Hoyden R.

One of my favorite passages from Virgil's Aeneid. I spent four years in Naples, Italy. And as military brats are wont to do, we did some exploring where we weren't meant to. The Caves of Cuma and the underground passages to Lago D'Averno were one of those late night jaunts. The Sibyl's prediction of war: Within the cave, and Sibyl's voice restores: "Escap'd the dangers of the wat'ry reign, Yet more and greater ills by land remain. The coast, so long desir'd (nor doubt th' event), Thy troops shall reach, but, having reach'd, repent. Wars, horrid wars, I view- a field of blood, And Tiber rolling with a purple flood. Simois nor Xanthus shall be wanting there: A new Achilles shall in arms appear, And he, too, goddess-born. Fierce Juno's hate, Added to hostile force, shall urge thy fate. To what strange nations shalt not thou resort, Driv'n to solicit aid at ev'ry court! The cause the same which Ilium once oppress'd; A foreign mistress, and a foreign guest. But thou, secure of soul, unbent with woes, The more thy fortune frowns, the more oppose. The dawnings of thy safety shall be shown From whence thou least shalt hope, a Grecian town."

This one never fails to amuse me. My favorite cousin is a die hard Marine. All four of his children, including his daughter are named after tanks. Bradley, Patton, Sherman and Sheridan Lee. They call her Sherri. I taught Bradley and Patton this when they were 3.5 and 5 years old so they could sing it to their Dad. They taught it to Sherman and Sherri. My cousin was NOT amused. lol The Marines, the Marines, Those blasted Gyrenes, Those seagoing bellhops, Those brass-buttoned queens, Oh! They pat their own back Write stories in reams, All in the praise of themselves— The U.S. Marines! The Marines, the Marines, Those publicity fiends, They built all the forests, Turned on all the streams, Discontent with the earth, They say Heaven’s scenes Are guarded by—you guess! Right! U.S. Marines! The moon never beams, Except when the Marines Give it permission to turn on its gleams. And the tide never rises, the wind never screams— Unless authorized by the U.S. Marines The Marines, the Marines, In their khakis and greens, Their pretty blue panties, Red stripes down their seams. They have thought all the thoughts, Dreamed all the dreams Singing, “The Song of Myself”— The U.S. Marines. —From “Gismo” a publication for all servicemen in the South Pacific, this pent-up irritation was let out in doggerel “believed to be by a sailor.” May 6, 1944.

Ohhh.... I have been collecting Military poems for the better part of 25 years. I'll try not to innundate you. lol That being said, my all time favorite military poem is this one from none other than General Patton. THROUGH A GLASS, DARKLY General George S. Patton, Jr. Through the travail of the ages, Midst the pomp and toil of war, Have I fought and strove and perished Countless times upon this star. In the form of many people In all panoplies of time Have I seen the luring vision Of the Victory Maid, sublime. I have battled for fresh mammoth, I have warred for pastures new, I have listened to the whispers When the race trek instinct grew. I have known the call to battle In each changeless changing shape From the high souled voice of conscience To the beastly lust for rape. I have sinned and I have suffered, Played the hero and the knave; Fought for belly, shame, or country, And for each have found a grave. I cannot name my battles For the visions are not clear, Yet, I see the twisted faces And I feel the rending spear. Perhaps I stabbed our Savior In His sacred helpless side. Yet, I've called His name in blessing When after times I died. In the dimness of the shadows Where we hairy heathens warred, I can taste in thought the lifeblood; We used teeth before the sword. While in later clearer vision I can sense the coppery sweat, Feel the pikes grow wet and slippery When our Phalanx, Cyrus met. Hear the rattle of the harness Where the Persian darts bounced clear, See their chariots wheel in panic From the Hoplite's leveled spear. See the goal grow monthly longer, Reaching for the walls of Tyre. Hear the crash of tons of granite, Smell the quenchless eastern fire. Still more clearly as a Roman, Can I see the Legion close, As our third rank moved in forward And the short sword found our foes. Once again I feel the anguish Of that blistering treeless plain When the Parthian showered death bolts, And our discipline was in vain. I remember all the suffering Of those arrows in my neck. Yet, I stabbed a grinning savage As I died upon my back. Once again I smell the heat sparks When my Flemish plate gave way And the lance ripped through my entrails As on Crecy's field I lay. In the windless, blinding stillness Of the glittering tropic sea I can see the bubbles rising Where we set the captives free. Midst the spume of half a tempest I have heard the bulwarks go When the crashing, point blank round shot Sent destruction to our foe. I have fought with gun and cutlass On the red and slippery deck With all Hell aflame within me And a rope around my neck. And still later as a General Have I galloped with Murat When we laughed at death and numbers Trusting in the Emperor's Star. Till at last our star faded, And we shouted to our doom Where the sunken road of Ohein Closed us in its quivering gloom. So but now with tanks a'clatter Have I waddled on the foe Belching death at twenty paces, By the star shell's ghastly glow. So as through a glass, and darkly The age long strife I see Where I fought in many guises, Many names, but always me. And I see not in my blindness What the objects were I wrought, But as God rules o'er our bickerings It was through His will I fought. So forever in the future, Shall I battle as of yore, Dying to be born a fighter, But to die again, once more.

I took the liberty of emailing the kind lady who helped me with my English research to see if she could shed some light on tracking down who has received the M.B.E. She is a retired woman who loves research so I ply her with yearly packages of custom dog collars and harnesses that I've made for her dog, so she is happy to help me research English records. :)

My maiden name is Thrower. I found out I was related to him when I joined a British Genealogy forum asking for help and posted an intro with a photo of myself and my dog. Apparently an American Thrower who was co-owner of a landscaping company and went every where with her black dog (APBT service dog) was just too much of a coincidence. When the ladies found out I designed gardens and planted them and had won awards, that was all she wrote. (Percy went everywhere with his black lab.) One was friends with the Thrower family in Schropshire and helped me find the records I was looking for. My ex-husband used to get upset when I appropriated areas of his sacred grass for yet another garden. I told him it was hereditary so he might as well get over it.

One would think that they would post a master list of award recipients somewhere on line. I spent nearly 3 hours hunting for a list but came up with nothing. I went to the English Access to Archives site and spent an hour searching there. I found a lovely article about a John Henry Hurst being called a cuckold back in the 18th century though. lol My distant cousin, Percy Thrower also received an M.B.E. for being a gardener. Rather interesting fellow.

Is there a way to make the pictures that show up bigger without putting them onto photobucket? I've been resizing them to 640 x 400 or 800 x 600px, but they still show up small.

And another that was embroidered without the benefit of the stabilizer as the back side of the stitching is hidden under the white interfacing.

I found several with black stabilizer on the inside. Notice that this one has backside of the embroidery showing through and they used the embroidery stabilizer to give body to the fabric?

Here is the back of one of Paul's Iraqi Shoulder tabs. I didn't open it up, it came that way. Notice the lack of stabilizer? This material is heavy enough to embroider without it, but the front does show some puckering.

Close up of the inner construction of the tab above with another tab for comparison. On the top shoulder tab, note the following; The double stitching on the top that was done with a serger, you can tell by the perfect distance between the two rows of stitches and because the underside of the stitches looks like a "chain". Overlock stitches in black thread below the serged double row of stitches Good quality cotton twill bottom weight material Overall superior quality of the piece due to the interior "finish work" On the lower shoulder tab; Single row of stitches done on a "home quality" sewing machine. I am guessing a Singer or Brother machine with plastic interior parts by the "wiggles" in the bottom stitches that show. (some stitches veer off, they are not uniformly straight.) Unfinished edges on the interior Lower quality cotton/poly blend trigger material

This set of shoulder tabs has a tulip type top like some of the ones pictured above. The thread is polyester and a color known as "school bus yellow" by Robison & Anton Embroidery Co. Notice the quality of the construction, the embroidery and the inner finish work of the tab. See the post below for more details of the inside.

Another example of the same type tab as above. Same embroidery thread, same inner stabilizer, same embroidery digitized pattern for the stars used, same fabric from same dye lot.

Here is an example of the stay stitching that I've seen down the back of some of Paul's Iraqi Tabs. See the little X stitches? Their purpose is to keep the seam pressed open so that the shoulder board can slide onto the shoulder tab with out catching and to keep the stress from wear and tear from pulling open the seam. These are some of his nicer Iraqi Shoulder boards with a cocoa colored nylon embroidery thread on an olive colored cotton mix bottom weight material with velvet ribbon from Wrights.

And a picture of my class ring on my hand to get an idea of how big the ring is on my midget hands.

Balfour stamp & 10k. Part of the Balfour signature is missing from when I injured my hand by getting stuck in a leaf blower engine and my finger swelled around my ring. The jeweler in town sure loved fixing all the rings I wrecked. lol

The side of my ring with name and the academic seal

Side of ring with enamel crest.

Here is my High School Class Ring, I took shots of a few angles with my ring sitting on my quilting ruler so you can get an idea of it's size. I wanted the school crest, but the ring was too small to fit it and the smallest style that fit the school crest was too large for my small hands. My ring is a size 4.75.

I just took a bunch of pictures of the things that I noticed about Paul's Iraqi shoulder boards. I will post them after I resize them, I need to finish up a few pictures for Paul first.

I would have loved to have seen that pedigree Ulsterman! I've asked several of the well versed dog men that I know and they said a pedigree to 1775 is possible, but not for a German Shepherd dog. The early progenitors were likely another breed used as the foundation of the GSD breed. When my boss showed me what he paid for the dogs he brought over from Germany and Czech Republic, I gagged. I could not believe what he paid for them. I wasn't sold until I had my hands on the first litters of German Shepherd and Malinois puppies.

Rather interesting topic. Admittedly, I know little about the politics of Ireland, though I should as my Irish Great Grandfather, the one who helped raise me and who I refer to as my "Da" was involved with the IRA. He left Ireland in the 20's, then got booted out of the US during Prohibition. He ended up in Canada running booze into the US via the fishing fleet into Gloucester, MA. (And to think I married a man in the Coast Guard, lol) I remember Irish boys coming to visit in late June and staying until the beginning of August so the Orangemen wouldn't get them in July. He died at 104 years old in October 1999. One of these days, I will get his journals and fill in all the blanks from the stories he told me, the things I remember from when he took me to Ireland when I was 5 in 1977 and the stories that other people told me about him.

I've handled most of Paul's shoulder boards because I -insisted- on putting them into an album to organize them while he was away. I also sew and embroider, so I have a great deal of knowledge about fabrics and garment construction. A couple of things REALLY stand out to me here. On the Lieutenant General epaulettes : The rough edges on the inside top are overlock stitched. I do not recall seeing that at all when I put all of Paul's into the album or when he has gotten new ones. (I like seeing all the stuff he gets, so he shows me what he gets when he gets mail.) If you flip up that edge, is the stabilizer (white stuff on the inside) stitched to the outer fabric? The back is angled at the top and bottom verses stitched straight across. On the Field Marshal epaulettes: The stabilizer is black. I haven't seen that on any of Paul's collection. The back is angled at the top and bottom verses stitched straight across. I am not sure what any of that means, but it's just my observation. I also note that the "stay stitching", little x'es that go down the back center seam to keep the inner seams pressed open so that they don't bunch, move or catch when slid onto the shoulder tabs are not on these either. I am not sure if the stay stitching are on the back of all of Paul's Iraqi shoulder boards, I will have to check, but I noted that they were on a good number of his. If I can, I'll take pictures of what I am referring to tomorrow so that it makes some kind of sense.

Thank you for sharing this. I think that this is really really neat information. I think that the addition of the melted gold from previous Alumnus class rings adds tradition and a deeper meaning to the ring. I'll take some pictures of my class ring to share.

A silly photo that was in the Vet grouping. A german shepherd all dressed up.