AO: Three Rivers
When: 02/27/2024
Number of Pax: 6
DR Names:
Number of FNGS: 0
FNG Names:
QIC: Deja Vu
Introduction
At 57 degrees, it was a downright balmy Feb day at The World’s Greatest AO – Three Rivers. This is a beat down that I experienced this past weekend downrange in Austin, TX. The Q this past Saturday, Semi-Soft, took the design off the F3 New Orleans website.
Warm-O-Rama
Chop our feet for disclosure, mission, core principles and motto. Then started nice a slow with some 4 count Good Mornings, Daisy Pickers, and Abe Vigodas. Then Motivators from 6 to get the heart going. Tie Fighters to get the calves stretched. Finally some arm circles forward and back and some cherry pickers to burn out the shoulders a bit. Capped WoR with a ,75 mile run from the lot to the lawn by way of going around the front of the rec center and police station.
The Thang
On the lawn, 4 lights were arranged in a diamond. To go counter-clockwise around the diamond, was 30 yards from light to light. First time around we did 7 burpees OYO at each light. Second time around was 14 Merkins at each stop also OYO. Third time we did 21 Flutter Kicks in cadence with a different PAX leading the count at each stop. Fourth lap was going to be 28 Big Boys at each light. At second light, YHC having perceived half the PAX star gazing modified to Grady Corns at light 3 and Pretzel Taps at light 4.
The workout is designed to then count back down from 28 reps to 21 to 14 to 7. Time having become a constraint, Thang 1 was finished off with a set of 7 six-count burpees at light 1 and 7 eight-count burpees at light 2.
A short mosey around the lot took us back for Mary that included Pickle Pushers, American Hammers, 4-Count Leg Lifts and Big Boys.
Circle of Trust
For my COT, I want to talk about Forgiveness.
Admiral William H. McRaven – US Navy Retired was a Navy SEAL who went on to become a 3-Star Admiral and the Commander of all US Special Operations Globally.
In his book “The Hero Code” he tells the story of a SEAL mission in Afghanistan to capture a Taliban leader that went terribly wrong. Two local men who were brothers mistook the US Soldiers for Taliban and tried to defend themselves. The SEALS assuming the men were Taliban sympathizers fired on the men and killed them. In the fight, stray bullets also went thru a door and killed the men’s sister and two other women.
Admiral McRaven had the task to go back to the village with the customary reparations and to apologize and ask for forgiveness from the father of the 3 siblings the soldiers under his command had just killed.
Despite his pain and anguish, the man did extend his forgiveness in accordance with Muslim teachings by saying “We will not keep anything in our hearts against you.” In fact, many other religions including Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity also teach the importance of forgiveness as the way to shed the burdens of hatred and anger.
Andre Comte-Sponville, a professor of philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris, writes “The point of Forgiveness is to overcome our own hatred if we cannot make him overcome his; to achieve self-mastery if we can not master him; to win at least this victory over evil and hatred and not add evil to evil; to avoid becoming his accomplice as well as his victim.”
Forgiveness extended to others is a gift you give to yourself.
If you are carrying any grudges or desires for vengeance or even if you feel the urge to respond in-kind to a harsh word in your direction, just forgive.
Naked Man Moleskin
A friend of YHC was a young single mother. She and her daughter were all each other had. She raised her daughter and they were best friends. When her daughter was in her early 20’s, she was single and got pregnant. The father abandoned her. Her boss wanted to date her and take care of her and her baby but she rebuffed him. He convinced her to go with him, as friends, to his sister’s wedding in Door County, WI. After the reception, back at the hotel, he was drunk and he killed her and the baby then had sex with her corpse.
At the time, WI law allowed that someone who is drunk is not liable for their actions. His first trial was a mis-trial. The mother fought successfully to have the legislature change the law and she was there when the Governor signed the new law. The second trial was a conviction. Before he was taken from the court room, she forgave him.
She forgave him. Her forgiveness did not ease her pain. She feels pain of losing her daughter, her little buddy, her best friend every day. She feels the pain of losing her grand-daughter every day. But her forgiveness relieved her of the shackles of her own anger and hatred toward him. By forgiving him, she refused to continue to be his victim.
She has since started a non-profit that raises money to provide grief counseling for parents who have lost a child and to help single unwed mothers with baby products, temporary housing and job training. Unburdened of her anger, she has turned the energy toward creating resources that were lacking at the time in her own life when she needed them most.