Hello and Merry Christmas, I hope you and your family have a terrific Holiday.

 

This month I've decided to use Christmas stories for the newsletter. In January we will get back to business.
 

 
Paul
 

 

   A Different Christmas Poem 

 

  The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
  I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
  My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
  My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.
  Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
  Transforming the yard to a winter delight.
                                                                                                             
 The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near,
 But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear. 
 Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know, Then the
   sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.
 My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
 And I crept to the door just to see who was near.

Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.
A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.

"What are you doing?" I asked without fear,
"Come in this moment, it's freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!"
For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts..

To the window that danced with a warm fire's light
Then he sighed and he said "Its really all right,
I'm out here by choice. I'm here every night."
"It's my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.

No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I'm proud to stand here like my fathers before me.
My Gramps died at 'Pearl on a day in December,"
Then he sighed, "That's a Christmas 'Gram always remembers."
My dad stood his watch in the jungles of 'Nam',
And now it is my turn and so, here I am.

I've not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he's sure got her smile.
Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red, white, and blue... an American flag.
I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home.

I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.
I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother..
Who stand at the front against any and all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall."

"So go back inside," he said, "harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I'll be all right."
"But isn't there something I can do, at the least,
"Give you money," I asked, "or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you've done,
For being away from your wife and your son."

Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
"Just tell us you love us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled.
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us."


PLEASE, would you do me the kind favor of sending this to as many
people as you can? Christmas will be coming soon and some credit is due to our
U.S service men and women for our being able to celebrate these
festivities. Let's try in this small way to pay a tiny bit of what we owe. Make people
stop and think of our heroes, living and dead, who sacrificed themselves for us.

 LCDR Jeff Giles, SC, USN
30th Naval Construction Regiment
OIC, Logistics Cell One
Al Taqqadum, Iraq 
  

 
 

How They Forecast a Cold Winter
One day in early September the chief of a Native American tribe was asked by his tribal elders if the winter of 2011/12 was going to be cold or mild.  The chief asked his medicine man, but he, too, had lost touch with reading the signs from the natural world around the Great Lakes.
In truth, neither of them had any idea about how to predict the coming winter.  However, the chief decided to take a modern approach, and the chief rang the National Weather Service in Gaylord, Michigan.
'Yes, it is going to be a cold winter,' the meteorological officer told the chief.  Consequently, he went back to his tribe and told the men to collect plenty of firewood.
A fortnight later the chief called the Weather Service and asked for an update. 'Are you still forecasting a cold winter?' he asked.
'Yes, very cold', the weather officer told him.
As a result of this brief conversation the chief went back to the tribe and told his people to collect every bit of wood they could find.
A month later the chief called the National Weather Service once more and asked about the coming winter. 'Yes,' he was told, 'it is going to be one of the coldest winters ever.'
'How can you be so sure?' the chief asked.
The weatherman replied: 'Because the Native Americans of the Great Lakes are collecting wood like crazy.' 
 

      

 

 

  He has honor if he holds himself to an ideal of conduct though it is inconvenient, unprofitable, or dangerous to do so. Walter Lippman
 
 
   Less is sometimes more: honor is more than honors
 
 
   From our ancestors come our names; from our virtues, our honors. Grover Cleveland
 
 

  Live today and every day like a man of honor. Charles Eliot
 




 

Sincerely,

 

 

 

   

 

 

It's the Holiday Season and many of you are having a hard time figuring out what to get that special person. I have a great idea: get them a book that just may change their life. Here is a list of my must-read books

 

 

Enjoy!