Just read this story on Facebook. Thought you all would appreciate the read. Still have chills going down my spine…..

You never know when the moment will choose you…..
Mary and I were seated in the 1A&B bulkhead seats for our flight to Salt Lake City (connecting to SEATAC) as the plane loaded in Philly.  Just a regular flight like any other.  Mary and I were talking and over her shoulder I noticed a guy in line, coyote brown day pack with a MARPAT poncho liner rolled up and lashed to the side, khaki vertx cargo pants, crocks and a 2/5 Marines T-shirt.  What stood out to me was that he was carrying a folded American Flag.  My blood turned cold.  “Mary”, and I gestured towards him as he moved down the isle somewhere in the rear of the plane.  She turned around and then she looked back at my face and she knew too. “You think”? Asked Mary
“Philly is the closest airport to Dover AFB”, I replied.
Mary and I sat in silence staring at each other for a few seconds and then she said “I’m going to take his seat and send him up here, he needs YOU, Chuck”.
Before I could even reply she was out of her seat and moving to the rear.  A couple minutes later this Marine is standing next to me and he says “I was told to report to the bulkhead”.
“Hey man, I’m Chuck have a seat”. We shook hands.
Long story short, this Marine was a Company Gunny in 2-1 Marines and had just escorted 10 of his men to Dover AFB.  He was on his way to Pendleton after being relieved by other escorts to take his fallen Marines to their various places of internment. 
We talked and I listened.  This was his 6th deployment and he had worked Abby gate with his Marines for the past couple weeks. The things he saw at that gate are indescribable.  He called it playing God, as they plucked At Risk Afghans out of the crowd.
He was the Marine captured in a meme giving children drinks of his bottled water.  He was still in shock, his hands were still stained from the MASCAL.  The weight of that flag in his lap was almost overwhelming to me as I sat next to him.  I struggled with my own emotions as I got him fed and a cold beer and some water.  And then I let him rest, he was so impossibly tired.  Misha and I looked after him while he slept.  After we had been flying for a couple of hours he woke up to go to the bathroom. He got up still clutching the flag, then he turned and looked back at his seat and then at me…. questioning.  I nodded that it was safe for him to leave it.  He set the flag on his seat and went to the bathroom.  Now I was alone with the flag that had been over a coffin in a C17 hours earlier.  This symbol of it all, the whole damn 20 years sat there next to me and I couldn’t hold the tears back anymore.  I texted my Marines, Jake, and Paul others and told them that fate had made me a Ranger Buddy of Marines tonight.

My thoughts were with the Gunny, it hadn’t hit him yet.  Mary and I could see it in his eyes, he was running on auto pilot.
Where do we find such men????

I checked with Delta to see if there was a late flight from San Diego to Seattle but the last flight of the night had gone, so going the rest of the way to San Diego so he wouldn’t be alone was out of the question as I would be stuck there until tomorrow.  I made sure that his unit had transportation waiting for him when he arrived there, and we parted company in Salt Lake to head to our connecting flights.

I’m writing this not to virtue signal but to remind everyone that outside of their life and its problems, there are men holding the line, doing what must be done no matter what.  While my family stands down a hurricane and there is nothing I can do to help them tonight, God put me on a plane with a lone Marine carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, and Mary Pressburg made sure that for at least a couple of hours of his journey, that he wouldn’t have to bear the weight of that flag alone, and I love her for it.
Misha showed the love that only an animal trained to serve could and I’m grateful for both.
Sitting in 1A wasn’t the mission I deserved, but it was the mission that I needed tonight.
Semper Fidelis

“There’s no way you can visualize the speed. There’s nothing you can see to see how fast you’re going. You have no depth perception. If you’re in a car driving down the road and you close your eyes, you have no idea what your speed is. It’s the same thing if you’re free-falling from space. There are no signposts. You know you are going very fast, but you don’t feel it. You don’t have a 614-mph wind blowing on you. I could only hear myself breathing in the helmet.”

#OTD in 1960, Enshrinee Joe Kittinger took a leap beyond belief. As part of Project Excelsior, a series of experiments to investigate the effects of high altitude bailouts, Kittinger established that it was possible to put a human into space. 61 years ago, he piloted a gondola to an altitude of 102,800 feet before stepping into the unknown. Joe set two world records…one for the highest balloon ascent and another for the longest parachute freefall.

What did you do today?

#enshrinee #legend #legendary #usaf #parachute #parachutejump #bravery #space

August 16th, 1960, Colonel Joseph William Kittinger II stepped away from his open gondola named “Excelsior” tethered to a massive helium balloon from an unbelievable altitude of 102,800 feet (31,300 m) above the surface of our Earth.

The atmospheric pressure so low, that during the accent, Joe’s pressurization in his right glove malfunctioned, and his right hand swelled to twice its normal size.

Taking that one giant step, Joe free fell for 4 minutes and 36 seconds, slamming into the thicker atmosphere below at speeds up to 614 miles per hour (988 km/h) before opening his parachute at 18,000 feet (5,500 m).

Joe’s pressurization for his right glove malfunctioned during the ascent and his right hand swelled to twice its normal size.

Joseph William Kittinger II was decorated with a second Distinguished Flying Cross, and awarded the Harmon Trophy by President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Kittinger later served three combat tours of duty during the Vietnam War, flying a total of 483 combat missions.

May 11, 1972, just before the end of his third tour of duty. While flying an F-4D. Kittinger and his wingman were chasing a MiG-21 when Kittinger’s Phantom II was hit by an air-to-air missile from another MiG-21 that damaged the Phantom’s starboard wing and set the aircraft on fire. Kittinger and 1st Lieutenant William J. Reich ejected a few miles from Thai Nguyen and were soon captured and taken to the city of Hanoi.

Kittinger and Reich spent 11 months as prisoners of war (POWs) in the Hỏa Lò Prison, the so-called “Hanoi Hilton”

Monday, May 31, 2021 is Memorial Day, when we honor those who died while in service of this nation.  We visit their graves, attend Memorial Day ceremonies, and thank their families.  We thank surviving veterans around us and their families too.

Memorial Day’s roots lie in the US Civil War (1861 to 1865). Waterloo, New York is the official birthplace of Memorial Day, but at many places like Savannah and Gettysburg, people made a point of decorating graves of their Civil War dead and often the dead on both sides. Freed slaves held a very large event honoring dead soldiers at Charleston in 1865.

Across several years, these ad hoc events became annualized. Some states adopted commemorations statewide, and these events often went by the rubric of Decoration Day. By 1865, states like Virginia and Mississippi and by 1871 Michigan and by 1890 all Northern states had precedents to Memorial Day or official state holidays.

In subsequent decades, ceremonies expanded to honor the dead of all wars and coalesced around May 30 as the standard commemoration date. The 30^th was chosen because it did not fall on the day of any major battle. In 1967, the official federal name became Memorial Day. The following year, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act. This moved what is now Presidents Day along with Memorial Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day and Veterans Day from fixed dates to set Mondays. This made three-day weekends, pleasing the travel industry and travelers and was made effective in 1971. (Note: Veterans Day eventually reverted to the fixed November 11 annual date we still use currently.)

So now, we honor fallen Americans of all conflicts, from the American Revolution to the current War on Terror, and from peacetime service too. They are men and women of all ages and from all branches of the US military. They also include groups you might not always remember, such as military nurses.

• We honor those who died in COMBAT and those who died in SUPPORT.
• We honor those who died OVERSEAS and those who died here at HOME.
• We honor those who died in WAR and those who died in PEACE.

Rough numbers paint an important picture. Across of this nation’s 245 years of history, we have the following wartime casualties:

1. Two-thirds of a million who died due to combat.
2. About the same number have died in war of non-combat losses, such as 60,000 succumbing to influenza near the end of World War I.
3. The total is roughly 1.4 million.
4. Another 1.4 million were wounded in combat.
5. Thus, total wartime casualties are roughly 2.8 million.

In the US Civil War, 520 died every day.  This is considered the highest daily fatality rate.  World War II also had tremendous daily fatalities.  However, the deadliest war based on combat days was probably World War I.  America declared war April 6, 1917, but American soldiers didn’t see combat until late Spring 1918, and then they fought through November 11, 1918. Roughly 116,000 died in seven months of war or roughly 555 deaths per day.

We should also consider armed services’ peacetime deaths.  For perspective, combat is currently not in the Top 5 causes of death in the armed forces. Per recent figures, combat counted for 9% of deaths.  Three times this died of suicide.  More died in homicides and transportation accidents.  This means many things.  But among others, being in the armed forces is a tough job.  It means it never hurts to reach out to someone in the armed forces who may need someone to talk to.  Tell those serving currently you appreciate their service and give them a much-deserved word of thanks.

Please think of veterans all around you: family members, neighbors, strangers, etc. Ponder what they gave up serving our nation in times of war or even in times of peace. 

In many cases, they signed up or were drafted without knowing when they would return home, what conditions they would face, whether they would be in combat or whether they would see their loved ones again.  They questioned if they would come home in one piece.  Sometimes they did.  Often, they didn’t.  And regardless, countless suffered terrible traumas in what they saw or experienced.  They had children they didn’t see.  They had relationships that ended. Many never saw their loved ones again and vice-versa.

It seems virtually all Americans agree we cannot be anti-veteran.  They did what they had to do, vastly simplifying the choice for the rest of us who didn’t serve.  Thanking them on just Memorial Day and Veterans Day isn’t enough.  Thank them any time.  Get to know them.  Ask them their stories.  And listen.

And if you are a veteran, we thank you most profoundly and gratefully.

The May 25 regular meeting of the Alachua County Commission began with Chair Ken Cornell calling for a moment of silence “in recognition of the one year anniversary of George Floyd’s passing.” In the last meeting before the Memorial Day commemoration of those who have died serving in the U.S. military, there was no mention of Memorial Day.