22 Yards Quotes

I got hold of a copy of the video that showed how Saddam Hussein had actually confirmed himself in power. This snuff-movie opens with a plenary session of the Ba'ath Party central committee: perhaps a hundred men. Suddenly the doors are locked and Saddam, in the chair, announces a special session. Into the room is dragged an obviously broken man, who begins to emit a robotic confession of treason and subversion, that he sobs has been instigated by Syrian and other agents. As the (literally) extorted confession unfolds, names begin to be named. Once a fellow-conspirator is identified, guards come to his seat and haul him from the room. The reclining Saddam, meanwhile, lights a large cigar and contentedly scans his dossiers. The sickness of fear in the room is such that men begin to crack up and weep, rising to their feet to shout hysterical praise, even love, for the leader. Inexorably, though, the cull continues, and faces and bodies go slack as their owners are pinioned and led away. When it is over, about half the committee members are left, moaning with relief and heaving with ardent love for the boss. (In an accompanying sequel, which I have not seen, they were apparently required to go into the yard outside and shoot the other half, thus sealing the pact with Saddam. I am not sure that even Beria or Himmler would have had the nerve and ingenuity and cruelty to come up with that.)

So summer waited for open water, and the tardy Yukon took to stretching of days and cracking its stiff joints. Now an air-hole ate into the ice, and ate and ate; or a fissure formed, and grew, and failed to freeze again. Then the ice ripped from the shore and uprose bodily a yard. But still the river was loth to loose its grip. It was a slow travail, and man, used to nursing nature with pigmy skill, able to burst waterspouts and harness waterfalls, could avail nothing against the billions of frigid tons which refused to run down the hill to Bering Sea.

The noble old synagogue had been profaned and turned into a stable by the Nazis, and left open to the elements by the Communists, at least after they had briefly employed it as a 'furniture facility.' It had then been vandalized and perhaps accidentally set aflame by incurious and callous local 'youths.' Only the well-crafted walls really stood, though a recent grant from the European Union had allowed a makeshift roof and some wooden scaffolding to hold up and enclose the shell until further notice. Adjacent were the remains of a mikvah bath for the ritual purification of women, and a kosher abattoir for the ritual slaughter of beasts: I had to feel that it was grotesque that these obscurantist relics were the only ones to have survived. In a corner of the yard lay a pile of smashed stones on which appeared inscriptions in Hebrew and sometimes Yiddish. These were all that remained of the gravestones. There wasn't a Jew left in the town, and there hadn't been one, said Mr. Kichler, since 1945.

9:10). Since the fear of the Lord is the great treasure of life, Proverbs tries to woo us to it. It tries to make the fear of the Lord as attractive as possible. Those who fear the Lord will fear nothing else (19:23). The fear of the Lord adds length to life (10:27), it is a secure fortress for the one who fears and for his or her children (14:26). It is a fountain of life (15:16), it brings honor (22:4), and it should be praised when we see it (31:30). What does the fear of the Lord look like? It looks like loving good and hating evil. “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil” (8:13). It looks like trusting God (reverence) and obeying him. Can you see that the fear of the Lord is a blessing? Just imagine what it would be like to truly hate sin, first our own, then the sins of others (Matt. 7:3-5). What would happen to marital fights? They would be almost impossible. Spouses would be too busy listening and asking forgiveness for their own selfishness. What about the little cliques in the school yard? They would be telling good stories about somebody else. What about when someone sins against us? We would no longer have to murder the person in our own heart. Instead, we could cover the sin in humility and love, or we could confront the other person in the same spirit.

September 22d, when, upon coming on deck at seven bells in the morning, we found the other watch aloft throwing water upon the sails; and, looking astern, we saw a small clipper-built brig with a black hull heading directly after us. We went to work immediately, and put all the canvas upon the brig which we could get upon her, rigging out oars for extra studding-sail yards, and continued wetting down the sails by buckets of water whipped up to the mast-head, until about nine o’clock, when there came on a drizzling rain. The vessel continued in pursuit, changing her course as we changed ours, to keep before the wind. The captain, who watched her with his glass, said that she was armed, and full of men, and showed no colors. We continued running dead before the wind, knowing that we sailed better so, and that clippers are fastest on the wind. We had also another advantage. The wind was light, and we spread more canvas than she did, having royals and sky-sails fore and aft, and ten studding-sails; while she, being an hermaphrodite brig, had only a gaff topsail aft. Early in the morning she was overhauling us a little, but after the rain came on and the wind grew lighter, we began to leave her astern. All hands remained on deck throughout the day, and we got our fire-arms in order; but we were too few to have done anything with her, if she had proved to be what we feared. Fortunately there was no moon, and the night which followed was exceedingly dark, so that, by putting out all the

the first half. TEXANS 23, BILLS 17 J. J. Watt had a highlight-reel play to help Houston overcome a tough day offensively for a win over visiting Buffalo. Houston (3-1) was trailing by 3 in the third quarter, and Texans quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick had just thrown a second interception. Then the 6-foot-5, 289-pound Watt returned an interception 80 yards to put the Texans ahead by 14-10. Watt, a defensive end, caught a touchdown pass in Week 2, giving him more touchdowns this year than Arian Foster and Andre Johnson combined. Under heavy pressure all afternoon, E J Manuel finished with 225 yards passing with two touchdowns and two interceptions for the Bills (2-2). The

Reacher kept the guy talking all the way through Minnesota, which he figured was his job, like human amphetamine. Anything to keep the guy awake. Anything to avoid the old joke: I want to die peacefully in my sleep like Grandpa. Not screaming in terror like his passengers. The resulting conversation spiralled off in all kinds of different directions. Institutional injustices in the milk business were exposed. Grievances were aired. Then the guy wanted to hear war stories, so Reacher made some up. The big truck stop came along soon enough. The guy had not been exaggerating. There was an acres- wide fuel stop, and a spreading two- storey motel a hundred yards long, and a warehouse- sized family restaurant, blazing with neon outside and fluorescence inside. There were back- to- back eighteen- wheelers wheezing in and out, and all kinds of cars and trucks and panel vans.

Soon after three o'clock on the afternoon of April 22nd 1973, a 35-year-old architect named Robert Maitland was driving down the high-speed exit lane of the Westway interchange in central London. Six hundred yards from the junction with the newly built spur of the M4 motorway, when the Jaguar had already passed the 70 m.p.h. speed limit, a blow-out collapsed the front nearside tyre. The exploding air reflected from the concrete parapet seemed to detonate inside Robert Maitland's skull. During the few seconds before his crash he clutched at the whiplashing spokes of the steering wheel, dazed by the impact of the chromium window pillar against his head. The car veered from side to side across the empty traffic lanes, jerking his hands like a puppet's. The shredding tyre laid a black diagonal stroke across the white marker lines that followed the long curve of the motorway embankment. Out of control, the car burst through the palisade of pinewood trestles that formed a temporary barrier along the edge of the road. Leaving the hard shoulder, the car plunged down the grass slope of the embankment. Thirty yards ahead, it came to a halt against the rusting chassis of an overturned taxi. Barely injured by this violent tangent that had grazed his life, Robert Maitland lay across his steering wheel, his jacket and trousers studded with windshield fragments like a suit of lights.

Oil Change instructions for Women: 1. Pull up to Dealership when the mileage reaches 5,000 miles since the last oil change. 2. Relax in the waiting room while enjoying a cup of coffee. 3. 15 minutes later, scan debit card and leave, driving a properly maintained vehicle. Money spent: Oil Change:$24.00 Coffee: Complementary TOTAL: $24.00 Oil Change instructions for Men: 1. Wait until Saturday, drive to auto parts store and buy a case of oil, filter, kitty litter, hand cleaner and a scented tree, and use your debit card for $50.00. 2. Stop to buy a case of beer, (debit $24), drive home. 3. Open a beer and drink it. 4. Jack truck up. Spend 30 minutes looking for jack stands. 5. Find jack stands under kid's pedal car. 6.. In frustration, open another beer and drink it. 7. Place drain pan under engine. 8. Look for 9/16 box end wrench. 9. Give up and use crescent wrench. 10. Unscrew drain plug. 11. Drop drain plug in pan of hot oil: splash hot oil on you in process. Cuss. 12. Crawl out from under truck to wipe hot oil off of face and arms. Throw kitty litter on spilled oil. 13. Have another beer while watching oil drain. 14. Spend 30 minutes looking for oil filter wrench. 15. Give up; crawl under truck and hammer a screwdriver through oil filter and twist off. 16. Crawl out from under truck with dripping oil filter splashing oil everywhere from holes. Cleverly hide old oil filter among trash in trash can to avoid environmental penalties. Drink a beer. 17. Install new oil filter making sure to apply a thin coat of oil to gasket surface. 18. Dump first quart of fresh oil into engine. 19. Remember drain plug from step 11. 20. Hurry to find drain plug in drain pan. 21. Drink beer. 22. Discover that first quart of fresh oil is now on the floor. Throw kitty litter on oil spill. 23. Get drain plug back in with only a minor spill. Drink beer. 24. Crawl under truck getting kitty litter into eyes. Wipe eyes with oily rag used to clean drain plug. Slip with stupid crescent wrench tightening drain plug and bang knuckles on frame removing any excess skin between knuckles and frame. 25. Begin cussing fit. 26. Throw stupid crescent wrench. 27. Cuss for additional 5 minutes because wrench hit truck and left dent. 28. Beer. 29. Clean up hands and bandage as required to stop blood flow. 30. Beer. 31. Dump in five fresh quarts of oil. 32. Beer. 33. Lower truck from jack stands. 34. Move truck back to apply more kitty litter to fresh oil spilled during any missed steps. 35. Beer. 36. Test drive truck. 37. Get pulled over: arrested for driving under the influence. 38. Truck gets impounded. 39. Call loving wife, make bail. 40. 12 hours later, get truck from impound yard. Money spent: Parts: $50.00 DUI: $2,500.00 Impound fee: $75.00 Bail: $1,500.00 Beer: $20.00 TOTAL: $4,145.00 But you know the job was done right!

People who don’t know our military very well sometimes seem amazed whenever men like Jordan Haerter and Jonathan Yale make the headlines. On April 22, 2008, those two enlisted Marines were standing watch at a checkpoint outside a joint U.S.-Iraqi barracks in Ramadi when a large truck began accelerating toward their position. Their checkpoint controlled entry to a barracks in the Sufiyah district that housed fifty Marines from the newly arrived First Battalion, Ninth Regiment. They were alert to the VBIED threat and quickly and accurately assessed the situation before them—all the more impressive given that the level of violence in the city generally wasn’t what it had been a few years earlier. Both Marines opened fire immediately, Haerter with an M4 and Yale with a machine gun. Still the truck rushed toward them. Nearby, dozens of Iraqi police fired on the truck as well—but only briefly before their instincts for survival kicked in. Expecting a huge blast, they fled the area. But those two Marines stood their ground, pouring fire into the truck until it coasted to a halt in front of them—and exploded. Later estimates pegged the size of that IED at two thousand pounds or more. The blast damaged or destroyed two dozen houses and knocked down the walls of a mosque a hundred yards away. An Iraqi who witnessed the attack, interviewed by a Marine general afterward, choked back a sob and said, “Sir, in the name of God, no sane man would have stood there and done what they did. No sane man. They saved us all.” Lieutenant General John F. Kelly, who investigated the incident to document the Navy Crosses they were to receive, said, “In all of the instantaneous violence Yale and Haerter never hesitated. By all reports and by the recording [of a security camera nearby], they never stepped back. They never even started to step aside. They never even shifted their weight. With their feet spread shoulder-width apart, they leaned into the danger, firing as fast as they could work their weapons.” Yale, from Burkeville, Virginia, and Haerter, from Sag Harbor, New York, were decorated in 2009 for their steady nerves and heroism in the last six seconds of their lives, saving at least fifty people living

Right about that time we had a big surprise from Granny. It was close to Christmas, the weather was nice, and I was outside, following Willie and his buddies around while they played football in the yard. Then we heard some gunshots nearby. Pop! Pop! Pop! It took a while for the noise to get our attention, but after a few more shots, we began to pay attention. It was Granny, out in front of her house, holding a .22 rifle. As I watched, she pointed it at our house and squeezed the trigger again. Pop! Pop! “She’s shooting at the Christmas lights,” someone yelled. I started laughing, not believing what I was seeing. We all ran up to the house, shouting, “Granny is shooting at the lights!” I was good and excited; I thought she was just having fun. But Dad took it much more seriously. He immediately burst out of the house and marched straight up to his mother. “Ma, you’re gonna give me this gun right now,” he said. “My kids are playing out here.” My dad’s serious expression scared me, and I realized she wasn’t just playing; something was wrong. Granny was on meds, and they helped, but as I got older, I heard more stories about the crazy things she had done when her manic depression got the best of her.

As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” —Genesis 8:22 (NIV) As I walked to my mom’s house next door, I looked at the silhouettes of birds in the trees with the sun setting behind them. The road was still warm beneath my bare feet, and my leg muscles were tired from hours spent doing yard work and clearing the garden for winter (or “putting it to bed” as my husband calls it). Blackbirds rested on the stark branches, watching me until I was just beneath them, and then they flew away in a rush of energy. Today was warm. The sun bright. Most of our trees have lost their leaves, but our maple by the barn was holding on, wearing its marvelous colors like an ornate cloak. “Sabra, put shoes on!” the neighbor shouted from her doorway. “It’s nearly winter, don’t you know?” This is our joke. Every season she notices my feet and my tendency to be barefoot as long as possible. In March she calls out, “It must be spring! You don’t have shoes on!” And then when the snow falls, she yells, “Oh no, look at those boots! We must be in for a long winter.” With each step, I feel the warm tarry road beneath my feet. In a week or two, I’ll be wearing big thick socks and warm shoes. For now, I take in the beauty of a sunny path and hold it as a gift to help me through the long winter ahead. Dear Lord, may I always be mindful of the beauty in every season You have placed beneath my feet. —Sabra Ciancanelli Digging Deeper: Ps 19:1; Eccl 3:1–4

It laughs at fear, afraid of nothing; it does not shy away from the sword.” —Job 39:22 (NIV) Colby, my golden retriever, pounded through the woods, enjoying his first visit to Blue Ridge, Georgia. We turned down a gravel lane that looped by several houses perched high above the water when, suddenly, Colby froze. In front of my eyes, my sweet, loving golden tucked his tail and stood completely still; the high-pitched whine emanating from the back of his throat was his only giveaway. My eyes followed to where his gaze locked: our neighbor’s life-size, two-dimensional metal cutout of a bear. From where we stood, the bear looked to be crossing a stream a few yards away from us. Had Colby noticed the bear a few feet earlier or later, he would’ve seen what I knew to be true: This harmless, flat, rusted bear was only a lawn ornament. Instead, Colby cowered and whimpered until I carried him far enough along the path so that he could recognize the bear was only metal. I often wonder how many times God has had to pull me past certain trials that I don’t notice until I’m knee-deep in them and cowering. If I’d seen them coming or had the patience to wait until the fear subsided, I might’ve been better prepared to call out to God in prayer. Instead, I collapsed in a pile of woe and wailing, panicked at the situation I faced. Now, when I comfort Colby when he encounters something scary, I remember that God does the same with me. I may not be able to see the leash, but if I pay attention, I can feel the tug on my heart to follow Him. Lord, remind me that diving into my fear only allows it to bloom. Remind me to follow You out of the darkness and into the light. —Ashley Kappel Digging Deeper: Ps 23:4; Is 41:10; 1 Jn 4:18

The weapon was one of the variants of the standard SAS sniper rifle, the British-made Accuracy International PM — Precision Marksman — or L96A1. Designed for covert operations, the rifle Dekker had chosen was the AWS, or Arctic Warfare Suppressed, model. The name was a hangover from the days when the manufacturer produced a modified version for the Swedish armed forces, a move which spawned several different models generically known as the AW range. The stainless-steel barrel was fitted with an integrated suppressor which reduced the sound of a shot to about that of a standard .22 rifle. It was a comparatively short-range weapon, because of the subsonic ammunition, effective only to about three hundred yards in contrast to other versions and calibres of the rifle, some of which were accurate at up to a mile. Both the stock, its green polymer side panels already attached, and the barrel were a tight fit in the case, each lying diagonally across its interior. He pulled them both out, fitted and secured the barrel, and lowered the bipod legs mounted at the fore-end of the machined-aluminium chassis to support it, while he completed the assembly. Then he took a five-round magazine out of the recess in the briefcase, along with an oblong cardboard box containing twenty rounds of 7.62 x 51-millimetre rifle ammunition.

If you saw a spider scuttering across the floor toward your baby’s crib, you might hesitate. You might even consider trapping it in a bottle and putting it out in the yard so it could go on living its little life. But if you were sure that spider was poisonous? A black

It actually worked well for me. I knew it was just me out there in the 22 yards with my bat. I could approach the situation with a very clear mind and must say it helped me become a better player. I had overcome every sense of fear and my mind was free from all clutter.

[My father’s] survival was his way of saying ‘Mulen Labe’ to his oppressors and murderers of his family. His people. In the Krakow Ghetto, in the camps of Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna Monowitz, Buchenwald. The ability to fight was within him. In his blood. The challenge chose him. No spartan training. How did Dad confront the Nazi terror with no Spartan warrior to mentor him? The frustration and choked cries of rebellion were already internalised in his soul. Later, the frustration and choked back screams resonated in my soul as well when nourished by the relentless, gruelling training. When I was growing up coming my father told me a few stories that stayed with me through the long marches and along the IDF service. His story of the death March from Buna Monowitz to Gliviz through deep snow and freezing cold. It began January 17 and ended the night of January 22, 1945. The night of January 21 was especially cold. There was no place to get warm. As night fell, my father found a bare wooden door and covered himself with it. A little after midnight the freezing temperatures woke him. He attempted to wake up the people around him, shouting at them, “Wake up, wake up. You're going to freeze to death if you don't move.” A few woke up and joined him in stepping in place to warm up. Others remained unmoving and perished. That night thousands froze to death. The next morning, which was the 6th day of the death march, my father got up with a piercing pain in his hip. He could not take even one step, he told me the ball of the hip bone ground against the hip socket “like sandpaper”. When he asked to be left alone, his friends didn't listen and insisted on carrying him. He argued, “I will cause you to fall behind”. They were adamant. With their last ounce of energy, they put his arms over their shoulders, lifted him up and began to look forward. Supported by his two friends, he moved in a line with the rest of the dead. He continued to beg them to abandon him and they refused, insisting on helping him. After a few hundred yards, his joints warmed and he was able to leap forward on his own. Marching as part of the endless column of human suffering. So they marched, supporting each other, until they arrived that night at the train in Gliviz that was to take them to Buchenwald. When he told me this story, I felt immense gratitude to his friends. How did he do it? The hopeless atmosphere, the scant odds of surviving, inability to control your fate, the deep frustration, the desire to defeat a cruel enemy. All of these feelings are part of me. I tapped into them during my training with the Unit…. I recall after finishing very difficult marches, asking my father to tell me about the Death March. Time and again, everything fell into perspective. Each time I understood that no matter what hardships we endured, we would never come close to measuring up to the strength and courage of my dad and his friends.

Flying saucer crash retrieval rumors mounted in 1947 near the Riconosciuto stomping ground in Tacoma, Washington. The Tacoma News Tribune reported upon a retrieval by William Guy Bannister, the FBI Special Agent in Charge of the area at the time.16 Bannister became famous much later in life when he shared office space with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New Orleans, possibly employing Lee Harvey Oswald as an agent provocateur. Crisman, too, had been connected to Oswald via a subpoena from the investigation of JFK’s death by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison. Some alleged that Crisman was one of the three hoboes photographed after their arrest in the railroad yard behind the infamous grassy knoll on November 22, 1963. Crisman was notably silent about both Maury Island and JFK in his 1970 memoir of life in Tacoma, entitled Murder of a City, written under the pseudonym of Jon Gold.17 He did have warm comments about Marshall Riconosciuto, however, and recounted that the young Michael “had discovered several electronic bugs” at his father’s office.