Tears of a Cop

This is on the wall at the Multnomah County Sheriff training facility.

Camp Ireland

On July 14 and 15 I accompanied Thomy and his cohorts to Cub Scout Day Camp. It was fun. Here are a few of photographs.

Broughton Bluff

Thomy is wearing a white shirt and blue sneakers. Jeff has on a blue shirt and green sneakers. You won't have trouble identifying me. Also present are Abe and Spencer.

Parenting

There are three fundamental lessons every father should teach his children: to ride, to shoot straight and to tell the truth.

Birth of a Small Business

Here is something I am passionate about and some friends are helping it come to life.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MULTICAM-2-point-tactical-sling-quick-adjust-Mil-spec-/281360123014?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item41825ec486

We shall see how marketable my products are. The product image probably needs some polishing.

Act of Valor

Before my father died he said the worst thing about growing old was that other men stopped seeing you as dangerous. I always remembered that, how being dangerous was sacred, a badge of honor. You live your life by a code, an ethos. Every man does. It’s your shoreline. Its what guides you home. And trust me you’re always trying to get home.

Your father was a reader. Churchill of course but also Faulkner and books about Tecumseh. He liked artists that painted people with bodies that look like boxes. I’d give him hell about that. He’d just say you gotta look harder.

Look harder, your father would say. I always knew he wasn’t just talking about those boxy, abstract paintings. There’s threats everywhere and the world is draped in camouflage.

Your father’s grandfather gave up his life flying a B-24 in World War II. He kept the Liberator aloft just long enough for everyone to jump, then he went down with the plane. That’s the blood that courses in your veins.

Your father was my boss, and I was his Chief. What we knew about each other’s strength and our bond as operators, there was a brotherhood between us and we depended on each other more than a family. Tecumseh said although a single twig will break, a bundle of twigs is strong.

Our platoon was headed downrange.

We had Weimy, our sniper. He grew up in the middle of the Mojave desert. The most excitement he had as a kid was bowling frozen turkeys down the aisle at the grocery store.

Ray, our comms guy, our radioman, he grew up in East LA gangland. He has a silver star for pulling a wounded teammate out of the fray.

Sonny, he was made of granite. This guy didn’t even do pushups because he was afraid his chest was going to get too big.

Ajay joined the team in his late thirties. He has been a Mai-thai fighter all of his life. Before that he grew up dirt poor in Trinidad.

Mikey has twenty years in the teams but as humble as he was you would never know it. He kept a picture of his wife in his pocket and a lock of her hair in his helmet. Quiet as the breeze.

Finally, there’s Senior Chief. I couldn’t really tell you much about him other than I’d rather bring a knife to a gunfight than be interrogated by him.

That last night at home you think about how you could have been a better dad, a better husband. That bedtime story you should have read or that aniversary you forgot. You don’t expect your family to understand what you’re doing. You just hope they will except it. When you get home you hope you can pick up right where you left off.

War is a country of will. There’s no room for sympathy. If you’re not willing to give up everything, you’ve already lost.

Your father was a good man. Growing up without him is going to be hard. It’s gonna hurt. You’ll feel alone, out to sea with no shore in sight. You’ll wonder why me? why him? Remember, you have warrior's blood in your veins. The code that made your father who he was is the same code that’ll make you a man he would admire, respect.

Put your pain in a box, lock it down, like those people in the paintings your father liked. We are men made up of boxes, chambers of loss and triumph, of hurt and hope and love. No one is stronger or more dangerous that a man that can harness his emotions, his past. Use it as fuel, as ammunition, as ink to write the most important letter of your life.

Before he died your father asked me to give you this poem by Tecumseh. I told him I’d fold it into a paper airplane. And in a way that’s what I’m doing, sailing it from him to you.

--Chief Dave

Live your life so that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one for his religion. Respect others and their views and demand that they respect yours. Love your life. Perfect your life. Beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and of service to your people. When your time comes to die be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death-song and die like a hero going home.

--Tecumseh

Tough Mudder

If you would like to sponsor me at Tough Mudder and donate to the Wounded Warrior Project, you can do it here:

https://www.eventbrite.com/donate/mfgs-jonathan-osborne/876305?sig=AA5leUrsoFfUYfK8_Zqh7XNS3iB4TbMDqw

Thanks for your support.

"Only in America would a guy like me, from humble beginnings and without a high school diploma, become successful. America gave me a change to live the life I want and work to make my dreams come true. We should never take our freedoms for granted, and we should seize every opportunity presented to us." --Dave Thomas

Apothecary

I have acquired a new hobby. It goes like this:

Crushed, dried mandarin orange peel

Apply the pestle

Grind to a fine powder

Ready to make orange tea

Storage

Crushed, dried banana peel

Give it all ya' got, mama

Banana peel tea

Training Day

"In the end, it is not about the 'hardware,' it is about the 'software.' Amateurs talk about hardware or equipment, professionals talk about software or training and mental readiness." --Dave Grossman

"Train with the understanding that firearms practice is 75% physical and 25% metal; however a gunfight is 25% physical and 75% mental." --Marcus Wynne

Setting up the drill

 Warm-up while my partner continues setting up targets

 On the move

Tactical reload

All clear and re-holster

Chasing Girls

Jeff: Dad, I still play with christopher and we chase girls.

Me: You chase girls? Do you kiss them?

Jeff: No but they kiss us and Christopher is scared of them.

Me: He's scared of girls? Me too.

House of Candy

Jeff: Dad, on minecraft im going to make a house out of candy and then when thomy is inside im going to make a hole in it and then set it on fire and cover it up and in survival mode im going to blow it up with him inside.

Me: Lol.