Merry Christmas Y'all!

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 dutyto 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."

Me and The Goebs "Chic", hanging out in Washington, the state, not the district nor the man...

Moving a church

Pretty neat little time lapse video of a church moving with an original song sung by a choir

I decided to try a new dew, took me awhile to frost the tips in purple and a heck of a lot of hairspray... but it was worth it...

"It is well that war is so terrible; else we would grow too fond of it."--Robert E. Lee (1807-1870), U.S. general. Said to another general during the battle of Fredericksburg (1862).

"All wars are popular for the first thirty days."--Attributed to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. (1917- ), U.S. historian.

"You no more win a war than you can win an earthquake."--Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973), U.S. legislator.

“The Americans will always do the right thing... After they've exhausted all the alternatives.”Sir Winston Churchill

"I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia." - Woody Allen

General Douglas MacArthur "It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it."

“I've got to go to meet God - and explain all those men I killed at Alamein.” Field Marshall Viscount Montgomery in 1976.

Albert Einstein "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

"Always remember to pillage BEFORE you burn"- Unknown

Ronald Reagan "History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap. "

"Join the Army, meet interesting people, kill them"- Unknown

"At a minimum, a benefit of any War is that we realize, 'hey, we shan't do that again'." -JMH

"We must ensure that any War is waged only to destroy Hate, for any other reason, it is for the destruction of Freedom" -JMH

George Bush "Redefining the role of the United States from enablers to keep the peace to enablers to keep the peace from peacekeepers is going to be an assignment."

"There will one day spring from the brain of science a machine or force so fearful in its potentialities, so absolutely terrifying, that even man, the fighter, who will dare torture and death in order to inflict torture and death, will be appalled, and so abandon war forever"- Thomas Edison

This is a runway in Alaska that I landed on and took off from, pretty crazy huh? Not to worry we took off the other direction, but it does get your heart racing a little. Different type of flying up there, radar use is minimal, weather is horrible, and moose do a lot of damage to a plane.

Clara Mae Brown
Feb 28, 1918 - Sept 13, 2007

Clara lived life as few others could, with no ill will to another sole and with an endless love of all God's creatures;
Her love for her family and friends knows no equal here or in eternity and she will be forever known as our Aunt Mimi;
Always remember Mimi as the great woman she was, may she find peace in heaven as we learn to have peace without her heart.

I never realized how tall I is...

Me and the Boyz... Performing at the 2007 Cleveland National Air Show... c'est times a good...

Cleveland from the Sky, looks clean...

She was a good bird...

Me and My plane in South Afghanistan... was a little cool and I had to check the top of the wing because I was bored...

I was bored this weekend, so I decided I can either take over the world, Learn French, or build a cool music machine in my basement, next weekend I can learn French...

Pretty countryside in China

See anyone?

Look closely, see anything odd?

Hard to believe there is poverty in the world...

Hello darkness, my old friend,

I've come to talk with you again,

Because a vision softly creeping,

Left its seeds while I was sleeping,

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence.