Author Archive
Mr. Obama, That Was Not The Question
I think most folks understand how hard I work.
Interviewer: “Some of our viewers are complaining, they get frustrated, even angered, when they see the first family jetting around, different vacations and so forth.”
Obama: “I think most folks understand how hard I work.”
Excuuuuuuuuuuse me???? How hard he works???? He has been campaigning for re-election since the day after he took the oath of office!!! Granted, he campaigns hard, expends a lot of energy and time attending Obama-for-President fundraisers, and jetting all over the country (on our dime) to pick up huge donation checks for his campaign. Reports differ on the number of vacations the Obamas have taken so far in their 3 1/2 years in office. But if you read or watch the news daily, you are aware of the many, many vacations the Obamas take. Reports also differ on the number of big-celebrity parties they have hosted, but knowing that they threw a huge celebrity-studded “Alice in Wonderland” party that they kept hidden from the American people until it was leaked, one can speculate that even they are aware how over-the-top their partying has been. All of these trips and parties are largely funded by you and me — the American taxpayer. And the latest information reveals that Obama has played 90 games of golf as of December 2011. In an era when so many Americans are out of work and most Americans have had to scale back their spending and juggle their money and paying their bills, this is nothing less than shameful.
Please note the fake big smile and laugh when asked about his many vacations. Then note the challenge of “I don’t know how many viewers you’re talking about that said that”. Then note the stuttering and stammering as he responds (and I did not say “replies” because he did not reply). And finally, note the fact that he totally avoids the real question and instead, talks about why he needs secret service protection on his trips. THAT WAS NOT THE QUESTION! This is his best stragegy — the straw man. No one has questioned his taking Air Force One or the need for secret service protection. No one. But that’s the way Obama rolls — sets up a straw man question and then shoots it down. The ultimate flim-flam man.
Mike Wallace does not deserve to “RIP”
Before you weep crocodile tears over the passing of Mike Wallace, just a reminder of who he was, and more precisely, who he THOUGHT he was:
From the April 1989 MediaWatch: Peter Jennings and Mike Wallace Agree — Reporters First, Americans Second
In a future war involving U.S. soldiers what would a TV reporter do if he learned the enemy troops with which he was traveling were about to launch a surprise attack on an American unit? That’s just the question Harvard University professor Charles Ogletree Jr, as moderator of PBS’ Ethics in America series, posed to ABC anchor Peter Jennings and 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace. Both agreed getting ambush footage for the evening news would come before warning the U.S. troops. For the March 7 installment on battlefield ethics Ogletree set up a theoretical war between the North Kosanese and the U.S.-supported South Kosanese. At first Jennings responded: “If I was with a North Kosanese unit that came upon Americans, I think I personally would do what I could to warn the Americans.” Wallace countered that other reporters, including himself, “would regard it simply as another story that they are there to cover.” Jennings’ position bewildered Wallace: “I’m a little bit of a loss to understand why, because you are an American, you would not have covered that story.” ”Don’t you have a higher duty as an American citizen to do all you can to save the lives of soldiers rather than this journalistic ethic of reporting fact?” Ogletree asked. Without hesitating Wallace responded: “No, you don’t have higher duty… you’re a reporter.” This convinces Jennings, who concedes, “I think he’s right too, I chickened out.” Ogletree turns to Brent Scrowcroft, now the National Security Adviser, who argues “you’re Americans first, and you’re journalists second.” Wallace is mystified by the concept, wondering “what in the world is wrong with photographing this attack by North Kosanese on American soldiers?” Retired General William Westmoreland then points out that “it would be repugnant to the American listening public to see on film an ambush of an American platoon by our national enemy.” A few minutes later Ogletree notes the “venomous reaction” from George Connell, a Marine Corps Colonel. “I feel utter contempt. Two days later they’re both walking off my hilltop, they’re two hundred yards away and they get ambushed. And they’re lying there wounded. And they’re going to expect I’m going to send Marines up there to get them. They’re just journalists, they’re not Americans.” Wallace and Jennings agree, “it’s a fair reaction.” The discussion concludes as Connell says: “But I’ll do it. And that’s what makes me so contemptuous of them. And Marines will die, going to get a couple of journalists.”
Colonel Connell made it clear here, just who our American troops are. And Mike Wallace (and Peter Jennings) made it clear who the majority of American journalists are. So please, save the crocodile tears for our troops.
An Apology to our next generation – 2016
This was written by my friend Shelley who lives in Texas. It could have been written by any one of us.
Dear (Son/Daughter/Grandson/Granddaughter)
It is time I sent you an apology. I voted for Barack Obama in 2008 because I was a (Democrat/Independent/Disgruntled Republican) and he promised so much. He promised Hope and Change for America and I thought we needed a change of direction.
During his first term in office, we saw huge growth in our debt and our government, as well as in unemployment throughout the country. Our national debt increased from $10,699,804,864,612.13 in 2008 to $15,619,740,170,408.34 in April of 2012 (source http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np). That is an increase of 46%! In three years! The American people raised alarms about this, but those in power did not seem to be at all concerned, so why should I be? They convinced us that there was nothing to be worried about.
American citizens were being pitted against each other because of race or income, and the President and the media encouraged this resentment of Americans against each other. In fact, they seemed to relish in it. But since nothing much had changed for me, I was still a (Democrat/Independent/Disgruntled Republican). I should have been a better citizen, working to put my country on the right track again. I should have made the harder choices that were offered to me by brave men like Paul Ryan. But instead, I remained passive, lured into the complacency that America could never become like Greece. After all, America had been strong and rich for more than 230 years. I did not believe it could happen because I had always lived in an America that was strong and rich.
But I had never lived in an America where so many people in high places did not believe we should remain strong. Where those in power believed in diminishing our strength and our ability to protect ourselves. They did not believe in peace through strength. They believed in appeasement of those people who would harm us, though they would not acknowledge that anyone truly wanted to harm us. Proponents of peace at any price, they gave our secrets and our security away to our enemies. It was naïve, and now we are vulnerable and at the mercy those who seek to destroy us. When in the 1980s our enemies knew that America could protect itself and its allies, they knew that to provoke us was at their peril. We were the strongest nation on earth, and the world was a safer place.
So now here it is, 2016, and I have little savings left, as my savings have eroded since Social Security and Medicare have all but disappeared. I need your help to survive and this is hard on you because you can hardly make ends meet after paying the tax rate of XX%, which is now required to keep this beast called government afloat. You grew up in a nice home, with nice cars and clothes and all the “toys” of your generation. But you will not be able to provide this for your own children.
So I apologize. That does not give you much comfort, I am sure. I should have stood up for this Republic called America, the country defended and preserved by my (parents/grandparents), who were called “the greatest generation”. They sacrificed during World War II so I would not have to. This wonderful country was handed to me and I did not have to make any personal sacrifice, I just enjoyed its bounties free of charge. I was not prepared to sacrifice anything for you.
We do not have a crystal ball into the future to see where you may lead your children. I can only give you the warning that I ignored, and ask you to preserve what is left of America, and to appreciate her if you are able to save her. And I ask you to forgive me.
Love,
XXXXX
Did Dick Cheney “Deserve” a Heart Transplant?
The hypocrisy of the elite media is not news. Nor is their total ignorance of their own hypocrisy, or their smugness in the belief that they are smarter and more evolved than those with whom they disagree. Their use of innuendo and euphemism is transparent.
In a clip from NBC Today, http://nation.foxnews.com/nbc/2012/03/26/nbc-did-cheney-really-deserve-heart-transplant?intcmp=fly Matt Lauer opens the discussion about Vice President Dick Cheney’s heart transplant by saying “His case has re-opened debate over whether rules should be changed to favor younger patients”. His guest, medical editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman chimed in with “…this has raised a lot of ethical questions, moral questions, about whether the Vice President, in fact, should have received his heart against — ahead of other people. And, raises the question, how old is too old to receive such a precious transplant?”
Really? “re-opened debate”? “raised a lot of ethical, moral questions”? To whom? By whom? Ethical questions? Moral questions? What questions? What is “a lot of questions”? Pulling back the curtain behind which these cowards are hiding, that of proclaiming that “others” are asking these questions, we see exactly what they are saying. There is just ONE question, and the ones asking that question are Matt Lauer and Nancy Snyderman. That question is “Did Dick Cheney deserve to have a heart transplant?” This is the typical tactic used by leftist tv news show personalities (I cannot, with a clear conscience, call these people “journalists”), to express their own opinion without owning up to it. They proclaim that “there are those who ask….” or “some would say …”, or in the case of this despicable piece of slime, “his case has re-opened debate over whether rules should be changed”. What they are really saying is that THEY question or dispute the “ethics” or “morality” in the light of their own personal, biased feelings. They are saying that in this one case, THEY want the rules to be changed.
I was a transplant nurse for 15 years in the very early stage of the science of organ transplantation. Since that time, transplantation has evolved rapidly from an experimental, last-ditch effort to save the life of someone in end-stage organ failure, to what it is today, a fairly common procedure with a relatively high success rate. In those early years, criteria for receiving a transplant organ were much more strict than they are today. These criteria ranged from age and medical status of the patient, to geographic location and ability of the patient to travel to the Transplant Center within a relatively short amount of time. The life span of organs, once they have been removed from the donor, is measured in hours before the organ ceases to be viable.
Vice President Cheney is 71 years of age. His doctors decided more than 20 months ago that he would be a reasonable candidate for a heart transplant, and placed his name on the national waiting list. (Note that this decision was reached between Mr. Cheney’s doctors and their patient, without consulting with Matt Lauer and Dr. Snyderman — clearly an unpardonable sin.) As this NBC report points out, to its credit, his 20-month wait is longer than most patients wait for a heart. Dr. Snyderman tosses out the innuendo of whether the Vice President “should have received his heart….ahead of other people”. Unless the transplant wait list only had one person’s name on it (that of Vice President Cheney), he would have been given the heart ahead of other people. Names are added to the wait list daily. I ask Dr. Snyderman how she feels about the fact that for the past 20 months, hundreds of “other people” have received their heart transplant ahead of Vice President Cheney.
And I ask Matt Lauer and Dr. Snyderman, and any of the other Cheney haters out there, how they would feel had that heart transplant been performed on George Soros (age 81), or Noam Chompsky (age 83 ) or Jimmy Carter (age 87) or Nancy Pelosi (age 72 ) or Marian Robinson (Michelle Obama’s mother, age 71)? Of course this is rhetorical. Because had any one of those people been transplanted, Matt Lauer and Dr. Syderman would have been singing the praises of the availability of a medical procedure that was able to save the life of this most revered patient. Not one of the so-called “elite” media would have mentioned “ethics” or “morality” with respect to the age of the recipient of the heart. That question only applies to a hated conservative, and in this case, Vice President Dick Cheney.
Leaving aside any discussion of the role that Vice President Dick Cheney has played in our history, can we at least agree that he is a decent man, a tax-paying American citizen, a husband, father, and grandfather, and public servant. He has served his country when called, despite having suffered five heart attacks (the first when he was 37 years of age) and numerous medical and surgical procedures for his heart condition. What more needs to be said. His life is of value. Had he been a homeless 71-year-old man living on a park bench, I think we can pretty well imagine the righteous indignation and outrage that the media would be screaming if he had been denied a heart transplant.
In raising the question of whether Mr. Cheney “deserved” this transplant, NBC has sunk to a new low. Matt Lauer asks Dr. Snyderman in a very smarmy, smug manner, “Is there indication he was given priority?” to which Dr. Snyderman, to her own personal disappointment, is forced to answer that in fact no, he actually waited longer than most. One doesn’t have to be especially perceptive to understand that her implication here was that he should have waited forever. To have these ignorant, out-of-touch “television personalities” insinuate that they know enough to comment on whether this medical procedure was “deserved”, brings up the question of Obamacare and the death panels (that the left has denied exist within that bill). Is this not the classic example of a “death panel” — two arrogant television commentators giving the public a wink-wink about whether or not the hated Dick Cheney deserved to have a medical procedure to save his life? To these opinionated, biased, overpaid television personalities, a decision reached by Mr. Cheney’s physicians and their patient is invalid. They would prefer that the question of “deserving” be part of that equation. And of course, neither the Cheneys nor their physicians are qualified to determine if the transplant was deserved. That decision should be left to the more qualified people in the media.
Wake up, America. Obamacare mandates just exactly this type of process, and the people who will actually make the life and death decisions for us, whether or not our life is of value, whether or not we “deserve” a particular procedure, will be no more medically qualified than Matt Lauer or Dr. Snyderman. They will most likely not be doctors at all, but bureaucrats. You can hate Dick Cheney. You can hate all conservatives and want us all to die in a horrible fire or accident (this was actually “tweeted” this weekend, in a touching get-well wish for Dick Cheney from someone from the “tolerant left”), but this won’t apply just to us hated conservatives. Insert the name of a relative of yours in that equation (or your own name). You will not be exempt from this just because you support Obamacare. No one will be exempt, except the truly elite — congress and Obama’s cronies. The rest of us will be subject to the decisions of unqualified, disinterested bureaucrats who will just look in their manual for specific codes that indicate acceptance criteria for nameless, faceless patients. They will have no involvement in the actual human patient, his or her circumstances, social status, need, want or any human consideration. Just a bunch of check boxes.
Welcome to the “fundamental transformation of America”, Obama style.
The Oscars — tiresome and predictable
I confess I haven’t seen most of the movies that were nominated for Oscar this year. I used to enjoy watching the Academy Awards Show for the stars, the fashions, the jewelry, and hearing my favorite actors give gracious speeches. However, for a very long time now that show has been one tedious PC self aggrandizing spectacle after another. Gone are the days of sincere appreciation being shown by a humble actor who has won an award (after all, that’s really all it is — it isn’t curing cancer!); they have been replaced by people who believe their own publicity, that they are so much more important than the rest of us that they are free to dictate to us what we should think and, more importantly, who we should hate (pretty much anyone conservative or religious, except for religious Muslims). These days the acceptance speeches, for the most part, reveal ego and phony humility. But I digress.
Here’s what I believe would have been courageous: And entire Oscar broadcast without one snarky remark about Republicans, conservatives, family values, Christians or Jews. Beginning the show with the Pledge of Allegiance. Or an invocation. Having a singer sing the National Anthem. Giving free front row seats to members of the United States Military, veterans, wounded warriors, family of troops currently serving in harm’s way. Creating an “American Patriot” award, analogous to the Lifetime Achievement awards they present to someone who has had a long, illustrious career in Hollywood. [I would nominate Gary Sinise for this]. Inviting people like Gary Sinise, Jon Voigt, Pat Boone, Bo Derek, Angie Harmon, Patricia Heaton, to be presenters. A nod to the contribution of the Tea Party (as there was at least one flattering comment about OWS in last night’s broadcast). Giving an award to an Israeli-made film. Honoring the great contribution that Jews have made to the entertainment industry since the beginning of the legend that has become Hollywood. [Before you jump on that suggestion for singling out one ethnic/cultural/religious group, remember that there are Latino film festivals and African American film festivals]. Making a film about how great America is. Making a film about the hypocrisy of radical Islam in its treatment of women and gay men. Of course, the cowardice of Hollywood includes valid fear of harm that would be done to anyone who makes a statement against radical Islam. That fear is justified by events such as those that unfolded just this week in Afghanistan. It would take courage to stand up to the ongoing threats to us by the perpetually angry Muslims who want nothing more than to bring America to its knees. But Hollywood is a very influential player on the world stage, and if there was any courage and moral clarity among its ranks, it could lead the way in showing the world the poverty of spirit that exists in radical Islamic terrorism. THAT would be courageous. Alas, those in power in Hollywood prefer to bow to threat and intimidation, believing that their sycophancy to political correctness will protect them in the long run. It is tiresome, predictable, and delusional.
University of Minnesota School of Music
I never get tired of these! This is the kind of mob I love!
Meet the “Happy Hookers’ in Service to our Troops
During this winter season, please don’t forget that our troops who are deployed are in need of warm scarves and hats, and there is nothing they enjoy more than something hand-made by grateful Americans.
This article was written by Kyle-Anne Shiver for PJ Media
Oh, dear readers, I’ve got a really wicked treat for you to start your week. I’m introducing you to a group of women who are so generous and self-sacrificing they’re gonna make you cry. They call themselves the “Happy Hookers” and they do all their good deeds for our troops serving around the world in harm’s way.
If your mind is in the gutter, get it out of there. There are lots more ways for women to be hooking happily than the one you might be thinking of.
These particular Happy Hookers do it with crochet hooks and knitting needles, wielded by their loving hands all the year through, hand-hooking snuggly, warm, soft scarves and hats for our troops to wear in those oh-so-brutally-cold winter months in Afghanistan and Iraq. All over America these happy hookers hook with love for men and women they will most likely never see.
Hello!
I just wanted to say thank you for spending time and energy to make deployed Soldiers feel special — your beautiful scarves really made a difference for me. I have one for myself and have another to give my beautiful daughter the next time I see her. Your gesture really makes a difference.
Kindest Regards,
(a soldier in Iraq, name withheld for security reasons)
Sappy? Quite. Corny? Very. Virtuous? Definitely. Truly altruistic? Undoubtedly.
In this modern age, selfishness and egocentrism parade about in the public square with bold, painted-gaudy faces. Such humble acts of happy-hooking and generous virtuosity often get lost as this very quiet modesty hides in plain sight. But the selfless generosity for which Americans have always been known still lives and breathes — even thrives and multiplies! — right before our eyes.
Take a few moments now to see what I learned this week from a few Happy Hookers and let your own life be enriched and inspired as mine has been.
The story of our now-legion, coast-to-coast troop of Happy Hookers begins with one — yes, just one –unassuming lady: Sharon Howard. (Get your hanky handy. You’re gonna need it.)
Operation Gratitude’s [1] scarf program began in 2006 with a simple request from senior officers in the field for some type of extra-warming garment to be included in the packages. Ah, yes. It gets very, very cold — often below zero — in the winter months in Afghanistan and Iraq. Something we home-front civilians don’t seem to know.
The officers’ request fell on the able shoulders of a dedicated OpGrat volunteer, Sharon Howard, who decided that something handmade would serve two purposes at once: something warm not supplied by the military outfitters and something handmade to put the heart and soul of America into each package. So, Sharon set about to gather volunteer hookers and knitters for her new crusade.
From that first email solicitation, through years of arduous labors and donations of yarn from American retailers, through thousands and thousands of hours spent by everyday people from coast to coast, Sharon’s scarves-for-our-troops crusade has cuddled nearly 100,000 troops through Operation Gratitude care packages to the war zones. This year alone, the scarf program will send 40,000 handmade scarves and hats to our soldiers far from home.
I learned all of this from OpGrat volunteer Elaine Campbell, who graciously now co-runs Sharon’s crusade [2]. Elaine and Sharon met in their early 20s doing community theater in Burbank, California, stayed friends throughout their lives, and both worked tirelessly for Operation Gratitude. In the spring of 2010, Sharon Howard succumbed to cancer and is no longer here to spread her charitable wings. Elaine and Lorene Van Ark-Miller now carry on in Sharon’s name and memory.
When Sharon first started the scarf program, she asked all hookers and knitters to use only camouflage type colors — tan, brown, green — but then one day someone sent her a red scarf. As handmade scarves were in very high demand among our troops, Sharon sent the “wrongly” colored red one and got a letter from the soldier who received it, saying simply that it had especially touched him because it was so much like — and the same color as — one he got as a child from his grandmother.
Now, scarves of all colors are welcome — and if you’re not crying by now – well, you don’t want to meet up with Sharon Howard in heaven and have to face her, now do you?
I received a package in the mail today from Operation Gratitude and in that package was this nice hat. Receiving the package was nice, but your hat in it totally touched me. It is such a wonderful, kindhearted thing for you to do. A lot of people send us little things like some candy or stuff like that, but a hand-knitted hat is really a special thing. When I sleep it’s cold at times, so I like to sleep with a hat. This will be my official sleeping hat. I do a lot of moving around, so I can’t keep much of anything, but I’ll be keeping this for sure.
Many thanks from Iraq.
Best Regards,
(name withheld for security reasons)
Now, dear readers, these Happy Hookers will be such a shock to your jaded view of tax collectors that you may actually require smelling salts to keep your wits. Never again will you be able to think of California’s “Board of Equalization,”(BOE) aka tax-collectors, as a bunch of gnarly gnomes sitting around trying to devise ways of making Americans’ lives as miserable as possible. No, these happily-hooking, selfless women forever put the lie to that old tripe.
For the past several years, a circle of selfless women at the BOE have used their every spare moment to hook for our troops. They gather in the break room, using their nimble hands to produce genuine products of service. They come together from many departments, the Technology Services Division, Editorial Services Section, Sales and Use Tax, Investigations, and some retirees even donated time and yarn. These scarves and hats that they stitch pile up in cozy mounds through the year, warming their own hearts as they prepare to warm cold necks and heads in harm’s way.
Then, the women gather to package the fruits of their labors, attaching a note to each lovingly hooked garment, so every soldier who gets one will know it was made with real homemade care:
You fight for us…
For someone you don’t know.
We made this scarf for you in
hopes it will let you know that we
are proud of you. Protect and bless
the soldier reading this message.
The Happy Hookers, Sacramento, California
Handmade by: (Name of your happy hooker)
Linda Gross, one of the BOE’s Happy Hookers, spoke with me about her inspiration for this project. An unassuming, 60 year-old, empty-nested mother of 2, working tirelessly still, Linda tears up with the mere mention of a lonely soldier, far from home, toiling on our nation’s behalf.
In 2004, Linda befriended a single-mom co-worker whose son had just been deployed to Iraq. Knowing the family had even fewer means than members, Linda decided to “adopt” her friend’s son and start sending him “we care” packages. That one “adoption” led to many more troop “adoptions” for Linda and her husband, as they struggled in solitude to do “a little something” for a few.
Oh, what to send to a soldier in a war zone far from home? Linda was at a loss.
Until she “met” Sharon Howard through the Operation Gratitude [1] website. Sharon emailed Linda a list of things to send, as well as things not to send, and later on, suggested her own hooker’s crusade for our troops. Well, Linda didn’t even know how to knit or crochet! But she learned. And so did many of her co-workers.
The Happy Hookers at the BOE in Sacramento have as many personal stories as hands.
Supervisor Kathy Ceccato touched my heart in a special way with her own happy-hooking story. Kathy is a mother of five grown children, one of whom is now one of America’s Wounded Warriors. Shortly after 9/11, one of Kathy’s sons enlisted and was later deployed to Iraq.
Knitting the scarves and hats then took on special significance for this mom anxiously awaiting news every day. And she says that her knitting was the very best therapy as her son wrote notes from the war zone, writing that the “handmade scarves help me stay warm and the beanie hat fits right under my helmet and reminds me and my unit that we are not forgotten by the American people at home.”
Kathy’s son was wounded while on his second tour in Iraq and spent time at Walter Reed. Many operations and much convalescence later finds him just finishing grad school at Penn State and now married, but he still stays in touch with his warrior buddies and they, too, send packages to troops now in the field.
This kind of love just keeps giving and giving and giving. I shall never think of tax collectors in the same way after meeting these wonderful women and their heroic families.
Carolyn Blashek, founder of Operation Gratitude
This one, tiny woman, a “simple” homemaker, started my favorite troop-support organization from her humble living room in Encino, California. To date, Operation Gratitude [1] has mailed nearly 750,000 individually addressed care packages to our troops in the war zones.
Truly, it is amazing what this 5-foot-5-inch dynamo has done for our home-front war effort. Carolyn Blashek is living proof that even lawyers have hearts, but I am utterly convinced that hers remains intact since she never actually practiced law.
Before starting Operation Gratitude in 2003, Carolyn was a stay-at-home mom raising two teenagers. Now Carolyn’s son is a United States Marine and her mission has become more personal than ever.
Carolyn was always sending me email about her encounters with our soldiers’ families — meetings with mothers, dads, wives, husbands, children, brothers, sisters and best friends. She would cry every single time and write about their silent, heroic sacrifices for our country, keeping all of them on her shoulders whenever she traipsed off to the OpGrat headquarters at the National Guard armory to pack more packages. She carried our soldiers and their families in her heart in a way that touched everyone she met, which is how she built an army of tens of thousands of volunteers.
But then it happened.
Carolyn’s son had watched as a young teen while his mom went off to the USO to bid farewell to deploying soldiers and had seen her come home with the heartfelt burden of these young warriors on her shoulders. Carolyn’s son had observed while she went around to all the local stores, buying up things she thought the soldiers could use and filling their living room and dining room and every other room with the stuff, and all the boxes she would somehow mail to the war zones. He saw her calling everyone she knew for the names and addresses of soldiers they knew.
He watched as his mom’s mission grew and grew and grew to the ceiling and out of the house. He and his sister gave up much of their free time in high school to pack packages with their mom. The son saw his dad touched too. Carolyn’s mission just roiled and waved over all of them, and as the army of volunteers grew and the operation moved into an armory and all the letters of thanks came flooding back from the war zone, the son was changed.
He still went off to college, to Princeton, where he was supposed to prepare for a future in medicine or law. But before the ink on his diploma was dry he was accepted to Officer Candidate School of the United States Marine Corps. Semper fi, folks.
Now, Carolyn Blashek has learned to crochet. And she says it is the miracle that keeps her going. As she enters the strange world of happy hooking for our troops, she takes strength into herself with the knowledge that one of these scarves will be worn by her son, and the others will be cuddling his platoon.
All I can say is that this is the best of use of a Columbia law degree that has ever been imagined.
From a very special place in heaven, Sharon Howard is smiling. Angels are singing. Thousands upon thousands of our soldiers and Marines know we love them because an army of happy hookers don’t keep their patriotic hands over their hearts. Instead they put those hands to work and say “thank you” in a most cherished way.
Don’t you ever tell me that America isn’t one hell of an exceptional nation. Only a truly exceptional nation could produce such a real-life story as this.
If you want to say “thank you” to our troops, Operation Gratitude [1] is a tax exempt organization and welcomes monetary donations to pay for the postage/packing expenses required – about $15 per package this year. Holiday Drive is underway.
And, the more happy hookers the better! Get hooking/knitting instructions here [http://www.operationgratitude.com/2010/08/05/scarf-hat-cool-tie-project-details-materials-size-patterns/].
