Wednesday Hero - 05/07/08

CSM Robert Prosser and LTC Erik Kurilla
1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment (Deuce Four)

LTC. Erik Kurilla and CSM. Robert Prosser’s story is an amazing one. One that Michael Yon has told far better than I ever could. Warning. The site contains very graphic images. Some may want to turn off images before viewing.

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

Wednesday Hero - 04/30/08

This Weeks Hero Was Suggested By Mary Ann

Wednesday Hero was started to put a face to the men and women of the American Armed Forces and what they do for us. Very rarely has there been a member of a foreign military profiled. In fact, in the two years Wednesday Hero’s been going on it’s only been done once before. Here’s the second.

Lance Corporal Matt Croucher
24 years old from Birmingham, England
40 Commando Royal Marines

L/Cpl Matt Croucher is not only one of the bravest men alive, he’s also one of the luckiest men alive. On the morning of February 9, 2008 L/Cpl. and his unit were searching a compound near Sangin in Afghanistan that was suspected of being used to make bombs to be used in attacks on British and Afghan troops. Walking in the darkness among a group of four men, Croucher stepped into a tripwire that pulled the pin from a boobytrap grenade. His patrol commander, Corporal Adam Lesley, remembered Croucher shouting “Grenade!”

As others dived for cover, Croucher did something nobody expected. He lay down on the grenade to smother the blast. Lesley got on the ground, another man got behind a wall, but the last member of the patrol was still standing in the open when the grenade went off.

“My reaction was, ‘My God this can’t be real’,” said Lesley. “Croucher had simply lain back and used his day sack to blunt the force of the explosion. You would expect nine out of 10 people to die in that situation.” L/Cpl. Croucher was that 1/10. Not only did he survive, amazingly he only suffered shock from the blast and a bloody nose. He was saved by the special plating inside his Osprey body armor. The backpack he was wearing was thrown more than 30ft by the blast.

“I felt one of the lads giving me a top to toe check. My head was ringing. Blood was streaming from my nose. It took 30 seconds before I realized I was definitely not dead,” said L/Cpl. Croucher.

For his actions that day, L/Cpl. Croucher was in line for the Victoria Cross, the highest award for a British Serviceman, but it has yet to be awarded.

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

Wednesday Hero - 04/23/08

Click To Enlarge

Cpl. Markbradley Vincze gives students from al-Raqhaa School backpacks in the Monsouri area of Iraq. Soldiers from Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 1-76th FA, 4th BCT, 3rd Inf. Div., delivered backpacks, soccer balls and notebooks.

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

Wednesday Hero - 04/16/08

Maj. Mark E. Rosenberg
32 years old from Miami Lakes, Florida
3rd Battalion, 29th Field Artillery Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division
April 8, 2008

Mark Rosenberg grew up in South Florida. “All boy,” his aunt, Madelyn Rosenberg, remembers. “Very active, but very lovable.” As long as she can recall, Maj. Rosenberg wanted a military career like his father, Burton Rosenberg, had.

He attended New Mexico Military Institute and entered the Army in 1996. Later, he met a woman, Julie, and they
married one day after his sister’s wedding. He and Julie had two boys, now 3 and 22 months. They settled in Colorado near Fort Carson, where he was assigned to the 4th Infantry Division.

Maj. Rosenberg was on his second tour of duty when the Humvee he was riding in was struck by an IED in Baghdad.

“He would say he’s over there to do a job,” Madelyn Rosenberg remembered. “He loved what he was doing.”

These
brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

Wednesday Hero - 04/09/08

Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael T. Williams
(Click Image For Full Size)

Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael T. Williams, a kennel master with Task Force Military Police, 1st Battalion, 10th Marines, and his dog “Kitt”, search for ordnance and firearms during a route reconnaissance operation through the western Anbar province of Iraq April 1. The dog handlers conduct operations in support of 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion to bring peace and stability to Iraq and its people.

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

Wednesday Hero - 04/02/08

This Weeks Hero Was Suggested By Mary Ann

Spc. Jeffrey Jamaleldine
Company C, 1st Battalion, 77th Armor

“How can I say to my sons, stand up for something, fight for what you think is right, if I don’t do anything myself?”

The Jeffrey Jamaleldine that you speak to today is a complete 180 from the Jeffrey Jamaleldine that you would have spoke to in the past. In 1991, Jamaleldin was living in Germany when joined in anti-American protests on Berlin’s Kurfürstendamm boulevard during Operation Desert Storm. “That was the way it was back then,” he says. He was 15 and “America was simply the enemy.” And today, Jeffery Jamaleldine is a wounded veteran of the U.S. Army. On June 6, 2005, after the terror bombing in Madrid, Spain, in the middle of the Iraq war, he showed up at the U.S. Army recruiting office in Little Rock, Arkansas, to enlist. His father, Bashir, told him at the time: “Son, this won’t be a picnic.”

On June 30, Jamaleldine was on patrol in Ramadi, Iraq. The patrol ahead of him had been ambushed by at least 70 combatants and were now under fire. During the fight, Spc. Jeffrey Jamaleldine was hit in the face by a bullet. In the end, the battle lasted into the next morning and the soldiers were able to stop the enemy from returning to Ramadi.

The article on Spc. Jeffrey Jamaleldine is five pages long, and I simply can not condense it down to only a few paragraphs. You can read the entire story here.

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

Wednesday Hero - 03/26/08

This Weeks Hero Was Suggested by Kathi

Soldiers’ Angels Living Legends Team
May No Soldier Go Unloved

Living Legends began in May 2005 with a very small team of seven dedicated angels. The team’s mission was to let the families and friends of fallen heroes know that we were here to support them and to honor their loved one. At the same time, they had to make sure that they were sensitive to what the family was going through. While this team has grown tremendously, they have worked very hard to maintain that same level of dedication and sensitivity. This team is staffed with trained volunteers who carry out a very difficult mission for Soldiers’ Angels. Due to their dedication, Soldiers’ Angels is able to honor those heroes who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation and to pay their respects and offer their deepest sympathies to the families and loved ones grieving the painful loss of their son or daughter; husband or wife; brother or sister; mom or dad; aunt or uncle; their friend.

For more information on the Soldiers’ Angels Living Legends Team, you can visit their site.

TSometimes a hero is one who sacrifices everything in their life to help others. And sometimes a hero is one who sacrifices nothing more than their time.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

Wednesday Hero - 03/19/08

Spc. Monica Lin Brown
19 years old from Lake Jackson, Texas
4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team

Army Spc. Monica Lin Brown has done something only a very few female soldiers in American history have ever done. She’s been awarded the Silver Star.

Brown saved the lives of fellow soldiers after a roadside bomb tore through a convoy of Humvees in the eastern Paktia province of Afghanistan in April 2007. “I did not really think about anything except for getting the guys to a safer location and getting them taken care of and getting them out of there.”

“We stopped the convoy. I opened up my door and grabbed my aid bag,” Brown said.

She started running toward the burning vehicle as insurgents opened fire. All five wounded soldiers had scrambled out.

“I assessed the patients to see how bad they were. We tried to move them to a safer location because we were still receiving incoming fire,” Brown said. “So we dragged them for 100 or 200 meters, got them away from the Humvee a little bit,” she said. “I was in a kind of a robot-mode, did not think about much but getting the guys taken care of.”

For Brown, who knew all five wounded soldiers, it became a race to get them all to a safer location. Eventually, they moved the wounded some 500 yards away and treated them on site before putting them on a helicopter for evacuation.

“I did not really have time to be scared,” Brown said. “Running back to the vehicle, I was nervous (since) I did not know how badly the guys were injured. That was scary.”

The military said Brown’s “bravery, unselfish actions and medical aid rendered under fire saved the lives of her comrades and represents the finest traditions of heroism in combat.”

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.

We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

Wednesday Hero - 03/12/08

Sgt. Steve Morin Jr.
34 years old from Arlington, Texas
111th Engineer Battalion, 36th Infantry Division, Texas Army National Guard
September 28, 2005

From the time he finished high school, Sgt. Steve Morin Jr. made serving in the military his career.

“He always stood up for what he thought was right,” Gwendolyn Michelle Morin, his wife, said. “He was a fighter. He would never give up.” “He had called me to let me know what he was going to do that day,” she said. He expected to be able to call her more often because of the missions he was being assigned. Sometimes they would go 11 or 12 days between calls.

Morin enlisted in the Navy after graduating high school in his hometown of Brownfield, Texas at 17. By 34, Morin had devoted 14 years to the Navy, served in the National Guard for two and planned to attend Officers Candidate School. Morin was still in the Navy when he met his wife. At the time, the two were working for a photo company; he was Santa Claus and she was an elf, she said. Both were attending Texas Tech University. “It was funny because we always kept running into each other. He would hang outside my classes and wait for me with a Diet Coke,” recalled Gwendolyn. “He knew how to make me really happy.”

Sgt. Morin died when an IED went off, overturning the vehicle he was riding in near Umm Qasr, Iraq.

“He’s very strong willed, very determined. Humorous, a clown, but he was also very disciplined and very passionate about what he believed in,” Gwendolyn Morin said. “He always wanted to serve his country.”

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.

We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

Stormy Weather

I don’t know what the weather is like by you, but on the Etsy Beadweavers blog (http://etsy-beadweavers.blogspot.com), there’s stormy weather on the horizon! Check out these 32 stunning pieces and vote for your favorite! Voting goes through 3/14, so don’t miss out on the opportunity to vote for your number one piece!