This explains why Arizona doesn't observe daylight savings time!

 

DO NOT DELETE-PLEASE PASS ON -Message from Iraq 
 

 The proud warriors of Baker Company wanted to do 
 Something to pay tribute 
 To our fallen comrades So since we are part of the only 
 Marine Infantry Battalion left in Iraq the one way that we could 
 Think of doing that is By taking a picture of 
 Baker Company saying the way we feel. 
 It would be awesome if you could find a way to share 
 This with our fellow countrymen. 
 I  was wondering if there was any way to
 Get this into your 
 Papers to let the world know that
 'WE HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN'
 And are proud to serve our country. 
 ' Semper Fi  1stSgt Dave Jobe.'
 
 The attached photo was forwarded from one of the last U.S. Marine companies in Iraq
 They would like to have it passed to as many people as possible, to let the folks back home know 
That they remember why they're there and that they remember those who've been lost.





 

I myself have never had a real opinion on the death penalty either for or against it. Undecided. On one hand, if someone does a hideous crime they should pay the ultimate price. But for me the question is what is the "ultimate price" In many of these cases such as those against women and children I always sort of felt that death for them is an easy way out. BUT if they had to live with life in prison w/o any chance of parole, I would think that their lives would be lived in constant fear. The code even with prisoners is these types of crimes are a big no-no. NOT to be tolerated. Set these inhumane humans in the same yard with the rest of the population and things would get taken care of.
Of course it does not happen like that. The molesters and rapists end up segregated from the rest of the inmates for "their own protection" which of course I don't see any reason to protect them since there was no one there to protect the victims from them.
Regardless of what my personal undecided thoughts on the death penalty are, I do know one thing. That in the United States of America there should be no screw-ups in the judicial system in these cases. Anyone that reads my blog here knows I am an avid supporter of the innocence project and find myself getting e-mails from this great group of people informing me (and anyone else who will listen) that they are freeing a man who has been found innocent due to DNA testing. Some of these men have lived decades behind bars for crimes they did not commit.Some have been on death row for years waiting for the "ultimate punishment"
Well  yesterday I received an e-mail that was more than disturbing. It has now been proven that we (yes I say we) americans have now killed an innocent man for a crime he always said he did not commit and now it is known he did not commit it.
http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/2149.php

What do we have to say for ourselves? OOPS!

I just don't think so.
I wonder how many others, sat for years on death row knowing they were innocent, telling anyone who would listen that they were innocent, and obviously we did not listen. It sickens my heart.
Perhaps we ought to rethink the death penalty if we can't get it right.
That may or may not be the answer, but we have to do something.
We can never allow this to happen again.
God Bless the innocence project for doing all they are doing.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann
I urge you to take a look at the innocence project and see what this great group is doing. They need all the help they can get, let alone the wrongfully convicted men and women of the United States!

And my indecisiveness of the death penalty? I want no part in killing an innocent person!

Just loved the way these came out. It has been the whole summer since I joined in on my favorite meme, Mellow Yellow Monday. I hope by me doing it today I may get back to normalcy and the things I really do look forward too.
PEACE!!!
Allison






For others Mellow Yellow Monday photos just click the link below! Have fun!!!

Six Boys And Thirteen Hands...

 
"Each year I am hired to go to Washington, DC, with the eighth grade class from Clinton, WI where I grew up, to videotape their trip. I greatly enjoy visiting our nation's capitol, and each year I take some special memories back with me. This fall's trip was especially memorable.

 
On the last night of our trip, we stopped at the Iwo Jima memorial. This memorial is the largest bronze statue in the world and depicts one of the most famous photographs in history -- that of the six brave soldiers raising the American Flag at the top of a rocky hill on the island of Iwo Jima, Japan, during WW II.

 
Over one hundred students and chaperones piled off the buses and headed towards the memorial. I noticed a solitary figure at the base of the statue, and as I got closer he asked, 'Where are you guys from?'  I told him that we were from Wisconsin. 'Hey, I'm a cheese head, too! Come gather around, Cheese heads, and I will tell you a story.'

 
(James Bradley just happened to be in Washington, DC, to speak at the memorial the following day. He was there that night to say good night to his dad, who had passed away. He was just about to leave when he saw the buses pull up. I videotaped him as he spoke to us, and received his permission to share what he said from my videotape. It is one thing to tour the incredible monuments filled with history in Washington, DC, but it is quite another to get the kind of insight we received that night.)  When all had gathered around, he reverently began to speak. (Here are his words that night.)

 
'My name is James Bradley and I'm from Antigo, Wisconsin. My dad is on that statue, and I just wrote a book called 'Flags of Our Fathers' which is #5 on the New York Times Best Seller list right now. It is the story of the six boys you see behind me.

 
"Six boys raised the flag. The first guy putting the pole in the ground is Harlon Block. Harlon was an all-state football player. He enlisted in the Marine Corps with all the senior members of his football team. They were off to play another type of game. A game called 'War.' But it didn't turn out to be a game. Harlon, at the age of 21, died with his intestines in his hands. I don't say that to gross you out, I say that because there are people who stand in front of this statue and talk about the glory of war. You guys need to know that most of the boys in Iwo Jima were 17, 18, and 19 years old - and it was so hard that the ones who did make it home never even would talk to their families about it.

 
(He pointed to the statue) 'You see this next guy? That's Rene Gagnon from New Hampshire. If you took Rene's helmet off at the moment this photo was taken and looked in the webbing of that helmet, you would find a photograph...a photograph of his girlfriend. Rene put that in there for protection because he was scared. He was 18 years old. It was just boys who won the battle of Iwo Jima. Boys--Not old men.

 
'The next guy here, the third guy in this tableau, was Sergeant Mike Strank. Mike is my hero. He was the hero of all these guys. They called him the 'old man' because he was so old. He was already 24. When Mike would motivate his boys in training camp, he didn't say, 'Let's go kill some Japanese' or 'Let's die for our country.' He knew he was talking to little boys. Instead he would say, 'You do what I say, and I'll get you home to your mothers.'

 
Arizona. Ira Hayes was one who walked off Iwo Jima. He went into the White House with my dad. President Truman told him, 'You're a hero' He told reporters, 'How can I feel like a hero when 250 of my buddies hit the island with me and only 27 of us walked off alive?'
So you take your class at school, 250 of you spending a year together having fun, doing everything together. Then all 250 of you hit the beach, but only 27 of your classmates walk off alive. That was Ira Hayes He had images of horror in his mind. Ira Hayes carried the pain home with him and eventually died dead drunk, face down at the age of 32 (ten years after this picture was taken).

 
'The next guy, going around the statue, is Franklin Sousley from Hilltop, Kentucky . A fun-lovin' hillbilly boy. His best friend, who is now 70, told me, 'Yeah, you know, we took two cows up on the porch of the Hilltop General Store. Then we strung wire across the stairs so the cows couldn't get down. Then we fed them Epsom salts. Those cows crapped all night.' Yes, he was a fun-lovin' hillbilly boy. Franklin died on Iwo Jima at the age of 19. When the telegram came to tell his mother that he was dead, it went to the Hilltop General Store. A barefoot boy ran that telegram up to his mother's farm. The neighbors could hear her scream all night and into the morning. Those neighbors lived a quarter of a mile away.

 
'The next guy, as we continue to go around the statue, is my dad, John Bradley, from Antigo, Wisconsin , where I was raised. My dad lived until 1994, but he would never give interviews. When Walter Cronkite's producers or the New York Times would call, we were trained as little kids to say 'No, I'm sorry, sir, my dad's not here. He is in  Canada fishing. No, there is no phone there, sir. No, we don't know when he is coming back.' My dad never fished or even went to Canada . Usually, he was sitting there right at the table eating his Campbell Soup.

 
'You see, like Ira Hayes, my dad didn't see himself as a hero. Everyone thinks these guys are heroes, 'cause they are in a photo and on a monument. My dad knew better. He was a medic. John Bradley from Wisconsin was a caregiver. In Iwo Jima he probably held over 200 boys as they died. And when boys died in Iwo Jima , they writhed and screamed, without any medication or help with the pain.

 
'When I was a little boy, my third grade teacher told me that my dad was a hero. When I went home and told my dad that, he looked at me and said, 'I want you always to remember that the heroes of Iwo Jima are the guys who did not come back. Did NOT come back.'

 
'So that's the story about six nice young boys. Three died on Iwo Jima, and three came back as national heroes. Overall, 7,000 boys died on Iwo Jima in the worst battle in the history of the Marine Corps. My voice is giving out, so I will end here. Thank you for your time.'

 
Suddenly, the monument wasn't just a big old piece of metal with a flag sticking out of the top. It came to life before our eyes with the heartfelt words of a son who did indeed have a father who was a hero. Maybe not a hero for the reasons most people would believe, but a hero nonetheless.

 
We need to remember that God created this vast and glorious world for us to live in, freely, but also at great sacrifice.

 
Let us never forget from the Revolutionary War to the current War on Terrorism and all the wars in-between that sacrifice was made for our freedom.

 
Remember to pray praises for this great country of ours and also pray for those still in murderous unrest around the world.

 
STOP and thank God for being alive and being free at someone else's sacrifice.

 
God Bless You and God Bless America ....

 
REMINDER: Everyday that you can wake up free, it's going to be a great day.

 
One thing I learned while on tour with my 8th grade students in DC that is not mentioned here is that if you look at the statue very closely and count the number of 'hands' raising the flag, there are 13. When the man who made the statue was asked why there were 13, he simply said the 13th hand was the hand of God.