HAPPY 4th OF JULY!!!!! GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!!!!

Biking: Part 2

Ok, I know I said that I would post on the bike ride I did.
Last Thursday, I went bike riding with my friends Nick, Mason and Ben. We are training for our summer camp bike rides. We biked 14 miles on the roads around Mason's house. We had a great time. We raced a couple of times and I think we probably broke the speed limit a couple of times, but who cares, right? At one point, we stopped and waded in a river that went under part of the road. The water was really nice and refreshing after biking. When we got back, we ran a mile,did some push-ups and pull-ups and beat each other up.

I really had a lot of fun.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MOM!

I just want to say Happy Birthday to my mom! Thanks mom for everything you do!

This Unconventional Life

Holly started a new blog and closed her old one. Here is the link to "This Unconventional Life".

Enjoy

HATS OFF!

Hats Off by Henry Holcomb Bennett

Hats Off!
Along the street there comes
A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums,
A flash of color beneath the sky:
Hats off!
The colors before us fly....
But more than the flag is passing by....
Days of plenty and years of peace;
March of a strong land's swift increase;
Equal justice, right, and law,
Stately honor and reverend awe;
Sign of a nation, great and strong
To ward her people from foreign wrong:
Pride and glory and honor,-all
Live in the colors to stand or fall.
Hats off!
Along the street there comes
A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums;
And loyal hearts are beating high:
Hats off!
THE FLAG IS PASSING BY!

In honor of the men that gave their lives like men 68 years ago on the beaches of Normandy.........

Randomness at its best......

Here is a link to the best blog in the world, that's right, The Pocket Knife Press!
Click here to see the blog that you are looking at right now, again!
I thought i would share this just caues I could, and cause it's me, and me is weird!

Yours,
Matt 

D-Day- June 6, 1944

"You are about to embark upon the great crusade toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you...I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle."

~ General Dwight D. Eisenhower



Tomorrow at 2:00 am is the 68th anniversary of D-Day, the first of the many hard, bloody, sweaty, unforgettable days to take France back from the Nazi army.

The battle started a few months before for the American, British and Canadian soldiers, in England, with brutally realistic training in preparation for Operation Overlord. Some of the training included: crawling under 200 yards of barbed wire that was draped with pig innards, running across an open beach while being shot at with a machine gun (yes a real machine gun with real ammo), swimming 100 yards in full uniform with a helmet and rifle, jumping out of a plane at 13,000 feet, climbing 100 foot tall nets, running two miles in 15 minutes, uphill in full uniform with helmet, gun, ammo, grenades, a 100 lbs. backpack and water that they were not allowed to drink.



June 5, 1944 was a day of prayer, briefing, loading up, and leaving.

At 2:00 am the next day, the 2,000 ships off the coast of France opened fire on the shore, hoping to clear the shore of mines, barbed wire, beach hedge-hogs, and hopefully, the Atlantic Wall, a wall of underground tunnels, cement bunkers, howitzers, pill boxes, machine gun outposts, barbed wire, land mines, cement walls, trenches, and other deadly obstacles. The wall stretched along the whole coast of France.



The night before, the paratroopers landed behind the German lines and made their way across the country side. Many of them died from either Anti-Aircraft Gun Flack, machine gun fire or some of them drowned in water that was not more than six inches deep. Some drifted miles away from their landing zone. Others were hung up in trees, on roofs and one on a church steeple.



The infantry loaded into LCVPs (Landing Craft Vehicle/Personal) and headed to shore around 4:00 am. One infantry man said this: "It sounded, from the landing boats, that the ships were blowing the wall apart and we didn't have much to do." But when the infantry hit the beach, they found out differently. The cannons on the ships had only destroyed about 1/10 of the wall.



Coming ashore, the troops were instantly under machine gun fire, if they even made it to the shore. Lots of the LCVPs were blown up before they were able to get to shore. The LCVPs had to stay out from shore about 200 feet so they wouldn't get caught on the sand. Once to their position, they would drop the ramp in the landing craft which protected the men inside from machine gun fire. When the ramp was down, the infantry had to wade through 4 feet deep, mine infested waters, to the shore. That was if they didn't get shot or pulled under the water by their equipment. Pushing ashore, the American, British and Canadian troops had to cross about 200 yards of beach that was riddled with mines, blown-up trucks and their dead comrades.



I could go on forever about the history behind D-Day, but I won't. The Allies blew through the German line and freed France from the Nazi powers. Was it worth it? Loosing almost 75% of the air born units, a quarter of the infantry and many vehicles? Was France really worth it? Yes, it was! The men that died on D-Day died for freedom. If we had not beat the Germans, the world might have been under Nazi oppression, we might have lost our religious freedom, our right to free speech, our right to bear arms, our families, our country. The men of D-Day died to protect those things, the things that the founding fathers fought so hard to give to our country. The soldiers in World War Two fought to preserve.

In our nation today, our military men and women are fighting in the Middle East to give to other countries these same rights that we take for granted. We need to thank those men that died for our freedoms.

We need to thank God for His provision of willing men and women who give up their lives for our rights. We must praise the Creator, because He is the One that gives freedom. He is the One that grants rights. It's not the government, it's not us, it's not even the soldiers, it's God and ONLY God!

"Casey At the Bat" by Ernest Thayre

This is one of the poems I am memorizeing right now.

Enjoy!

The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville Nine that day;

The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play,

And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,

A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest

Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;

They thought, if only Casey could get but a whack at that -

They'd put up even money, now, with Casey at the bat.

But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,

And the former was a pudding and the latter was a fake;

So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,

For there seemed but little chance of Casey's getting to the bat.

But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,

And Blake, the much despised, tore the cover off the ball;

And when the dust had lifted, and they saw what had occurred,

There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.

Then from 5,000 throats and more there rose a lusty yell;

It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;

It knocked upon the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,

For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.

There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place;

There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile on Casey's face.

And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,

No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Casey at the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;

Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.

Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,

Defiance gleamed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip.

And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,

And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.

Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped-

"That ain't my style," said Casey. "Strike one," the umpire said.

From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,

Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore.

"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone on the stand;

And it's likely they'd a-killed him had not Casey raised his hand.

 

With a smile of Christian charity great Casey's visage shone;

He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;

He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the spheroid flew;

But Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, "Strike two."

"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered fraud;

But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.

They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,

And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.

The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate;

He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.

And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,

And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;

The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,

And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;

But there is no joy in Mudville — mighty Casey has struck out.

"The Gods of the Copy Book Headings" by Rudyard Kipling

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its ice field, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, they promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed they sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminine Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbor and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
by robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
but, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
and the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
there are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wobbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!