My best accessory

Jackson likes to be involved.

Very involved.

Brushes with Fame

To The Colors

"On June 14, Theodore Roosevelt was dining outside Philadelphia, when he noticed a man wiping his nose with what he thought was the American Flag. In outrage, Roosevelt picked up a small wooden rod and began to whip the man for 'defacing the symbol of America.' After about five or six strong whacks, he noticed that the man was not wiping his nose with a flag, but with a blue handkerchief with white stars. Upon realization of this, he apologized to the man, but hit him once more for making him 'riled up with national pride.'" See generally Wikipedia (internal citations ommitted); cf. 36 USC §110.

From the Flag Code:

• When the flag is displayed from a staff projecting from a window, balcony, or a building, the union should be at the peak of the staff unless the flag is at half-staff. When it is displayed from the same flagpole with another flag, the flag of the United States must always be at the top except that the church pennant may be flown above the flag during church services for Navy personnel when conducted by a Naval chaplain on a ship at sea.
• When the flag is displayed over a street, it should be hung vertically, with the union to the north or east. If the street runs north-south, the stars should face east. For streets running east-west, the stars should face north. If the flag is suspended over a sidewalk, the flag's union should be farthest from the building and the stars facing away from it.
• When flown with flags of states, communities or societies on separate flag poles which are of the same height and in a straight line, the flag of the United States is always placed in the position of honor—to its own right. The other flags may be the same size but none may be larger.
• No other flag should be placed above it. The flag of the United States is always the first flag raised and the last to be lowered.
• When flown with the national banner of other countries, each flag must be displayed from a separate pole of the same height. Each flag should be the same size. They should be raised and lowered simultaneously. The flag of one nation may not be displayed above that of another nation in time of peace.
• The flag should be raised briskly and lowered slowly and ceremoniously.
• Ordinarily it should be displayed only between sunrise and sunset, although the Flag Code permits night time display "when a patriotic effect is desired." Similarly, the flag should be displayed only when the weather is fair, except when an all weather flag is displayed. (By presidential proclamation and law, the flag is displayed continuously at certain honored locations like the United States Marine Corps Memorial in Arlington and Lexington Green.)
• It should be illuminated if displayed at night.
• The flag of the United States of America is saluted as it is hoisted and lowered. The salute is held until the flag is unsnapped from the halyard or through the last note of music, whichever is the longest

Boring is my kind of perfect

My exceptionally wonderful day that I wouldn't trade for anything in the world went like this:

Get home from my very last overnight call ever to find Papa and Jackson on the floor of the kitchen, naming the animal magnets. I promptly copped a squat and joined in the fun with Dean sitting on my hip. John Prine on the ipod.

Winkeyes for breakfast. With syrup.

More lounging in the living room whilst watching Jackson discover how to use objects as stepstools.

Lunch and family naptime.

More lounging on the living room floor interspersed with playtime on the patio.

"Honey, are we boring?" asks Papa. "Yes, but I like being boring," responds Momma. "Uh-huh," adds Jackson. Dean just added his flatulence, which I took to mean he was comfortable with the level of activity at the moment as well.

Quick trip to Home Depot to look for a mosquito killer. Jackson rode in the racecar shopping cart. It was a very big hit.

Dinner at Casa Vallartas. Jack made some new amigos and Momma got her fried ice cream.

Grocery shopping - also riding in the spaceship cart with not one but TWO steering wheels and startling old people with our squeals.

Forty-five minute walk on the powerline with Jack in the backpack carrier and Dean on bunny-patrol. His performance was less than impressive. Most of the conversation revolved around the height of the grass. "It's good for the songbird population, you know. I like it," says Papa. "Makes me itch," says Momma. "Uh-huh," adds Jackson as he steers Papa using his ears as handles.

PJ playtime on the floor in Jackson's room. Two rounds of the Marine Corps Hymn by Papa and Big Monkey, tooth brushing, then bedtime stories. Lights out for Jackson.

Movie time on the couch for Papa and Momma. "Seriously, are we boring?" asks Papa. "Yes." "Should we try to be more creative?" "No." "What's that smell?" "Dean agrees with me."

The end. Life doesn't get much better than this.

Little Hoot

 

The hardest part of bedtime is not figuring out which pajamas to wear (this handsome outfit, of course!) or whether to give Dean Dog a goodnight kiss (of course!), or even which stuffed animal to sleep with (all of them!) - it's trying to pick which book to read!

 

Tonight it was Little Hoot. Thanks, Heather.

Beach III

Finally got all of the pictures from Memorial Day posted to Picasa:



Enjoy!

Fortress Europa

"D-Day: June 6, 1944"

Fix Bayonets!

On the evening of June 1st, 1918, Marines from the 5th Marine Regiment serving under the command of the U.S. Army Expeditionary Force conducted a forced march along the road to Chateau-Thierry, and plugged into the line against the Boche. One of my very favorite books is Fix Bayonets!, written by Captain John W. Thomason of First Battalion, 5th Marines. The cadence and imagery of his prose and his battlefield sketches do credit to the esprit-de-corps of the Marines in a way that few other authors have, before or since:

There is no sight in all the pageant of war like young, trained men going up to battle. The columns look solid and businesslike. Each battalion is an entity, 1,200 men of one purpose. They go on like a river that flows very deep and strong. Uniforms are drab these days, but there are points of light on the helmets and the bayonets, and light in the quick, steady eyes and the brown young faces, greatly daring. There is no singing—veterans know, and they do not sing much—and there is no excitement at all; they are schooled craftsmen, going up to impose their will, with the tools of their trade, on another lot of fellows; and there is nothing to make a fuss about. Battles are not salubrious places, and every file knows that a great many more are going in than will come out again—but that is along with the job. And they have no illusions about the job.

There is nothing particularly glorious about sweaty fellows, laden with killing tools, going along to fight. And yet—such a column represents a great deal more than 28,000 individuals mustered into a division. All that is behind those men is in that column, too: the old battles, long forgotten, that secured our nation—Brandywine and Trenton and Yorktown, San Jacinto and Chapultepec, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, Antietam, El Caney; scores of skirmishes, far off, such as the Marines have nearly every year—in which a man can be killed as dead as ever a chap was in the Argonne; traditions of things endured and things accomplished, such as regiments hand down forever; and the faith of men and the love of women; and that abstract thing called patriotism, which I never heard combat soldiers mention—all this passes into the forward zone, to the point of contact, where war is girt with horrors. And common men endure these horrors and overcome them, along with the insistent yearnings of the belly and the reasonable promptings of fear; and in this, I think, is glory.

THEY LOOKED FINE, COMING IN THERE . . . THROUGH THOSE LITTLE TIRED FRENCHMEN.

Semper Fidelis, Marines.

Bonus Update: On tonight's edition of Jeopardy!, the $1200 question in the category "Woodrow Wilson's War" featured the 5th and 6th Marine Regiments at Belleau Wood.