Lives, Fortunes, and Sacred Honor mean something in Belmont

Four years ago we started a tradition in Belmont where we read the Declaration of Independence aloud by all pax present and reading on rotating basis. Sound familiar? Went like this as the boot campers and Bunker boys all united in the effort. Boot camp went like this:

COP:

SSH Burpees X 5

IW X 20

Cotton Pickers X 20

Grapevines

Mtn. Climbers X 20

Up to the track and Field of Dreams for some six shooters:

10 burpees – lap

20 Big boys (hands locked behind head) – lap

30 merkins – lap

50 CDDs – lap

60 SSH – lap

Over to the hill for half pipes X 3

Top – 5 plank jacks

Pad (bottom) – 5 burpees

Playground time! What kid doesn’t love a playground! Here’s the game we played:

25 pull ups

50 Merkins

100 squats

Best done in increments of 5.

So, it’s about 7:42 am at this point. Damn near the 4th quarter. So, what do WE do in the 4th quarter? WE KICK SOME ASS! Why wouldn’t we?

Let’s start with a bear crawl slalom. We used the walkway and everyone got 4 turns! How about that!

So now it was time for a triple nickel on Heartbreak Hill

Bottom- 5 HR merkins

Top – AHs X 5 each side

Time for a half pipe and a half. We did it in honor of both the Union and Confederate boys that 158 years ago fought in Pickett’s Charge in Gettysburg. If you have not done the half pipe or been to Gettysburg you might not understand why the half pipe here is emblematic of that day but the top of Heart Beak is very much like Cemetery Ridge where the Union forces were dug in defending and the Confederate forces were marching up from Seminary Ridge much like where main is which is much lower than the top of Heart Break. My southern ancestors were in the NC 55th (Alexander and Wilkes Counties) and almost broke through on the left side. My Union ancestors were in the 82nd Ohio defending that day. You didn’t want to be there boys. Trust me on that one. But they were.  And they sucked it up and did their jobs. We honor them on both sides as Americans that after that war came together and between 1865 -1900 built the country we know that saved freedom three times at least in this world since then. I marvel at the commitment and ability to overcome enmity and other hardship to do what they did after that war together which included building a transcontinental railroad and an industrial base that became the world’s leading economic power less than 50 years after the cessation of hostilities. Are we worthy of such men today? When I stood last year on Cemetery Ridge occurred to me  on an early June morning run last year as the sun rose in the east as I looked across that field from Little Round and the memorial up there and surveyed that entire field of past fire, death, and heroism of common men doing remarkable things I wondered that then.   There is little wonder President Eisenhower, the greatest American of the 20th Century choose to retire on that ground. We are in eternal debt to all of them. And many others who have blazed the trails of freedom with sacrifice.

June 2020

Back to the pad for a 2 minute plank and up to the The Yank for our ceremony honoring the day:

NMM:

As pax gathered we read the Declaration aloud and as fate would have it about the time it got to Orangeman who handled with grace and competence. We got through it. Afterwards Rev. Sam Warner gave us a great invocation regarding the Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. And that of those ideals Liberty was – and is the most important and the linchpin of who we are and what we do. And I agree with Sam! Liberty empowers us to do great things. Like go to the moon and save the world on a periodic basis!

Are we perfect. Hell no! There is no perfect (Tesla Engineering Truth Axiom 101). Can we be a more perfect union. Hell yeah! What do you think F3 is all about boys? It’s up to us men. I’m going to be bringing that message front and center and asking, imploring you all to be part of the solution. I expect it. It will happen. Because that’s what we do.

We will do this again Monday, July 4, 2022.

Tesla