Wednesday's Hero

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This Weeks Hero Was Suggested By Leo

SSgt. Mike Mills

On June 14, 2005 SSgt. Mike Mills's life was forever changed. The HETT(Heavy Equipment Transport System) he was riding in was hit by an IED. The attack resulted a cracked clavicle and scapula bones, dislocated shoulder, broken left hip, 4 out of 5 bones broken in his foot and being set on fire. The driver in the truck behind him ran with a cooler of melted ice which he threw on Sgt. Mills to put him out.


He spent three months in the Brooks Army Medical Center at Ft. Sam Houston, TX with the injuries listed above plus 2nd, 3rd and deep tissue burns to 31% of the left side of his body. The first thing he remembers thinking after the attack was that his soldiers needed him and he needed to get back to them.


"Then the guilt set in about what I did to my family. I've totally screwed that up. Look at me, no don't. I look hideous. How can I face my kids looking like this. They'll be embarrassed to be seen with me. What if they won't love me anymore? Speaking of love, my wife, oh my God. How can I expect her to stay with me. I'm not a man anymore. She's not going to want be intimate with a freak. What if I can't work, how do I support myself, my family.


I had nightmares and couldn't sleep. I wasn't eating and was losing weight. I didn't really care. If I didn't start eating, they where going to put the feeding tube back in. Who cares, I've totally screwed up my life anyway."


But he found out just how much his wife loved him, when she stood by his side throughout the entire ordeal. She was there for every wound dressing and even learned how to change the dressings herself.


SSgt. Mike Mills now runs the site For The Veteran... By A Veteran in which he helps veterans, soldiers and their families find information they may not have been given after their medical discharge or retirement.

Some may say that Mike gave his country more than enough when he was severely maimed by an IED on that fateful day of June 14, 2005, but Mike continues to give to his fellow servicemen, as well as to his nation!

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.

We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived


This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your blog, you can go here.

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Really sad.

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I cannot tell you how sad this makes me.

Singer Dan Fogelberg dies...

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Newly listed - and fun!

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Remember that silver I got? Yeah.

Garnet and Swarovski crystal chandelier earrings

This is the - There is something exotic about this bracelet, bracelet

This bracelet is lampwork beads and FUN!

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A computer analyst's job is never done.

My Mom was staying at my sister’s house for a while, almost 2 years ago. She was using my sister’s computer or maybe I should say, attempting to. Since my job is in I.T. my Mom would call me with all things computer. Here is just a slice of one of those conversations that caused blood to start shooting out of my eyes.

I love you Mom!

M: The computer keeps going out.

BJ: Going out? What do you mean?

M: It goes black.

BJ: The monitor?

M: Yes, the computer.

BJ: Mom, are you looking at the computer?

M: Yes, where the picture is.

BJ: No Mom, the computer is the box, the tower.

M: Well it doesn't look like a tower to me.

BJ: That's okay Mom, it's where you would put a disk if you had one, or a CD.

M: I don't have a CD.

BJ: I know Mom. What color is the light on the box?

M: The box on top of the computer?

BJ: What box?

M: The one with all the plug ins?

BJ: You mean the power strip?

M: The electrical. I have to turn that on first.

AGH-H-H-H!!!!!!!

I told her she needed to wait until my sister got home.

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Wednesday's Hero

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I know it's not Wednesday, but I just found this and wanted to post it anyway. Hopefully I will post on time next week and I can only hope that someday there will be no more to post.

This Week's Hero Was Suggested By Louie

Bill Juneau
36 years old from Rush City, Minnesota
November 27, 2007

If there was one thing Bill Juneau loved as much as his country, it was his dog, Jake.

The accident-prone black Lab, who has been hit by two cars, had a toe amputated on his right paw and survived eating 42 candy bars in one sitting, once fell off a dock and through the ice on a lake while Juneau was hunting with his best friend, Dan Bock.

Bock said Juneau jumped into the icy, chest-deep water to save his dog.

"He threw that wet dog on the deck and sacrificed everything to save him," said Bock. "Bill's just that type of guy."

Juneau, a 10 year veteran of the Chisago County sheriff's deputy, was in Iraq helping to train Iraqi police recruits when his convoy was hit by and IED 50 miles outside Baghdad. A spokesperson for DynCorp, the private firm Juneau was working for, said Juneau was driving the lead vehicle in the large convoy that included U.S. Army personnel as well as members of the Iraqi National Police Force. The convoy was headed for a scheduled training mission. An Iraqi translator and a U.S. Army soldier sustained injuries in the blast as well.

His twin sister, Bridget Sura, said he wanted to help Iraqis rebuild their country and create better lives. "He would often sugar-coat the bad stuff, because he wanted us to know about the positive things," she said. "But we still worried every minute of every day." Another reason he joined was because he loved adventure, she said. While with the Chisago County Sheriff's Department, he started and led the country's SWAT team.

Jake, his dog, has been embraced by Juneau's sister's family. "He has more lives than a cat," Sura said, adding that they recently discovered a chocolate stash he'd hidden in his kennel.

"Jake is a part of my brother," she said. "He[Bill] will be missed by a lot of people. This will leave a hole in a lot of people's hearts."

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your blog, you can go here.
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IS.IT.FRIDAY.YET? PLEASE?

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No, no appliance problems at our house. But I really could use this week to be over. Just sayin'.
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We all have them, don't we?

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I'm talking about favorite ornaments, Christmas ornaments that are special to us for some reason. I cannot believe it took so long for my tree to get finished this year, but it is finally up in all it's glory. And as I put it up and went through the ornaments I couldn't help but remember where they came from.

Some of my daughter's favorite ornaments are ones I made when I was newly married and had very little money. I took small wooden match book boxes and wrapped them like tiny gifts, strung them on ribbon and there you go. Ornaments. I still have 3 or 4 of them, one that used to be red foil and is now so old and faded it looks gold. They are at least 25 plus (yikes) years old.

I have other ornaments from around the same time that I bought as a kit. Pieces of wood with pictures on them you paint and punch out to hang on the tree. I have several of those and I hang them as prominently as any of my expensive Christopher Radkos, and probably more lovingly.

There are hand sewn silk animal ornaments I purchased many millions of years ago, before kids, when I worked at a Pier 1 Imports store for a few months. There are a couple of prized ornaments that belonged to my BF's mother who has passed away. I am honored he entrusted me with some of her pretty things.

There is an ornament made from styrofoam and pipe cleaners (Jimmy Kramer where are you?) that was given to us as a gift by a good Jewish boy who spent Christmas with my then-fiance and I a long long time ago. Jimmy was going to be an elementary school teacher, I wonder if it ever happened.

There are 2 ornaments that are always placed with care in the same spots on the tree every year. One is placed right in the front and center, a frosted glass ball on which is painted the picture of the only house I ever owned, and my daughter counts as her childhood home even though we only lived there for 5 years. The ornament was a gift from our realtor of all people, hand painted, and a good likeness of that house. My daughter insists it be hung right out there in front because that is where we lived before the divorce, where she could run outside and play with the neighborhood kids and wasn't yet aware of any turmoil. Happy memories for her.

The other ornament that always gets hung in a specific place is a little book of Mother Goose Rhymes. I used to hang it high because if I didn't, it always ended up off the tree and in a child's grubby little hands. I think it was more of a game than anything. Mom doesn't want me to take this down, so I really want to read it even more!!! Looking back, that book getting a bit dog eared wouldn't have been such a bad thing, but it's too late now. I still hang it high - because that's just where it goes.

I suspect someday when I give a few of those ornaments to my kids - they just might occupy the same spots on one of their trees as well. Some things are just supposed to be.
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