Poker Perambulation

On the net you get distracted; that is a good thing. You end up on a site you didn’t know about and become a bit wiser. I managed that this week. Totally by accident and compliments of the Princes of Serendip and a link over at The Register.

The site I visited was the blog of a freelance journalist named Michael Yon. I can sit at home and pontificate like a Washington politician. I turn my imagination into reality. I imagine my six years in the Guard could qualify me for command school. That’s pretty close to the rational of a lot of folks in the media and ‘inner circles’ that extend from the NY Times building to the big offices on the Potomac River.

We have a professional and volunteer Army. We have people that have prepared for the current situation almost all their lives. And the rest of us always know more than the pros for some reason. Thankfully, as a group of Poker players, the poker table for most of us quickly disabused us of our thoughts of omnipotence. Maybe we have a clearer perspective than most for not always thinking we have the best knowledge out there.

I’d really appreciate it if you’d head over to Michael Yon’s site. It is at: http://www.michaelyon-online.com/ He isn’t someone trading in second hand knowledge and opinion. He’s telling the story by being there and talking to people that matter. He jumps in one of those olive drab vehicles and sees it ‘up close and personal’ with guys that are staking their lives on giving you and I a life. He has story published from these warriors themselves along with his take. I wouldn’t call his take good or bad – just honest.

On my weekend blogs I tend to editorialize more than normal. It is a vanity. It isn’t important to the world or even the readers. Maybe occasionally I get something right for the right reason. Other times that gets questionable. It is kind of like being a talking head on the evening news – acting like an expert while knowing just enough to be dangerous.

Go look at the blog above. Go make up your own mind after you’ve read the accounts. The guy is a reporter. He provides facts that you won’t see anywhere else. He does wear his heart on his sleeve but if he didn’t I be more suspicious. When you are done with the read, it won’t be all black and white anymore – Republican or Democrat you’ll have to question your bias. And, in the process, you’ll become a better citizen.

ADDENDUM:
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I’ve mentioned in the past that I’ve made a couple of donations to The Wounded Warrior project. http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/ That is still a great place to help out. But, this week I found another site that got a small donation. They send ‘care packages’ to our troops. You can send any amount. You can do it using Paypal so it is easy to do. I owe the guys there more but at least I am making a start on my past due bill to our troops. Visit http://www.operationcarepackages.org/ and add your thanks by picking out one of the two styles of package offered. I went with the snack one that also included a deck of cards. Hope that doesn’t get anybody in trouble; like us, they aren’t allowed to gamble for money either, right Orion?
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Back in my Guard days we ended up for a summer camp in a barracks near St. Louis. An NCO brought his bicycle along and we schlepped all our crap up to the second floor. That senior NCO had brought his beautiful 10-speed and in the moving in process it got munged. He got a bit irate and went to berating the troops who’d got stuck hauling his crap up that flight of stairs; I came up with the best line of my troubled and undistinguished military career by quipping, “War is Hell, Sarg.” OK, I won’t be asked to write for Letterman… Now, go read about an NCO like the Duce-4’s First Shirt that lead from the front and paid the supreme sacrifice. You’ll find a need to say thanks to today’s troops: officer, NCO, and enlisted. War really is Hell and these people are willingly standing in for you and me.
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I never ask for blog pimping. But, if you blog and can copy the URL for the donations and Yon’s site and use some of the text in yours, I would appreciate anything you do. Plagiarism is even welcome.
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I sent a note to the ‘Snacks site’ about the link and got this reply:
Hello!
Hey thank you so much for doing that! I can’t tell you how much we appreciate any mention we can get. Just to tell you a little about us:

My girlfriend and I started this organization when my brother told me of 3 of his friends that never get mail. So what started out as my 1st 3 packages to them back in March of 2003 has grown to us averaging about 140 packages per week now. The thought of anyone not getting mail just is unexceptable to all of us. So anyone that request a package or gives us a name gets put on our list. We keep them on for as long as they are deployed. Right now we have around 1100 individual names and 150 units that we send to. We are all volunteer and all the packing is done usually in an evenings after work and one of our volunteers hauls all the packages to the post office for us.
We spend alot of time writing letters to school, churches and groups to try and get them to do collections of items for us and we are constantly holding fundraisers to help buy what we don’t get donated and to pay for postage. Postage is the biggest expense, we have been spending around $1200. per week lately just for that.

We are so blessed to have so many individuals and groups that help us keep this going. It always makes me feel so good when people want to show their support for our troops. And from the letters we have gotten I know it means alot to them to have unknown strangers sending a little comfort and support from home.

And yes we actaully put playing cards in just about every package. Thanks to a couple local casinos, and one that my mom works at in Oregon, they keep us well stocked in cards. And I do send poker chips whenever we have them.

Anyway, sorry to naw your ear. Shouldn’t have slammed down that pot of coffee. I really do appreciate your support. I wish they could see everyone supporting them.

Thank you again and have a great night.
Debbie

This entry was posted on Friday, May 18th, 2007 at 11:26 am and is filed under Misc.. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.