I live and breathe reality. Our son has been deployed
three times. Twice to Iraq and once to Afganistan. His Stryker has been blown out from under him and he's been in many firefights and has lost men he has commanded. He is 23. We are hoping to keep him from being deployed a 4th time (but you know, being a Marine, he'll go if he has to). One nephew leaves in late Jan. Another is a medic on lifeflights. They are following in their fathers' footsteps, as I also followed in those of my brothers, fathers and uncles. And so I am very politically conscious and aware of world events, especially as they pertain to the military and that is why my avatar is military-themed.
In the avatar picture, the pup is actually sleeping cuddled up against an ammo box. This picture was taken in Iraq. Dogs are viewed as 'unclean' under Sharia law, and so most end up abused, starved and killed. To contrast, Americans think dogs are our 'best friends' and our troops will give up their dinner so a pup has something to eat. go figure. Our guys and gals aren't officially supposed to have pets when in theatre, but I can tell you, there's nothing like the breath of a wetnosed puppy or the presence of a dog sleeping next to you in your tent, to help ground one back to who they are inside, (dogs are funny like that) and the guys/gals usually have one or two rescues hanging around at any given time if they can get away with it. The dogs seem to realize that our guys are the good guys and quickly bond with them, alerting them to, and in some cases even agressively protecting our guys and gals from, the bad guys.
Operation Baghdad Pups, a project of the SPCA, is a great charity to support. Not only do they provide rabies vaccinations and other vet care in the field, they assist in getting the dogs (and kittykats!) back stateside to reunite with their soldier 'dads' and 'moms', or, sometimes, to the families of fallen soldiers. Here's their link to learn more;
Helping The Troops
the forumname TaketheRedPill is a play on The matrix/ Jefferson airplane's 'White Rabbit' reference and especially on Obama's speeches telling people to take the blue pill instead of the red pill when it comes to "obamacare" (and other issues) . The first time he talked about red and blue pills, I said to myself, oh boy! the Matrix guys are going to have a field day with this! and they have
And then there's the hookah-smoking caterpiller sitting next to a
tobacco flower from Alice in Wonderland that's in the lyrics of White Rabbit.
OT- Please take a moment of your day today in memorandium for the 12 soldiers murdered and the 37 injured at Fort Hood this afternoon in a premeditated terrorist act by lowlife sleeper jihaddist and Darwin Award recipient Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan (obviously Swedish, right???) , and please pray for the families ( or light a candle) if you're so inclined.
Stay small. Semper fi
TTRP
