Trump awards Medal of Honor to military hero who freed more than 75 hostages in Iraq
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Previous post: The Missing
The shattered water made a misty din.
Great waves looked over others coming in,
And thought of doing something to the shore
That water never did to land before.
The clouds were low and hairy in the skies,
Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes.
You could not tell, and yet it looked as if
The shore was lucky in being backed by cliff,
The cliff in being backed by continent;
It looked as if a night of dark intent
Was coming, and not only a night, an age.
Someone had better be prepared for rage.
There would be more than ocean-water broken
Before God’s last Put out the light was spoken.
— Robert Frost
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
— BY THEODORE ROETHKE
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
— Eliot
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
— Walt Whitman
Gerard Van der Leun
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This is an account of Americans. Which is, I am heart broken to say, not an account of the people who make up more than a very small percentage of the population of the USA.
I am convinced that there will be a bloody reckoning in our country in the not too distant future. We will need men and women who are Americans to save our nation.
Barely a mention from the media of this man receiving the Medal of Honor. Instead we got a large dose of hearing the disbelief of fans in Kansas City booing a demonstration by football players.
decency is downplayed, abomination is exalted
got a new arkansas wet stone, pure black, BIG, 6″w x 14″l x 3″thick
gonna try to wear it out on a shitload of edges that need refined
when it’s done that becker will lay waste to 6 necks at once
Thomas Payne’s MOH citation as a graphic novel:
https://twitter.com/wretchardthecat/status/1304594909228232704
It’s one of those MOH stories that makes you get goosebumps from the drama and courage of the event. This man, and his stalwart unit, remind me that Americans do tremendous things when the moment arrives. Like always, I try to personalize things from the news, and so please permit me this indulgent memory. I attended a dress blue uniform dinner in the Eighties, and one guest at our battalion mess quietly sat with the commander. Both were Green Beret vets of the Vietnam war, and it so happens that our guest was one of a handful of the founders of Force Delta. There’s good, and then there’s damn good. And goddamned few better yet. SGM Payne takes his place at the Valhallan table set for just his caliber of man.
I can read like the rest of us, and I am not a veteran. Airborne school post boot camp and AIT from what I read, is non-stop running and push-ups (Ghost can confirm). This MOH winner also went through Ranger school which is a total suck-fest of little food, less sleep and total dedication of physical capability through pain. He eventually makes it to Delta Force which would physically and mentally crush even a toughened man. I have two Ben Franklins that say he earned his CIB (combat infantryman’s badge) LONG before he ever got to Delta Force. Dude is a total badass.
Snake sed: “Airborne school post boot camp and AIT from what I read, is non-stop running and push-ups…”
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During basic at Fort Knox (summer 74) we walked every where, miles upon miles. Probably several hundred before it was done. If it was raining we rode the cattle cars but that was rare. Then off to Combat Engineer AIT at Fort Leonard Wood. The first day during the el-tee’s introductory speech one of the troops asked if we were going to have to walk very much. The el-tee grinned from ear to ear and said, “There will be very little walking here at Fort Leonard Wood, (everybody breathed a sigh of relief assuming we would be riding the cattle cars to all the ranges) you will be RUNNING!” He pulled the rug out and everybody was shell shocked. He continued, “There are only 2 ways soldiers move on my post, flat out hauling ass double time, or on your belly in the goddamned gutter.” We ran like broke dik dawgz.
This was in late summer, and we ran like barren hoons every where. Hundreds of miles. Imagine 200 swingin’ dix in formation double timing with a 9 man front. They made the fat doods road guards and they ran them fuckers into the ground. I wasn’t fat, but maybe more than I should have been. I was 185 (6′ tall) when I started basic and when I came out of jump school I was 155. When I went home on leave afterward my mother was shocked. She said I looked like a concentration camp victim. lol Maybe, but I could out run the wind!
Late Oct 74 I got to my permanent party in Wildflecken Germany (my home for the next 37 months) and waddya know? The company commander is a gd ranger. jeezis chryste. Every.god.dam.morning he started us out with a 3 mile run around the whole post. A year later he was promoted, shipped stateside and we could finally act like normal people for a change.
Quiet. Confident. Shows admiration for his fallen friend. Says his medal memorializes everyone but him.
What a rare and noble man.