Military

Well, today is the last day for OT posts. Thank goodness.

However, today I have a personal request, which actually extends out beyond me personally. If something happens to bring it to your mind, pray for those who serve in the military. (If you don't pray, well, think happy thoughts? Wish them well? Dunno.)  Right now, there are 1.4 million active military, or about a half percent of our population. It is personal to me because my daughter is in the Navy, deployed on a Destroyer with the Eisenhower Carrier Group to the Persian Gulf and surrounding seas. This is how she will eventually pay to get an engineering degree. (She is an Aegis Computer Network Tech, already prepping her for some future course work).

Normally, when we communicate, it is just to talk about missing home, and some of the things they've been doing in the 120 degree weather. For instance, last month, they came on a ship full of 320 Yemeni refugees that was dead in the water, headed across the strait to Djibouti. Her destroyer provided desperately needed water and food, and in the span of 24 hours, machined new gaskets and fittings to make the diesel engine on the stranded ship operational again. They saw the dhow safely on its way, providing another dhow for escort. Things I never thought of the Navy doing.

A couple days ago, my daughter's ship was one of 2 involved when 4 Iranian Revolutionary Guard Patrol boats approached the Destroyer Nitze at a high rate of speed. Needless to say, things were tense on the ship. Two more incidents occurred yesterday with other ships. These incidents are out of the ordinary.

It reminded me that many serving in the military make significant sacrifices, and are often in danger. As regards the strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint giving access to the Persian Gulf, the actions of the patrol boats are a high stakes game of chicken. Knowing that the destroyer Cole had a huge hold blown in its side by suicide bombers in 2000 gives you pause. And those with boots on the ground nearby war zones are in much more dangerous and difficult environments.

As we end OT posts for the season, and focus on the important business of football, remember those who serve and protect our nation, giving us the freedom to enjoy things like Fall afternoons full of football.

LINK:  https://news.usni.org/2016/08/24/video-destroyer-uss-nitze-harassed-iranian-patrol-boats

Everybody should watch this video of by far the best moment around the college football nation from this past Saturday. Warning: This video may cause the pollen in your room/office to build up.

http://www.coachingsearch.com/component/content/article/1374-video-emoti...

Talk about some real American heroes...I have been watching Tom Hanks' slick miniseries "From The Earth To The Moon" and it's worth noting how many astronauts in the Apollo program were Michigan alums:

Gemini 4: James McDivitt, Ed White (first American to spacewalk)

Gemini 8: Dave Scott (enrolled at Michigan for one year, enrolled at West Point after that)

Apollo 9:  McDivitt, Scott

Apollo 15: Scott, Al Worden, Jim Irwin

NASA flew 27 manned missions comprising 59 total seats up to and including the last landing, and 12% of those seats were filled by UM alums. A few years back Michigan ran an ad with a very tinny The Victors emerging from an orbiting Apollo 15 command module with the caption "an all-UM crew." Sweet!

Semi-OT: Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell spoke at Tom Hanks' American Film Institute lifetime achievement award presentation. Similar to Scott, Lovell enrolled at Wisconsin for two years before being admitted to Annapolis and a street in Milwaukee is named for him. Check out the look on Hanks' face when Lovell is announced:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2kOMm8p4C8

A great idea to give some sort of normalcy and American recreation to our service men and women overseas. Kudos to Sparty, as well as CMU, WMU, ASU and Purdue. Michigan needs to get in on this.

http://www.mlive.com/spartans/index.ssf/2009/09/michigan_state_passing_f...