Happy Birthday, Daddy!
We love you, forever and always. If only more people in this world would take to heart your favorite poem and use its wisdom as a guide.
If—
Rudyard Kipling - 1865-1936
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Dad, you were amazing, like this man:
The story of William Rankin fall through a thunderstorm is one of impossible survival against incredible odds
Lieutenant Colonel William Rankin served as a pilot with the US Marine Corps and was a World War II and Korean War veteran. But he is best remembered as being the only known person in the world to survive falling into and all the way through a cumulonimbus storm cloud to the ground. He literally fell through a thunderstorm and lived. Which, as far as being remembered for something, that ranks pretty high on the awesome scale. Rankin documented this amazing feat of survival in a book called The Man Who Rode Thunder. Sadly, the book is out of print, and the few rare copies still in circulation generally carry a hefty price tag.
The thunder riding incident happened on 26 July 1959. Rankin and wingman Herbert Nolan were flying a pair of F-8 Crusaders from the Naval Air Station at South Weymouth, Massachusetts to the Marine Corps Air Station in Beaufort, South Carolina. To keep above some nasty looking storm clouds that peaked somewhere around 45,000 feet (13,716 m), Rankin and Nolan had climbed to 47,000 feet (14,326 m) and were cruising at a brisk Mach 0.82 (roughly 624 mph). Shortly before they were set to start descending, Rankin heard what he described as a loud bump and rumble from the engine. (This is quite possibly one of the worst scenarios possible to start hearing dire engine noises.)
And like this man:
Those Who Make the Sacrifice Should Decide if America Goes to War
This article was originally published in The Gazette out of Cedar Rapids, Iowa on September 1, 1939, the day Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Major General Smedley Butler spent 34 years in the U.S. Marines where he participated in fighting in China, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Haiti, the Philippines, and France. He is one of only nineteen men to win the Medal of Honor twice. In 1935 he published the book War Is a Racket. This was one of his final op-eds before his death on June 21, 1940.
When any given European war ends, what does Europe do? She starts to breed another generation of soldiers. So, in 25 years they have another war. But what has that to do with America? Will you be any happier if Poland should reappear as an independent country and your boy is buried in an unknown grave?
The last Unknown Soldier had a mother. So will the next Unknown Soldier, and you may be that mother. When your boy marches off to camp you have a 50-50 chance that you will never see him again.
I contend that only those who are ready to make a blood contribution to any war have a right to advocate it. Those who have no blood to contribute—in other words, who have no sons or close kin eligible for military duty—should have the common decency to remain quiet if they are in favor of our participation in one of these foreign brawls.
Who Should Decide
The decision to send our soldiers outside the United States to fight is one that can only be properly made by those who love those soldiers, not by theorists who have nothing precious to give. It is my feeling that those who advocate cooperation or any interference of any kind in Europe should stand forth and say:
“I will either go to the frontline trenches myself or I will send my dearest male relative. I will decline to take a swivel-chair job in the United States. Now I have a right to talk about this war.”
But if you don’t hear this statement from an advocate of war, shut him up.
“War is a Racket” by Smedley Butler, public domain audiobook.
Thanks for being you, Dad. Thanks for all you did for us and for the world. We miss you more with every passing day. Your beautiful soul remains alive in our hearts.