November 21, 2007

Wednesday Hero

Spc. Roger G. Ling

Spc. Roger G. Ling 20 years old from Douglaston, New York Company C, 1st Battalion, 34th Armor Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team February 19, 2004

 

When Spc. Roger G. Ling’s Humvee was struck by a homemade bomb in October of 2003, he survived the attack and he worked to keep his superior officer, Lt. Matt Homa, alive. Spc. Ling was riding in the backseat of the Humvee when it was hit. It destroyed Lt. Homa’s door.

“It almost killed me. From what I’ve been told, Roger helped keep me awake until my medic arrived.” said Lt. Homa. “Ling was a good kid. You could count on him to do anything.”

Spc. Ling was killed, along with Second Lieutenant Jeffrey C. Graham of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, when their unit came under fire from insurgents in Khalidiyah, Iraq. Only two miles from where he’d survived the attack just four months earlier.

Leona Ling said she was grateful her brother came home in August of 2003 just before leaving for Iraq.

“He had to have his tonsils taken out,” she said. “It was a blessing in disguise because we got to see him again.”

In phone calls home, the soldier spoke wistfully of returning to New York and going to college. “He wanted to hear about what was going on at home and all the latest family gossip,” Leona Ling recalled.

Survivors include his father, Wai Ling, a U.S. Army veteran.

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

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Starting The Day With A Rant

I slept like crap last night. I hate when the wife is away. I was up at 12:30, 2:30, 3:30 and then finally got out of bed for good around a quarter till 5 this morning. Today is going to be a long one as well, so I was really hoping for a good night’s sleep. I seem to have a bit of the creeping death so looked for Nyquil in the closet last night and since there was none had a big shot of whiskey in the hopes that it would knock me out long enough to sleep a full seven hours. No such luck.

I can always tell when I haven’t had anything to drink in a while. I’m such a lightweight. I have been so busy I don’t think I’ve even had a beer since the Blogtoberfest get-together back in October. The whiskey went right to my head in the course of about ten minutes. It did knock me out but obviously only for a couple of hours. The stupid cat was out on the front porch fighting. She’s been in heat for a few days and managed to slip out when I was letting the dog out last night. Sneaky beast must have been hiding under the bed waiting to get out. I am going to be pissed if she’s pregnant. I think maybe next week, if I can get a few minutes off of work, I will go ahead and take her to the vet and get her fixed. Wednesday they have a deal so that would be the day.

I just realized that I am out of my medicines completely. I just took the last Protonix and my cholesteral medicine has been empty for several days now. Before I can get them refilled I have to go get some bloodwork done and then make an appointment with the doctor. That’s all fine and dandy except for the fact that I have no free time in the mornings and if it’s on a work day I have been up for several hours before the lab opens and there is no way that I am going to go three or four hours in the morning without anything to eat or drink. That just sucks. I will have to figure out a way to make time for it somehow though.

Today is going to be a long’un. Once first shift is over I have a meeting at three, orientation for some new employees at four and then all of the multi-unit managers (that would be me) have to work supper supervision from six until ten. That pretty much sucks but it’s part and parcel with what I do on a daily basis, not to mention that I no longer have a manager at one of my stores and have to run it as well.

My local HR/recruiter had a meeting with the ex-manager in order to try and save her the other day. It’s still possible that they are going to be able to keep her but she will most likely never be back in my store, which is a good thing. It’s not worth trading 50% of my staff in order to keep someone who thinks they are smarter and more worthy than her employees. She says that she needs to be in a position where she gives orders and people automatically do what she says and that she doesn’t need to be at the level she was at. What a load of horse shit. You have to earn the respect of your employees in any business and acting like an asshat just doesn’t do it.

He (the recruiter) pissed me off a bit though. He said ‘no offense to you or (your boss) but I could have made her succesful’. He went on to let me know that I would most likely not be getting the available manager trainee since I have managed to run off two managers in two months and that I would either continue to have it as an open unit through the holidays or they would demote me and check me in. Fuck them. Assholes. I’m not the fuckwit that made the hiring descision to put people in the fucking restaurant that had no people skills whatsoever. The last bitch couldn’t even fucking add. It would take her 30 fucking minutes to count the till, something that could take five. She would literally come out on the floor screaming at the employees in front of god and everyone and even just about hit one of the girls with a fucking plate throwing one of her fits. Perhaps if they would start leaving some of the hiring desicions to the people that actually have to work with other people they might not have these issues.

Obviously I am slightly miffed about this, thus the fact that I am hating my job lately. Not that I am looking for a new one. It’s just been a hard month and things will start brightening up once I get the train wreck fixed.

I have been on too long and need to start getting ready for work I suppose. Lot’s to do today. I could probably go on and on but the longer I sit here the madder I get.

Various Stuff…

When I was helping to load the truck yesterday so that the girls could go pick up the Marine I was truly amazed. No luggage. All they had packed between the three of them was a little bitty bag to take since they aren’t going to be gone long. That was pretty cool. Heck, even if I was going by myself for two days I most likely would have packed at least as much as the three of them did, of course half of it would have been gadgets 🙂

The hardest part of them being gone for two days is the fact that I have to sleep by myself for one night. I hate it when one of us has to go out of town without the other.

Completely off the subject but I am really starting to love that Roomba I ‘won’ last month. I had not really noticed until today because I normally let it vaccuum and then turn it off to take it back to the charger but when the battery starts getting low it navigates itself back and hooks up. Sweet. I ran it twice today and it managed to get back to the docking station on it’s own both times. Amazon is doing their ‘Customer Votes’ thing again this year and one of the possibilities is a Roomba for $69. Very nice. It doesn’t look as if it’s going to win but that’s only because these fools don’t know what they are missing.

Wordless Wednesday

A Redneck Christmas...

Christmas 1990. The little one is my U.S. Marine and I am the idiot with the long hair and all black. I spent about a year and a half only working part time and going to school full time to get a history degree. Eventually I will go back and actually finish it.