Jonathan K. Finer

Husband to Margo | 🦮 Dad of Theodore Ruffsevelt

[U.S. Army @USArmy]

82 years ago today, nearly 160,000 Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, launching the liberation of Europe.

We are free because they were brave. 🇺🇸

[War Times @wartirnes]

D-Day in Color: The Filthy Thirteen Prepare for Normandy 🇺🇸

U.S. paratroopers of the 101st Airborne prepare for the Normandy invasion with war paint, heavy gear, and final briefings before boarding their C-47 aircraft.

Featuring the legendary “Filthy Thirteen” of the 506th PIR, with their signature Mohawks, face paint, and fearless reputation before jumping into occupied France.

[alex kershaw @kershaw_alex]

Righteous warriors gather now for a group photo before boarding the C-47 behind them. They are the very first Americans to see combat on the ground on D Day. Pathfinders from the 502nd PIR. Stick One. Plane One. Courage counts.

[Eisenhower Library @IkeLibrary]

📜 From the archives: The weight of history in one memo. June 5, 1944.
Take a look at the weather reports and discussions that led to the defining moment of the D-Day invasion. See the exact deliberations behind the famous command, "Okay, we’ll go." June 6, 1944.
@USNatArchives

[KSL Sports @kslsports]

Youth sports in Utah are getting an infusion of $$$ thanks to @MillerSportsEnt and @Daniels_Fund following the announcement of Utah Youth Sports Giving Day.

Follow the link to learn more about the campaign.

https://t.co/Vb5KvoUrbv

[Brent Beshore @BrentBeshore]

New essay on @BenSasse and the question I can't stop asking myself.

How can a dying man without the ability to grow skin on his face radiate a joy, levity, and peace that the rest of us are starving for?

[Max 📟 @MaxNordau]

7 things every kid needs to hear:
1. I love you
2. I’m proud of you
3. I’m sorry
4. I forgive you
5. I’m listening
6. Communism has failed every time it was tried
7. You’ve got what it takes

[Denver Broncos @Broncos]

On this day, 14 years ago …

#MileHighMagic ✨

[Ben Sasse @BenSasse]

Friends-

This is a tough note to write, but since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I’ll cut to the chase: Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die.

Advanced pancreatic is nasty stuff; it’s a death sentence. But I already had a death sentence before last week too — we all do.

I’m blessed with amazing siblings and half-a-dozen buddies that are genuinely brothers. As one of them put it, “Sure, you’re on the clock, but we’re all on the clock.” Death is a wicked thief, and the bastard pursues us all.

Still, I’ve got less time than I’d prefer. This is hard for someone wired to work and build, but harder still as a husband and a dad. I can’t begin to describe how great my people are. During the past year, as we’d temporarily stepped back from public life and built new family rhythms, Melissa and I have grown even closer — and that on top of three decades of the best friend a man could ever have. Seven months ago, Corrie was commissioned into the Air Force and she’s off at instrument and multi-engine rounds of flight school. Last week, Alex kicked butt graduating from college a semester early even while teaching gen chem, organic, and physics (she’s a freak). This summer, 14-year-old Breck started learning to drive. (Okay, we’ve been driving off-book for six years — but now we’ve got paper to make it street-legal.) I couldn’t be more grateful to constantly get to bear-hug this motley crew of sinners and saints.

There’s not a good time to tell your peeps you’re now marching to the beat of a faster drummer — but the season of advent isn’t the worst. As a Christian, the weeks running up to Christmas are a time to orient our hearts toward the hope of what’s to come.

Not an abstract hope in fanciful human goodness; not hope in vague hallmark-sappy spirituality; not a bootstrapped hope in our own strength (what foolishness is the evaporating-muscle I once prided myself in). Nope — often we lazily say “hope” when what we mean is “optimism.” To be clear, optimism is great, and it’s absolutely necessary, but it’s insufficient. It’s not the kinda thing that holds up when you tell your daughters you’re not going to walk them down the aisle. Nor telling your mom and pops they’re gonna bury their son.

A well-lived life demands more reality — stiffer stuff. That’s why, during advent, even while still walking in darkness, we shout our hope — often properly with a gravelly voice soldiering through tears.

Such is the calling of the pilgrim. Those who know ourselves to need a Physician should dang well look forward to enduring beauty and eventual fulfillment. That is, we hope in a real Deliverer — a rescuing God, born at a real time, in a real place. But the eternal city — with foundations and without cancer — is not yet.

Remembering Isaiah’s prophecies of what’s to come doesn’t dull the pain of current sufferings. But it does put it in eternity’s perspective:
“When we've been there 10,000 years…We've no less days to sing God's praise.”

I’ll have more to say. I’m not going down without a fight. One sub-part of God’s grace is found in the jawdropping advances science has made the past few years in immunotherapy and more. Death and dying aren’t the same — the process of dying is still something to be lived. We’re zealously embracing a lot of gallows humor in our house, and I’ve pledged to do my part to run through the irreverent tape.

But for now, as our family faces the reality of treatments, but more importantly as we celebrate Christmas, we wish you peace: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned….For to us a son is given” (Isaiah 9).

With great gratitude, and with gravelly-but-hopeful voices,
Ben — and the Sasses

[U.S. Navy @USNavy]

December 7, 1941: A date which will live in infamy.

84 years ago, the attack on Pearl Harbor thrust the United States into World War II, forever changing our Navy and nation. 

Today we remember the heroism and sacrifice of those lost on that fateful day. Their courage echoes across generations.

#PearlHarborRemembranceDay #NeverForget

[Jonathan K. Finer @JonathanKFiner]

@jackbutler4815 @WSJopinion

[Israel Defense Forces @IDF]

Tears of joy.

[Scott Lincicome @scottlincicome]

"Happy Yeltsin Supermarket Day!" https://t.co/zWqIRGeQ5H via @CatoInstitute

36 years ago today, pudding pops defeated communism. Celebrate accordingly.

[ZitoSalena @ZitoSalena]

24 yrs ago nearly 3000 people went to bed not knowing they’d never hold the hands of the people they love, hug them, or tell them 1 last time how much they mean to them.
They’d never ever be able to repay an act of kindness, repair a friendship or be a better friend.
Hold tight to your friends & family, let go of anger & bitterness, life is too damn short.

[Dale Chu @Dale_Chu]

Four of the state’s top five high schools are charter schools. #edcolo

[Ready Colorado Education @ReadyColo]

Our newest report, Open Doors, Open Districts II, finds that nearly 40% of Colorado students attend a school of choice. Explore the upward trend that public school choice has seen in the last decade, alongside what barriers still remain for families.

https://t.co/cTVIQTS42h

[Jonathan K. Finer @JonathanKFiner]

@DeepNotShallow *whose

[Matt Kramer 🔪 @kramerposts]

me when I am in the presence of a fresh loaf of bread and some room-temperature butter

[Jeff Eisenband @JeffEisenband]

“What? We do this like every Sunday.”