Priscilla Long

Mother, Wife, Marathoner, Reader, & Teacher.

[BaseballHistoryNut @nut_history]

Bobby Cox sent Leo Mazzone to the mound so he could tell Greg Maddux to walk Luis Gonzalez. Maddux refused to do it, and told Leo give him two pitches and he'll make Luis pop up to 3rd base. As Leo returned to the dugout, Bobby was fuming.

Two pitches later, a pop up to Chipper Jones at 3rd base. RIP Bobby Cox

[Johnny Barner 🤙🦅 @jrptigers]

The night Sid Slid it changed my life.

Rest easy Bobby and thanks for making me fall in love with baseball.

[Dan Orlovsky @danorlovsky7]

I don’t know who this man is, just coming across his interview

What a champion. What an absolute champion.

[Caroline Darney @cwdarney]

I feel sadder now than I did when we lost to UMBC. By like 1000x.

[Kyle Umlang @kyleumlang]

To be in the College Football Hall of Fame, a coach must have won at least 60% of his games. Mike Leach won 59.6%.

RT if you think Mike Leach should still be included in the College Football Hall of Fame

[Priscilla Long @PriscillaLong20]

@NiallHarbison You are a treasure, Mr. Harbison. I pray you always find strength and courage to battle.

[Priscilla Long @PriscillaLong20]

@austinkleon I may have missed them on your list, but the Hotel Transylvania movies are cute. We liked Kubo and the two strings too. It was a sweet movie.

[Priscilla Long @PriscillaLong20]

@Matthew_Reilly Happy Birthday!! I LOVE your books!

[Kyle Umlang @kyleumlang]

To be in the College Football Hall of Fame, a coach must have won at least 60% of his games. Mike Leach won 59.6%.

RT if you think Mike Leach should still be included in the College Football Hall of Fame

[Priscilla Long @PriscillaLong20]

@jamesrollins Congratulations!!

[Priscilla Long @PriscillaLong20]

@keithdunn @JasminKParis Absolutely incredible!!!

[Keith @keithdunn]

Jasmin Paris @JasminKParis finished loop five of the #BM100 in 59:58:21.

[ocpsnews @OCPSnews]

Meet Alphonso Gardner, the heart and soul of @WestOrange_OCPS. As a uniformed security guard, he's been dedicated to the safety and well-being of OCPS students for the past 24 years! Step into a day in the life of this hero, whose smile brightens everyone's day. #IAmAHero

[Judianna @Judianna]

For all the fans of “It’s A Wonderful Life” and Jimmy Stewart . . .

Just months after winning his 1941 Academy Award for best actor in “The Philadelphia Story,” Jimmy Stewart, one of the best-known actors of the day, left Hollywood and joined the US Army. He was the first big-name movie star to enlist in World War II.

An accomplished private pilot, the 33-year-old Hollywood icon became a US Army Air Force aviator, earning his 2nd Lieutenant commission in early 1942. With his celebrity status and huge popularity with the American public, he was assigned to starring in recruiting films, attending rallies, and training younger pilots.

Stewart, however, wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to fly combat missions in Europe, not spend time in a stateside training command. By 1944, frustrated and feeling the war was passing him by, he asked his commanding officer to transfer him to a unit deploying to Europe. His request was reluctantly granted.

Stewart, now a Captain, was sent to England, where he spent the next 18 months flying B-24 Liberator bombers over Germany. Throughout his time overseas, the US Army Air Corps' top brass had tried to keep the popular movie star from flying over enemy territory. But Stewart would hear nothing of it.
Determined to lead by example, he bucked the system, assigning himself to every combat mission he could. By the end of the war he was one of the most respected and decorated pilots in his unit.
But his wartime service came at a high personal price.

In the final months of WWII he was grounded for being “flak happy,” today called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

When he returned to the US in August 1945, Stewart was a changed man. He had lost so much weight that he looked sickly. He rarely slept, and when he did he had nightmares of planes exploding and men falling through the air screaming (in one mission alone his unit had lost 13 planes and 130 men, most of whom he knew personally).

He was depressed, couldn’t focus, and refused to talk to anyone about his war experiences. His acting career was all but over.

As one of Stewart's biographers put it, "Every decision he made [during the war] was going to preserve life or cost lives. He took back to Hollywood all the stress that he had built up.”

In 1946 he got his break. He took the role of George Bailey, the suicidal father in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The rest is history.

Actors and crew of the set realized that in many of the disturbing scenes of George Bailey unraveling in front of his family, Stewart wasn’t acting. His PTSD was being captured on film for potentially millions to see.

But despite Stewart's inner turmoil, making the movie was therapeutic for the combat veteran. He would go on to become one of the most accomplished and loved actors in American history.

When asked in 1941 why he wanted to leave his acting career to fly combat missions over Nazi Germany, he said, "This country's conscience is bigger than all the studios in Hollywood put together, and the time will come when we'll have to fight.”
This weekend, as many of us watch the classic Christmas film, “It’s A Wonderful Life,” it’s also a fitting time to remember the sacrifices of Jimmy Stewart and all the men who gave up so much to serve their country during wartime. We will always remember you!

Postscript:

While fighting in Europe, Stewart's Oscar statue was proudly displayed in his father’s Pennsylvania hardware store. Throughout his life, the beloved actor always said his father, a World War I veteran, was the person who had made the biggest impact on him.

Jimmy Stewart was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985 and died in 1997 at the age of 89.
H/T @mustangmarine

[Priscilla Long @PriscillaLong20]

@heymrsbond Staples “engineering” prints are relatively inexpensive. Do you have a CTE digital design program on your campus? They may have a large format printer also.

[Priscilla Long @PriscillaLong20]

@IfTonyTweeted My sincerest condolences to you and your whole family.