Kelly Stevens (McManus)

✝️ 🇺🇸 Christian | American | Wife | Stepmom | Dogmom | PJ’s Kid | Lyme Thriver | Shutterbug | Scribbler | Retired Veteran

[Kelly Stevens (McManus) @apjsdaughter]

@FreddyLA7 😃🙌Welcome back!!

[Heavy Pulp @heavypulp]

Sweet Land - an ode to America's 250th year. 🇺🇸

[Kelly Stevens (McManus) @apjsdaughter]

@celestialbe1ng 💯 agree. I don’t have a Sprouts in my city and I’m already planning my trip to Sprouts when I visit my mom in July. Can’t wait! 🤗

[Beatriz @mandolinaes]

if your thoughts get too big,
go somewhere you feel small.

[Kelly Stevens (McManus) @apjsdaughter]

@jeremyct My parents charged me $300 30 years ago and kept it. 😂

[Kelly Stevens (McManus) @apjsdaughter]

@polderfamily Beautiful work! Thankful to have found y’all.

[Polder’s Old World Market @polderfamily]

We are giving away three $50 gift certificates for our family’s handcrafted #dreamware! To enter:

1. Follow @polderfamily
2. Share this post
3. Drop a comment

Winners will be announced tomorrow May 28th!

Thanks for being here!

[Kelly Stevens (McManus) @apjsdaughter]

@howertonjosh

[Kelly Stevens (McManus) @apjsdaughter]

Stop. Trying. To. Kill. Our. President.

[Kelly Stevens (McManus) @apjsdaughter]

@SoldiersWhisper “Controlled disobedience.” I got to hear Gen Olds speak at the Air Force 50th Anniversary Ball at Elmendorf AFB with my Dad, a CMSht In Pararescue who also served in Vietnam. Their camaraderie was palpable.

[Kelly Stevens (McManus) @apjsdaughter]

@DustinMeyerTX 😢 I’m so sorry for your and the Mama’s loss.

[Kelly Stevens (McManus) @apjsdaughter]

@Maddie_Rowley_ @dmbkparker And watches

[Kelly Stevens (McManus) @apjsdaughter]

My Dad is a retired PJ. Vietnam. 36 years of service. He was laid to rest at Arlington last November, 2025.

I read your piece on your father's internment at Arlington as well and was very moved.

My sister and I grew up hearing that his job was to rescue "Johnny" who was behind enemy lines.

My father was always fighting with the press and his own PA officer to get the name Pararescue right, lol. I thank you and so many others for doing so now.

I know he's so proud. 🇺🇸 🪂 ✝️

[John Ʌ Konrad V @johnkonrad]

This is why Americans are the deadliest fighters on earth.

I met a priest yesterday who just got accepted to chaplain school in Newport. I asked him the obvious question: Marines or Navy?

Navy, he said. His face fell a little. He told me he could never be a Marine because every Marine is a rifleman, and as a priest he can’t carry a weapon.

He’s hoping to get assigned to a Marine unit anyway. All chaplains are Navy officers, so that’s the only door in.

I laughed. I feel a little bad about that.

Then I explained to him what “Devil Doc” means. The Marine Corps doesn’t have medics. They use Navy Corpsmen.

I told him: when you get out to the fleet, find a Marine sergeant with a couple of Purple Hearts and tell him Devil Docs “aren’t real Marines.”

Be prepared to duck.

Marines are violently particular about who gets to wear their uniform. Navy Corpsmen and Navy chaplains who have eaten dirt alongside them in combat qualify. Full stop.

My dad was Air Force. Not even Navy. I remember going to VFW halls with him as a kid. Someone would ask him what service, he’d say Air Force, and the room would chuckle a little. Then they’d find out he was a medic, and the air in the room changed. Something close to reverence.

Dad hated being honored. He had one line he used to deflect it:

“I didn’t do much. Save your praise for my cousin the PJ.”

That always broke the ice.

PJs are the Air Force special operators who go into hell to pull downed pilots out.

They will take casualties and are prepared to die to rescue a single pilot or crewman.

The math doesn’t math out. Why would any combat force take multiple casualties to rescue one air force jet jockey?

What the padre is about to learn is that the military has a hierarchy that has nothing to do with rank, and nothing to do with the service stitched on your chest.

Have you deployed?

Have you seen combat?

In every firefight there are men who move toward the guns and men who hang back. And when the guy at the tip of the spear is pinned down, bleeding, with rounds cracking past his head, there is exactly one word he screams into the radio.

“Medic.”

Here is the catch, and it is the whole reason America fights the way America fights.

That Marine is willing to push forward into fire BECAUSE he knows the Corpsman is coming. He knows the medevac birds will land in the hot LZ.

He knows the Devil Doc will drag him out by his plate carrier if it comes to that.

And, if the medic can’t help, if he has what Dad called “injuries incompatible with life,” he knows that chaplain will crawl on his belly to administer last rights and deliver him to heaven.

The F-15 pilot punching out over enemy territory knows the same thing. He knows the PJs will move heaven and earth to reach him, and turn whatever is shooting at him into a smoking crater of hell on earth on the way in.

This is the quiet math underneath American violence.

Our warriors are the fiercest on earth not because they are more aggressive, not just because they are better trained, or better equipped, though they are all of those things. They are the fiercest because they know, in their bones, that when they key the mic and call for help, help is coming in hot.

Take that away, and you don’t have the U.S. military anymore. You have a security force.

[Kelly Stevens (McManus) @apjsdaughter]

@ryanpatrickauth My Dad was retired PJ - served 36 years - Vietnam. Laid to rest at Arlington last November.❤️ I know he’s so proud of the Rescue community. 👣

[Kelly Stevens (McManus) @apjsdaughter]

@nyuryokuya Beautiful!!

[Kelly Stevens (McManus) @apjsdaughter]

@nanshisweets I eat pumpkin pie year round I just made one today 😂 🥧 🎃 😋

[Santa Carota Beef @SantaCarotaBeef]

This is one of the hardest things we have ever had to share. We are not the kind of people who like to ask for help. We have always believed in putting our heads down, working hard, trusting God, and doing everything we can to carry the weight ourselves. But there comes a point where the truth is bigger than pride, and our customers, followers, supporters, and everyone deserves to know what is really happening.

Right now, we are in a legal battle with a major meat processor. And while this fight has our name on it, it is much bigger than our family alone. Small producers, family ranchers, and farmers spend generations building something they are proud of, only to come up against an industry that too often protects power over people, profit over principle, and control over transparency. The effects do not stop with the people raising the food. They reach every person purchasing meat because corruption and lack of transparency in the beef industry affect the food system as a whole and the trust families place in what they buy and feed their loved ones.

This fight has cost us deeply. Between personal health struggles and the weight of this battle, we have had to make sacrifices we never wanted to make. We have had to cut back on our restaurants and e-commerce. We have sold cattle to help pay attorney fees. We have carried stress, heartbreak, and pressure that, at times, have felt impossible to explain.

But we are still here, and we are still fighting. We are fighting for our family, for our ranch, for the values we were raised on, and for every small rancher and farmer who has ever felt crushed under a system that was never built to protect them.

So today, we are asking for help. If you believe in family ranches, quality food, hard work, and a more transparent, healthy, and clean food system, please stand with us. One of the best ways you can support us right now is by purchasing our beef at https://t.co/Suyrin9ECS.

We started a GoFundMe for those who want to be part of something bigger than our family alone. If you want to help us keep fighting, please consider donating and helping us fight for farmers, ranchers: https://t.co/Tw3VTcsLBI

[Kelly Stevens (McManus) @apjsdaughter]

@UcheMaryOkoli I get so much out of Father Schmitz. Makes you think. Thanks for sharing.

[Arsalan Naamdar @arsalannaamdar]

To all Americans who voted for Donald J. Trump: thank you from the bottom of my heart — from me and from Iranians everywhere.