About Me

Who am I? Just a someone who is grateful to those willing to do gritty work on my behalf, your behalf. Just somebody who knows she's indebted to those who go against our cultural mainstream, who Cross the T at great personal sacrifice and make life for you and I just plain easier.

So to all the gutsy handsome and daringly beautiful who are doing good things overseas, close by or at home, these words are for every bit of you -- your families, your friends, your lovers and for me, you, too. This isn’t my biography, it’s just the story of why I write for you.

No generation ever escapes the challenges of difficult decisions: whether we should defend freedom or give up, pack up, go home. Whether to take the high road or build a bridge to no where. Whether to defend life of the vulnerable or protect one’s interest. Whether to strengthen the larger union or pays dues to your own. Whether to make tough choices or make over reaching promises.

Yet, in those often-ranting debates of our nation’s struggles, there is a sadly strengthening yet sometimes hidden current -- our culture here back at home increasingly does not inspire us to sacrifice for others. In fact it compels us more often to chill out hang out hook up, to deny our deepest calling, to dismiss another’s need for hope if it clashes with our comfort, to sneer at the imperfection of those brave enough to answer leadership’s call, to take the cynic’s easy way out, to worship the lure of hot air promises and shallow loves, to be ‘friends with benefits’ but never lasting friends. In short, our culture sometimes steers us to be a hollow figure of the life, nation we are intended to be.

But the powerful truth is that in all that cultural clatter and clutter, there are men and women who are sprinting past the rubble of lives in the fast lane of selfishness and who are leaping over the puddles of lives in the dulled lane of apathy and shallowness to make something good in this world. These heroes, my heroes are sometimes people next door, but many are overseas in a battle that most back home have not tried hard enough to understand.

Although many claim to know the particulars of this war, they in fact know little of what you, our heroes, are actually achieving. Too many in the mass media and Congress want to hide or deny your successes simply so they can protect their belief in their own cynicism that ‘all is lost’ and so that they can continue to cling to their believed infallibility of their life long, but often misguided, ideology.

Those cynics who come up short on resolve but high on elitism prefer to cluster only with those who share the same rage or ideological desperation. But in doing so, they fail to understand that we can’t pick and choose with whom we share our nation’s struggles. We are all stuck in the battles of our lifetime together – battles that come chock full of all our bundles of love and messy disagreements. We cannot escape that we share this crazy round revolving sun soaked, rock covered, sand dusted thing called home. Yet with the underlying stamina of Hope, we preserve its beauty, its dignity and we especially protect the places we call home and we do so for those who call us their friend and some that don’t.

It’s the better men and women who leave behind the comfort of latte sipping cynicism on a sunny Saturday to work hard and sacrifice to do so. It is the Better who have the guts to intercept an enemy, Cross the T, go the other direction, put Faith at its root and just simply do a better job of making this world a more hopeful, kinder, safer place. And to all of them, I say, you are my hero. You raise the bar for me, for all of us. Thank you.

Many of us at home haven’t made such brave sacrifices, haven’t touched the surface of understanding your sacrifice and haven’t made enough of an effort to understand why the worthiness of your sacrifice is so certain. But we have a chance. To walk in someone else's boots just isn't hard to do and it simply is what Faith asks of us. It is what this site will try to do--to express gratitude, to impart a bit of hope, to share stories of those whose leadership gives inspiration. As this site goes along, I would love to know your story too. I hope you don’t hesitate to write.

As for those crumbled souls who come out from whatever angry, scarred place they've burrowed and festered their pain to destroy, crush, exploit, rape and kill, they are simply no match to the dedication, the power, the well trained expertise of the team who makes peace by getting the worms of Rage and Rabidity to burrow back down to dark and dungy hole they came out from. And you, my heroes, do so with kindness as you guide, and I love you for it.

Over every generation, there are those few who are willing to meet Evil face to face so that others won't have to. They do so at great personal sacrifice, as Evil likes to reside and fester in our memory in the places where sounds, smells, echoes and voices reside. We won't let Him stay in neither my heart, nor yours, nor that of those closest to you. These words, your words, strengthen our resolve, but also the memories of our friendship and fun, and love together -- all the while, you, I embrace, smile, and never let go.

As you know, I know, it is as always, forever, Semper Fi, and God Bless.

Just a girl with gratitude, with a smile for you,

Crossing the T