Today is the one year anniversary of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll
and the founder of the Blogroll, Indian Chris at Right-Wing and Right Minded, has an anniversary post up that I hope you will check out
My original "Mail Call! Supporting the Troops" blog, transferred from AOL when they shut down their Journals in 2008.
Today is the one year anniversary of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll
and the founder of the Blogroll, Indian Chris at Right-Wing and Right Minded, has an anniversary post up that I hope you will check out
Although I'll be off of work on Labor Day itself, I'll be working this weekend. So, I'm posting this a little early, to wish everyone a Happy Labor Day!
I'm also unsure if I'll be able to get up a Soldiers Angels Web Surfing post, as tomorrow is going to be very busy for me, with a doctor's appt and then work. Possibly Saturday I can post that? If not, that 'meme' may just have a week off:)
We Were thinking of 'chillaxin" (as the 'young people' say,LOL:) by the pool on Labor Day itself....but we have an opportunity to participate in a Patriot Guard Riders mission near here, and we have decided that we would rather do that, as we have so few opportunities to honor our fallen with the PGR, between our work schedules and the distances sometimes involved in getting to a mission.
S.W.A.C. Girl has a post up about that fallen hero here
P>
I wish each of you a safe Labor Day weekend.
Welcome to this week's installment where all the member bloggers of Wednesday Hero collectively honor many of the real hero's found in this country who's names and bio's have been provided to us for these humble tributes by blogroll creator Indian Chris @ Right Wing and Right Minded.
This Weeks Post Was Suggested By Randy Thorsvig
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. To find out more about Wednesday Hero, you can go here.
My apologies. Between work last week, and getting my daughter ready for school? the week just kind of got away from me without me being able to post the
Soldiers Angels weekly web surf feature until today.
(on a side note,lol, I'm up for the 'evil mom' award, as I had the wicked idea of posting on the dry erase board in our kitchen "5 Days till School Starts",etc.etc, counting down the days....mostly so I could hear my daughter scream "Auggghhh!" every time she walked into the kitchen:)
And on a more somber note? It's also been a difficult week for the
Soldiers Angels Living Legends Team
as,after a brief respite from receiving any names of the families of fallen soldiers to send condolence cards to, we sadly received far too many names at once following the helicopter crash.
Aimee, as always, remembers our fallen here
Click here: Yahoo! 360° - Life In The Northeast - Remember. . .
We hold their families and friends in our prayers.
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For other news by and about Soldiers Angels last week?
Soldiers Angels Texas reminds us that Christmas is coming
Welcome to this week's installment where all the member bloggers of Wednesday Hero collectively honor many of the real hero's found in this country who's names and bio's have been provided to us for these humble tributes by blogroll creator Indian Chris @ Right Wing and Right Minded.
This Weeks Post Was Suggested By Kasee
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. To find out more about Wednesday Hero, you can go here.
Well, you can get one opinion here:)
Click here: Hard Soldier: Sleep is for suckers!
and, if his post inspires you to maybe write a letter of your own? He's one of the
Bad Voodoo Platoon soldiers, and their address is:
<Soldier's Name>
B Co 1/160TH INF
APO AE 09327
(and if you're wanting to write to him specifically, he's Baker . But heck, I'm sure
Any of the Bad Voodoo guys would appreciate some mail.
This is, of course, the Platoon of the illustrious JP of Milblogging.com fame :)
And,sadly, one of them has suffered a recent loss in his family
Click here: Ranger Sid: Home....
My sympathy and prayers, to Sid and his family.
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If you maybe want to write a few more letters? You can check out this post
Click here: Semper Fi, Sayce: Monday Morning News
(and Sayce's address is in the sidebar, why not send he And LCPL Sweeney a note?:)
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If you'd still rather email than snail mail? Please remember the "Letters from Home" project
It's an email project for the 1rst Battalion,1rst Marine Regiment, and you just put "Letters from Home" in the subject line of your email, and send it to
So, won't you please consider sending some messages of support, one way or the other, to our troops?
(And, as always, if you want to get involved on a more long-term basis, please check out)
where you can Adopt A Soldier
or join one of the many other Teams
Thanks! for whatever way you'd like to show support or get involved:)
JP of Milblogging.com (via a tip from reader Rachel) posts a link to yet another article from the most excellent Noah Shachtman
What bloggers are saying: Army Reports Brass, Not Bloggers, Breach Security
Following up on that, I went by Wired's Danger Room blog
Click here: Danger Room - Wired Blogs
where Shachtman has updates on his blog post that are of interest, and also a listing at the bottom of all the pertinent blog posts related to this topic.
In which I pick out various mentions of and by Soldiers Angels around the blogosphere. Before I start this post, I want to mention that I came across something Extremely disgusting in my search both this week and last week for mentions of Soldiers Angels.
It seems that there is what they call a 'splog' (spam blog) which lists links to pornographic sites, and the scum that have set this up link to anything that mentions...."Angels". So, for the last two weeks, this 'splog' has turned up in my Google alerts for 'Soldiers Angels, and it has links to articles By Soldiers Angels members.
I figured out this week how to report this 'splog' to Google, and hope that they will soon be removing this 'splog' from the web entirely, but it really nauseates and incenses me that pornographers would set something like this up to drive traffic to their web sites. The seamy underbelly of the web, yuck.
Enough of that, in the 'good news' department, once again there's lots of great stuff around the web by and about Soldiers Angels.
New (or 'new-to-me':) Angels and Angel blogs
Friend CJ has a post up that's worth a read over at the VA Mortgage Center Blog
Welcome to this week's installment where all the member bloggers of Wednesday Hero collectively honor many of the real hero's found in this country who's names and bio's have been provided to us for these humble tributes by blogroll creator Indian Chris @ Right Wing and Right Minded.
This Week's Soldier Was Suggested By Kat
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. To find out more about Wednesday Hero, you can go here.
A fellow Soldiers Angel alerted me to this email project for some more Marines
(and he's got two updates)
Click here: Thinking Right » Blog Archive » Project: “Letters From Home” Update
I'm going to be busy tomorrow, so decided to post this today. Good thing! There's LOTS out there this week thus far:)
Things to send
You could send a get well card to a Marine
Via Spousebuzz, SHOES are needed!
Click here: In Focus: Operation Good Shoes - SpouseBUZZ
(and,by the way, Andi of Andi's World is closing down her blog and devoting her blogging time to SpouseBUZZ, you can check out her post about it here
Click here: Welcome To Andi's World: Bittersweet
Andi is, of course, the coordinator of the annual Milblog conference,also. I can understand her reasons for having to let something go, with ALL that she does...but it still makes me sad to see her having to close her blog down. Wishing her all the best in the future!)
You could send chili-fixin's :)
Click here: Kiss My Gumbo » Anyone want to be in a chili cook-off in Afghanistan?
and there's an update on that here
Click here: Soldiers’ Angels Louisiana » Labor Day Chili cook-off update in Afghanistan
Or,you could send a stuffed bear(from a 'new-to-me' Angel blogger)
Click here: One Healthy Sucker: Do Some Good
and a MySpace Angel friend mentions this,too:)
Click here: blog.myspace.com/SoldiersAngelSusan
Lastly in this category, you can send up prayer...for this Marine and his family, who came to my attention during one of my searches for mentions of Soldiers Angels
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Soldiers Angels Texas has Many good posts, but I particularly liked this one
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Over on Yahoo 360 (another of the web 'communities' I belong to) there are Angels you should check out
The Australian Angel I've mentioned before, who includes news about her "3 Amigos" in her letters to soldiers
Aimee ALWAYS remembers our fallen
Click here: Yahoo! 360° - Life In The Northeast - Remember. . .
(and she blogs about many other things,too!)
And Larry is with the Soldiers Angels Riding Club of Pa (did you know they had a riding club?:)
And he's blogged about one of the rewards of being an Angel
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More updates from the recent SA convention in San Antonio
Click here: blog.myspace.com/tracyvolena
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A new Angel blogger:)
Click here: American Girl: A Little Bit of Life
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And, if you haven't gotten enough Soldiers Angels news from these links? There's plenty of great news in the August Soldiers Angels newsletter
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Hope everyone has a good weekend!
Here's today's forecast:
Click here: WHSV - Weather WHSV - Harrisonburg, VA Weather
( A "slight break of Lower 90's"????? ROFL.)
Welcome to this week's installment where all the member bloggers of Wednesday Hero collectively honor many of the real hero's found in this country who's names and bio's have been provided to us for these humble tributes by blogroll creator Indian Chris @ Right Wing and Right Minded.
This Week's Soldier Was Suggested By Gary
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. To find out more about Wednesday Hero, you can go here.
This Thursday, Aug.9, the first active duty Army nurse to be killed in combat since the Vietnam War will be laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetary.
Cpt. Maria I. Ortiz died on July 10, 2007 in Baghdad,Iraq of wounds suffered during a mortar attack while she was serving at the 28th Combat Support Hospital in the Green Zone. She died while tending to Iraqi wounded.
As a nurse myself, and as the niece of an Army nurse Captain who served in Vietnam
Click here: For My Aunt...A Thank You to an Army Nurse Corps Vietnam Veteran
learning of this death had a huge personal impact for me.
(I regret to say that I missed the announcement of her death in July, as this was when the boyfriend's son was home on leave and I didn't spend much time on the computer then. )
I learned of Cpt. Ortiz's death last night through a posting on the Patriot Guard Riders forums
and I immediately set out to do a search to find out more about this fallen hero.
I found the story of a woman who was living out her calling, and who died doing what she felt she was born to do--caring for others.
Over and over again, in the stories about her that I found on the web, people mentioned her smile, and her caring heart.
I found a myriad of links honoring and remembering Cpt. Maria Ortiz, and rather than synopsize them all, I'm going to list them at the end of this post, and urge you to take a moment to read through them, and learn more about this woman and nurse who was greatly beloved by family,friends, and patients.
I am not in any way saying that any one death in the wars that our service men and women are currently fighting is more important than any other death. Each death is a loss, each death deserves to be honored and remembered.
But as a woman and a nurse, this death hits home for me. And I felt it was important to highlight the memory of Cpt.Maria Ines Ortiz.
Please take a moment this Thursday to remember Maria Ortiz's family in your prayers, as they lay her to rest.
And here is a link to her Guestbook on Legacy.com, if you'd like to leave your condolences.
Click here: Guest Book - Capt. Maria I. Ortiz
RIP CPT. Maria Ines Ortiz.
And to her family and friends, may I respectfully offer my heartfelt sympathy for your loss.
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Click here: Popular Army Nurse Is the First Killed in Combat Since Vietnam
Click here: Army nurse killed in Iraq - MilitaryWoman.org
Click here: MarÃa Inés Ortiz - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Click here: Memorial this week for slain Army nurse
Click here: Nurse killed in Iraq remembered -- baltimoresun.com
Click here: wjz.com - Memorial Held At APG For Army Nurse Killed In Iraq
Click here: In Memorium Walter Reed celebrates the life, service of Capt. Maria Ortiz
Click here: Maria Ines Ortiz, Capain, United States Army
Beside's blogging here, I also did some blog posts this week and last week for
over at the Independence Fund blog
Go check it out Here
Finally, I'm actually getting this up on a Friday:)
News of and by Angels seems to be lighter this week, but that could be because the Annual SA Conference is going on.
Speaking of the conference? I came across this news article on My SA.com (the "SA" stands for "San Antonio", but still cool serendipity,huh? :)
Music Helps Soothe Soldier's Soul by Tunette M. Callis,Express News
and in the article, it says that the rap group 1223 (twelve twenty-three) were going to be special guests at the convention when they met at Brooke Army Medical Center on Aug.1, and were going to entertain wounded soldiers and hand out CD's.
For yet more serendipity (can you tell I like that word,lol? April is lucky she wasn't Named 'Serendipity', but I thought that was going a bit too far:) I am familiar with 1223 via MySpace, and had blogged about them before.
If you would like to hear the song the article above mentions? their MySpace page is here http://www.myspace.com/1223music and the song is called "Drive On".
I also found a posting about the first night of the convention from another 'new-to-me' blogger who has pictures up:)
(Trying to post this again, I had a little trouble with the link this morning)
On July 31, I saw a MySpace bulletin that led me to this blog post by a fellow Soldiers Angel member
I simply think this is a post you must not miss. And, my condolences to the family of Cpl. Sean A. Stokes. You are in my prayers.
Please go check it out
Yesterday, I mentioned that April and I were going to go swimming.
Several things happened that, sadly, I know fall into the category of "it could only happen to me."
(but, on the bright side? it's more material for letters to soldiers,LOL:)
First of all, we had gotten the air pump back from the person who borrowed it, and the top part of the pool needed some more air. I hooked up the air pump and happily stood there for several minutes enjoying the sunshine :)
Until, of course, I realized that I had hooked up the air pump Backwards, and so I wasn't putting air Into the pool......I was letting air OUT!
But wait....there's more!
I had recently spoken with the neighbors next door, who have a little girl, and told them I'd invite them over next time we swam. So, I did, and the mother and daughter came over.
We had a nice time swimming....it all turned ugly when they went to Leave.
We have locks on both the gates on the fence since we put the pool in, and so to get to the pool you have to go down the stairs and out through the basement. When they were ready to leave, April and I walked up the steps with them and discovered....we couldn't open the doorknob on the door at the top of the steps!
(we'd been having more and more difficulty using this doorknob prior to this.)
April ran back downstairs as I unsuccessfully kept trying to turn the doorknob and get the door open. We couldn't use our keys to unlock the fence gates as, you guessed it...the keys were on the Other side of the stubborn basement door. So, April (Miss Resourceful:) was getting the pool ladder out of the pool, to use it to try and climb over our fence...when, thank goodness, her Dad drove up.
She hollered over the fence at him and tried to explain that he needed to come let us out. I'm not sure he understood exactly what she was trying to say? since 'we're trapped in the basement,come let us out" yelled over the fence didn't really seem to make much sense to him? :) but,eventually, he understood and came inside to open the door.
Only, it wouldn't open for Him,either!!
Now, he was going back out to the truck to get tools to try and turn the doorknob, my neighbors are looking more panicked, and I am disgusted at this point, calling out to April "Just tell your Dad to throw the keys to you, and we're going out the fence gate!" because I have just given up on ever getting out the door.
We got out the fence gate, and my neighbors left. (do you think they'll ever come back?LOL) and as it turned out, Tony never could get the doorknob turned and finally had to take it completely Off in order for us to be able to use the door.
After he did, he turned to me and said "Between you getting locked in the shed like you did back in Feb, and now getting locked in our own basement? I'm not sure it's safe to let you go ANYWHERE, even in our own House!!"
And that was my latest dork adventure :)
(crossposted from my ' family blog ', thought y'all might enjoy it )
Someone asked if all my family in MN were OK, and yes, thank God, they are.
If you'd like to donate to the Twin Cities Red Cross? From their website
Twin Cities Red Cross Responding to Hwy. 35W Bridge Collapse
Our hearts go out to everyone affected by the 35W bridge collapse tragedy.
The Twin Cities Red Cross is responding to the this disaster by providing mass care, mental health counseling and more to those affected.
NOTE - Due to call volume, we are currently experiencing difficulties with our phone systems.
Register as SAFE and WELL
To register yourself as SAFE and WELL or to search for information on a loved one - please visit www.safeandwell.org. Concerned family and friends can search the list of those who have registered.
To Donate Money and Blood
The best way to help those affected by this and other disasters is to donate money and/or blood.
To make a financial donation - CLICK HERE. You can also call 612-460-3700.
You can also mail financial donations to:
American Red Cross - Twin Cities Area Chapter
NW 5597
P.O. Box 1450
Minneapolis, MN 55485-5597
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My thoughts and prayers are with all those who lost loved ones yesterday, all those injured or affected by this, and with all those still working on rescue/recovery efforts.
Since April and I want to get a little swimming in this afternoon
I'm just going to opt for the 'lazy way' to post this,LOL, and send y'all to my 'family blog' on AOL for why I have Christmas on my mind
A friend on Yahoo 360 has This post up
Welcome to this week's installment where all the member bloggers of Wednesday Hero collectively honor many of the real hero's found in this country who's names and bio's have been provided to us for these humble tributes by blogroll creator Indian Chris @ Right Wing and Right Minded.
This Weeks Soldier Was Suggested By Cynthia
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. To find out more about Wednesday Hero, you can go here.