Tag: self-doubt

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Drinking Too Much Moonshine Can Make you very Blind

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Since I have been a member of the social network RallyPoint, (There are 1.8 million members there. All military.) I have many new military friends. They are as close as a brother or sister.

I suggest that you check it out. You may find some of your military buddies that you served with.

www.rallypoint.com/join/655611-spc-douglas-bolton

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Military news

“I made a quick decision” is the understatement of the year, but it’s how Army Sgt. 1st Class Jedadia Powell made his move to rush inside a burning house to save two women and a dog back in 2017. He made sure nobody else was in the house, and then he went right back to work after first responders arrived on the scene. Now, more than three years after the event, the Oregon National Guardsman received the Soldier’s Medal for his efforts.

The GI Film Festival San Diego Is A Socially Distanced Way to Enjoy Movies
See compelling and inspiring stories with a military or veteran connection at the 2021 GI Film Festival San Diego. Films and post-screening discussions are offered as online showtimes or as an on-demand rental. The all-virtual festival starts May 18.

+I checked this out and there are 38 films, documentaries, to see. Great choice.

U.S. veterans scramble to help interpreters left behind
More than 17,000 are hung up in dangerous immigration mire.
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When I got back to the states from Korea, I was sent to Ft. Bragg. I did pretty much the same work as I did in Korea.

One time our unit was sent on Bivwak to Virginia. We had all our equipment set up, and settled in.

Me and two other buddies went on a walk to see the area. We came across an elderly lady who greeted us. Actually she was being persistent in having us come in and have coffee with her. We soon realized she wanted to have sex with us and we moved on.

Further on the walk we saw three guys sitting together on a hillside. They invited us up. We quickly realized that they were moonshiners. They had the equipment to make booze near them. We sat down and heard some great stories about the moonshine business.

They offered to have us try their mix. We politely agreed. My first sip almost blew my head off! I very slowly finished my drink that was in a mason jar.

One of my buddies really liked it and asked for more. The guys were thrilled he liked it and gave him another drink. My buddy had two more after that.

Then he screamed, “I am blind!!” The three men laughed and said “You drank too fast. You will be fine in a few hours.”

We guided our buddy back to our camp and got him laid down.

On that same trip I was riding with a buddy up in the mountains in the area. He was driving.

There were no safety belts back then.

As we came around a curve we saw a boulder right in our way. The driver swerved to miss the boulder, but the force threw me out of the jeep right on top of the boulder, back first.

I hit the boulder with a tremendous force since we were going about thirty miles an hour. I blacked out as soon as I hit the boulder. The forced also caused me to have a whiplash.

I woke up in a medical tent.

I started screaming in pain. My lower back was one solid brush, and my neck was really painful.

The medic rushed over and gave me some morphine. That really helped.

I have had to have three neck and back surgeries since that day.

These two stories are in my upcoming book, Signs of Hope for the Military: In and Out of the trenches of Life.

Be sure to keep checking back in to see further excerpts and updates as to how the book is coming along.

Better yet… if you subscribe by going to the top of this page and click on “subscribe,” you will get all further posts sent directly to your inbox.

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How is your world turning. Too fast? Is it spinning out of control?

FEAR NOT!

There are over, 11,900 fellow veterans here who have your back.

However, if you feel you are on a rollercoaster ride, GET HELP!

Here is a toll free number that is available 24/7.

There are highly qualified counselors there to help you. They will not hang up until they know you are OK.

Never get on the rollercoaster ride of life alone!

1-800-273-8255 Option # 1

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Remember:

You are never alone!

You are never forsaken.

You are never unloved.

And above all…never, ever, give up!

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A Warrant Officer Was Marching us Into a bay, and Couldn’t Stop us.

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President Biden just received his approval rating and it is 52% That sounds pretty good, except that means 48% do not approve of him. Half the country.

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Military news

“The military justice system simply is in the wrong hands” said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), specifically about military commanders’ ability to block the progress of sexual misconduct cases. But that could come to an end,. There is a Pentagon panel’s recommendation to remove prosecution authority for sexual misconduct cases from the chain of command. Instead, an independent civilian-led office would prosecute those cases.

The recommendation could be a huge step forward for holding military sex offenders accountable, advocacy groups say, but there is a long way to go before any lasting change might be made.

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“It bothers me a little bit that it’s just going to end like this,” one Marine veteran said about the possible withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan this Sept. 11. It’s one of many mixed emotions veterans shared with Jeff about the end of a 20-year long war that killed several of their friends, shaped their own lives, and which never seemed to produce any tangible results. In the end it seems like everyone’s left to their own interpretation of what it all meant.

“I want to believe that everything that we did over there made a difference,” said the Marine vet added. “That’s what I’d like to believe.”

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Dear media, ‘military-trained marksman’ doesn’t mean much

I am talking about the ‘expert marksman’ award, which is not nearly as impressive as it sounds. Unfortunately, it happened again when Nicholas Reardon, a police officer and a staff sergeant in the Ohio Air National Guard, fatally shot 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant in Columbus, Ohio last week. That’s bad because it implies Reardon was more likely to do this because of his military background, and not because of other issues which could be at work here, such as police violence or systemic racism.

+ I was an expert marksman. I am very proud of that, but I certainly understand how people might think like they do.

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I have an excerpt from my upcoming book, Signs of Hope for the Military: In and Out of the Trenches of Life.

While in Basic Training we were marched back and forth from the firing range. One day our drill sergeant couldn’t be there and asked a Warrant Officer to do it.

We saw that he was going to take us back, and we made a sudden decision. We would only take correct orders when he was marching us.

We were all standing around at the firing range when he said, “Let’s get together men.” No one moved. He said it again. No movement. He finally asked one of the sergeants there tell him what to say. He finally said. “Get into formation men.”

We did, and the he tried to start marching us. We were all in formation and facing him.

He look flustered. He couldn’t figure out how to get us into marching form. He again asked one of the sergeants what to say. He then said, “Right face,” We did it.

He again was frustrated because he didn’t know how to get us started. He went back to the sergeant, who by this time was not happy.

The officer then said “Forward march,” We started marching, and the officer was happy. He didn’t do any form a cadence, but we march for him anyway. We were moving along pretty good when we saw we were heading for a boat ramp on the bay. The officer saw that and yelled, “Stop!” We kept going. He yelled it again, “Stop!”

The front of the formation was in the water.

I was in the water soon. The officer screamed for help and there was a sergeant near that ran over to stop us, but that time, the front was swimming around and we were all laughing.

The officer finally got us to our barracks, and we were dismissed by a sergeant there.

All hell broke loose, because the commander didn’t like what we did. At least we thought he didn’t like what we did.

He got us in formation, and chewed us out, but then as he was walking away, He had a big grin on his face.

*This and many other military stories will be in the book. Keep checking in to see the progress.

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How are your doing? Have the nights turned into nightmares. Has the pain of your wounds not gone away?

FEAR NOT!

There are over 11, 900 fellow veterans here who have your back.

If it is just too overwhelming for you, GET HELP!

Here is a toll free number to call 24/7.

There are highly trained counselors there to help you. They will not hang up until they know you are OK.

Never take on this, not so friendly world, alone.

1-800-27308255 Option # 1

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Remember:

You are never alone.

You are never forsaken.

You are never unloved.

And above all…never, ever, give up!

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+If you like what you see, please subscribe at the top of this page where it says, “subscribe.” When you do, all future posts will come directly to your inbox. Also, if you know some else who could benefit from this site, please let them know about it.

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Stories of Near Death Experiences and Some very Funny Moments

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Some military news:

“We’ve got to keep pushing on this” Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Grinston talked about the branch’s efforts to prevent more soldiers like Spc. Vanessa Guillén from being sexually harassed and murdered. Thursday marked exactly a year since Guillén first went missing: and her death forced a reckoning within the Army on how it treats its lower enlisted soldiers, particularly women.
“They leaned into the danger, firing as fast as they could” was how Marine Gen. John Kelly described the last moments of Cpl. Jonathan Yale and Lance Cpl. Jordan Haerter, two Marine grunts who died exactly 13 years ago Thursday while trying to stop a truck carrying 2,000 pounds of explosives as it barreled toward their post in Ramadi, Iraq. Marine veteran and Task & Purpose deputy editor James Clark remembered the fallen infantrymen and the lives they led in a moving story. Both Marines were posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for their actions that day.

Speaking of sacrifice, Navy vet Stephanie Kroot is one of only 50 or so Americans to have donated two of her organs to two separate people, literally giving parts of herself to save the lives of strangers. But those donations are only the latest episodes in Kroot’s long life of service, which includes stints as a police officer, a Navy intelligence specialist, and a critical care nurse. Yeah, she’s good people.

There’s a first time for everything, like sending a general officer to court-martial, as the Air Force found out on Wednesday when it referred a sexual assault charge against Maj. Gen. William T. Cooley to a general court-martial.The former commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory, Cooley is the first Air Force general in the branch’s 73-year history to be court-martialed, though he’s far from the first to be accused of sexual misconduct.

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There are many soldiers who aren’t happy with the way our country is going. Many have joined ranks and formed their own groups. This is not good. We need to stand together and correct the problem. We do not need hundreds of splinter groups.

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Update on my upcoming book, Signs of Hope of the Military: In and Out of the Trenches of life.

It has been a long time since I last shared the outline of my book. I think it is very helpful to share this to let our kow what is coming.

This is the order that it is written:

  1. Basic training. Lots of funny stuff happened plus some good stuff happened.
  2. Mos training- FT Gordon, GA. Got hit with a hurricane. Fast and furious training.
  3. Korea- Here is where I learned about life. Just a teenager, and facing the dark side of life. Lost two buddies there as well.
  4. FT Bragg, NC. Got a huge scare with the Bay of Pigs incident.

Each section of the main book, will have many pages of things I faced and how I faced them. Some were life threatening. Some were embarrassing. Some were as stupid is and stupid does.

Another section will be interviews with soldiers who were actually in the field. Like WWII, Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, etc.

Many of the interviews will have life threatening stories. Too many of the interviews were with buddies fighting PTSD, TBI, war wounds, etc.

The third section will Appendix #1.

Appendix #1 will have pages and pages of help for you and how to use them.

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How are you doing? Is the mile you walk in life, seem more like a marathon? Is it too difficult to continue the battle?

FEAR NOT!

There are over 11,880 fellow veterans here who have your back. Many of them are people I have met and are sharing some of their lives.

Please know, that if it is just to much for you right now, GET HELP!!

Here is a toll free number that is 24/7.

There are highly trained counselors there to help you. They will not hang up until they know you are OK.

Never, ever, face this world alone!

1-800-273-8255 Option # 1

__________________________________

Remember:

You are never alone.

You are never forsaken.

You are never unloved.

And never, ever, give up!

__________________________________

+If you like what you see, please subscribe at the top of this page where it says, “subscribe.” When you do, all future posts will come directly to your inbox. Also, if you know some else who could benefit from this site, please let them know about it.