Our sailor called us last night; he had his first big test; he passed with a 98% !

we are soooo proud of him !

Keep up the good work son!

love mom, dad,and bubby !

I ran across a very interesting website that I thought I would share....it is a virtual Vietnam Veterans memorial wall.....one of the pages lists those that gave their lives by state....click a state name and you can eventually get to a list of medals and often a bio. This was a monumental amount of work and it is a reminder that many gave their lives in a far away land with a funny name.......

Click This Link for

I was in Honolulu to speak at a large national conference. I scheduled an extra day onto the trip since I had never been to Honolulu and because a few great friends were also at the conference. The day after the conference, we awoke at the crack of dawn to visit Pearl Harbor. As

My sailor (Kevin) serving aboard the USS Tortuga had the rare privilege of visiting Iwo Jima as part of the 65th Anniversary celebration on February 25th. While he wasn't able to attend the ceremony (he was pulling road guard duty) he did get to see a lot of sights and catch a glimpse of some of the dignitaries in attendance including the Secretary of the Navy.

What really struck me was when he told me about this was his encounter with a WWII vet of the Battle of Iwo Jima. My s