A Friend Passes

These Photos have no chronological order. Above is Lacey J as a Pup with Sunny, 2006, Sunny is 11 years old.

Sunny loved boat riding, and aboard Tropic she was with her Friend Lily, n her green parrot.

This was about 2000, and Sunny was 5 or so.

Sunny was so conservative, that without her coat, you could see her patriotism. Would be nice if this is the way most Americans looked? 2004 at 9 years old.

Same good ol' dog as the photo above, but with her coat on, covering up the Stars n Stripes, while she fishes.

And same ol' Girl, now with her dogtags on, as "The Original Old War Dog"

Sunny on her first birthday, and her Red Haired Friend "Chassie", 9/12/1996, Dade City Florida.

Sunny at 5 years old, Holly Hill official greeter, Holly Hill Florida 8/10/2000

Sunny at 7 years old, Old Wood Bridge Fish Camp with "her" Pelican 7/15/2002

Sunny at nearly 3 years old, "Blonde on the foredeck" mode, No Name Key Florida 7/15/1998

Hello Y'all:
On Saturday, (Sept 6,08), my most significant other, and closest friend for the past 12 3/4 years died. Sunny had Arthritis, deafness, and full blown Breast Cancer. I held her head as she died, just 2 minutes after licking my face in a final kiss. If only our human friends could be so steadfast, so dedicated to our comfort as she was; we'd be much better off. No one that I have ever known would have died for me, no one. No one that I have ever known was so tolerant of my shortcomings, and my mannerisms. Sunny and I communicated in a way that wives and I should have communicated.
There is no grotto, no memorial, not even a headstone where I buried her. It will just be a level place in a 40 acre hayfield here on the farm. My memorial to her is my memory of the fantastic life she and I had as a team. I live extreme and we lived extreme. We have memories that stretch from Central Florida to the Keys, the Bahamas, and even to the Carribe. She was a special animal.
She tolerated and enjoyed my friends and let my agressors know that she was between me and they, (several times). 30 or so months ago, she and I selected Lacey, my Great Pyrenees Dog to be her replacement. It was a good choice. Lacey is not like Sunny, and will not be all as super as Sunny; but she loves me, and knows that I am a "touchy feely" sort and gives me physical contact to let me know that she is here for me.
Sunny knew over 250 words and phrases, could "talk" to me with her eyes, and always knew just where I was and stayed between me and harms way. We rode out hurricanes aboard boats, fought and caught big fish, and played with the worlds best "players", (she swam with and communicated with Dolphins), and generally had one hell of a good life. She is known by thousands of people, from all walks of life, and did some thing to please each of them.
I said my goodbyes to her in her last days, and she, in her way said hers to me.
I would ask that every one of you please, please, help someone become aware of the early testing available to prevent Breast Cancer. Sunny was beautiful, but she was burdened with this UGLY disease. Please don't put yourself in her place.
RIP Sunny 9/12/95- 9/06/08

This Ain't Hell Blog has knocked on out of the park

I haven't as yet written a really exceptional post but if I did, it would have to top this one over at
       This Ain't Hell (but you can see it from here) blog.  They truly outdid themselves today with this post:
   http://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=33851      Drop by for a read.  While the post is super, the comments are pretty good too. 
         Some background:   This Ain't Hell has exposed a phony who claims to have been in the military, loves to wear Ranger/Airborne clothing and acoutrements, and he, being to damned dumb to just shut up and go away, has hired a lawyeer to "protect" his copyright material that he himself put in the public eye.  Clear your mouth of liquids and even cover your keyboard before opening the link.
          And while you are there, how about clicking on those ads that show up just under each post, above the comments section.   And if you want to read some good phony soldier expose's why not book mark it for later.   Comments at my blog are in moderation, ( I have some really stupid people trying to crash the party.), please leave yours at the blog post at This Ain't Hell.   We want to hear from all of you.
          Have a great day and do NOT register your guns.
              Frankie

THE OUTHOUSE POEM

THE OUTHOUSE POEM *
(*note: If you don't know what an Out House is - ask someone a little older)

The service station trade was slow
The owner sat around,
With sharpened knife and cedar stick
Piled shavings on the ground.

No modern facilities had they,
The log across the rill
Led to a shack, marked His and Hers
That sat against the hill.

"Where is the ladies restroom, sir?"
The owner leaning back,
Said not a word but whittled on,
And nodded toward the shack.




With quickened step she entered there
But only stayed a minute,
Until she screamed, just like a snake
Or spider might be in it.

With startled look and beet red face
She bounded through the door,
And headed quickly for the car
Just like three gals before.

She missed the foot log - jumped the stream
The owner gave a shout,
As her silk stockings, down at her knees
Caught on a sassafras sprout.

She tripped and fell - got up, and then
In obvious disgust,
Ran to the car, stepped on the gas,
And faded in the dust.

Of course we all desired to know
What made the gals all do
The things they did, and then we found
The whittling owner knew.

A speaking system he'd devised
To make the thing complete,
He tied a speaker on the wall
Beneath the toilet seat.





He'd wait until the gals got set
And then the devilish tike,
Would stop his whittling long enough,
To speak into the mike.

And as she sat, a voice below
Struck terror, fright and fear,
"Will you please use the other hole,
We're painting under here!"

THE PROBLEM WITH AMERICA TODAY

545 vs. 300,000,000 People
This may or may not have been written by Charley Reese. Regardless, it is a good illustration of facts.

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The President does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? John Boehner. He is the leader of the majority party. He and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Army & Marines are in Iraq and Afghanistan it's because they want them in Iraq and Afghanistan ...

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees...

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

How Crazy can a person be?

There's Crazy, and there's Really Crazy, and there is full blown Batshit Crazy. I have come upon one of them. This mouth breather gives his birth date, and then the date that he was "discovered" by those who made the movies "Jarhead" and "Hurt Locker", and they made the movies about him and his valorous deeds. You bet! Both of them movies. Now he says that someone has stolen his medals and his valor.
But wait! It gets much better. To keep you up to speed, he gave his birth year as 1979. And he says that he had his valor stolen in 94/95. That is AFTER he did all the really wild stuff that got him the medals and valor. Yes, I know, that would make him 15 or 16 years old- after combat.
He claims that while he is an Aussie, he was given up for adoption to American Parents, who shortly after began trying to have him killed. He escaped, went to Australia where he was kidnapped and taken to Great Britain. He escaped from his abductors and somehow made it back to Australia.
His military claim is that he was sought out by the U.S. Marines, who sent him over to U.S. Army RANGER school. I also think that somewhere along the way he went to BUD/S. You bet, Marines SPECOP/Army RANGER/Navy SEAL. That would be one bad dude, eh? Really fit, trim, buff, like this guy? He even claims that he met me at Ranger School, when I wasn't even in the area at the time that he claims to have been there. Then he claimed that he had met me around "one of the boats" that I owned, (he saw some boat photos in my FB albums), then that I had even hired him to work for me.
I think that I may update this from time to time adding our back and forth e-mails. I saved them thinking that I may just do that.
He went so far as to say that people are afraid of him..... Oh? Perhaps, of him sitting on them.

Army Ranger completes four deployments as amputee

It's what Rangers do. HOOAH!

Then-Staff Sgt. Joseph Kapacziewski is shown gearing up as a Ranger squad leader for a mission in Afghanistan. Kapacziewski, who lost his right leg after an October 2005 blast in northern Iraq, has deployed four times to Afghanistan as a below-the-knee amputee. Photo: US Army.

Army Times:

When Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Kapacziewski decided to have his right leg amputated, he had one goal in mind: to return to the line and serve alongside his fellow Rangers.

It took months of hard work and painful rehabilitation, but Kapacziewski achieved his goal and has deployed four times to Afghanistan as a below-the-knee amputee.

He was presented with the No Greater Sacrifice Freedom Award on May 24 in Washington, D.C.

Honored alongside Army Chief of Staff nominee Gen. Ray Odierno, the commander of Joint Forces Command and former commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, Kapacziewski is the first noncommissioned officer to receive the award, which recognizes individuals who epitomize selfless service to the nation.

“It’s a little embarrassing,” Kapacziewski said about being singled out for the honor. “Everyone here in the regiment is a team player, so being recognized as an individual is a little awkward.”

Kapacziewski, 28, joined the Army more than nine years ago and has served with the 75th Ranger Regiment since May 2002.

On Oct. 3, 2005, Kapacziewski and his soldiers were coming to the end of their deployment to northern Iraq when their convoy was attacked by enemy fighters.

A grenade fell through the gunner’s hatch and rolled into the Stryker carrying Kapacziewski and 10 other soldiers.

The explosion shattered Kapacziewski’s right leg below the knee, inflicted soft tissue damage to his right hip, and severed the median nerve and brachial artery in his right arm.

But Kapacziewski, a squad leader at the time, continued to fight, making radio calls, coordinating his vehicle’s movements and treating the other wounded soldiers in his vehicle.

It wasn’t until his vehicle was out of harm’s way that Kapacziewski began to receive treatment for his own wounds.

In the first days and weeks after he was wounded, Kapacziewski recovered at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. Doctors had to use part of the femoral artery from his left leg to repair the brachial artery in his wounded right arm. Today, he has regained about 80 percent of motion and about 50 percent of feeling in that arm.

His damaged right leg, along with his shattered ankle, posed problems, too.

After being discharged from the hospital, Kapacziewski returned to the Ranger Regiment and was assigned to the Ranger Operations Company as an instructor at Fort Benning, Ga.

For seven months, Kapacziewski tried to rehabilitate his leg and worked to regain his physical abilities.

He had endured more than 40 surgeries, but 16 months after he was wounded, his right leg still wasn’t healing as he had hoped, Kapacziewski said.

In March 2007, Kapacziewski chose to have his leg amputated.

“It was more about quality of life at that point,” he said. “I was having a lot of pain and my range of motion was very small. It was thinking about the future and getting back to doing the things I wanted to be able to do.”

The first couple months after the amputation were rough, Kapacziewski said.

“I had a lot of phantom pains and I was second-guessing my decision,” he said. “It took a little bit of getting used to, just looking down and not seeing a foot there.”

But when he healed enough to start rehabilitation at the Center for the Intrepid in San Antonio, Kapacziewski said things began to turn around.

“They put me in a prosthetic socket and I was able to start walking and start getting back in shape, and that’s when I realized it was the right decision,” he said.

Less than five months after his surgery, Kapacziewski began running again.

“It felt good, really good,” he said.

After six months at the Center for the Intrepid, Kapacziewski returned to Fort Benning, again as an instructor with the Ranger Operations Company.

Kapacziewski continued to train.

“I had a lot of motivation, working with the best group of NCOs that the regiment has to offer,” he said. “A lot of the guys up there are hand-selected from the different battalions. A lot of them are [physical training] studs and … they helped me out and kept me motivated.”

Ten months after his amputation, Kapacziewski completed an Army PT test, a five-mile run and a 12-mile road march while carrying 40 pounds of gear.

In March 2008, one year after his surgery, Kapacziewski accomplished his goal. He was put back on the line, as a squad leader in A Company, 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment.

He has deployed four times to Afghanistan since he was wounded in 2005; he came home in mid-May from his most recent four-month tour.

In between all of that, he completed the Maneuver Senior Leader Course, and Ranger Assessment and Selection Program II.

He is now a platoon sergeant in 3rd Battalion’s C Company.

Deploying again was “a dream come true,” Kapacziewski said, but he also admits that, at first, he was nervous about deploying with a prosthetic.

“I did worry about it a little bit, sort of being so far away from anyone who could help me with my prosthetic if I started having issues with it,” he said. “But it just meant taking care of my residual limb and taking care of the prosthetic.”

Kapacziewski has three identical prosthetics for everyday use and one for running.

“My prosthetist does a real good job fitting me and lining everything up perfectly,” he said. “We were able to find one that was very universal where I can run, skip and jump out of airplanes.”

Kapacziewski said his fellow soldiers don’t even notice anymore that he wears a prosthetic.

“The first few months walking around, a lot of people would do double takes,” he said. “I had a lot of pressure on my shoulders, wanting to prove I could do anything everyone else could. Over the years, nobody gives it a second thought anymore.”

Kapacziewski said he hopes that more wounded soldiers like him, who want to continue serving, will be given the chance to do so.

“When you put your mind to something, you can accomplish it,” he said. “For the guys who are getting hurt, just because they get hurt, they can still have a huge impact on not only their soldiers but the Army in general. A lot of the guys who get injured have a lot of combat experience that can be passed on to other people. A lot of it is giving them the time to do the rehab to get better so they can go back to doing what they want to do.”

Kapacziewski said he has a simple answer when people ask him why he stayed in uniform and continues to deploy.

“It’s all about the guys you work with,” he said. “I feel like I have the privilege to come to work with my 600 best friends every day, and they have the strongest desire to close in and destroy the enemy. And that makes it all worthwhile.”

Does Islam Breed Violence?

Amil Imani

There is a division of the house. On one side are the politically correct in government, the leftist mainstream media, and a raft of Islamist apologists. One and all are tripping over each other in reassuring us that the mass murderers such as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and suicide bombers who detonate their explosive vests in crowded marketplaces and even mosques are individual anomalies and Islam is not responsible for what they do.

On the other hand are those who have been fed up with the numberless daily horrific acts that are clearly committed under the banner of Islam throughout the world. In all fairness, there needs to be a distinction. Numerous criminal acts are also committed, on a daily basis, by non-Muslims. The critical difference is that non-Muslim criminals do not hoist a religious banner to justify their misdeeds, while the Muslims proudly claim that they commit their heinous acts in obedience to the dictates of their religious faith.

“Investigators in the FBI and U.S. Army determined that Hasan acted alone and as of yet have found no evidence of links to terrorist groups, satisfied that his communications with Awlaki posed no threat. Regretfully, Attorney General Eric Holder has declined to state that radical Islam was the major motive for Hasan's attack.”

Would someone, please, explain what motivated Nidal Hasan who had been, at tax payer’s expense, educated from college all the way through medical school and post medical-school training, to turn his deadly weapons against a nation that gave him everything he had?

If Islam had nothing to do with what Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan did, why:

• had he repeatedly preached the ascendancy of Islam to the U.S. Constitution?
• had he publicly supported Islamic suicide bombing?
• had he proclaimed his highest loyalty to Islam?
• had he been in contact with violent anti-U.S. Islamists and a virulent Yemeni Imam?
• did he distribute copies of the Quran to people the morning of his bloody attack?
• did he keep screaming “Allah-o-Akbar” as he heartlessly sprayed over a hundred bullets, killing thirteen and injuring some thirty innocent men and women?

Here is the truth, as bitter as it may be. Islam is the culprit. Islam is anything but a religion of peace. Violence is at the very core of Islam. Violence is institutionalized in the Muslim’s holy book, the Quran, in many suras:

Qur'an:9:5 "Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war."

Qur'an:9:112 "The Believers fight in Allah's cause; they slay and are slain, kill and are killed."

Qur'an:8:39 "So fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief [non-Muslims]) and all submit to the religion of Allah alone (in the whole world)."

Qur'an:8:65 "O Prophet, urge the faithful to fight. If there are twenty among you with determination they will vanquish two hundred; if there are a hundred then they will slaughter a thousand unbelievers, for the infidels are a people devoid of understanding."

Qur'an:9:38 "Believers, what is the matter with you, that when you are asked to go forth and fight in Allah's Cause you cling to the earth? Do you prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? Unless you go forth, He will afflict and punish you with a painful doom, and put others in your place."

Qur'an:47:4 "When you clash with the unbelieving Infidels in battle (fighting Jihad in Allah's Cause), smite their necks until you overpower them, killing and wounding many of them. At length, when you have thoroughly subdued them, bind them firmly, making (them) captives. Thereafter either generosity or ransom (them based upon what benefits Islam) until the war lays down its burdens. Thus are you commanded by Allah to continue carrying out Jihad against the unbelieving infidels until they submit to Islam."

And the Quran is considered by Muslims as the word-for-word literal edicts of the Muslims’ god, Allah.

Right from the start, violence served as the engine of Islam under the command and supervision of Muhammad himself. For one, the Prophet’s son-in-law cousin, Ali, was titled the Commander of the Faithful for his unsurpassed feats of butchery. Ali with the assistance of one or two of his thugs, beheaded some seven hundred captives, most of them Jews, in only one day. This man, highly esteemed by the prophet of Allah, had a sword that had its own name—Zolfaquar. Ali’s portrait, holding the menacing sword, adorns the homes and shops throughout Shi’a’-lands. And the Shiites, at the same level as Muhammad, revere Muhammad’s executioner, Imam Ali.

On the Sunni side, Muhammad’s co-revered is Umar, another unabashed killer of untold numbers. And of course the choice weapon of these champions of the religion of peace was the sword. And to this day, a sword adorns the flag of the birthplace of the religion of peace, Saudi Arabia.

And Islam, by the nature of its very doctrine, appeals to man’s base nature. It promotes intolerance, hatred, discrimination, and much more:

Qur'an:61:2 "O Muslims, why say one thing and do another? Grievously odious and hateful is it in the sight of Allah that you say that which you do not. Truly Allah loves those who fight in His Cause in a battle array, as if they were a solid cemented structure."

In reality, Islam is like a deadly contagious disease. Once it invades the mind of its victim, this debilitating disease is capable of transforming him to a helpless pawn that has no choice but to execute what he is directed to do.

Of the reported 1.3 billion Muslims in the world, millions are already trapped in the terminal stages of this affliction while millions of others are rapidly joining them. The people enslaved with the extreme cases of Islamic mental disease are highly infectious. They actively work to transmit the disease to others, while they themselves engage in horrific acts of mayhem and violence to demonstrate their unconditional obedience to the dictates of the Islamic cult of violence.

The savagery and variety of the actions of these Islamic captives are seen daily around the globe. Many of these acts, committed under the banner of Islam, have become so commonplace that the world has come to view them as the normal part and parcel of a troubled humanity. And, from time-to-time, the world is shocked into a passing and momentary realization of the evil deeds these Islamist robots commit and quickly gets over it and does nothing to seriously address this affliction of humanity.

The November 5, 2009 dastardly mass murder at Fort Hood, committed by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, is no longer in the public eye. Life will continue on its deadly course, pushed along in a variety of ways by agents of death, Islamists. Only the families who lost their loved-ones and those who survived the bullets have to live the rest of their lives with incapacitating injuries, in the main, won’t be able to put the episode behind them.

The mass murderer Nidal Malik Hasan did not riddle people with bullets under the pressure of momentary insanity. The insanity, ironically, in a man who was trained to help people with sanity was introduced in him from the moment of birth and from the very early years when he prostrated himself five times daily toward Mecca in expression of total submission to the dogma of hate called Islam.

Islam is a mental retrovirus that has mutated into numerous varieties and degrees of severity, over the past 1400 years. Everyone born in a Muslim family, as well as those who convert to Islam, contract a particular mutation of the Islamic Virus. As is the case with all retroviruses, the Islamic Virus burrows deeply in the person and erupts, from time-to-time with potentially devastating consequences.

The Islamic Virus first divests the person of his most fundamental human attribute. It takes away his right to make decisions himself and absolves him, in return, of any responsibility for his actions rendered in blind obedience to it.

A true Muslim does not and cannot believe in freedom of choice. In the religion of Islam—Submission—everything is up to Allah, as clearly and repeatedly stipulated in the Quran. The Raison d'être for the Muslim is to be an unconditional submissive to the will and dictates of Allah. Everything that a “good” Muslim does is contingent upon the will and decree of Allah, he is indoctrinated to believe.

Humanity is facing a deeply troubling dilemma. On the one hand is the desire of enlightened people whose aim it is to forge a world of diverse people into one universal society ruled by peace and justice for everyone while, on the other hand, Islamists are hell-bent on imposing their stone-age system on everyone. Tellingly, the Muslims themselves are at one another’s throat regarding which of dozens of Islamic sects’ dogma should rule.

For now, Islam is busy with what it did from the time of its birth, fighting the non-Muslims and infighting. Truth be told: Violence is the animating force of Islam. Islam is a religion born through violence, raised by violence, thrives on violence and dies without violence.