\nThis is why America will remain strong. We take care of our own as well as
\n\tothers who may not deserve taking care of. I just wanted to share with you
\n\tall that out of a horrible tragedy we were blessed by so many people.<\/p>\n
\n\tChris Kyle
\n\twas Derek’s teammate through 10 years of training and battle. They
\n\tboth suffer\/suffered from PTSD to some extent and took great care of each
\n\tother because of it.<\/p>\n
\n\t2006 in Ramadi was horrible for young men that never had any more aggressive
\n\tphysical contact with another human than on a Texas football field.<\/p>\n
\n\tThey lost many friends. Chris became the armed services number #1 sniper of
\n\tall time. Not something he was happy about, other than the fact that in so doing, he saved a lot of American lives.<\/p>\n
\n\tThree years ago, his wife Taya asked him to leave the SEAL teams as he had a
\n\thuge bounty on his head by Al Qaeda. He did and wrote the book "The American Sniper." 100% of the proceeds from the book went to two of the SEAL families who had lost their sons in Iraq
\n\t.<\/p>\n
\n\tThat was the kind of guy Chris was. He formed a company in Dallas to train
\n\tmilitary, police and I think firemen as far as protecting themselves in difficult situations. He also formed a foundation to work with military people suffering from PTSD. Chris was a giver not a taker.<\/p>\n
\n\tHe, along with a friend and neighbor, Chad Littlefield, were murdered trying
\n\tto help a young man that had served six months in Iraq and claimed to have
\n\tPTSD.<\/p>\n
\n\tNow I need to tell you about all
\n\tof the blessings.<\/p>\n
\n\tSouthwest Airlines flew in any SEAL and their family from any airport they
\n\tserviced … free of charge!<\/p>\n
\n\tSouthwest Air employees donated buddy passes and one lady worked for four days without much of a break to see that it happened.<\/p>\n
\n\tVolunteers were at both airports in Dallas to drive them to the hotel.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Marriott Hotel reduced their rates to $45 a night and cleared the hotel for only
\n\tSEALs and family.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Midlothian, TX Police Department paid the $45 a night for each room.
\n\tI would guess there were about 200 people staying at the hotel, 100 of
\n\tthem were SEALs.<\/p>\n
\n\tTwo large buses were chartered (an unknown donor paid the bill) to transport people to the different events and they also had a few rental cars (donated).<\/p>\n
\tThe police and secret service were on duty 24 hours during the stay at our
\n\thotel.<\/p>\n
\n\tAt the Kyle house, the Texas DPS parked a large motor home in front to block the view from reporters. It remained there the entire five days for the SEALs to
\n\tcongregate in and all to use the restroom so as not to have to go in the house. Taya, their two small children and both sets of parents were staying in the home.<\/p>\n
\n\tOnly a hand full of SEALs went into the home as they had different duties and meetings were held sometimes on a hourly basis. It was a huge coordination of many different events and security. Derek was assigned to be a Pall Bearer, to
\n\tescort Chris’ body when it was transferred from the Midlothian Funeral Home to the Arlington Funeral Home, and to be with Taya. A tough job.<\/p>\n
\n\tTaya seldom came out of her bedroom. <\/p>\n
\n\tThe house was full with people from the church and other family members that would come each day to help. I spent one morning in a bedroom with Chris\u2019 mom and the next morning with Chad Littlefield’s parents (the other man murdered with
\n\tChris). A tough job.<\/p>\n
\n\tGeorge W Bush and his wife Laura met and talked to
\n\teveryone on the Seal Team one on one. They went behind closed doors with Taya for quite a while. They had prayer with us all. You can tell when people were sincere and caring<\/p>\n
\n\tNolan Ryan sent his cooking team, a huge grill and lots of steaks, chicken and hamburgers. They set up in the front yard and fed people all day long including the 200 SEALs and their families. The next day a local BBQ restaurant set up a buffet in front of the house and fed all once again. Food was plentiful and all were taken care of. The family’s
\n\tchurch kept those inside the house well fed.<\/p>\n
\n\tJerry Jones, the man everyone loves to hate, was a rock
\n\tstar! He made sure that we all were taken care of.
\n\tHis wife and he were just making sure everyone was taken care of\u2026.Class!!!
\n\t… He donated the use of Cowboy Stadium for the services as it was
\n\tdetermined that so many wanted to attend.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe charter buses transported us to the stadium on Monday at 10:30 am. Every car, bus, motorcycle was searched with bomb dogs and police. I am not sure if kooks were making threats trying to make a name for themselves or if so many SEALs in one place was a security risk, I don’t know. We willingly obliged. No purses went into the stadium!<\/p>\n
\n\tWe were taken to The Legends room high up and a large buffet was available. That
\n\twas for about 300 people. We were growing.<\/p>\n
\n\tA Medal of Honor recipient was there, lots of secret service and police and Sarah
\n\tPalin and her husband. She looked nice, this was a very formal military service.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe service started at 1:00 pm and when we were escorted onto the field I was shocked. We heard that about 10,000 people had come to attend also. They were
\n\tseated in the stadium seats behind us. It was a beautiful and emotional service.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Bagpipe and drum corps were wonderful and the Texas A&M men’s choir stood through the entire service and sang right at the end. We were all in tears.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe next day was the 200-mile procession from Midlothian, TX to Austin for burial. It was a cold, drizzly, windy day, but the people were out. We had dozens of
\n\tpolice motorcycles riders, freedom riders, five chartered buses and lots
\n\tof cars. You had to have a pass to be in the procession and still it was
\n\thuge. Two helicopters circled the procession with snipers sitting
\n\tout the side door for protection. It was the longest funeral procession
\n\tever in the state of Texas. People were everywhere. The entire route
\n\twas shut down ahead of us, the people were lined up on the side of the
\n\troad the entire way. Firemen were down on one knee, police officers were
\n\tholding their hats over their hearts, children waving flags, veterans
\n\tsaluting as we went by. Every bridge had fire trucks with large flags
\n\tdisplayed from their tall ladders, people all along the entire 200 miles
\n\twere standing in the cold weather. It was so heartwarming. Taya rode in
\n\tthe hearse with Chris’ body so Derek rode the route with us. I was
\n\tso grateful to have that time with him.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe service was at Texas National Cemetery. Very few are buried there and you have to apply to get in. It is like people from the Civil War, Medal of Honor
\n\twinners, a few from the Alamo and all the historical people of Texas.<\/p>\n
\n\tIt was a nice service and the Freedom Riders surrounded the outside of the entire
\n\tcemetery to keep the crazy church people from Kansas that protest at military funerals away from us.<\/p>\n
\n\tEach SEAL put
\n\this Trident (metal SEAL badge) on the top of Chris’ casket, one at a
\n\ttime. A lot hit it in with one blow. Derek was the only one to take
\n\tfour taps to put his in and it was almost like he was caressing it as he
\n\tdid it. Another tearful moment.<\/p>\n
\n\tAfter the service Governor Rick Perry and his wife, Anita, invited us to the
\n\tgovernor’s mansion. She stood at the door, greeted each of us individually, and gave each of the SEALs a coin of Texas. She was a sincere, compassionate, and gracious hostess.<\/p>\n
\n\tWe were able to tour the ground floor and then went into the garden for beverages and BBQ. So many of the Seal team guys said that after they get out they are moving to Texas. They remarked that they had never felt so much love and hospitality. The charter buses then took the guys to the airport to catch their returning flights. Derek just now called and after a 20 hours flight he is back in his spot, in a dangerous land on the other side of the world, protecting America.<\/p>\n
\n\tWe just wanted to share with you, the events of a quite emotional, but blessed
\n\tweek.<\/p>\n
\n\tPunch-line:<\/p>\n
\n\tTo this day, no one in the White
\n\tHouse has ever acknowledged Chris
\n\tKyle.<\/p>\n
\n\tHowever, the
\n\tPresident can call some sport person and congratulate him on announcing to
\n\tthe world that he is gay? What the hell is happening to our
\n\tsociety, our honor and
\n\tour pride??<\/p>\n
Posted by:<\/strong> Dr Crapology on February 20, 2015, 1:08 pm<\/p>\n \tRose and Doc<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n Posted by:<\/strong> Mr Finesse on February 20, 2015, 1:23 pm<\/p>\n \tExcept at the end concerning our so called president, makes me want to puke.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is why America will remain strong. We take care of our own as well as others who may not deserve taking care of. I just wanted to share with you all that out of a horrible tragedy we were…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coffee-chat-lounge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8684\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}