Some pics of inspiration (1 Viewer)

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and one that probably doesn't need explanation.
 

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im not american, yet i still feel that sense of unity and strength and courage for ones country. I feel safer in britain but glad to have an ally in america.
 
I've never been much of an american fan but those pictures are.....I can't even think of a fitting word.....too bad that we can't have peace on this planet....always is some madman who wants power and war...my respect to the americans soldiers and my country's soldiers who are in Iraq too. :salute:
 
I know that this represents American soldiers and , well, I am American but I was hoping that maybe this would also inspire those of other countries and their soldiers. Sometimes we forget that its the person sitting in a dusty foxhole 10,000 miles away or stuffed in a smelly sardine can or alone at 25,000 feet that allows me to buy a Big Mac or run with my kids without too much worry.

This really is for everyone everywhere.

Thanks for the good thoughts.
 
This is something that will put a lump in your throat. I feel extremely proud
when I see our flag go by, or hear a marching tune, and I think of our men
and women "over there". I've always been a patrotic S.O.B. and I wonder,
if I was younger, would I want to go...... Or would I say, "I've been to
Korea and to Nam....... let someone else do it" ? Makes you wonder.....

Charles
 
I believe that is my one regret, that I didn't serve. Yeah its cool to like warplanes and I have my little modeling hobby, but when I used to hear my Dad and my brother talk about military things, I wish I had the guts to step up and pay back some of the freedoms I enjoy.

Sometimes I wish we had a "do-over" in life, you know to correct the things you learn about the first time through.
 
I believe that is my one regret, that I didn't serve. Yeah its cool to like warplanes and I have my little modeling hobby, but when I used to hear my Dad and my brother talk about military things, I wish I had the guts to step up and pay back some of the freedoms I enjoy.

Sometimes I wish we had a "do-over" in life, you know to correct the things you learn about the first time through.

Don't be too hard on yourself. Circumstances (sometimes out of our control) often decide what paths we follow. When I was younger, I remember hoping that I could be like my father who fought in the ETO from June 6, 1944 to V-E Day. When the Viet Nam War (certainly much different than WW II) came along I was in the Army National Guard, and never left the states, while buddies of mine from HS were killed. Felt a lot of guilt, but got over it. But I've always believed that had I lived in my father's era, I would have been one of the first to enlist on December 8, 1941.

I have always revered those who serve in the military, especially those that have given their blood in the defense of their homeland.

I could use a couple of "do-overs" myself.
 
I'm really not that hard on myself, just sometimes wonder.... And now for heart-warming time!
 

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I'm back and here we go.....
 

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Leading the fight is Gunnery Sgt Michael Burghardt, known as "Iron Mike" or just "Gunny". He is on his third tour in Iraq He had become a legend in the bomb disposal world after winning the Bronze Star for disabling 64 IEDs and destroying 1,548 pieces of ordnance during his second tour. Then, on September 19, he got blown up. He had arrived at a chaotic scene after a bomb had killed four US soldiers. He chose not to wear the bulky bomb protection suit. "You can't react to any sniper fire and yo u get tunnel-vision," he explains. So, protected by just a helmet and standard-issue flak jacket, he began what bomb disposal officers term "the longest walk", stepping gingerly into a 5ft deep and 8ft wide crater.

The earth shifted slightly and he saw a Senao base station with a wire leading from it. He cut the wire and used his 7 in knife to probe the ground. "I found a piece of red detonating cord between my legs," he says. "That's when I knew I was screwed."

Realizing he had been sucked into a trap, Sgt Burghardt, 35, yelled at everyone to stay back. At that moment, an insurgent, probably watching through binoculars, pressed a button on his mobile phone to detonate the secondary device below the sergeant's feet "A chill went up the back of my neck and then the bomb exploded," he recalls. "As I was in the air I remember thinking, 'I don't believe they got me.' I was just ticked off they were able to do it. Then I was lying on the road, not able to feel anything from the waist down."

His colleagues cut off his trousers to see how badly he was hurt. None could believe his legs were still there. "My dad's a Vietnam vet who's paralyzed from the waist down," says Sgt Burghardt. "I was lying there thinking I didn't want to be in a wheelchair next to my dad and for him to see me like that. They started to cut away my pants and I felt a real sharp pain and blood trickling down. Then I wiggled my toes and I thought, 'Good, I'm in business.' "As a stretcher was brought over, adrenaline and anger kicked in. "I decided to walk to the helicopter. I wasn't going to let my team-mates see me being carried away on a stretcher." He stood and gave the insurgents who had blown him up a one-fingered salute. "I flipped them one. It was like, 'OK, I lost that round but I'll be back next week'."

Copies of a photograph depicting his defiance, taken by Jeff Bundy for the Omaha World-Herald, adorn the walls of homes across America and that of Col John Gronski, the brigade commander in Ramadi, who has hailed the image as an exemplar of the warrior spirit. Sgt Burghardt's injuries - burns and wounds to his legs and buttocks - kept him off duty for nearly a month and could have earned him a ticket home. But, like his father - who was awarded a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts for being wounded in action in Vietnam - he stayed in Ramadi to engage in the battle against insurgents who are forever coming up with more ingenious ways of killing Americans.
 

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A few from another email.
 

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