Tomorrow Christopher will go in for his chemo and discuss with his doctor everything we did this past week in Tulsa. One of the major things they stressed while we were there was declaring "mental warfare" on cancer. Since Christopher reads the blog during his treatments I want to rally my troops!
I'm asking everyone to leave Christopher a message to read during his treatments that will help him visualize the mental warfare on his cancer. It can be positive and up lifting or it can as brutal as "Kick it's a$$ Christopher!"
So for all of those of you who read this blog - pass it along to your friends and lets get an ARMY of posts! Together we all LIVE STRONG!
For my love, every time I hear this song I think of you:
3 Doors Down - It's not my time
Everything I know,
There might be more than you believe
(There might be more than you believe)
There might be more than you can see
And I won't go
No I won't go down (yeahh)
4 comments:
I love listening to Chris Daughtry...and when I heard this song, I could hear Chris in this song, but with a few modifications...so this is for you Christopher.
I was blown away.
What could I say?
It all seemed to make sense.
You're trying to take away everything,
And I can't deal with that.
I'm seeing the good in life,
My child's smile, my loving wife.
We'll blow it away, blow it away.
Can we make this something good?
We'll, get rid of it this time around.
I've taken all I can take,
And I cannot wait.
We're wasting too much time
Can't let it bring us down.
My life with my family means everything,
So I won't give up that easily.
I'll blow it away, blow it away.
Can we make this something good?
'Cause it's all misunderstood.
We can't let this get away.
Get it out, Get it out.
Don't give up on yourself.
Get it out.
Let's start over.
It's not over, yeah...
This love makes me strong,
I won't give up on myself,
Get it OUT!
Well Son-in-Law I understand it is time for mental warfare. That is one thing I know a lot about either from History or the way Hollywood likes to portray history. Most of the time real history is more uplifting than the Hollywood version. So here are a couple of examples of history.
On Omaha beach on D-Day the Regimental Commander of the 116th Infantry, part of the 29th Division stood up on the beach as German guns were putting down all kinds of led around him and shouted out “There are only two kinds of men on this beach those that are dead and those that are going to die, your are the fighting 29th now get up off your asses and show the Germans what you have.”
The 116th not only took the Omaha beach, but the Regimental Commander not only survived that day, but survived the war as well.
When the 101st Airborne Division was surrounded at Bastogne the Germans sent a surrender demand to the Commander, who was actually the deputy commander and not even an infantry officer, but an artillery officer. He read the message and the first word out of his mouth was “NUTS”. His staff then worked for about a half hour to craft a response and they were a little loss for words as well. Finally one of his staff offices suggested sending “NUTS” back to the Germans. Which they did, the Germans on the other side were not familiar with this American slang. They spent another four hours trying to figure out what the American commander was saying. They initially thought it was some kind of code. To help motivate his men the American commander had the surrender demand and the response printed and distribute to all his men. When General Patton heard the response he told one of his staff officers, “any man that eloquent must be saved.” The rest is history.
This next quote is my favorite and something I have tried to model my life by, it was Admiral William Frederick (Bull) Halsey Jr “There are no great men. Just great challenges which ordinary men, out of necessity, are force by circumstance to meet.”
Some of Halsey’s less PC quotes. Damn I wish we had commanders today that would speak like that.
“Before we are done with them the Japanese language will be spoken only in Hell!”
and
“Kill Japs, Kill Japs, Kill more Japs!”
I know at some point you saw the Patton speech at the beginning of the movie. Well he actually gave that speech about twenty times are so and each time it was a little different since he always gave it contemporaneously. For the movie it was cleaned up for the sake of out German and Japanese allies of the late 60’s. Below is the uncensored version:
Be Seated.
Men, this stuff we hear about America wanting to stay out of the war, not wanting to fight, is a lot of bullshit. Americans love to fight - traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble player; the fastest runner; the big league ball players; the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win - all the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost, not ever will lose a war, for the very thought of losing is hateful to an American.
You are not all going to die. Only two percent of you here today would die in a major battle. Death must not be feared. Every man is
frightened at first in battle. If he says he isn't, he's a goddamn liar. Some men are cowards, yes! But they fight just the same, or get the hell shamed out of them watching men who do fight who are just as scared. The real hero is the man who fights even though he is scared. Some get over their fright in a minute under fire, some take an hour. For some it takes days. But the real man never lets fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to this country and his innate manhood.
All through your army career you men have bitched about "This chickenshit drilling." That is all for a purpose. Drilling and discipline must be maintained in any army if for only one reason -- INSTANT OBEDIENCE TO ORDERS AND TO CREATE CONSTANT ALERTNESS. I don't give a damn for a man who is not always on his toes. You men are veterans or you wouldn't be here. You are ready. A man to continue breathing must be alert at all times. If not, sometime a German son-of-a-bitch will sneak up behind him and beat him to death with a sock full of shit.
There are 400 neatly marked graves somewhere in Sicily all because one man went to sleep on his job -- but they were German graves for we caught the bastard asleep before his officers did. An Army is a team. Lives, sleeps, eats, fights as a team. This individual heroic stuff is a lot of crap. The bilious bastards who wrote that kind of stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don't know any more about real fighting, under fire, than they do about fucking. We have the best food, the finest equipment, the best spirit and the best fighting men in the world. Why, by God, I actually pity these poor sons-of-bitches we are going up against. By God, I do!
My men don't surrender. I don't want to hear of any soldier under my command being captured unless he is hit. Even if you are hit, you can still fight. That's not just bullshit, either. The kind of man I want under me is like the lieutenant in Libya, who, with a Lugar against his chest, jerked off his helmet, swept the gun aside with one hand and busted hell out of the Boche with the helmet. Then he jumped on the gun and went out and killed another German: All this with a bullet through his lung. That's a man for you.
All real heroes are not story book combat fighters either. Every man in the army plays a vital part. Every little job is essential. Don't ever let down, thinking your role is unimportant. Every man has a job to do. Every man is a link in the great chain. What if every truck driver decided that he didn't like the whine of the shells overhead, turned yellow and jumped headlong into the ditch? He could say to himself, "They won't miss me -- just one in thousands." What if every man said that? Where in hell would we be now? No, thank God, Americans don't say that! Every man does his job; every man serves the whole. Every department, every unit, is important to the vast scheme of things. The Ordnance men are needed to supply the guns, the Quartermaster to bring up the food and clothes to us -- for where we're going there isn't a hell of a lot to steal. Every last man in the mess hall, even the one who heats the water to keep us from getting the GI shits has a job to do. Even the chaplain is important, for if we get killed and if he is not there to bury us we'd all go to hell.
Each man must not only think of himself, but of his buddy fighting beside him. We don't want yellow cowards in this army. They should all be killed off like rats. If not they will go back home after the war and breed more cowards. The brave men will breed brave men. Kill off the goddamn cowards and we'll have a nation of brave men.
One of the bravest men I ever saw in the African campaign was the fellow I saw on top of a telegraph pole in the midst of furious fire while we were plowing toward Tunis. I stopped and asked what the hell he was doing up there at that time. He answered, "Fixing the wire, sir." "Isn't it a little unhealthy right now?," I asked. "Yes sir, but this goddamn wire's got to be fixed." There was a real soldier. There was a man who devoted all he had to his duty, no matter how great the odds, no matter how seemingly insignificant his duty might appear at the time.
You should have seen those trucks on the road to Gabes. The drivers were magnificent. All day and all night they rolled over those
son-of-a-bitching roads, never stopping, never faltering from their course, with shells bursting around them all the time. We got through on good old American guts. Many of these men drove over forty consecutive hours. These weren't combat men. But they were soldiers with a job to do. They did it -- and in a whale of a way they did it. They were part of a team. Without them the fight would have been lost. All the links in the chain pulled together and that chain became unbreakable.
Don't forget, you don't know I'm here. No word of the fact is to be mentioned in any letters. The world is not supposed to know what the hell became of me. I'm not supposed to be commanding this Army. I'm not even supposed to be in England. Let the first bastards to find out be the goddamn Germans. Someday I want them to raise up on their hind legs and howl, "Jesus Christ, it's the goddamn Third Army and that son-of-a-bitch Patton again."
We want to get the hell over there. We want to get over there and clear the goddamn thing up. You can't win a war lying down. The quicker we clean up this goddamn mess, the quicker we can take a jaunt against the purple pissing Japs an clean their nest out too, before the Marines get all the goddamn credit.
Sure, we all want to be home. We want this thing over with. The quickest way to get it over is to get the bastards. The quicker they are whipped, the quicker we go home. The shortest way home is through Berlin. When a man is lying in a shell hole, if he just stays there all day, a Boche will get him eventually, and the hell with that idea. The hell with taking it. My men don't dig foxholes. I don't want them to. Foxholes only slow up an offensive. Keep moving. And don't give the enemy time to dig one. We'll win this war but we'll win it only by fighting and by showing the Germans we've got more guts than they have.
There is one great thing you men will all be able to say when you go home. You may thank God for it. Thank God, that at least, thirty years from now, when you are sitting around the fireside with your grandson on your knees, and he asks you what you did in the great war, you won't have to cough and say, "I shoveled shit in Louisiana."
That's all, dismissed
Finally, a very simple quote from a Charlton Heston move, Major Dundee. There was one recurring theme in the move as a misfit Calvary Major goes to chase renegade Apaches in Mexico. “Until the Apache is captured or destroyed”. When I was fighting my way through grad school we had some real problems since the accounting faculty wasn’t sure how they wanted to structure their program. It was a brand new program that started with me and nine others. Over a year of work I saw the numbers drop off. Finally a year an a half into the program I was the only one left. I was determined while they might chase other people away they weren’t going to chase me away. That movie had been popular in the movie theaters a couple of years prior and it was then playing on TV very often. But that theme stuck in my head. “Until the Apache is captured or destroyed” or another way of saying it, “failure is not an option” whatever it takes, whatever mountain, whatever ocean, you will not give up, you will not take no for an answer. You will find your enemy and you will defeat your enemy because you are better than your enemy and most importantly of all you are righteous and because you are righteous you have God on your side.
With Love, from your Daddy-in-Law
Chris, rip the cancer cells a new one. Your strength and courage during this battle have been awe inspiring. You're a fine man. Keep up the good work.
Wava
C- There was this one girl at band camp.... Oh wait, no.... She was at work, right, it was work. Anyway I thought she was the coolest thing since sliced bread. She is smart, talented, has unforgetable brown eyes & above all that she's sooo sweet & considerate. All she could talk about was her kickass boyfriend, it was so silly it was cute & wierd. Wierd cuz you rarely see that deep of a committment & respect in couples so young. Anyway, in all the gushing & gushing & gushing she did all day, every day about her boyfriend, I learned the story about your mom & that's when I realized what was up with Denise. Remember I said she was smart. Well, she knew how lucky she was. She had found a man, an extremely deeply caring man, who at a very young age was willing & able to take on the task of caring for his dying mother. Like your Dad-in-law quoted above, about there being no great men, only necessity & great challenges. I think most men, at such a young age, when faced w such a challenge would be (unselfishy so) focused on themselves & getting through college. I said unselfishly so, because what you did for and gave up for your mom when she needed you most, was not fair. But you did it, with no regret or self pitty. That's what makes you so special, you ain't scared of shit. That's why we all love & respect you so. That's what Ethan will learn from you, its the best gift you could give him. He won't be scared of anything cuz his Daddy taught him how to face this uncertain world with no fear, only triumph. I'm not scared for you Christopher, I'm scared for the cancer!
XOXO-Kensee
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