Jake

SteelerNation Pitt Pirates Aliquippa Sports! Pittsburgh!

[Jake @ScarQuip]

Hey #Chicago, you got what you voted for!
The Hammond Bears 🐻 are no longer yours!
@chicagotribune @Suntimes @WBBMNewsradio @ESPN1000

[Jake @ScarQuip]

#CNN #MSNOW #Genz #Millennials #Boomers #FoxNews
Never Forget! #DDay #Normandy #OmahaBeach

[Dave Scarangella @DaveScarangella]

Tonight, as I do every year at this time, I’ll be raising a glass to a scared young man, who 82 years ago was preparing to go ashore on the beaches of Normandy as part of an event code-named Operation Overlord.

D-Day.

I can’t imagine what was going through his mind. I’d be scared to death and I’m sure he was too. But in that first wave was a 21-year-old Private First Class from Henry County, VA by the name of Allen Homer Sink.

Fortunately, he would survive that initial wave, participate in battle until it ended in August, then come home to marry and raise a family of four, including two daughters after the war ended.

He would also become my father-in-law until his death in 2006.

His nickname for some reason was “Hank” and when I asked him how he got it, he said some guy in the Army said he “looked like a Hank.” From the time I first met him, he was a salt-of-the-earth man who was never afraid of anything. He was a carpenter by trade, and he’d stand up on the tallest roofs, grab bumblebees with his bare hands when they tried to persuade him to move elsewhere, and never be bothered by anything.

His hands were tough and leathery, but he was a softie. He spoiled his children, complained when my mother-in-law would gripe about something involving one of his alleged misdeeds, and always thought he was fooling everybody when he snuck around the back of the house and lit a cigarette, a habit everyone opposed but he could never part himself from.

He could talk your ear off for hours at a time, and I always suggested he become a greeter at Wal-Mart when he retired because then he could talk all day to strangers and none of them would – like his wife and daughters often did – tell him to be quiet for a few moments. Yet for all his love of talking, there was one subject he just wouldn’t discuss.

June 6, 1944. Omaha Beach.

In 1998, when he was 76 years old, the subject came up again. The movie “Saving Private Ryan” came out and the beginning was gruesome. Reviews said it was incredibly realistic to what really happened that day. I asked Hank if he wanted to go see it.

“No,” he shook his head. “I don’t ever want to see any of that again.”

He did offer that he remembered the night before when troops were loaded into the boats for the amphibious assault. He said it was raining and that once everyone was in place, they gave everybody ice cream and told them to try to get some sleep. Then the next thing he knew, they were waking everybody up telling them to stay low and head for the beach.

No, that doesn’t sound like somebody drugged the ice cream. Not at all.

That’s all he would say about the subject, and he never said another word about it until the final months of his life. Alzheimer’s would gradually rob him of his mind, and as his condition deteriorated, memories of the past would briefly spill out. One evening he thought I was his commanding officer and he was back at Normandy. It is the only time I ever saw him where he appeared to be scared. Ever.

It reminds me every day of something I had unknowingly taken for granted. The greatest generation did fight in and win World War II, then did incredible things over the next 50 to 60 years after the war. But many carried unspeakable memories from the War, ones they would never talk about and carry inside them to their graves. Those veterans lost a piece of themselves in battle they would never, ever, get back.

I mean, how can you at the tender age of 21 storm a beach, see friends die only a few feet from you, wonder each night if you will wake up alive the next morning and then return home a year later and try to pick up on the same normal life you had before you left? I told him once that after seeing “Saving Private Ryan”, I understood why he was never afraid of anything; after you’ve made it through something like that, everything else pales in comparison.

So tonight, I raise a glass to Hank and the 150,000-plus men, who like my father-in-law, were very young, very scared, and still charged that beach, paying a price that even for the survivors would last the rest of their days.

Rest In Peace...

[Jake @ScarQuip]

#WPIAL #Aliquippa kid!

[Playteaux @Playteaux1]

Pete Maravich was that good…

[Garrett Exner @Exner_Garrett]

Ray’s Rock - Omaha Beach

On the morning of June 6, 1944, 23 year old Staff Sergeant Arnold “Ray” Lambert came ashore with the first wave of the 1st Infantry Division on the eastern side of Omaha Beach. At this small patch of concrete he saved nearly 20 lives:

The division came under intense fire from several German bunkers surrounding the entrance to the Colville Draw (one of two exits off Omaha Beach). Ray, a medic, immediately went to work.

He was shot in the arm. Moments later he was hit by shrapnel in the leg, but Ray kept pulling men to safety. He pulled nearly 20 wounded soldiers to cover behind this 8ft wide obstacle, treating each soldier before going out in search of others.

After several hours under fire, while pulling a wounded soldier from the ocean, he was struck by a landing craft. It dropped its ramp on top of him, breaking his back. He fell face down in the water, drowning. The craft backed up and nearby soldiers pulled an unconscious Ray to safety, eventually evacuating him off the beach.

Remarkably, Ray had already earned two Silver Stars and three Purple Hearts in Sicily and North Africa, prior to landing in France. But here in Normandy his war would end.

He awoke in a hospital back in England a day later. In the next bed over was his brother, who had also been wounded at Omaha.

When asked about his work on D-Day, Ray simply said, “I did what I was called to do.”

Ray Lambert passed in 2021 at 100 years old. He exemplified the best of American grit and why remembering this day is so important.

[David Welsh Jr @DavidWelshJr]

How many 2 strike base hits has Mitch Keller allowed? The dude just can’t put batters away. #Pirates might have a problem.

[Jake @ScarQuip]

@Eman_8282 I have a parrot and I KNOW he understands! 🦜

[Jake @ScarQuip]

@Kristinartz Linda Ronstadt

[Jake @ScarQuip]

@Liza137823 Brussel sprouts

[Jake @ScarQuip]

@conquertheno 3

[Jake @ScarQuip]

@ThePoniExpress Who is he?

[Jake @ScarQuip]

@VinnysCorner1 Abbie Nichol

[Jake @ScarQuip]

@autumnsdad1 That’s William Bonney

[Jake @ScarQuip]

@ThePoniExpress 👍

[Jake @ScarQuip]

@KDPomp Enough to fill up the Garden!

[Jake @ScarQuip]

@finebaum @ClayTravis @SECNetwork @SEC @espn #ESPN

[Carson T. Kay, CFB Analyst @TKayAnalyst]

BREAKING: SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey has reportedly been indicted on multiple counts of fraud and embezzlement.

Reports have said that he has spent millions of dollars on “unauthorized luxury purchases” from conference funds.

More to come.

[Jake @ScarQuip]

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[Jake @ScarQuip]

@TheSports_Shift Redskins

[Jake @ScarQuip]

@Liza137823 Wash your feet 🦶

[Jake @ScarQuip]

@miles_commodore Tether Ball? Sure

[Jake @ScarQuip]

@DanZangrilli @ChrisMuellerPGH @Steigerworld @BobSmizik @Buster_ESPN #Pirates

[Jim Koenigsberger @Jimfrombaseball]

"It is a joke.
The game is becoming a freaking joke because of the nerds who are running it.
These guys played rotisserie baseball at Harvard or wherever the f--- they went and they thought they figured the f---ing game out.
They don't know s---.
A bunch of f---ing nerds running the game.
You can't slide into second base.
You can't take out the f---ing catcher because Posey was in the wrong position and they are going to change all the rules.
You can't pitch inside anymore.
I'd like to knock some of these f---ers on their ass.
Ryan Braun is a f---ing steroid user.
He gets a standing ovation on "Opening Day" in Milwaukee.
How do you explain that to your kid after throwing people under the bus and lying through his f---ing teeth?
They don't have anyone passing the f---ing torch to these people.
If I had acted like that, you don't go in that f---ing dugout.
There are going to be 20 f---ing guys waiting for you."
Goose Gossage.
Baseball Ambassador.
Legend!