November 12, 2018

Devil Dogs take Belleau Wood; 100 yr anniversary of Armistice Day

Bermuda Triangle, Uncategorized

THE SCENE:   mid-40’s, pleasant and the rain held off.  I was kind of disappointed it did as my stereotype of WWI consists of rain and mud.

F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER:  Done x 2 for late arrivals.


WARM-O-RAMA:  SSH x 25 IC

THA-THANG:
American Involvement in WWI was late, officially lasting a year 1917-1918.  The American Expeditionary Force, as our contingent was called, was ill prepared both in terms of equipment and tactics.   However, the drafted men fought hard, the Marine Corps earned the nickname “devil dogs” from the German forces for their tenacity.  The Battle of Belleau Wood was a victory for the Marines as they first repeatedly repelled the German offensive and later took the woods suffering many casualties.  Famous quotes from the battle include; “”Retreat? Hell, we just got here” and “”Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?”  WWI claimed the lives of over 16 million men, a generation of Europeans, and 116,000 American troops.

  • PAX lined up along the section of paved track (U.S. Trench) facing the Berm field and opposite tree line.
  • PAX advanced across the field (just shy of 1/4 mile) by long jumping punctuated with Burpees.
  • Two long jumps then a Burpee, Two long jumps then a Burpee.
  • Circuit completed when all had ‘taken’ the German trenches across the field.
  • All in, abrupt face and continued back across the field this time army crawling punctuated with Burpees.
  • army crawl approx. 5 meters then a Burpee.
  • Circuit completed when all were back to U.S. trenches

totals:  approx. 1/2 mile of long jumps/army crawls, > 100 Burpees.

MARY:
American Hammer x 25 IC, Flutter Kicks x 25 IC, High Plank alternating arms up.

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
4 PAX (0 FNGs);  Bailout, the Dude, Judah, and Tomb Raider

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

Love and Truth, no room for judgement.

I recounted a story from this past Wednesday night in which my buddy and I handed out some coats that Photoshop had given us.  Neither of us had looked at the coats in the cardboard box prior to distributing them that night so we were surprised to see brand new ones with the tags still on!!  Our street friends were too as they jumped up and down like it was Christmas Day.

The coats were DeWalt 20v heated ‘radiation wraps’ that had a three mode power setting engineered to keep the core toasty as long as the lithium-ion battery pack didn’t run out or combust.  Our friends were very excited, and even more so when my buddy did a quick product search to get their specs and saw they retail for $240.  In retrospect, I wish that our friends had remained ignorant to this little tidbit of intel but this was part of the lesson God had in store for me on that particular night.

We made a few more stops in Berclair and Nutbush and recapped the evenings events as part of our decompression ritual.  Our discussion topics hovered around ‘Discernment’, the prompting of the Holy Spirit, Love, and living judgement free.  Our job is not to judge but to bring Love and Truth, to witness freely sharing our testimony in love and compassion.  As many of said before “compassion without compromise”.  We discussed the reality that our newly jacketed friends had probably sold them by now to their neighborhood crack dealers and what should our response look like.  Are we enabling?  Are we supporting the addictive lifestyle with food and cloths?  Should we even be concerned with these questions?

I believe it is not my job to Fix someone.  Hell, I can’t even fix myself let alone another.  I believe God is in the fixing business, not Ryan Parish (Tomb Raider).  I believe my/our job is to Love and speak Truth with boldness and compassion.  I’ll let the Creator do the fixing, all I can do is to show HIM in me with copious amounts of divine help.

MOLESKIN:
The weather for this was too nice.  Soaking cold muddy fields was what I ordered not well-drained cushy lawn grass.  Oh well.

The 2nd F opportunities that this workout provided were quality.  I got to know Judah a little bit more and it was nice to see Father and Son (Bailout and The Dude) slugging it out together.

I also remembered, too late, how much I hate army crawling!  My elbows, forearms, and knees are seeping and will turn into nice greenish scabs.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Bailout is selling his awesome house in Eads for those looking for some quite patch of countryside.  Thanks to Bruce for organizing a great Ruck serve opportunity yesterday.  The 2.0’s had such the adventure finding ‘treasures’ under the Bridge.