"Are You Ready? Let's Roll" Last few words heard from Todd Beamer

">   A friend lent me this book since she was already reading several.  She got it on sale and asked me to preview it for her.  I was holding back my drool.  I love to read and have been eyeing this one forever but I have been too wraped up to get into a book.  I got this book Friday and finished it last night. It may look familar to you and the name Beamer may ring some bells for you.  It was for me anyways.

I highly recomend this book!  It honors a great Hero and tells the story from his widow,Lisa Beamer's prespective.  The first chapter took me right back to that day on 9-11-01. I cried openly as I read her words.  She like many of us saw the events happening on t.v. and was in the same shock. But unlike me, she had a loved one flying that day.  It was later that she and the world found out how important a role her husband played on that tragic day in our history. 

Todd Beamer and other passangers of United Flight '93 over took the plane highjacked by terrorists and crashed it before it could reach our capital and possibly killing even more inoccent pp. It is Todd's theme saying for his life "Let's Roll" that was recorded in history as they leapt into action.  He and his wife are examples of how pepole live out thier faith, instead of just talking about it.  I would say this book is a must read!

Esther 4:14 "who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for [such] a time as this?"

Mourning a fellow Journaler

">       We can get so close to ppl here online and even if we do not meet in person, we still form strong bonds and connections.  It is a buddylister's worst fear to come online and find one of yours is gone for good, and are not sure what all happen or where they went.  Even worse when you find out that the person you have grown so close to threw e-mails,chat,and IM and journals is gone for good because of death.  In the Born To Blog community we are mourning such a loss.  Raven the author of "Where is Mr. Right" died Nov. 5th(her birthday!) in a car accedent with her boyfriend. Hers was not a journal I visited and I did not have the prilage to know this women, but many many in our commuity is mourning her and are in shock.  I grieve with them.  I am sad for I never talked to her or got a chance to share God's Love with her, so I do not myself have that assurance of where she is right now, nor can I say to others for sure where she is.  I can only say we do not know what happens in the last seconds of life. She may of very well called out to God, and may of called her home into his presance.  That is my hope.  But I also know that if she did not, it is a very sad place where she is and that makes me even more depressed.  I think of my family who I know doesn't have a relationship with the Lord, and I cry out to God for them but in the end it is between them and God and the choices they make.  Do not end this day with out making that choice to form a relationship with him!  For we are not promised tomorrow, and we do not know when our time is up.  It is apointed ONCE for man to die and then the judgment.

Bill Hoover A Hero to Me!

"> If you ask Bill, he will say he is no hero. He will say all he did was serve his time and did his job to the best of his ability.  He says the real heroes are those who die in combat or taken prisoner never to be heard from again.  But I think he is a hero for several reasons.  He did not just serve his time and then get out as fast as he could.  Some times it is what you do after combat, and after you return that counts too.  He is a role model for us all. Bill Hoover followed the family tradition and joined the Coast Guard right out of highschool. In '66 he was stationed out of Boston Mass on ocean patrol, available for search and rescue, watching, charting and advising ships about ice bergs.  He says it was a cold and boring time at sea.  Then he transferred to US Coast Guard Squadron One based out of  Da Nag, Republic of Vietnam.  A fact that I never knew about was that from 1961 to 1975, 1100 Coast Guard people served in Vietnam. Bill was over there fighting on the coastal/river ways agenst the Viet Cong and North Vietnam troops from '67 to '69.  After being injured and spending time in US Navel Hospital at Yokoska, Japan he returned home and was honorably discharged with the rank of Gunners Mate First Class '72.  O.K. so like that wasn't amazing and honorable?? I think it was, since the stories I have heard from my family is for my dad it was Vietnam or Canada or join the Coast Guard assigned to some lighthouse.  Bill served when others chickened out and ran from duty!  For that I am proud of him.  But that is not the end of his story.  What he did after makes him just as much a hero in my book.

 He still served his country for 26 years as a Police Officer for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Port Authority Precincts covering most of the Transportation facilities in the NY/NJ area. He patrol such areas as Kennedy, La Guard, and Newark Airports, The Holland and Lincoln tunnels. the George Washington bridge, mid town Bus Terminal, Path commuter railroad, and the World Trade Center.  I have never been to NewYork, but we all of heard the stories of the crime and have seen ThirdWatch.  Not an easy beat to be on I bet.  Yet he served his community, reaching the level of Lieutenant.  He did many things in his career as a public servant.  He was a death investigator and also taught it at the Police Academy. He was qualified as Emergency Services Officer.  But he says his most favorite job was with the K-9 Unit.  To this day he still does charity work for the German Shepherds who fill this job. By the end of his career he had racked up 19 different commendations!!  He doesn't say but I am sure he got a few of them for being one of the first to respond to the '93 bombing of the WTC and helping in the rescue.  As full of a career he had, you know he just couldn't rest.  He went to live with his wife and K-9 partner, Bear in Las Vegas after his retirement in '96.  He started his own Personal Security Company but due to health he had to put it aside and fully retire. 

When 9-11 happen he was deeply effected. He worked that beat, he knew all those men who came to the rescue on that day. He lost 37 friends and coworkers among them a K-9. He could not just sit home and weep.  He got up and did something to help.  He drove across country to NY and worked at Ground Zero for 5 weeks! He saw first hand the devastation to our country, and he felt it deep down to his core.  He is quoted as saying "Before he was a 'Christmas and Easter Christian, and I think that's changed a little."  Bill did not just put his time in and then get out.  Even after his military career he served us, protected us, and then wept with us.  He may look tough on the out side but underneath it he is as sensitive as you would want a man to be. He will never know what a blessing, what an example, what a Hero, he is to us and to our children. Read more about Bill Hoover in this 2001 article about him working Ground Zero.

Don't Forget to Honor a Vet

I have been thinking and praying about who to honor in my journal this Vetern's Day.  Thre are so many who deserve to be honored.  I have some in my family who I could of done it on and even my own father who was in the Coast Gaurd.  But there was one person who I knew deserved it, and I wanted to get to know him better.  So I asked him to share with me some of his record and asked if I could feature him in my journal.  I don't know why vets dont see them selves as heros and are embrassed to get attention, but after from what I hear some coxing from his wife he sent me the info. 

I met Bill threw aol journals.  He was the number 1 pick for his journal "Comments on the events of my Life" when I was only number 4 on the list.  And reading his journal I could see why he got the much deserved #1 spot.  I have been following his journal ever since.  Tomorrow I will try and do him justice and honor him in my journal.  He is a great writer, and a wonderful man from all I have read on him.  I must confess he has reminded me of my own father and they do share some simlarites. Both share the name Bill and both have been in the Coast Guard.  Also both have been in security in Las Vegas.  More on him tomorrow!!!