Recommend reading and........

     She received a purple heart and The Distinguished Flying Cross with valor. MJ tells the story of the episode that gave her the Purple Heart but there is only a picture of the Distinguished Flying Cross with valor.  MJ, Mary Jennings Hegar tells her story in a biography/memoir Shoot Like A Girl: One Woman's Dramatic Fight in Afghanistan and  on the Home Front.  

     While it may not be considered great literature it is a fascinating story of MJ"s struggles, success and failure in the Air Force, and beyond. Sexually abused in a faux physical by an Air Force Doctor she decides not to press charges when her superiors promise to discipline the doctor. When MJ is at an awards ceremony to receive recognition she decides to resign her commission when the doctor who abused her is also honored.

    After leaving the Air Force she joins the National Guard and it is in that capacity she participates in a daring rescue of wounded soldiers that garners her both the Purple Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross. It was in Afghanistan and she was in a Medevak  Helicopter rescuing soldiers from an ambushed caravan. Yes, I'd recommend reading it.

     Perhaps I never told you that I was once lost at sea? Don't go forming images of the sailors in whaleboats after the sinking of the Whaleship Essex. It happened like this.

     For a couple of years I was stationed at Camp Pendleton, California, which is on the coast north of San Diego. Our time was spent training. The Marines, being an amphibious landing force,  gave us opportunity to practice going ashore from ships at sea. This 'losing' was during  a major maneuver that involved the whole battalion.

     We were boarded on a liberty ship which sailed a few miles out to sea. We left the ship going over the side on rope netting into small landing craft. These craft were designed to hold 20-30 Marines and run up on the beach where the front would drop open creating a ramp for disembarking. They were simple little boats, operated by a coxswain, and powered by a diesel engine. There was no navigational equipment aboard.

    The first landing craft loaded would circle while the waiting for the last ones to be filled. On this night, shortly after dark, we off loaded,  but by the time the last one was full, fog had rolled in and the coxswains didn't know which way was land. For hours we circled in the dark and fog, all the boats staying in a circle. Finally the fog lifted and we were put ashore, twenty miles north of our intended landing.   The sea sickness some experienced was our worst causality, unless you count the extra 20 mile march. 

    Now a bit from the Bard.

Sonnet 73: That Time of Year Thou Mayst in Me Behold

by William Shakespeare

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish’ d by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Takk for alt,

Al