Bryan Strawser

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Archives for 2004

Silence

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Good God – last night I noticed that I hadn’t posted a thing since November 21st. Time to play catch up.

As my loyal readers know, I work in retail – and this time of year we’re just a bit busy! Life has been good at work and that’s about all I need to say on that. You can read the public information about how things are going on some other website.

Sidekick’s family came out for Thanksgiving, so that kept us busy as well. Work work, cook cook, clean clean, but hey, that’s what you do.

My parents and brother are coming out on December 22nd, so I’m really looking forward to that.

On the technology front, I’m evaluating a Motion Computing M1400 Tablet PC. So far, I have to say that this thing rocks my world. Expect more to be posted on this once I dig out of the domestic hole I’m in….

More leaf raking today – holiday party tonight up the road a bit.

More later…

Heroism Runs in Families

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Over at Greenside, LTC David Bellon (USMC), writes of the heroism of Corporal Yeager. Yes, that Yeager:

The first is a Marine from 3/5.  His name is Corporal Yeager (Chuck Yeager’s grandson).  As the Marines cleared and apartment building, they got to the top floor and the point man kicked in the door.  As he did so, an enemy grenade and a burst of gunfire came out.  The explosion and enemy fire took off the point man’s leg.  He was then immediately shot in the arm as he lay in the doorway.  Corporal Yeager tossed a grenade in the room and ran into the doorway and into the enemy fire in order to pull his buddy back to cover.  As he was dragging the wounded Marine to cover, his own grenade came back through the doorway.  Without pausing, he reached down and threw the grenade back through the door while he heaved his buddy to safety.  The grenade went off inside the room and Cpl Yeager threw another in.  He immediately entered the room following the second explosion.  He gunned down three enemy all within three feet of where he stood and then let fly a third grenade as he backed out of the room to complete the evacuation of the wounded Marine.  You have to understand that a grenade goes off within 5 seconds of having the pin pulled.  Marines usually let them “cook off” for a second or two before tossing them in.   Therefore, this entire episode took place in less than 30 seconds. 

Letter to the Editor – “It’s Not Us, Stupid!”

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From today’s Boston Globe was this gem of a Letter to the Editor:

I am forced to chuckle each time I read yet another letter to the editor stating that those who exercised their right to vote for anyone other than John Kerry are less than intelligent or, as some writers frankly state, stupid.

It seems to me that if these individuals maintain their position of arrogance and pomposity, then they will have a future of utilizing their self-professed genius in writing concession speeches for their candidates.

Seth Rubinson

Andover, MA

Arafat

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The Boston Globe’s Jeff Jacoby has a few words on the death of Yassir Arafat:

YASSER ARAFAT died at age 75, lying in bed surrounded by familiar faces. He left this world peacefully, unlike the thousands of victims he sent to early graves.

In a better world, the PLO chief would have met his end on a gallows, hanged for mass murder much as the Nazi chiefs were hanged at Nuremberg. In a better world, the French president would not have paid a visit to the bedside of such a monster. In a better world, George Bush would not have said, on hearing the first reports that Arafat had died, “God bless his soul.”

God bless his soul? What a grotesque idea! Bless the soul of the man who brought modern terrorism to the world? Who sent his agents to slaughter athletes at the Olympics, blow airliners out of the sky, bomb schools and pizzerias, machine-gun passengers in airline terminals? Who lied, cheated, and stole without compunction? Who inculcated the vilest culture of Jew-hatred since the Third Reich? Human beings might stoop to bless a creature so evil — as indeed Arafat was blessed, with money, deference, even a Nobel Prize — but God, I am quite sure, will damn him for eternity.