puerto Princessa on Palawan and was one of eleven to escape the massacre there on December 14, 1944. You can read the story of the prison camp and the escape in Last Man Out by Glenn McDole.

My grandmother’s three sons all served during WWII. Here they are, Uncle Willie in the middle:

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UPDATE: GoDaddy sends a birthday card to the Marines. Also on an old blog of mine, my 2005 Marine Corps birthday post.

And I want to hug that pit bull! Oh yeah, that sounds a bit lesbian, so sue me. She’s one hell of an orator (Obama, uh, listen up — you uh, really don’t shine in uh, that department, you know, uh, despite what’s been, uh, written about you…)

If Sarah Palin was snide and sarcastic, then I like snide and sarcastic. No, I love snide and sarcastic.

If Sarah Palin is wrong to treat her “special needs” child as normally as possible, then I’m wrong too in treating my “non-special needs” children as normal. Good grief, what is a mother to do when faced with any child — set him or her up to fail due to “special” treatment? And, yes, I do speak from experience here as the mother of a special needs child who is now a special needs adult. He is still his own entity, not an extension of me.

Admiration is something I have for few people. My mother and father have earned it. My grandmother and step-grandfather have earned it. A few very special aunts, uncles, and cousins have earned it. My children — they too have earned it, each in their own special way. But… to bestow any semblance of this admiration to a politician is unheard of in my world. Yet, Sarah Palin has earned, at the very least, a consideration that she might possibly deserve my admiration.

Oh yeah, and I want to adopt Piper and Trig. Would that be OK with you Sarah?

Why? CAUSE I said so! And so did Rachel Lucas. She posts today about CAUSE — Comfort for America’s Uniformed Services, founded by four West Point grads (Vietnam vets) and their wives.

The idea is that R&R activities promote morale. CAUSE maintains a library of DVDs, video games, and equipment at Walter Reed and Brooke Army Medical Center. They plan libraries at Landstuhl and the Naval Medical Center this year.

CAUSE has an Amazon Wish List, so contributing is very easy. I’ve sent a season of Scrubs.

Go check this one out.

Rarely do you find a photo that says so much. Let’s analyze it on the basis of the differences between male and female. Or perhaps on the differences between the sacrifices of the spouse staying in the U.S. and the one serving in a war zone. Or on the artistic merits of how much our feet say about us and our situation. Or maybe, just enjoy and appreciate. 

This is what happens when a lawmaking body has too much time on its hands:

Berkeley Finds a New Way to Make War Politics Local

BERKELEY, Calif. — While the City Council here has little — read, no — sway over foreign policy and distant wars, local parking is a different matter. And so it was that a parking space directly in front of the recruiting station here for the Marine Corps was awarded on Tuesday night to an antiwar group in the hope of running the Marines out of town.

A city council that has nothing better to do has given a parking spot to a bunch of old ladies with nothing better to do. I have some sidewalk chalk, and I’m thinking of burning it in effigy. It would be so appropriate to do something extremely silly that won’t work to protest this Berkeley silliness, wouldn’t it?

Which is better to fly? Somebody sent Vodkapundit an email with the answer:

Obviously, through no fault of your own, your young, impressionable brain has been poisoned by the superfluous, hyped-up, “Top Gun” media portrayal of fighter pilots.

Unfortunately, this portrayal could not be further from the truth. In my experience, I’ve found most fighter pilots pompous, backstabbing, momma’s boys with inferiority complexes, as well as being extremely over-rated aeronautically. However, rather than dash your budding dreams of becoming a USAF pilot, I offer the following alternative:

What you really want to aspire to is the exciting, challenging and rewarding world of TACTICAL AIRLIFT.

Click the link to find out why Tactical Airlift beats piloting a fighter.

Returning Vets or the News Media? I link, you decide.