If only there were more like this young man!

As you guys know, if anything ever changes in one of my posts from its original form, I let you know immediately.  In the case of this post, I have a correction, you will read that I wrote this Marine was shot, when in fact his injuries were sustained from shrapnel.  This story needs to be told and it needs to be told accurately, I appologize for getting that wrong!

At 21 years old, this amazing young man, United States Marine, was stationed in Afghanistan.  While on his way with a unit of Marines and Afghan fighters to meet with "village elders or leaders" or whatever the hell they call them over there, for a pre dawn meeting.  For us, the average citizen we don't know if these soldiers were set up by those very villagers they were going to help or not and perhaps we never will know.  But the fact is that they were set up and ambushed in a tight valley.  They were going in to help rebuild a Mosque and more than 60 people were hidden on the trail that they were traveling.  The Taliban fighters and for the record, FUCK THE TALIBAN, pinned them down by firing machine guns, mortars and RPG's at them.  This Marine's name is Dakota Meyer and when he stated that he wanted to go in and help the 40 mixed soldiers that were pinned down.  I believe the number was 17 Marines and 23 Afghan fighters.  He was ordered NOT TO!  Now you guys know that an order is an order and along with another Marine, they ignored that order.  This BAD ASS MARINE along with his brother, jumped in to a humvee and he took control of the 50 cal turret and they went straight on in to the fight where his brothers were pinned down!  He had virtually no support, he went in and one by one by one took each of these men, his fellow soldiers to safety.  He repeated this OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN!  He asked permission 4 times and it was denied!  Thank God he ignored those direct orders!  He made the first three trips in to the kill zone with just the driver of that gun truck!  It was only on the 4th and 5th trip in to the kill zone that other soldiers finally joined him!  He fired that 50 cal. until it no longer fired and then returned point blank fire with his rifle with enemy fighters who ran right up to the humvee.  The entire village rained fire on this unit from fortified positions and this Marine was exposed from his chest up.  I'm not sure on which trip in to the kill zone it was that Dakota was shot but I know it was not on the last!  On the 5th trip, when he finally made it to what was once the front of the line where the 4 Marines were leading the way.  These Marines had been killed in action!  In his trips in prior, he loaded up the Afghan fighters in to the humvee and they drove them out.  HE CARRIED THE MARINES OUT HIMSELF!  There are a great many details of this truly amazing story that I am leaving out because I don't want to describe them wrong but what I have just told you is dead on accurate!  This is truly one of the most amazing stories of heroism that I have ever heard!  GOD BLESS THE AMERICAN SOLDIER!  In his own words "it wasn't if we were going to die, but when"!

This young man denies claims that he is a hero!  Of the 40 soldiers that were pinned down, they were able to rescue and save the lives of 36 of them!  36 of them!  The reason he denies the claim of his heroism is partly because he didn't to it to be a hero, he did it to save his brothers and in his own words, "I'm not a hero, four Marines didn't make it back, I wasn't able to save them"!  I believe that was the quote, perhaps I may have misquoted but I'm damn sure it was, if not, it is pretty damn close to it!  THIS QUOTE HOWEVER IS DEAD ON ACCURATE, "WE ARE GOING IN TO GET THEM OR WE ARE GOING TO DIE TRYING"!  This 21 year old man, fresh from being a boy, saved the lives of 36 soldiers who were pinned down and no telling if his actions may have saved the lives of the entire unit!  On the other side of this story, what makes his actions even more incredible, an investigation had to begin because others refused to help!  They refused!  Nobody else would go in and help him until the fourth trip

The reason that America is the greatest fighting force on earth is because of men like this, because of men and women who give up everything back home and volunteer, unlike any other country on earth and go and defend freedom around the world and defend our way of life and the lives of people who don't even appreciate the sacrifice that these men and women make!

Today, this amazing United States Marine was awarded the  CONGRESSIONAL MEDAL OF HONOR!  He is the only LIVING  Marine since Viet -Nam to receive this medal!  If only there were more people back here in America and around the world for that matter, that lived by this, L, L, H, & R., that this Marine lives his life by!  Just imagine if our country, hell, the world, was once again populated by people who put others first.  Imagine if we were no longer a  people who fight amongst ourselves because someone may believe in God and they do not, or have pure hatred for each other for no reason other than the political party that they belong to or the religious sect that differs from theirs!  I know that perhaps the time for loom-by-yah moments are long since gone and they are dead but it is a nice wish to have that all of this bullshit happening in these times we are living in would just end!  Get back to everyone just living their lives and being decent human beings.  No more judgemental assholes that start shit and then draw others unwillingly in to it!  I don't pray for much and I never pray for anything for myself because that would make me a hypocrite!  I do however pray that never again will another soldier die fighting for an other's personal gain.  I pray that every single soldier, EVERYWHERE, gets to go home to their lives and to the ones that they love, safe and sound.  I have never in my life had the opportunity to serve in the military, but I truly do understand brotherhood, I understand the bonds that are formed when you have to walk in to a battle that you may not return from, I understand LOVE, LOYALTY, HONOR and RESPECT!  This United States Marine is the epitome- of each of those words, perhaps one of the finest examples of it that I have ever had the privilege to see!  What makes Cpl. Dakota Meyer even more amazing is that he is so very humble!  He deserves nothing but great things in his life and I truly hope that he gets all that he deserves.  A great many around the world forget about the battles that these young men and women face each and every day that they serve and worse yet, the battle within themselves that they must live with forever if they are lucky enough to return!  FORGET THE WAR, NEVER THE WARRIOR!  I pray that more people on this planet would act in the way that Dakota Meyer acted on that horrific day and I am sure that he acts in this manner in one way or another each day!

I have readers of this blog now in 89 countries and I am grateful for that.  I understand that you too, each have your own heroes and I respect them as well!  Remember that honor is not exclusive to the military!  We can each live our lives this way!  I am just glad that we are able to write about these heroes, to read about these acts of heroism because there are people out there around the world who become heroes while we get to sit on our asses and hear about them!  I pray that war will end an not one more person ever needs to die because of one.  I know that prayer is probably futile, but that is what we pray for, the impossible isn't it?

Since 1861, 3400 Medals of Honor have been awarded!  These soldiers never committed the acts that earned these medals because they might win one, they acted in the way they did because simply, IT WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO!  It is never the wrong time, to do the right thing!  Stand up people, it is time that each and every single one of us, DO THE RIGHT THING!

In the chance that Dakota Meyer ever reads this, or hears about this post, I want to say this, TODAY, YOU HAVE MADE ME INCREDIBLY PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!  Today you have humbled me once again.  Today, you made every American humble and proud!  GOD BLESS OUR SOLDIERS, each and every single one of them!

Until we see each other again on the road,

Keep the wind in your face,
Tits in your back,
and The Man off your ass!

Your friend,
Jack Shit

Check out this little Gem!

Back in the old days, in what now seems like a former life, my beautiful angel of a wife left the restaurant business and became a full time realtor.  We've always loved homes!  Different styles, designs and especially the radical ones!  Once we shut down the restaurant and she no longer worked 25 hours per day, 8 days per week, she had time to invest in something she loved.  She loved real estate and as it is today, she loves helping people.  Most people purchase a home, raise a family in it and then when the kids are gone, all grown up, married with their own children, they sell it and move on.  Memories are made, tragedies occur and things we wish to never forget or wish we could happen in those properties and it was Diane's mission to fight like a tiger to get her clients dreams fulfilled!  It just so happened that all of those years that I was in sales and a sales trainer and I made her "role play" with me..... and NO, not that kind of role playing you sick bastards, she actually took in all of that sales training.  She was like a beautiful Italian Sponge!  Normally, when you sell someone something, a used car for example, the buyer ends up with pure hatred towards the seller.  In Diane's first year as a realtor back in Jersey she sold 13 homes.  This was not bad since she had only began in July and the market was not insane like it had been a few years ago.  It was actually quite the feat to have done this.  She was awarded Rookie of the Year honors by her company and that company was huge.  That year I saw something happen that I had never witnessed as a person in sales.  When the holidays came, 11 of those people for whom she found their homes, each GAVE HER a gift!  Some of those gifts were pretty awesome!  Moving forward, Diane became a STONE KILLER in her field.  Month after month, year after year for a decade, Diane was awarded Top Listing Agent, Top Marketing Agent, Top Sales Agent and each year, Agent of the Year. To say that I was proud was an understatement.  The greatest respect, yes, there is that word again, was paid to her by each of her past clients referring her to their friends, to their family, to the people they loved.  A funny thing happened along the way.  We turned poor people in to rich people.  Through our network of professionals and hard money lenders, we were able to get people in to homes that could not even get rentals and within a year or so, they held multiple properties, they became empowered!  We were making people wealthy.  I can't believe how long it took before we realized the opportunities that we had missed by giving these homes to strangers.  We began to buy them and before it was in fashion, we flipped them.  Back then, most only needed carpet and paint, not like today!  Holy Shit did we make money!  Life was great for a good while and we wanted for nothing but for Diane's health to come back!  Move forward, everyone is now flipping homes and buying them up regardless of price, fixing and flipping and holding multiple properties that were mortgaged to the hilt!  We sold off all but one investment and that one we only purchased to save someone from losing it!  That is the one that bit us on the ass and screwed us all up, but no matter what, looking back, we saved someone we loved and you can't put a price on that.  Now we find ourselves in current times!  We are in the worst real estate market since the great depression.  Now here is the kicker, we are at it again.  We are helping people get their lives back in order and build back up.  We find homes, get them fixed up and sell them off.  We do this for a great many people again and hopefully one day soon, we will be flush with cash again and we can once again, do it for ourselves. 

I wanted you guys to see this house as we took the keys to it.  Yes my friends, it is fucked!  Check this beast out!

Pretty much deep shit right?  Well in one month from now, I am going to post up new pictures and show you what the phrase "seeing the forest through the trees" means!  Watch what we do to this house.  Sure the days of making stupid money on each and every house are surely over but if you are not a pig and don't get greedy and are willing to make 10, 20 or 30 grand on a house, you can start raking it in!  The one thing that I can guarantee is that this little wreck of a home will be beautiful and a family will come in and they will make memories that they wish they would never forget or ones that they wish they could!  Life happens and we get people the homes where they can sit in the front row and watch it unfold!  Life is too short, times are too uncertain and people are afraid.  You can't achieve greatness by sitting on the side lines.  You will never be a hero unless you get in to the battle.  You can't help people by wishing that the world was a better place, you have to go out and make it a better place!  The crazy part is that it is contagious.  Doing right, doing good catches on like a brush fire and soon it becomes a forest fire and then it is very hard to stop.  We don't look at this like, well right now we don't have the cash to make this happen for us, so screw everyone else!  We say, let's fire up the old Karma Train and help some people make their lives better and put some cash in their pockets!  Hopefully, it will come back to us!  HOPEFULLY! 

I'm going to make sure that the property looks the way it deserves to look as well.  The potential of this back yard is endless!

..... and oh yeah, Diane sells spectacular homes that you can come down with your bike and park it in the garage, your flippers and snorkel and hop right in the pool or your sex toys and move right on in to the bedroom of your dreams as well.  After all, it is not like we only involve ourselves in crack houses!  What a great name for a company though, "GOOD AFTERNOON, THANK YOU FOR CALLING CRACK HOUSE REALTY, how may I direct your call"? 

So you keep on watching and I'll remind you when this Sweet Little Gem is about to have her "rebirth" and I will share it with you all.  If you are interested in buying a home in Az., don't hesitate to reach out to my girl, it will be the best and smartest decision you've made in a long time!  People always laughed and said that for her clients, Diane would take the pennies off of a dead man's eyes!  She is a tiger and fights just like one protecting her young for her clients, it is amazing to watch! 

Yeah I know this is not comedy and this is not bike related and this is far from my typical writing but i like to let you guys in on each and every, well, nearly every aspect of our lives.  Total, brutal honesty, always, that is the plan and we are sticking with it!  You tell me, what other realtor is going to take you home shopping on Harleys?

Until we see each other on the road,

Keep the wind in your face,
Tits in your back,
The Man off your Ass
and hopefully a little cash in all of our pockets!

Your friend,
Jack Shit

IF YOU HAVE NO ENEMIES, YOU'VE NEVER STOOD FOR ANYTHING!

The title is a quote from Winston Churchill!  A few weeks ago, as you guys know I finally lost it and blew my stack and felt it necessary to call some one out!  I had never done that before in my life, well on the Internet that is.  In real life, in the real world I've done and said what has needed to be either!  Since I had never done anything like that before,I tormented myself after having hit the publish button.  I can't tell you the amount of emails, text messages, face book messages and phone calls that I received in support of my actions.  One person in particular was on the phone and said "fuck man, it is about damn time somebody said something"!  I said "thanks, wish it never came to this but I just finally lost it".  His response was "you did the right thing man" and then gave me the quote, If you go through life with no enemies, YOU HAVE NEVER STOOD FOR ANYTHING!  I thought about it and those words certainly rang true! 

I believe that a great deal of the trouble that this great nation is facing these days leads directly back to this very statement.  We have passively become a nation of chicken shits!  I don't know when it began, but at some point it did.  We began to let our most precious freedom, our freedom of speech be taken away from us.   Everyone is afraid to stand up for anything for fear of being called everything from homophobic to racist to radical to crazy.  We have been so slowly beaten back and beaten down that for fear of being ostracised or out casted or God forbid, VOTED OFF OF THE FUCKING ISLAND, we no longer speak up and rarely if ever stand up.  Stand up for what we believe, stand up for what is right, stand up for what we feel in the depths of our souls.  We quietly sit back and say and do nothing!  We have become a nation of people who rather than going out and living our life, achieving the things we've dreamed of since we were children, we sit on our fat asses and watch others do it on so called "reality tv".  Because of social networking, a few of us may find people of like mind, like belief or like heart and have "web bitch sessions".  Where we plan for that time when the moment arises and we stand up and finally make a stand.  Each time those moments do arrive, we become a nation of excuse makers and we list the reasons why we didn't make a stand.  Worse yet, we have stopped even making excuses, we sit quietly by and watch WRONG happen.  People talk a big game, I will do this, I will say that, but when the moment of truth arrives, we become cowards!  It breaks my heart to see a nation as a whole, hell a world as a whole so scared to just stand up and say THIS IS WRONG, YOU ARE WRONG, THIS IS FUCKING INSANE!  STOP, STOP IT NOW!  When something actually does happen, rather than becoming part of it, at best, most will become a witness rather than a participant, why, how, when did this all occur? 

You are probably asking yourself right now, self, WHAT THE HELL CRAWLED UP JACK SHIT'S ASS TODAY?  Well the answer is as usual, the damn news!  Watching the damn news is what got me all fired up. Not for any reason that you can imagine either.  Not because I saw people sit idly by while a tragedy happened, not because rather than help or make a stand, or worse yet, just pull out our new 4G phone and shoot some video of it happening.  Between having to relive the events of 9/11 again and catching the video that I will attach the link to below, that Winston Churchill quote rang true again.  If you have no enemies, you have never stood for anything!  We must be involved, we must get involved or folks it will all be gone.  If we do not make a stand for what we believe in, what you believe in will be gone.  I don't care if you believe in one political party over another, I don't care if you believe in NO PANTY TUESDAYS at your office, I don't care if you believe that cattle should have the right to vote, Stand up, let your voice be heard and even more importantly, let your actions be seen!  Motion, creates Emotion and that is a fact!  Be the first on your block to stand up, show someone else that you are willing to take the heat for what you believe in and soon, you won't be standing alone!  On 9/11, those first responders knew damn well that as they ran in to those buildings they may never return home to what they love, to who they love, BUT THEY DID THE RIGHT THING!  They made a stand.  They were going to help people even if it cost them the ultimate price!  For a great many, they paid that price.  The video linked below is another example of people who made a stand!  People who knew that by helping, that they too could be hurt or even worse!  They put that aside because the RIGHT THING TO DO was staring them directly in the face.  Rather than act in the way we have become conditioned to do and look down at their shoes or WAIT FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO FIX THE PROBLEM, they acted!  Because they made a stand and said STOP, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH and risked life and limb, a 21 year old "boy" will see tomorrow!  This fucking kid may be the man who cures cancer, had they not done what they did, we may never know!

So I say make a stand and by God, make enemies if you must but please my friends, STAND UP FOR SOMETHING, do the right thing, a nation of sheep breeds a government of WOLVES!  I bet these people have a much better story to tell than, I stood on the sidelines and what I watched was horrific!  If only I had done something or if only our government officials arrived faster this young man would be alive!

Every single fire begins with ONE SINGLE SPARK!  Light the damn fires!  Make a stand, make your life better. I promise you this, one way or another, you will feel better. 

ON A SIDE NOTE:  I try to never, ever edit a post that I make and if it differs from the original I will inform you, just keeping it honest!  What I want to add to this post that I forgot to type before I hit publish post is a great big thank you to the person who shared this quote with me.  I know that you read these and wanted you to know that my knowledge of this great quote has changed me!  I thank you for that and did not want to mention you by name, but you know damn well who you are my friend!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/44510283#44510283


Until we see each other on the road,

Keep the wind in your face,
tits in your back
and The Man off your ass! 

Your friend,
Jack Shit