UPDATE:
Huntsville City School District
Williams Middle School
Principal: Avis Williams

C.J. Grisham is an active duty soldier and a prolific blogger. He is currently involved in a dispute with his children’s school that has turned very ugly.

Post one 10-02-2009: The school imposes uniforms in mid year, without consulting parents. Meeting on topic at school does not permit parental comments.

Post two 10-02-2009: Policy has been canceled for this year but will be implemented for next year. No parental input allowed.

Post three 10-07-2009: School contacts military about C.J. His children are pulled from class for questioning. Teachers make comments about him during class. And the school admin feels threatened.

Now, via Facebook, we learn that when C.J. attempted to exercise his rights to assemble and to free speech at a PTA meeting, he was assaulted by a police officer. His wife, Emily, also suffered injuries in the altercation. There are both video and audio recordings of the incident so it will be very easy to determine what happened.

C.J. has earned and is due far more respect than the school is showing him. As a parent, he has rights that the state and the tin pots running the schools have not been able to take from him. He has also devoted no small measure of blood, sweat and tears to defending the rights of all of the small people who see him as a threat to their dictatorship of the educators.

Let’s all keep an eye on this story. Some folks in the Huntsville, Alabama, area need to read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

The following was first printed here on September 9, 2003.

That night, my eyes and lungs still stinging, I walked up the Great White Way. It’s a section of road to which all others like it are measured, one which has made audiences laugh and cry for over a century. Tonight it was dark, but many of us came anyway, unsure what to do or say. We heard stories of the Pentagon, and the Heros who died in a Pennsylvanian field. It all felt far away, surreal, impossible. We heard Air Force jets overhead, and what seemed an endless cry of NYPD and FDNY sirens through the night, while we fought shock and horror.

Giuliani said more would be dead than we could bear, and he was right. For months I walked these streets, and I saw photos of tens of thousands of people. People feeling grief that not even I will know, as their husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, and their children– some who had only begun to live– were slowly pulled from the wreckage or consigned to forever be a part of it. I look back on that first night, and the day that preceded it, and all I want is my friends back, my neighbors back, and my towers back. I want them, but I can’t have them, nor can I ever have the same New York that I grew to love. In the weeks and months that followed, we cut the steel which for thirty years had symbolized our great City. We buried our friends, our neighbors, and our innocence.

Go read the entire essay at Capitalist Lion. Via Mike at Cold Fury.

Marine Corps Recruiting Command (MCRC) and Officer Candidate School (OCS) have joined forces to provide America with an inside look at the making of a Marine officer.

In an unprecedented initiative, the Corps has opened its doors to offer the public direct insight into the transformation men and women undergo to become Marine officers and learn what they go through to earn the right to lead Marines. This is the first time candidates, the term used for men and women attending OCS, have been engaged in an official effort to share their experiences with the public in a social networking forum.

Six candidates will provide blogs at http://our.marines.com/ocsblog to present the American people with a unique look at their journey. The candidates are attending OCS through the Platoon Leaders Class (PLC), a program that breaks up training into two, six-week sessions for college students to attend in the summer.

In addition, staff members at OCS will blog each week to provide insight from a command perspective on how training is going for the candidates.

The candidates providing the blogs come from areas all over the country.

Lawrence Miller describes himself as motivated, though others call it cocky or vain. Originally from Toledo, Ohio, “Zuko,” as his friends call him, is at Chattanooga State University (Tenn.) and is now following in his Marine father’s footsteps. His parents have mixed feelings about his decision to go to OCS, but he is determined.

Shannon Terrian is a New Hampshire girl who graduated from Saint Johns College in Maryland and began her journey at OCS last October. She is back for the second session to finish her training and see if she really has what it takes to lead Marines. Her parents didn’t like the idea of her trying to join the Marine Corps at first, but “Shannon the Cannon” was able to change their minds.

Andy Gomez’ real name is Andres, but he doesn’t tell anyone. He hails from the Dominican Republic, though his family moved all over the world following his father’s Navy career. The Liberty University (Va.) student wants to be an astronaut in the future, but for now, he is working to earn a commission as a pilot.

Friends call Joseph Michael Polakovic “Joe Po,” for which he considers himself lucky because it is only one letter away from “Joe Poo.” This former rugby player is a Colorado native attending the University of Colorado in Boulder. His family supports his decision to attend OCS, but he is nervous to see how he stacks up.

Jeff Neese is a farm boy from New Canton, Ill. – a very small town of about 300 people. Apparently, he was destined to try his hand at the Marine Corps, as he attends Western Illinois University, whose mascot is the Fighting Leathernecks (Marines are also called Leatherneck). He is also returning for the second session of his training and is excited about being back at OCS to finish the challenge.

Ulysses “OJ” Sosa is our final candidate. He is from San Diego and attends Cal State University Dominguez Hills in Carson, Calif. He hails from a military family that is supportive of his decision to go to OCS; in fact, his father just retired from the Marine Corps last October. Although he has been preparing for several months, he is anxious, nervous and excited about what awaits him at OCS.

To follow these candidates and share their journey to see if they have what it takes to lead Marines, visit http://our.marines.com/ocsblog.

Marine Corps

Software and hardware issues have combined over the last few days to create connection and loading issues for this site. Hopefully the super folks at Hosting Matters have fixed the issues.

Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft has lost his mother. Our sympathies to Jim and his family on their loss.