WAIT THOUGH.
I was thinking of Jerry Seinfeld…but close enough :P
Yessssssssssssss.
(Source: mattstkc)
Up until today (9/15/11) really I had never felt the true importance of being a Boy Scout. I mean I had fun going on the camping trips, learning the skills, getting merit badges, and earning ranks, but I hadn’t ever really felt that it was something that mattered to anyone besides myself and my family.
Until this afternoon. My mom and brother were talking to a family friend about Sean having his Eagle Board of Review tonight and when she heard that her face lit up and she asked “When you have the ceremony… could you possibly remember to invite me? I went to one and I understand the [importance]”. The way that she understood the meaning and the honor of the rank, as someone outside of Scouting, was an incredible showing of how people in society really do care.
I found that experience incredibly meaningful, because as I said- until now I hadn’t ever really felt that Scouting effected anyone outside of the organization. This helped me understand one of Mr. Gabriel (a past Scoutmaster)’s “Top 10 Reasons for Getting Eagle”:
#3 [Getting Eagle] It may be the most significant thing I do with my childhood.
If people react like that then it truly will be the most significant thing I do with my the beginning of my young-adult life.
Ten Years Later: A Tribute 9/11
My favorite 9/11 tribute in New York City can be found in Bryant Park. 2,819 empty chairs on the lawn facing the site where the World Trade Center once stood, one chair for every life lost. The number of empty chairs captures the enormity of the lives lost and the stark emptiness of it just drives home the point that I hope is never forgotten. 2,819 people were here one moment and gone the next. 2,819 went to work or boarded a plane one morning ten years ago thinking it would be another ordinary day and they never came home.
These are the types of 9-11 posts I want to see on my dash. Not pictures of the building in flames or people jumping or gifs of planes hitting the building.
In rememberance.
> just finished watching 9/11. Documentaries and stuff while talking to best friend on the phone.
Seeing some posts on Facebook about people’s “feelings” about American History has made me very disappointed in the lack of patriotism, or even respect, people have for their country and for their history. I find it very disturbing that people can generalize their country’s history into two categoies: “racism” and “wars/killing people”.
I mean yes, our country has had some darker hours, but we have also had some of the best hours of history with America in the spotlight.
The Civil War was fought to free those who were oppressed, World War One and World War Two were fought to protect the freedoms of the world, World War Two was fought to stop one of the most evil men on the planet from taking over and exterminating numerous races whom he felt weren’t worthy of living on our planet.
Doesn’t that fact buy us any credibility, any at all, to the idea that we care about each and every race, religion, and person that (legally) lives within our borders??
I recently read the book The Greatest Generation, by Tom Brokaw about the life stories of some of the World War Two veterans, who had survived coming of age during the Great Depression and when their lives were just about to start they were sucked into fighting a war half a world away. But they didn’t question that, they didn’t fight it, they didn’t call defending their country and the freedoms of other’s racist. They willingly went to war, and they believed in their country.
I wish that we had more citizens like that. I truly do.
Or at least, those who don’t believe in America should either stop taking American History, or go back to wherever they came from.
