WOW!

From Fox News:

"When Capt. Ivan Castro joined the Army, he set goals: to jump out of planes, kick in doors and lead soldiers into combat. He achieved them all. Then the mortar round landed five feet away, blasting away his sight.

"Once you're blind, you have to set new goals," Castro said.
He set them higher.

Not content with just staying in the Army, he is the only blind officer serving in the Special Forces — the small, elite units famed for dropping behind enemy lines on combat missions.
"I am going to push the limits," said the 40-year-old executive officer at the 7th Special Forces Group's headquarters company in Fort Bragg. "I don't want to go to Fort Bragg and show up and sit in an office. I want to work every day and have a mission.""

What a great man!

Semi-retirement

During my 20 years in the military it was difficult to visualize what normal life was like. Even when I was on shore duty, the hectic work schedule of the military made a 60-80 hour work week the norm. Many people don't realize what the average person goes through just to be in the military. People only hear about military members being deployed, that's it. But the military life is so much different than civilian life there is no comparison.

For instance on a submarine (my experience) the majority of the crew stands 3 or if you're lucky 4 section duty. What this means is that on top of your normal work day, every 3-4 days you have to stay overnight and man watches on the submarine. So a 'normal' day on an in-port submarine is 0600-to about 1600 (a 10 hour day) then every 3-4 days a 24 hour (including weekends). this is normal peace time, in port work days. It equates to about an 80 hour week. I know there are people that will say 'but you sleep during a duty day'. - sometimes you can get a few hours. When I first joined the navy in the 1980's we used to be able to grant 'day after duty' meaning that if you had the duty and your worked hard during that time, you could leave after you got relieved by the next duty section. Those days are gone. There is so much work to do that no one leaves early.

At sea the submarine crew is in a three section rotation. The crew stands 6 hours of watch, 6 hours of off watch training, maintenance, cleaning, and then 6 hours of rest. Not necessarily in that order. Myself as a Sonar Supervisor had to spend many hours in 'reconstruct' analysing all of the information gathered from my watch.

Looking back I am amazed that I made it through and I am even more amazed at the young men that continue to make it happen. I see these young men that are in submarine school and here is their schedule: PT at 0600 in the ball field, class 0800-1600, dinner at 1700. If they are on extra study then study hall is 1800-2000. if they are still behind they are required to be at study hall 1800-2200. I can't think of anyone that wants to be at work 0600-2200. Oh yeah, these students also have watch standing duties on top of that. I can't think of any college student that does that.

I think that is why many veterans have trouble adjusting to civilian life, I know I am. It is really hard for a military guy to understand the importance of things like 'don't mix whites into the laundry.' It is not that we can't follow instructions, we are very good at that, it is just that it seems so mundane, ridiculous, meaningless, it is that it doesn't fit a mission.

I find that I just have to continuously keep myself busy with school, garden, the yard and the family. If not I become idle and nothing good comes of that.

Renee

Renee was in town from MO for the weekend. It was a great time to see her after 10 years and finally meet her boyfriend Frank. This is the first time Jaiden and Hailee met Renee. Afterwards we went to Capron Park Zoo.

The Birds are acting strange?

I'm getting a little concerned.

First there were the baby grackles that we were able to catch. Then there was a dead chickadee I found with no signs of attack. Yesterday I found a large Grackle dead with no signs of attack.

Last year there was allot of press about bird flu. I am getting concerned that I may be seeing signs in nature of it. Birds will kick their off spring out of the nest if they believe they are sick (was this why we caught the baby birds?). Now there are the dead birds? Next time I find a dead bird, I'm calling animal control.

Just another sign of end! oh yeah Obama is the Anti-Christ check it out http://www.barackobamaantichrist.blogspot.com/

Meghan's party

Yesterday was Meghan's graduation party. It was very nice. Colleen and Bobby had a tent outside and everyone was there. Elaine and Fred was up from Florida, my brother Ronnie was there, and all of the rest of us. It was very nice to catch up with everyone and to talk about how we are all aging. It happen to the best of us - getting old.

Meghan is off to college to study to be a math teacher.

Anna and Hailee are blogging now. Anna has a blog to share her cheat codes and video game tips, Hailee has I-waffle which is about anything and everything. It's good to see them doing something else with computers than just playing games.

not much happening

Yesterday the girls went to see the Animal Planet expo up in Warwick. they had a good time, there was demonstrations and slides and and typical fair style stuff. I stayed home and mowed the lawn and cleaned the pool. All of the rain last week really messed up the chemicals in the pool so I had to do some major cleaning.

The yard is looking really good. The fruit trees are producing. I have to figure out how to keep the birds away from the plum trees though. I can never get any plums since the birds eat them right away when they are little. We've been picking musculin and arugula from the garden. The arugula is really a surprise. It is so easy to grow, it last really long and the kids love it. Who wouldn't love lettuce that tastes like peanut butter?

One of my tomato plants has signs of early blight. All of the Ortho books recommend chemical treatment to restore its health. I'm still searching for an organic method for it. If anyone has some ideas, please let me know.

Huck Finn Day

Today was Huck Finn Day. The local sportsman club hosts an event at Crandel Field that has all of the old time kids style games, like three legged races, wheelbarrow races, etc. They also have a Huck Finn look-a- like. After the games the kids have a little fishing derby where they have to use cane polls and worms and they all fish a small area for sunfish.