"Don't worry about me. Our trucks have enough armor on them to survive most blasts."

[Bluebear]

A 23-year-old soldier from Massachusetts who assured friends Iraq’s infamous roadside bombs wouldn’t harm him was killed Wednesday when the vehicle he was traveling in hit one of the deadly devices, the Army announced yesterday.

First Lt. Ryan P. Jones, the only son of Kevin and Elaine Jones of Westminster, died two days after students in his alma mater’s ROTC program received a letter from him, reassuring them that he’d be fine.

“There have been a few times the IEDs (improvised explosive devices) have found us before we found them,” he wrote to the Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical High School cadets, “but don’t worry. Our trucks have enough armor on them to survive most blasts.”

He never told the students he had left instructions with his parents to use a portion of his GI life insurance, in the event of his death, to start a scholarship fund in his name, said James R. Culkeen, his former carpentry teacher, who went on to become the school’s superintendent director...

Jones was a member of the National Honor Society and co-captain of the Monty Tech football team. He earned an award for being the school’s most positive role model...

Jones joined the Army in 2005, after graduating from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He was assigned to the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, First Infantry Division, based at Fort Riley, Kan.

His master’s degree research project at Kansas State University was on lesser prairie chickens in the Texas Panhandle. The best part of his job as a Fort Riley research biologist was spending time out on the prairie, he told the Fort Riley Post last May.

“It’s one thing to write a condolence card for someone who’s lived a full life,” Mansaeu said. “It’s another to write one for someone who was all his family’s hopes and dreams.”

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=198693

[HCE SuiGeneris]

1. And so it goes...

:cry:

May his family and friends find peace in their lives.

[donheld]

9. May his family and friends find peace in their lives. Indeed, but

may Georgie and his cabal never have one moments peace till the day they die, and even after death.:grr::grr::grr::grr:

[Breeze54]

2. Cripes....

My heart, literally, goes out to his family. Gheesh.

Scary, because I can relate and just had a two hour marathon conversation
with my oldest son. The one that was in Iraq and he said almost the same thing.
"Our trucks had enough armor on them to survive most blasts" and then went on
to tell me how his truck didn't get hit but two trucks in front of him did....
I thanked him for not having told me that, at that time. :cry:

Tonight was the first time, in almost a year, that he's talked about what happened there.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Molstly listen to him

I did not read certain boosk until hubby retired...

But mostly listen to him

And they will do all to reasure us, trust me, well you know

You don't have to trust me

And to this day there are things I have never tomd my parents from the years I spent as a medic... its best they don't know

Just as there are things my husband has never told his mother, it is best she does not know.

[Breeze54]

4. I will listen. I'm all ears.

There are some things that I may not want to know but I really do want to know.

I really feel for First Lt. Ryan P. Jones family. :cry:

[stevedeshazer]

5. Oy.

Bush's war goes on.

We're never leaving. Never.

[sam sarrha]

6. an optimist lives in the best of all worlds, the pessimist fears that is so

[Solly Mack]

7. ...

America is killing people (both American and Iraqi) to protect lies.

I don't know about anyone else but I am so ashamed of my country..so incredibly ashamed and honestly don't think I'll ever feel any other way about America now.

[Forkboy]

8. Westminster is 5 minutes away from me.

Half my friends went to Monty Tech.

He never told the students he had left instructions with his parents to use a portion of his GI life insurance, in the event of his death, to start a scholarship fund in his name..

:(

[Burried News]

10. Members of Congress: we want this war over, now.

Stop the dancing and get these troops home.
Don't resend the funding bill to Bush ... end the war!
I am tired of our sons and daughters being held hostage by 28% and the oil Cartel.

[MLFerrell]

11. "Don't worry about me. Our trucks have enough armor on them to survive most blasts."

My brother is going back to Iraq in June, and this is exactly what he told me. And he wonders why I don't have his full faith in what the Army tells him...

[Breeze54]

13. I'm with you on that!

"And he wonders why I don't have his full faith in what the Army tells him..."

How do I explain 'freaking out', in words?

[formercia]

12. Do not listen to false prophets

who tell you the shirt is bullet proof....

http://www.themystica.com/mythical-folk/~articles/g/ghost_dance_the.html

To some Wovoka and his people seemed sincere in what they claimed, even though others knew it was not possible. But as the dance spread to other tribes it gradually took on more menacing overtones. At first the purpose of the dance was to hasten the reunion of the dead with the living and bring back the buffalo, all of which was to coincide with peaceful living with the white man which God would bring about in his due time. But as some contend, the more war-like Sioux were restless from old and recent grievances, as well as being on the verge of starvation. They wanted the return of the ghosts-a time when the white man would be annihilated and the Indian would be supreme. No one actually knows when all of these events were to occur, but the best estimate is in the summer, late July or early August, when the Sun Dance used to be held.

The ghost shirt, as previously mentioned, was distinctly the Sioux's contribution to the Ghost Dance. It was made of cloth and cut and ornamented in Indian fashion; during the dance it was worn outside but at other times under ordinary clothing. In some cases the supposedly sacred red blood of the messiah was painted on the shirt; this, it was believed made it impenetrable or "bullet-proof." When one woman was shot in the Wounded Knee massacre and told by the authorities that they would have to take her shirt, she shouted, "Yes; take it off. They told me a bullet would not go through. Now I don't want it any more."

[Breeze54]

14. Thank You for that.

:hug:

[formercia]

15. It's hauntingly similar

The first line says it all.

[Breeze54]

17. LIPAN CONJURING LYRICS

LIPAN CONJURING LYRICS

http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Lipan-Conjuring-lyrics-Tool/CB054EEF9063779A4825715F0023F6B8


Heya heya heya ho
heya heya heya ho
hooooya hoooooya
heya heya heya ho
HOOOOOOOOOOYO
Heya hoya heya ho

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tool

Formed in 1990 in Los Angeles, California

http://www.songmeanings.net/artist.php?aid=249

First off, these lyrics are totally wrong.

The Lipan Apache are a band of native americans in Texas that are still kicking, in spite of the fact that modern Anthropology tells us their culture has been lost.

As for "conjuring," dictionary.com gives us the definition: To summon (a devil or spirit) by magical or supernatural power.

In rosetta stoned, we are told that an ET (extra terrestrial) visits the speaker of that song as a result of 'blotter' which is typically how LSD is ingested; the ET delivers him a message ('I don't even know what it means').

Whether or not the Lipan Apache make use of psychoactive narcotics, I am unsure. However, it is commonplace in many tribal societies to take an alkaloid (like Mescaline, Psilosybin or Psilocin) in order to induce a trance-like state known to modern science as "ecstacy". Wikipedia's artical on Shamanism describes a shaman's initiation in the Americas as symbolic of the journey into the underworld, to gain the knowledge of the dead. It is a symbolic death and rebirth, such as is found in mythologies all over the world, including that of Christianity, Asatru, and others. The article also tells us that among a Shaman's tools are the "Use of "power" or "master" plants to induce altered states". These plants are alkaloids, including Peyote, Salvia Divinorum, and Cannibus, all of which are used recreationally by today's generation.

Now, if any of you are big on Tool, you might know that they frequently draw parallels between Fairy stories, or stories of spirits, and extra-terrestrial encounters. If you look through their Newsletters on their site (toolband.com), you'll see what I mean.

Also, if you listan to Fiaap de Oiad, the final track of Lateralus, you hear a clip from the Art Bell show, wherein a man declares that the US government is in league with aliens, but that they are not extra-terrestrial, rather that they are extra-demensional.

So, taking Dictionary.com's definition of Conjuring, in lieu of "Lipan Conjuring" and "Rosetta Stoned" we can begin to understand the story of a man who takes LSD (a "need-to-know potion") and as a result is visited by extra-demensional beings.

Does this sound like Conjuring to you? It does to me.

Anyhow, not that I have an authoritative definition but... Anyone who thinks this interlude is meaningless, or stupid is off their rocker. The members of Tool are very intelligent men, and they take a lot of time to make their albums for a reason.

Those of you who are interested simply in their grinding metal-like sound will probably be quickly disappointed/turned off by this album; while it does have a lot of rockin' riffs, there're some long, intellectual songs here that are designed to make you THINK. (I know it hurts, but you get used to it.)

http://www.songmeanings.net/lyric.php?lid=3530822107858590082&offset=25&page=2#comments

------------------

Tool - 10,000 Days (Wings Part 2)
http://www.songmeanings.net/lyric.php?lid=3530822107858590262

Listen to the tales and romanticize,
How we follow the path of the hero.
Boast about the day when the rivers overrun.
How we rise to the height of our halo.

Listen to the tales as we all rationalize,
Our way into the arms of the savior.
Fading all the trials and the tribulations,
None of us have actually been there.
Not like you.

Ignorant fibbers in the congregation.
Gather around spewing sympathy.
Spare me...
None of them can even hold a candle up to you,
Blinded by choices hypocrites won't see.

But enough about the collective Judas
Who could deny you were the one who illuminated.
Your little piece of the divine.

This little light of mine,
The gift you passed onto me.
I'll let it shine,
To guide you safely on your way.
Your way home.

Just for special people or the really irate!:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=802886&mesg_id=836641

:shrug:

[Bluebear]

23. Wow. Eerily similar. nt

[Bluebear]

25. /

[gratuitous]

16. Harry and Nancy, please go to Westminster

Sit down with the family of Ryan Jones and explain to them that you're going to wait another few months before getting tough with the Bush administration over the war. Please explain to them how risky it is politically to institute impeachment proceedings, even though the patent evidence of Bush's unfitness for office, his high crimes and misdemeanors are out in the open for everyone to see.

And then multiply the Jones family by the 2,000 other families who will lose a son, a daughter, a father or a mother during the next 20 months of the corrupt Bush administration. And be sure you bring along the polling data and the demographic charts so that they can all appreciate how their loved one died so that Bush's numbers will sink even lower. Be sure you don't mention that Bush can't run again, because then it would seem just so futile.

[Zywiec]

18. Some tanks can't even survive some of these mines. n/t

[formercia]

19. There isn't a tank in the World that can survive an EFP

If properly designed and placed. I've worked on the design of EFP munitions and was told by some of the people doing testing on them, that they were able to defeat 16 inches of Battleship armor plate.

I climbed into a tank a few minutes after being struck by one the insides was cut to shreds by the razor-sharp spall and the slug was too hot to handle without fire-resistant gloves. The entry hole looked like it had been cut with a torch.

I viewed a photo of a Soviet T-55 in Afghanistan that had been hit by one and the biggest fragment left was a section of the gun tube just forward of the breech. Even the round in the tube went high-order. It was like a 50 ton hand-grenade.

The crew was vaporized.

[Zywiec]

20. Death before dismount. That's what we used to call the Mech Infantry

I would hate to be stuck inside a vehicle like that hoping nothing explodes.

[formercia]

21. One bad feature of Armor

It was designed to keep things out, but once inside, it tends to keep things in until the munitions load goes high-order.

[Ghost in the Machine]

22. R.I.P. First Lt. Jones

[Bluebear]

24. His face, his resume . . .

what a beautiful kid, accomplished, kind-hearted, all wasted. . . :(