Da Hawg Frog Blog

Cpl. Isaiah Mays - Medal of Honor Recipient

Corporal Isaiah Mays was a member of Company B, 24th U.S. Infantry serving in the Arizona Territory in 1889. He entered the service at Columbus Barracks, Ohio. Corporal Mays was born in 1858 at Carters Bridge, Virginia. On May 11, 1889 while serving with the 24th Infantry Corporal Mays distinguished himself in mortal combat with robbers who set upon his convoy intent on robbing the Army of its payroll. On February 19, 1890 he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by President Benjamin Harrison.

Medal Of Honor, Indian Campaigns

Citation: Gallantry in the fight between Paymaster Wham’s escort and robbers. Mays walked and crawled 2 miles to a ranch for help

On May 11, 1889, in the corner of southeastern Arizona, not far from the tiny Mormon settlement of Pima, AZ, a band of highwaymen ambushed Army Paymaster Major Joseph Washington Wham and his buffalo soldier escort. Following a hard-fought battle, the bandits made off with more than $28,000. The money was never recovered. Eight of the twelve-man escort were wounded in defense of the army payroll, Sergeant Benjamin Brown refusing to give up his defense though shot in the abdomen and then wounded in both arms. Corporal Isaiah Mays, shot in both legs, walked and crawled two miles to a nearby ranch for help. Both men were awarded the Medal of Honor for their heroic, though unsuccessful defense of the payroll, and the remaining members of the escort received certificates of commendation.

President Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893) authorized the Medal of Honor to be awarded to US Army Corporal Isaiah Mays, Company B, 24th US Infantry

In 1923, Mays applied to the United States Government for a pension and was denied.

Mays was eventually committed to the Arizona State Hospital, which at the time housed not only the mentally ill but also tubercular patients and indigents with nowhere else to go. Mays died at age 67 and was buried in the Arizona State Hospital Cemetery, Phoenix, AZ. Mays died at the hospital 1925. Because of a fire in 1935, the hospital has no record of his actual burial site.

For decades after his death, Mays’ grave was marked only by a modest bricklike marker etched with a number. Mays might have been forgotten had it not been for the efforts of hospital staff and a small group of Arizona veterans who identified Mays as one of the state’s recipients of the nation’s highest military honor.

In 2001, Mays finally received a Medal of Honor headstone from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for his bravery 110 years earlier.

He is currently interred in a vacant lot near 25th St and McDowell Rd. This site was once the site of the AZ State Hospital cemetery.

On January 10, 2009 the Old Guard Riders of Arizona will hold a ride to raise the funds necessary to have this hero interred at Arlington. If you can’t ride, you can help support their effort.

I don’t know about the rest of my boomer buddies, but I’m getting awfully tired of a bunch of these new cusper generation running us down. It seems like all these lap top hugging do nothings have nothing better to do than blame the entire world situation on my generation. But I ask what have they done? All the great innovations of the past thirty years were brought about by the boomers. Then they try to move the markers to include those few creative people born in the 1950s to include them into their imagined “generation”. The cuspers seem to believe that these great social inventions have always been here. Get a clue morons.

As baby boomers lose their authority and appeal, generational power is shifting one notch down: to cuspers (born roughly 1954-1965), who arrived in style in 2008 with their first truly major figure, Barack Obama (born 1961).

George W. Bush, born in 1946 at the start of the postwar baby boom for which his generation is named, will leave office with the lowest approval ratings since Richard Nixon was president. As Thomas Friedman has written, Bush epitomizes what’s now seen as “The Greediest Generation.”

Who’s to blame for the economy going into serious decline? (Source: CNN)

So who do these airheads think voted Obama in anyway? How do they think this country got to the place in history that a black man became a viable presidential candidate? The decline, moron, is because of political complacency, something the boomers have never been. And Obama, well do you think that if we hadn’t marched and demonstrated for civil rights in the 1960s he would be our president elect today?

So what have the so-called cuspers given us? Generation Y of course.

Probably the best thing about this Christmas is that is our last with Bush and his criminal cabal wrecking the halls with bows of folly.

When it seems like American politics just can’t sink any lower along comes another opportunist to prove Will Rogers right again. Will said a long time ago, “once a man serves in a political office he is never good for honest work again.”

In a state where corruption has ruled for years, Rod Blagojevich may have just set a new record for malfeaseance. He was arrested this morning and thrown in the slam. I wonder if he got to speak with former govenor George Ryan while he was in there? Anyway the punk from Illinois was jailed on a 75 page indictment.

The governor, who appeared in court in a blue jogging suit, also had to forfeit his passport.

FBI agents arrested Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, early Tuesday on federal corruption charges related in part to the selection of President-elect Barack Obama’s successor to the Senate, the U.S. attorney’s office said.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald declared Tuesday a “sad day for government.”

“Gov. Blagojevich has taken us to a new low,” he said. “This conduct would make [Abraham] Lincoln roll over in his grave.”

Fitzgerald said the government had bugged the governor’s campaign office and placed a tap on his home phone. (Source: CNN)

Investigation is nothing new for Blagojevich. He has been under close scrutiny for a long time now. As recently as yesterday he arrogantly boasted he had nothing to hide and invited anyone who wished to tape his conversations. Well, they did.

Now the big question is who is going to replace President-Elect Barrack Obama’s vacant Senate seat. The task of finding a replacement lies with the Governor in Illinois. And of course Blagojevich had it all covered. He offered the seat up on E-Bay for the highest bidder.

One big question now is whether Blagojevich retains the right to name Obama’s successor if he remains in custody or even under indictment. The answer is yes, according to Fitzgerald.

Jay Stewart, executive director of Chicago’s Better Government Association, agreed. He said Blagojevich retains the right to fill the senate vacancy until he’s out of office, which won’t happen unless he quits or is removed from office by impeachment.

At a press conference Tuesday, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat, said he wants the Illinois Legislature to act quickly to pass a law setting a special election to fill Obama’s seat, in order to prevent Blagojevich from making a tainted appointment or there being a lengthy vacancy in the Senate. (Source: CNN)

Blagojevich is a dirtbag. Reading all the charges against him you wonder how he was able to get elected twice as governor. Maybe he bought the job, that seems to be pretty normal in Chicago.

The breadth of corruption laid out in these charges is staggering .They allege that (Ill. Gov. Rod) Blagojevich put a “for sale” sign on the naming of a United States Senator; involved himself personally in pay-to-play schemes with the urgency of a salesman meeting his annual sales target; and corruptly used his office in an effort to trample editorial voices of criticism…U.S. Atty. Patrick J. Fitzgerald in a news release this morning.

This is the full length English movie about the invasion of Sicily. False information is placed on a corpse that changes the outcome of the invasion. Da Frog enjoyed it.

A lot has been said about the lifestyle. This short video says a lot.

My father died of Lou Gehrig’s disease nearly twenty years ago. It is an awful disease that dooms the victim to a slow death. For many years amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig’s disease was considered a “niche illness”. So few people contracted it that deeper research was not felt feasible. That opinion is changing today with the onslaught of numerous Gulf War veterans suffering from it.

The federal government will provide disability pay, lifetime health care and death benefits for all veterans with Lou Gehrig’s disease, the Department of Veterans Affairs said Tuesday, saying the disease was linked to military

All veterans with the illness will be eligible, regardless of when or where they served. The 10-year cost for death and disability benefits is projected at $505,839,000, said Tom Pamperin, the deputy director of the compensation and pension service at the Veterans Affairs Department. That figure does not include health care costs. (Source: NY Times)

It is about time this killer was taken seriously. Finally there may be some serious research into it’s source and causes. For years after my father died I was always looking over my shoulder. At that time it was speculated to be a genetic thing. Today they realize it goes much farther than that.

The fatal neurological disease, named after the legendary New York Yankee, is rare, afflicting about 30,000 Americans, fewer than 10 percent of whom served in the military. It progressively kills motor neurons until total paralysis sets in. But the mind stays sharp, leaving patients fully aware of their deterioration. Most die within five years of diagnosis.

No one knows for sure what causes ALS, but some veterans and their families believe it can be caused by exposure to chemicals and toxins, including nerve agents that they suspect were in the air during the first Gulf War. Studies have provided no answers, and scientists are skeptical that there is a link.

They point out that in scientific terms, the incidence rate among veterans is relatively low when compared with environmental links established for other diseases. Smokers, for example, are 10 to 20 times more likely to contract lung cancer than nonsmokers, one scientist pointed out.

Testifying before a congressional committee last summer, retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas R. Mikolajcik, who has ALS, said the government has not done enough research on potential causes and might be exposing service members now in Iraq to an elevated risk of the disease.

“If we know that it happened in the first Gulf War, and now we’re exposing millions more, why aren’t we doing more, and how are you going to answer those people in three, five, 10 years that come down with this disease?” Mikolajcik said in an interview. (Source: Veterans Today)

For more information about this disease please visit the ALS Association and the MDA ALS page.

Consumate dirtbag and turncoat Joe Lieberman met with “Give ‘em Hell Harry” Reid the other day. Two worthless politicians discussing “Joe the Opportunist” future. I got to admit Leiberman is a pimple on the butt of the Democratic party, but at the same time I am sure Harry Truman is rolling in his grave at the thought of Harry Reid adopting his moniker. Harry Reid, like Nancy Pelosi, is one of the main reasons the Democratic congress has lost the confidence of the American people. We’d all be better off if all three of them turned in their time cards and went back to where they came from.

If the Democrats don’t get rid of “Joe the Shithead” then we should demand they do so. When Pelosi folded and declared “impeachment was off the table” it was the lowest point in voter confidence ever. Why the hell do these people think they were ushered into office? Not to do business as usual, but to take care of business. They should have gotten rid of Bush and Cheney. They didn’t so they should be ridden out of town on a rail, tarred and feathered. If they don’t get rid of “Joe the Whiner” then they need their heads examined. Keeping the dirtbag in the Democratic caucus and letting him retain his committee seats is a slap in the face of everyone who voted for change.

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

For the past two years we have been bombarded with political campaign coverage. With the election behind us now, how are the political junkies going to deal with the realization that it is over. No more commercials, no more debates, no more absurd accusations. The problem of campaign withdrawl is affecting millions around the nation.

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

After two intense years of campaign ups and downs for both major U.S. political parties, the nation has finally settled on a president. Although initially, Obama’s victory brings celebrations for supporters, experts say the let-down that voters of each side may feel after the campaign is akin to postpartum depression. (Source: CNN)

But cheer up junkies! In a few weeks Sara Palin will begin campaigning for 2012 and the cycle will start all over again.