I was in the depths of the Valour-IT drive, and saved this bit of trivia from a review of my sitemeter info. Time to wheel it out in the sunshine for us to consider in the Milblogging community.

The search via Yahoo was: “works or activity pattern in navy” (I just did the search as a reference point)

The location data was: Chahar Mahall va Bakhtiari, Iran

If they have an international strait, where much of the world’s crude oil passes through, they just might want to figure out something about how a nation’s Navy (in this case) may operate to oppose their choke point ops…

Keep your guard up!

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

H/T: Counsel-at-Arms

It’s been an exciting 13 days. Lots of interesting blogs discovered, many interesting comments read, but…most importantly the overwhelming support fo the people to show that character trait of comapssion, just because it’s for someone they don’t even know, that stood up for them, not even knowing all of us.

All I’d say if take it to the International Date Line! Beth didn’t say which time zone’s 2359 would determine the final bell…

Thank each and every one, whether your name/blog showed up on a Valour-IT team list, or if yu just took up for the cause and pointed people to the donate buttons…

Today, In honor of the 231st Birthday, I’m posting the donation button for Team Marines.

We Navy guys have been hauling them all over the world to get to “the office,” all the while as they are eating all the ice cream and bitching complaining that they’ve seen all the movies.

Once more, it looks like the Marines could use a lift to get to where they can then be successful, and here it is:

Warning to you Grunts: I have no ice cream, the weight room is the pay for gym down the street and where I live and sleep won’t rock you to sleep, but I can offer “support” for your cause.

VC, how about spread the word: Donation Button for TEAM USMC, no waiting line!

Yesterday was a banner day for the program. I started the day glum, having not slept well the night before, as the numbers were going flat (and the Navy Team was having our “parts” handed to us). By lunch time, I will admit, safe from the public’s eye, I engaged in some snarking via “backchannel” comms to the other teams.

Then the evening settled in, and I saw the meteoric rise of the flag of those who go down to the sea in ships had done something aviators generall cringe at, because, we al know from the good Captain, “speed is life.” The only good part of our journey, is when we have stalled, nose high, hearing the wind nosie silencing itself, we don’t get overcome by the law of gravity that has ended, prematurely, the lives of many good men and women who has tried to slip the surly bonds of earth. We at least hang there.

In any environment, being a stationary target is never good, for it takes the delicate computations of relative motion out of the mix and makes it much easier for the targeter to snipe at the targetee.

This morning’s numbers show us all, stalled short of the goal, just inching past the wonderful preformance of last year.

Let’s redouble our efforts, bolstered by one more tall cup of extra caffinated Starbucks and work the phones and keyboards.

In the meantime, enjoy what “Gazing at the Flag” blog writer sends to us, a story of a sacrifice, small as it is to some, it’s a statement worth considering., Read it here and consider: What’s IT (not an intended pun, but a reference to Valour-“IT”) worth to you?

Can you trade a the date dinner before the movie this Friday or Saturday night (in the $25-45 range for lots of the middle class incomes) to propel someone from a hospital bed, wondering through the phantom pain of a missing limb, just how they will support their spouse and later send their children to a better life than they had, to help this person, whom you will most likely never know their name?

How about a day’s wages? Maybe we could all grab a calculator, do some reasonably quick math, and figure out what we make for a day and pledge (well, pledge via a click on the donation button) that value (gross or net, depending on how you are feeling at the moment) to this nation’s future, because, when you peel this onion apart, layer by layer, it’s about helping people be productive now, and to be there to launch the next generations.

How about it? If not putting it directly into the kitty, maybe figure that much to one of the auction items? And… I would further challenge everyone who bids on any items, that if you are not the winner, no matter if you bid a $1 or $500, that you figure you would have paid that much to get a Challenge Coin, wine goblets, or a hard copy “blogvel,” it’s money you considered putting towards Valour-IT, so when the final gavel drop is heard and “SOLD! TO THE (fill in not you description) WITH THE FUNNY CAMOFLAUGED HAT!” resounds, log in and donate it via the service team you love most (psst! The Navy is ahead…spread the love elsewhere! (I don’t want them feeling left out and Waaaayyyy behind!)).

Can I count on you? Ok, forget me, can they, our wounded and their families and families to be, count on you for one day?

Think about it…

And we’re not done yet. I’ve tried to get to everyone’s blog who signed up for the Navy Team. There are some interesting reads out there. How about show these bloggers a little love with a click on their link, then spend a few moments scanning the material they post!

The first team member: Seawitch. From what I can tell, suffered through Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi. She does have a sense of humor, so you Marines, soldiers and airmen should head over there to see how she can snark.

Chapomatic. A great thinker and man of ecclectic taste in music and online videos. Great, thought provoking posts over at Chap’s place. A used to be submariner, who has changed “designators” and will, after having served in a “Joint” billet in the midwest at a major USAF based command, will have a more hands on role in the GWoT.

Ken from Smadanek has become the resident “data geek” for the Valour-IT program drive and he has been gracious enough to track all the teams, coz they need someone who can do math and Chap, the nuke, was buried with real world 0730-2300 work days. Ken’s a “Trade School” grad and prod “Black Shoe” who has the honor of being a Battleship Sailor during his time in uniform. He usually comments on Navy technology issues, and also some local NJ state stuff.

Jason is new at the blogging stuff, but has a site to present history for kids: Superhero Historians. “Protect the Past For the Future” appears to be the motto of the site. Boy, do we need more like him, so the next generations know what has happened before them.

So, spread the love, and click a team member’s link – there might be something there you needed!

Update: I misspoke: From My Position and Home Front Six are not related….but…have complimentary stories that link together.

A two milblogs, “From My Position” and “Home Front Six”, chronicle the beginnings of the Valour-IT program, not directly, but by telling the story of a wounded man, who has had to work his way back. He’s one of the fortunate ones, most of what he had before the IED hit his HMMVEE will be restored through the miracle of modern medical advances. Some of our service members will not ever be this lucky and may be user of the Valour-IT advances and adoption for the rest of their lives.

To bring the point home of how important and effective a program we have been pushing for 5 days now, Valour-IT, is so important, take a few moments and read a post by an Army wife, here.

The “teaser:”

Here is the bulk of the post that I made for the Project Valour-IT fundraiser last year. It still holds true today.

One of the things that MacGyver and I have talked about it how we would handle things should he be injured in the line of duty. It’s not a pretty conversation – things like that never are. But I am not a fan of surprises so I’d rather discuss this now, before he deploys.

Those of you who know MacGyver know what type of person he is. He is a very “hands on” type of person. He works a LOT with his hands.
[…]

In that post’s comments, Chuck, with a year plus of time since his wounding, comments in more detail about what it was like:

Let Macgyver (and your friend) know that it really isn’t the end of the world, it’s a setback. I love working with my hands, and do lot of projecs too… everything from brewing beer to refinishing furniture. It takes longer, and I have to take my time and actually watch what I am doing, instead of working by feel, and I think my playstation days ended a long time ago, but the hard thing to get through my head was that it wasn’t the end of the world. You have tyo adapt, and the fixes are neither immediate or easy.
Things that used to be easy, or even so simple I didn’t consider them, are now often insurmountable (like buttoning a cuff or collar.) I was once completely unable to bathe myself, my hands were so sensitive I couldn’t hold the poofy soap things.
[…]

Go and read that, too.

Fuzzilicious Thinking, the other person behind Valour-IT posted comments on Chuck’s comments, to add more depth to the discussion here. It’s also worth your time to click and to understand the issues better.
Read the rest, which is graphic, but it tell of the reality of those who suffer.

I’m getting behind in comms with the team. For you Navy team members who aren’t be ing spammed by me, ship me in an email. I’m trying to pass around ideas to keep the funds on the upward trend.

For anyone who reads this: Keep contacting anyone you can. Sometimes those people you think aren’t interested, will know someone who is very interested.

Ask blogger you read to post for us. Some of the Navy Team has done that with positive responses.

Ok, here we go! I plan to showcase the Navy Team blogs here, because there’s some great stuff, some from new bloggers, to be seen.

Steeljaw Scribe. A retired Navy Captain, who spent the bulk of his career in E-2C Hawkeye Air Early Warning flying. Weekly Posts of “Flight Deck Friday,” discussing Naval Aviation History, usually covering an particular aircraft. He was in the Pentagon on 9/11/2001. He blogged that the few days before and up to 9/11/2006.

Note: I take no pleasure is seeing someone suffer. One’s misforutne, in this case helps teach us all how lucky we are and I’m passing it along.

A member of Soldier’s Angels cuts one of her pinky fingers the day before Valour-IT starts it’s drive this year.

She gets it. Not a good thing to have to suffer to understand, but this thinker and blogger sees how even a minor disability to her typing skills is but a mere shadow of what many suffer from.

“Lessons Learned – Project Valour-IT”

As you know, I cut my finger pretty severely over the weekend, and am still waiting to find out whether or not I’ll need surgery. The pain has been manageable, but what’s driven me nuts is the impediment to my typing. I normally type about 100 or so words a minute, and now I’m back to feeling like a geek while I try to adjust to not being able to use my pinky. Doing everything with my hands requires some adjustment. I can’t get the stitches wet, so I need to shower with a plastic bag over my left hand. Add that to all the other times that I hit it on something, or have to adjust to the temporary loss of that digit, and it’s annoying at best, pretty painful at worst. At the most, I’ll need surgical correction. Either way, I’ll be splinted for several weeks, and will need physical therapy.

And that’s just one pinky, on one hand. A couple of months, and it’ll likely be back to normal. I can still type, although I have to adjust, and I can still do most things with relatively minor inconvenience. And my injury was do to a moment’s stupidity – my fault.

Read the rest here… and think about it.

Sign up your blog to support Valour-IT HERE!

Valour-IT – Laptops for Wounded Troops with Voice Software

It’s almost he month in which we celebrate those who have put on a uniform of the Armed Forces of the United States and defended our country.

This year, as last year at this time, the MilBlogging community “virtually” gathered to care for their own, in particular, those who have suffered wounds in the War on Terror that have left them unable to communicate in the normal manner so many of they, and us have become accustomed to: Via typing their thoughts and greetings into a computer.

Technology has an answer for this type of disability and beginning in 2005, individuals stepped up to the plate to solve this problem by supplying our wounded warriors with laptop computers and vioce activated software, that overcomes the disabling injuries that have rendered the fingers of these men and women unusable.

The genesis of the project was an Army Captain, Chuck Ziegenfuss, who had been MilBlogging before he was wounded in an IED attack, and discussions with Beth, another blogger and plain old American citizen and school teacher with a heart to do something, from Fuzzilicious Thinking, who put their heads together and kicked this off. It’s a testimony about those who complain vs. those who just get it done. Beth and Soldier’s Angels have now supplied, with the generocity of people from around the world, over 500 laptops. Quite an accomplishment for not working this program for even two years.

The name given to this charity is “Valour-IT,” and as last year, we dedicate the days from now until November 11^th as a period to solicit and gather funds to put more systems into the possession of those who have served and now are in need of our help to attempt to restore their ability to use computers to communicate with their friends, family and in the business world.

If you’re not familiar with this project, here is the link to the site where you can find the legitimacy, the history, who is supporting this program in the business world, and testimonies, as well as the link to donate.

for some detailed info on exactly how the Valour-IT laptops are helping the wounded, read this post from Beth, titled “More than a Laptop.”

If you’re familiar with Valour-IT, I ask for your support in spreading the word, telling the story, and checking with the person who controls the purse strings in your household to determine the level of funding you’re able to provide.

I plan to email my contacts, asking the same from them. for those who have a areas where you can post hard copy notices, here is a link to 8 flyers already made up publicize Valour-IT. Print out a few and hang them in full view of youe workmates.

I will endeavor to post the statuss of the fund collections daily, as they are available from the blogs where they are doing the central accounting. We will ask you to decide which service you will donate under, but…in the long run, it matters not, except to provide some of us with the bragging rights if “our” service bests the others.

Update: Black Five, about the biggest MilBlogger there is, has his kick off post up here! Other service team leaders are listed there, but…send your $$$ to the troops thru the Navy button! (Coasties welcomed here!)

Want to play? Sign your blog up here.

Script to add the donation meter is (remove the double quotaion marks from around the first and last “carets” to make the scripting function):

“< "script src="http://www.donationbooster.com/booster/showbutton.php?i=63&item=5&width=70&direction=Vertical&showtop5=No&showgraph=Yes&background=FFFFFF&graph1=FF0066&graph2=990000&text=000000&link=990000&fsize=2&fface=Arial&border=1&bordercolor=000000">“

Trackbacked at:
Linkfest Haven, Mark My Words, The Bullwinkle Blog, Cao’s Blog, Bright & Early, Jo’s Cafe, Clash of Civilizations, , Common Folks Using Common Sense, Mr. Tor, Outside the Beltway.

Crossposted at:
Third World County