The Best Super Bowl XLVIII Commercial, Hands Down – Budweiser: “A Hero’s Welcome” … Lt. Chuck Nadd Comes Home

AWESOME!!!

Whether you are a Seattle Seahawk or Denver Broncos fan, whether you enjoyed the games outcome or were distraught, there is one thing that everyone can agree on … the best and most touching Super Bowl XLVIII commercial was Budweiser’s “A Hero’s Welcome.” It was by far the best commercial of the day. Budweiser deserves huge kudos for this effort. This was more than a commercial, it was a thank you to the sacrifice for our brave men and women who protect our liberty and freedoms.

Because ever soldier deserves a hero’s welcome home … Yes they Do!

Budweiser Twitter

Budweiser Super Bowl XLVIII Commercial — “A Hero’s Welcome”

Watch the full story of the return home of Lt. Chuck Nadd

Budweiser Super Bowl XLVIII — “A Hero’s Welcome: Full Story”

A Chrsitmas Wish You Will Never Forget … Brenda Schmitz, Wife & Mother of 4 Boys Died of Ovarian Cancer at Age 46 in September 2011 Left a Letter for Her Family

If you can make it thru the below VIDEO without shedding a tear, you may want to check to see if you have a pulse … A Christmas Wish You Will Never Forget.

Brenda Schmitz’s Christmas Wish: One month before Brenda Schmitz died from ovarian cancer she wrote a letter to her family and gave to her friend to be made public at the right moment.  For more than 20 years,  KSTZ – 102.5 FM has been granting Christmas wishes, none as moving and touching as this.

Brenda Schmitz, a wife and mother of four boys, died of ovarian cancer at 46-years-old in September 2011 — but what she left behind is undoubtedly generating tears around the world today.

One month before passing, Brenda wrote a letter to her husband David and had it sent to Des Moines radio station KSTZ “Star” 102.5 FM. Each year the station takes submissions and grants Christmas wishes.

“About a week and half ago we got a letter in the mail,” radio host Scott Allen explained. “We’ve been doing the Christmas wish program for 20-plus years. We’ve never received a wish like this — ever.”

MUST SEE VIDEO

Hat Tip – The Blaze

HAPPY THANKSGIVING 2013 From Scared Monkeys … Thank You To All

A special Happy Thanksgiving wish from Scared Monkeys …

As you spend time today with family, friends and loved ones while feasting on turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing, cranberry and maybe watching some football, please take the time to remember what you are thankful for and give thanks. We all have something to be thankful for, sometimes we just all too soon forget.  As President Ronald Reagan said on Thanksgiving Day 1986, “Perhaps no custom reveals our character as a Nation so clearly as our celebration of Thanksgiving Day. Rooted deeply in our Judeo-Christian heritage, the practice of offering thanksgiving underscores our unshakable belief in God as the foundation of our Nation and our firm reliance upon Him from Whom all blessings flow.”

Let us truly be thankful …

I would be remiss if I did not say thanks to the many readers of Scared Monkeys both on the front page and in the forum who make it a joyous adventure. We do not all have to agree, that would make life pretty boring. But we do have to find a way to agree  to make America work. I am so thankful to the moderators, past & present, in the Monkey cage at Scared Monkeys.net, San, CBB, Bearlyhere and Nut44x4, who volunteer their time who keep the peace and add their incite to so many stories going on in the news. And MuffyBee, who although is no longer a mod, adds much content and comments to the conversation.  Thank you to Blink, at Blink on Crime who does such excellent and tireless work and crime sleuthing. I don’t say it enough Blink, but thanks for all you do and giving me a smack upside the head every so often. A special shout out and thanks to Dana Pretzer of the ‘Dana Pretzer Radio Show’ who brings us some of they best crime guests, and pundits in the game today and provides us with fantastic interview of crime and missing persons cases that is second to none! Even the ‘Elvis’ cup . And a special thanks to Klaas, the oil that makes the engine work. Her hard work and caring of crime and missing persons cases is only outdone by here work behind the scenes. You are a treasure, thank you. THANK YOU TO ALL!!!

As I have always said, we don’t always have to agree, life would be rather boring if we all thought the same. Debate and sharing of ideas is a good thing, but we must try to be respectful.  However, what I have always found amazing is that so many people could come together, with different backgrounds, different thoughts, different ideas and work together toward a common goal on crime stories and missing persons. So many monkeys who truly care.  Have there been disagreements, you bet. Do we discuss things that create passions, you bet. But in the end, we can respect each other and know that we fight for a common cause to be victim rights advocates and demand JUSTICE!!!

A Happy Thanksgiving to All and God Bless!

President Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation to the United States in 1863:

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful years and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the Source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the field of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than theretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverance’s and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Abraham Lincoln

America Remembers John F. Kennedy 50 Years Later after that Fateful Day … “Anybody here seen my old friend John?”

November 22, 1963 … the day that shook America in Dallas, TX.

For those that were alive on that fateful day, yesterday most Americans remembered where they were the day that President John F. Kennedy was shot and assassinated while traveling in his presidential motorcade in Dallas, Texas. It was the day that shocked America, the world and forever changed the United States with innocence lost. In a time in which few can even conceive or remember when there were three news channels, no-24-7 news, no internet, no social media, no Twitter … the nation was rocked with the unthinkable, the death of a president as all watched in horror.

At 12:29 pm CST, as President Kennedy’s uncovered limousine entered Dealey Plaza, Nellie Connally, then the First Lady of Texas, turned around to President Kennedy, who was sitting behind her, and commented, “Mr. President, you can’t say Dallas doesn’t love you,” which President Kennedy acknowledged. Then life changed, everything changed as we knew it. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 pm CST, Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas. JFK was taken to Parkland Hospital, Trauma Room 1 where he was treated for his mortal wounds to his head.

At 1:00 p.m., CST President John F. Kennedy was pronounced dead. As one doctor was reported to say, “We never had any hope of saving his life.” And sadly we were presented with another good man who died too young. 

Anybody here seen my old friend John?
Can you tell me where he’s gone?
He freed a lot of people,
But it seems the good they die young.
I just looked around and he’s gone.

50 years later we remember President John F. Kennedy, a life taken far to soon and his vision for America that was cut short  that Day in Dealey Plaza by an assassins bullet. We remember the man who is frozen in time because of the tragic nature in how he was killed and we can only wonder how things, so many things would have been different in America had he lived. Too many focus on the “conspiracy” theories of how JFK died or his affair with Marilyn Monroe, but there was so much more to a president who captured the imagine of the country. I was not alive the day JFK died, but being a history major I had read much of his life. I have attended the Kennedy Library and been to grave, the “Eternal Flame,” at Arlington National Cemetery as well as grew up in New England so was surrounded by the lore of the Kennedy’s most of my life. JFK was a unique man, an inspirational individual who knew how to communicate with people, bring them together and make people feel good about themselves. But he was much more than that, he was a leader, a man who had big goals as seen by is efforts to get the US into space and he was the one who asked us,“ask not what your country can do for you can do for your country” (VIDEO). Where are those leaders today?

‘Abraham, Martin and John’ - Dion

U.S. President John F. Kennedy was remembered as a transcendent leader of a rising nation at a ceremony in Dallas on Friday, the 50th anniversary of his assassination, while bitterness remained for many who disbelieve the official story of how he died.

“Our collective hearts were broken,” Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings told a crowd of about 5,000 who came to a frigid Dealey Plaza, near where Kennedy was slain, for a commemoration marked with prayer, song and tears.

Remembered fondly for his youthful vigor and his glamorous wife, Kennedy remains one of Americans’ favorite presidents for his handling of the Cuban missile crisis, his call to public service with programs such as the Peace Corps and a promise – later fulfilled – to land an American on the moon before the end of the 1960s.

“A new era dawned and another waned a half century ago when hope and hatred collided right here in Dallas,” Rawlings said.

The assassination cut short “Camelot,” as the 1,000 days of the Kennedy presidency became known. He was 46 when he died

This is how I remember John F. Kennedy, as a leader, a unifier and a man with a vision of big ideas and one’s that made America better, not just a political party. Take a good listen to what a true leader sounds like. I hear an awful lot of “WE”, not me or I. JFK wanted the United States to be a leader in the world, number one, not a follower. Where has my old friend John gone, it is true that the good so die young.

“The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join it or not. And it is one of the greatest adventures of all times. And no nation which expects to be the leaders of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space”.

“We Choose to go to the moon, not because they are easy, because they are hard”

Lightening Strike Grounds BWI Flights For Hours, Injures Air Traffic Controller … Make that 11 Hours

Sorry for the lack of posts but guess who got caught in this debacle?

Lightening struck the tower BWI airport in Baltimore, MD causing complete chaos. Air traffic control systems went down and one air traffic controller was injured due to the strike. As for the passengers aboard planes and waiting in the air port, was an adventure. Yours truly was aboard a Southwest plane that arrived at 1 pm and then the fun began. First there was a torrential rain and thunder storms that stopped all flights from taking off as the wind felt like it was going to blow the 737 over. Then it got worse and the lightening rolled in as myself and about 40 other passengers waited in the metal canister with wings. Luckily there were two nuns sitting in the seats next to me.

Then after waiting 2 hours on the plane we learned the bad news of the tower being struck by lightening and a person being injured. It would take another hour at least to reboot the systems. Not even close. After waiting another hour we then learned in would take between 4 to 6 hours to fix and then the dreaded text message came that the flight had been canceled.

Talk about total chaos, thousands of passengers scurrying to find new flights, ways home, anything. Needless to say there was no guarantee that I could even get a new flight the following day and not really wanting to stay in Baltimore overnight, I opted to rent a car and drive the remaining 7 hours to my destination. Needless to say it has been quite the eventful last 24 hours. And to think that I did not travel on 9-11 because I did not want to have to deal with airport craziness. So much for that idea.

A lightning bolt strikes the air traffic control tower at BWI—injuring an employee and grounding planes for hours.

Now delays stretch across the country and into the night.

Meghan McCorkell has the latest on the delays.

That lightning strike hit the tower just before 2:30 p.m. Thursday afternoon, and grounded flights for hours.

A lightning strike leaves a sea of passengers stranded.

“We’re stuck in Baltimore,” a passenger said.

“Hopefully we can get out of BWI safely tonight,” said another traveler.

Now I just need to hunt down my luggage.