Soldiers’ Angels supports Soldier Ride and lends it’s support in the way of volunteers and money.

(PRWEB) July 7, 2006 — Wounded servicemen and women cycling across the United States From Montauk, New York to San Diego, California to spread their inspirational message of courage and hope. The brave men and women participating in this event are cycling in support of their injured comrades recovering in military hospitals across the country. All of the participants are provided the adaptive equipment they need to cycle though missing one or more limbs.

Soldier Ride is a non-profit organization that raises awareness and funds for our injured soldiers returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan. This organization is 100% non political. It’s not about the war it’s about the soldiers. Soldier Ride organizes cross country and local bicycle trips used as rehab opportunities for soldiers recovering from major injuries and also to raise awareness.

Funds raised go out to such organizations as the Wounded Warrior Project (www.woundedwarriorproject.org) and Disabled Sports USA (www.dsusa.org) You can learn more about us at www.soldierride.org or please feel free to contact Nick Kraus at 516 994 5907.

Soldier Ride began in East Hampton , NY as an effort to raise money and consciousness for soldiers who were severely wounded overseas. Last year Chris Carney a local bartender embarked on his second cross-country Soldier Ride, cycling from Los Angeles to Montauk, New York. Soldiers from the current conflict and veterans, both disabled and not, rode with Carney on Soldier Ride. Over the last two years Soldier Ride helped raise millions of dollars for the WWP. These funds are being used to:

• Purchase thousands of comfort backpacks for wounded soldiers on their return (including guidebooks on discharge from service and entitlement benefits). These packs include such basic comfort items as phone cards, Fresh clothing, Portable CD players and small items that make a big impact for a returning injured soldier.
• Hire full-time benefits counselors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Brooke Army Medical to distribute comfort backpacks to amputees.
• Conduct adaptive sporting events and clinics to build self-esteem and independence for those who suffered catastrophic injuries, for example the Breckenridge Colorado Ski Spectacular and our recent Florida bicycle program.
• Develop peer-mentoring programs where rehabbed soldiers can lend support to their newly injured comrades. Organize Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Symposia to help the estimated one in six soldiers who suffer from this disorder. Transport soldiers and their families between home and hospital, as well as purchase a van to transport soldiers to functions in the Washington D.C. area.

Soldier Ride has received extensive media coverage in The New York Times, New York Post, The New York Daily News, The Cleveland Plain Dealer and Newsday. The project has also appeared on NBC’s Today in New York, The O’Reilly Factor, Fox News Radio’s Tony Snow Show, HBO’s Inside the NFL and CNN’s Larry King Live.

Several notable people have helped with Soldier Ride fundraising efforts, including Jimmy Buffett, Jon Bon Jovi, Pat Lofaintane, Gary Sinise, Alec Baldwin, Tony Snow, Harris Yulin, Stephen Lang, Bill O’Reilly, Congressman Tim Bishop, Senator Bob Kerrey, and many more.
www.soldiersangels.org

Soldiers’ Angels will be hosting the closing ceremonies and beach party for the riders at Semper Fi Park in San Clemente on July 29, 2006 at 3 pm. Adam’s Attic, The Bader Band, and Jillian Russell will be performing at the beach party. Mayor Wayne Eggleston and the community are excited and happy to help Soldiers’ Angels honor these riders. Please join us in welcoming the riders by lining the streets and showing your support as they ride into San Clemente.

Soldiers’ Angels is an all volunteer, 501 (c) (3) non-profit based in Pasadena, Ca. Donations to help offset the costs of the closing ceremonies can be sent to:

Soldiers’ Angels
150 North Loop 1604 West, Suite 108-493
San Antonio, TX 78248
Attn: Soldier Ride

Please make checks and money orders out to Soldiers’ Angels. You can also donate on-line or adopt a soldier at www.soldiersangels.org. Include what your donation is for in the comments section.

It’s the Fourth of July!

Today, two people I enjoy reading have written very different pieces. I just realized that their subjects intersect perfectly. This intersection, in a nutshell, is that we have chipped away at our freedoms by trying, in excess, to be fair. In one hand we have those that aspire to bring political correctness to the fore, without regard for everyone’s freedom. And, in the other hand there are those that have made a mockery of protecting others and instituting a Nanny State that is surely causing Benjamin “Kid Gloves” Harrison to spin faster than if he were in a salad spinner! When ya slap both hands together they end up being shackled - we still have the key, you know.

It’s true that many situations can be misconstrued. Often times those that are hypersensitive seek errors in ones ways before they truly grasp any situation. And, it is our current attempt to make things even that so many have taken fair to an unfair level. Political Correctness has placed a major shackle on one hand in such a way that personal expression has been eroded. And, please, don’t bring up burning the flag as expression, that is a tired position and not expression but destruction laced with hatred. I’m referring to compliments and kindness, like kudos for the choices made in a career goal or even holding the door open for another. Today, while people that we elect continue to strip away what freedom truly is in the pursuit of fairness, we get inequality.

We also have a Nanny State that is getting more unbelievably out of control. How is it that protecting others from harm has become so restrictive? How can freedom for all allow those in high places to shackle the other hand without reproach?! As Jonathan Hoenig writes today in Smartmoney.com:

As we’ve pointed out in the past, free countries are always the most prosperous countries. From the former Soviet Union to still-communist China, every inch a society takes towards free-market capitalism results in unheralded prosperity and improved quality of life.

The Fourth of July, or Independence Day, is now appreciated primarily for fireworks and barbeque. Yet more than any other celebration, Independence Day is the quintessential American holiday because it clearly enunciates liberty and individual rights as the basic premises on which this country was founded. The Declaration of Independence, presented on July 4, 1776, put forth that all men are endowed with the rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” In America, man functions as an independent entity, free to live his own life independent of the church, government or so-called “public good.”

For many years, this country honored and preserved those principles. Yet, slowly, we’ve been steered away from the rugged individualism towards a collectivist free-for-all in which individual rights are routinely compromised, challenged, or tossed out the window altogether.

This country was FOUNDED on the principles of Godliness, God’s love and respect for us all, and His being the example we must all follow. If we follow His example, and His only Son’s examples, fair is but a given.

We are being shackled because we cannot see beyond the trees. These are the trees sown by those that have no love of God and this country’s principles. The trees are getting thicker out there, and so many have decided the forest is the trees - and visa versa. It’s truly shameful that this translates into a life without happiness, full of darkness and dread, where around every bark-strewn giant something evil lies in wait.

On this Fourth of July, our country’s 230th Birthday, I choose light. Well, light with a few alders, birches, Bushes (41 and 43), and a Mount McKinley or two for color and a break in the horizon!

Cross Posted at California Conservative

The above snippet is just a taste of Jonathan’s points. If you are a subscriber you can get all the benefit, ’cause it costs money for a Smartmoney.com membership. Or, watch him on Fox Channel’s Cashin’ In - he’s the pro-Capitalist on the panel. OK, the ONLY pro-Capitalist you’ll see on TV or in print!

You thought you were a blogger, a milblogger, with the tiger by the tail? There are some guys out there bloggin’ away and they each have long histories. And, as they like to say over at Old War Dogs:

“For those who have fought for it, freedom has a taste the protected will never know.”

And that’s not all. Here’s a short snippet from Russ Vaughn’s post on June 30th:

Those who toughed out those runs, stood in that door,
Don’t understand those who won’t fight anymore;
Can’t fathom their calls for retreat from Iraq,
Calls to pull out our troops, to bring them all back,
Thank goodness we’ve men who’ll stand in that door
And go all the way till the fight is no more.
Paratroopers are winners, who’ll stay ‘til it’s done,
But most Libs are quitters, who won’t finish the run.

I agree!

Thanks, Laurie of Soldiers’ Angels New York for showing me the way to the Old War Dogs site!

I hope all of you are having a great 4th of July Weekend! Now, GO PET THE DAWGS!

This is a follow-on, of sorts, from Amy’s previous post over at California Conservative and at her home blog Bottom Line Up Front. She says more than this one question I am taking out of context, but follow me here on this one key point.

Amy asks this question:

“What is someone saying who burns the flag?”

They burn Old Glory because they know that it offends so many of us to the core. If they were burning the flag in glee I suspect it would be noticeable - that the act is a happy event and a form of celebration. Yet, the hard looks on their faces, the venom in their speech, and the stamping on the flag in flames is exactly what it is - the flag is us.

If they could get away with it, they would be lighting us on fire and stamping us to death. That is what they are doing, make no mistake. There really is nothing there of any major substance, they just want us all to go away, die, expire, be null.

It is as basic as gutting you and I to the core.

And if I tried to defend the flag, which is my right and duty as a citizen of the United States of America, I would be arrested and thrown in jail for harming another person protesting. I am ex-US Air Force and I fought to keep the flag safe. No man, no team, no battalion is to leave our standard unprotected! If one must retreat, never forget the standard! Leave no man behind, and take our precious Old Glory with you - or be damned!

And, would there be any justice for me, the man that rescued Old Glory from being lit on fire and trampled?

Justice?

I say that has gone out the window. There is no one left to protect our standard, our banner, Old Glory. She has been left on that hill with no one there to protect her. She has been left unprotected on Capitol Hill. Not one but 34 men and women with more respect for the almighty vote and their pursuit of power and money left her undefended. She stands there, battered and in disgrace, left to the curs that they are with more time on their hands than most - and more money and benefits than the richest we know.

Our bravest get paid a paltry sum, and not one would leave our standard in the shape she is in now!

Oh, and it is more than the 34, my friend. It is the whole lot of ‘em inside the Beltway, in the Big Cities, and teaching in our Nation’s Universities.

Also posted at California Conservative