Some Gave All

  • When:05/25/15
  • QIC: Strange Brew, Chipotle, Chanel, Uncle Leo, Hops
  • The PAX: Splinter and his 2.0, Spandex, Beaver, Alf, Squid, Pop Tart, Geraldo, Good Hands, Flutie Flakes, Champagne, Purple Haze, Brown, Voodoo, Turkey Leg, Les Mis, Brushback, Mighty Mite, Wingman, Wild Turkey, Skywalker, Floor Slapper, Donkey Kong, Salt Lick, Runstopper, Steinbrenner, Hannibal, The Mouth, Abacus, Chelms, Plug, Snoop, Uncle Si, Gummy, Hacker, Frehley's Comet, Goldmember, Tiger Rag, Ickey Shuffle, Puppy Love, Scabby, Dear Abby, Deep Dish, Paper Jam, Udder, Semi-Gloss, Dolphin, Stone Cold, Checkpoint, Maverick, O'Tannenbaum, Strange Brew and his 2.0, Chanel, Uncle Leo, Chipotle, Hops, FNG Deliverance


Some Gave All

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks still bravely singing fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead: Short days ago,
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved: and now we lie
In Flanders fields!

Take up our quarrel with the foe
To you, from failing hands, we throw
The torch: be yours to hold it high
If ye break faith with us who die,
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields

Composed at the battlefront on May 3, 1915
during the second battle of Ypres, Belgium

63 pax including 1 FNG posted at South Charlotte Middle School – several SF’s were flying; and off we went for a 5-station beatdown – Q’d by representatives of the 5 Monday Area51 AO’s – Base Camp, The Matrix, Fight Club, Foxhole & DMZ.

The Thang:

After a short COP w/IW x 25 IC, Slow Squat x 20 IC, & 6-count Burpee x 10 IC – pax counted off into 5 groups and went to 5 separate stations, rotating every 10 minutes

5 Stations:

1) Fight Club – no details for obvious reasons

2) Foxhole – Huge Tire, lots of KB’s from Chanel’s arsenal, saw some from Voodoo as well, gear extravaganza

3) The Matrix –

To honor the ~1,354,000 American service men and women who have died for our country we did

1 burpee
3 merkins
5 block press flutters
4 squats with block
Run to parking lot and back (about 70 yards)
Repeat until we rotate

 

4) Base Camp – good bit of running as Q’d by Strange Brew – also a good hike to get from that station down to Fight Club.

5) DMZ – lots of baseball field work with bearcrawls, lunge walk, broad jump, sprints – mixing in some H-R merkins, plankorama; a couple of the groups did dips & supine pull-ups; one group did some Mary including flutters & Russian twist; YHC felt it necessary to mix it up a bit

Ye Olde Moleskine:

Great group this morning.  Hope the beatdown was sufficiently delivered by your 5 host AO’s – special thanks to the pax of Base Camp for hosting.

With TR playing the occasion-appropriate tunes prior to launch – the pax gathered in good spirits.  I love the convergences as they always remind me of the strength of the community that’s formed in F3 and Area51 specifically.  Grateful for all of you brothers.  Listed 58 of the 63 below – please sound off below for the 5 I can’t recall – Cobains.

Hope you guys don’t mind me sharing a few thoughts related to Memorial Day. I think of Hacker’s father who was killed in action in Vietnam, Pele’s father who was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery, The Murph who attended the same high school as Geraldo.  This is a day to honor and give thanks for the fallen who gave their lives in defense of our great nation.

And stealing a page from DayZero (don’t miss the 3rd annual workout next Memorial Day weekend) – below is the citation for the only Congressional Medal of Honor winner from my hometown of Monticello, Illinois.  I went to elementary, middle and high school with his nephews and niece.

*BURKE, ROBERT C.

Rank and organization: Private First Class, U.S. Marine Corps, Company 1, 3d Battalion, 27th Marines, 1st Marine Division (Rein), FMF. Place and date: Southern Quang Nam Province Republic of Vietnam, 17 May 1968. Entered service at: Chicago, Ill. Born: 7 November 1949, Monticello, Ill.

Citation:
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty for service as a machine gunner with Company 1. While on Operation ALLEN BROOK, Company 1 was approaching a dry river bed with a heavily wooded treeline that borders the hamlet of Le Nam (1), when they suddenly came under intense mortar, rocket propelled grenades, automatic weapons and small-arms fire from a large, well concealed enemy force which halted the company’s advance and wounded several marines. Realizing that key points of resistance had to be eliminated to allow the units to advance and casualties to be evacuated, Pfc. Burke, without hesitation, seized his machinegun and launched a series of 1-man assaults against the fortified emplacements. As he aggressively maneuvered to the edge of the steep river bank, he delivered accurate suppressive fire upon several enemy bunkers, which enabled his comrades to advance and move the wounded marines to positions of relative safety. As he continued his combative actions, he located an opposing automatic weapons emplacement and poured intense fire into the position, killing 3 North Vietnamese soldiers as they attempted to flee. Pfc. Burke then fearlessly moved from one position to another, quelling the hostile fire until his weapon malfunctioned. Obtaining a casualty’s rifle and hand grenades, he advanced further into the midst of the enemy fire in an assault against another pocket of resistance, killing 2 more of the enemy. Observing that a fellow marine had cleared his malfunctioning machinegun he grasped his weapon and moved into a dangerously exposed area and saturated the hostile treeline until he fell mortally wounded. Pfc. Burke’s gallant actions upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

 

 

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Chanel
8 years ago

Thanks for organizing this Hops, it was an honor to be able to lead one of the stations today. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the PAX tackle the tire, the unwieldy slosh tube and of course those that reached their inner beasts and pulled my truck!

Today was a great reminder why we do what we do. As we are called to be leaders in our families and community it is a great reminder to honor those that gave the ultimate sacrifice so that we have the ability to do so.

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