holy shit!

prada pixie has given me a courageous blogger award. first, let me say, i am flattered. shit, i am beyond flattered.

let me follow up by saying, i in no way feel courageous. i'm just a fella, a regular fella, doing what needs to be done. yes, everyday is a battle with my kids. but there are so many moms/dads out there who do it alone while working full time, for life. those people are courageous.

yes, my wife is deployed serving in the armed forces of the united states. those motherfuckers are courageous. i lucked out during my 8 years in the air force and never went anywhere ever where there was even the remotest possibility that the people would not even like me, let alone want to kill me. but so many of our lads and lasses are hunkered down in foreign parts, dreaming of home and hoping to live long enough to get there. many of them come home battered, tattered, and shell-shocked at the end of their tours, only to spend a few months with their families, and ship back out again. their courage actually makes me choke up a bit.

i am not even seperated from my wife that long. four months is the absolute shortest one can go, and that is what she will be gone. hell, she is even at an actual airbase in a relatively friendly country, with a chow hall, and a couple of small clubs with actual alcohol, and lots of activities to keep themselves busy. many of our sons and daughters are out there in little better than tents, with no running water, in the middle of potentially hostile zones, many without even a clue as to why, except it is the job they signed up for. and the wives and husbands are at back at home, waiting the seven-and-a-half months to the two-week midtour, where they will see their spouses for a small handful of cherished moments before they go back out again, to be shelled and car-bombed etc for another seven-and-a-half months, with the possibility of an extension. those spouses are courageous. 15 fucking months... i don't think i would make it.

hahaha, as far as the tattoo goes, that isn't courage, ref back to the "barking mad" conversation again, heh heh.

again, i am extremely flattered. i appreciate it, and will try to wear it with pride. i just want to remind us who the real courageous people are, who the real heroes are.

now, if there was a "whiney bastard blogger award" i think i might be a shoo-in for that one.

hmmm, and five others, huh? this is always the hard part. as far as i am concerned, i would re-award it to prada pixie. cause that lady is one gutsy mammajamma. so, you get retagged, pixie.

i would definitely send one over to lady macleod. it's maybe not that she is battling something every day, or in the trenches, or what-have-you, but she has travelled the world, which requires a certain courage, and above and beyond that, is not afraid to speak her mind when necessary, and that is ballsy as fuck. so, one for you, lady macleod.

i would also pick jenny. cause she just deals with something i couldn't begin to comprehend on a daily basis. and i think there is a certain amount of courage that goes along with that which i imagine i would find lacking in myself.

i think jamie should also be tagged. i am not fully sure what she deals with, but the "treatments" don't sound fun, and i am guessing hint at something much more sinister just under the surface, and again, i find that incredibly courageous.

finally, i would hand this over to snuffleupagus as well. snuff is entrenched in a war of a different kind, and isn't afraid to say what needs to be said in regards to the failings of that system. and because i think any teacher that really makes an effort is one courageous person, often with little visible reward. (i wish my high school algebra teacher could hear me saying this, since i was an enormous prick to him, and he tried to get me to quit being lazy and use my brain, and as far as he knows, it was all to no avail. but in college algebra, i aced it with flying colors, and thought of him every day. sorry, my writing is very stream-of-concious, and i just wanted to throw that in there, not to lessen the importance of snuff's courageousness.)

i find it an interesting sidenote that i am pretty sure everyone i have tagged with this award will, no doubt, like me, not think of themselves as courageous at all. isn't it funny how the person that is a hero to someone else, usually thinks of themselves as simply doing what needs to be done?

darth sardonic