Mike Gilloon

@F3Omaha - Rocket

[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...

[Rich Eisen @richeisen]

In the inaugural episode of ‘This Was SportsCenter’, Dan Patrick joined the show and told the story of the role he had in the origin of the “This Is SportsCenter” series of commercials… and reveals to us which of his MANY appearances in these commercials was his favorite:

[Adam Clinch @Adam__Clinch]

The US has been so focused on acting like Europe regarding club, we've slept hard on how much we could be leveraging what we have that they don't, and that's high school ball & the unique connection people feel to their school & community.

You'll never ever see this for club.

[Stewart Mandel @slmandel]

Here is the resort where Big Ten folks have gathered this week to discuss "unsustainable" spending.

[Carson Bowen @CarsBow910]

Ted Turner spent 20 years making sure a kid in Montana could watch the Braves. MLB spent 20 years making sure a kid in Atlanta couldn’t

[Nebraska Football @HuskerFootball]

GRIT: The Story of Tommie Frazier

[ESPN Insights @ESPNInsights]

Luck of the Irish ☘️

Notre Dame had Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price become the first two RBs taken in Round 1, the first time since the Common Draft Era both came from the same school.

[Richard Engel @RichardEngel]

White House meme campaign outraging many former US military commanders

[Always Irish ☘️ @AlwaysIrishINC]

☘️This is a Holtz #NotreDame sequence that we had recorded on VHS and watched over and over again growing up. A few things to look for☘️

1-Lou vs Joe Pa
2-The voice of an Irish angel Tony Roberts, on the call
3-the fans from the corner bleachers literally ON the players
4-the original stadium vibe

This game had everything you loved about "the old days"

[Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 @FmrRepMTG]

I impeached Biden’s Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, those were my articles of impeachment that passed in the House of Representatives. I unapologetically believe in border security and deporting criminal illegal aliens and I support law enforcement.

However, I also unapologetically support the 2nd amendment.

Legally carrying a firearm is not the same as brandishing a firearm.

I support American’s 1st and 4th amendment rights.

There is nothing wrong with legally peacefully protesting and videoing.

MAGA, consider it like this.

We lost our minds when we watched Biden’s FBI track down and aggressively carry out home invasions and arrest on peaceful J6’ers who walked in the Capitol through open doors.

Imaging if one of our MAGA independent journalists or even just a MAGA supporter stood in the street outside a J6’ers house while Biden’s FBI carried out a law enforcement operation, home invasion, and arrest.

Then Biden’s FBI goes to the MAGA guy videoing it all and shoves a woman with him to the ground and sprays them with bear spray then throws the MAGA guy to the ground as MAGA guy was trying to help the woman off the ground. Then Biden’s FBI beats MAGA guy on the ground, disarms MAGA guy, and then shoots him dead.

What would have been our reaction?

Both sides need to take off their political blinders.

You are all being incited into civil war, yet none of it solves any of the real problems that we all face, and tragically people are dying.

[Mike Gilloon @cpmike88]

@f3Canadianbacon Fair enough. Good cops also don’t shoot people in the back.

[Fr. Bill Dailey, CSC @wrdcsc]

Bovino’s appearance on CNN is embarrassing and infuriating. He insists on calling the deceased victim a suspect and the Border Patrol Officers victims. He makes accusations of assault without evidence, asked to defend them he says it’s being investigated. DHS is out of control.

[Sarah Longwell @SarahLongwell25]

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."

(Video: @DropSiteNews)

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

Another angle of federal agents killing a Minnesota legal observer, which appears to come from the direction of the woman in pink filming from the sidewalk.

Obtained by Drop Site News

[David J. Bier @David_J_Bier]

Photographer @mostafabassim1 photographed this boy walking home alone with a snack being "randomly" approached by DHS. "After he was unable to produce documentation proving his citizenship, agents informed him that he was under arrest." He said, "Can I just go home?" Answer: No.

[Matt Schick @ESPN_Schick]

Coming into his senior year of high school, Fernando Mendoza had one committable offer. Yale.

He just quarterbacked Indiana to a 16-0 season. Only one other team in major college football history has ever gone 16-0. Yale.

[Tim Carney @TPCarney]

If your immigration-enforcement approach requires sometimes treating perfectly law-abiding people like dirt, then you probably need to change your enforcement approach.

[Jonah Goldberg @JonahDispatch]

Never in my life have I so thoroughly sided with Europe in a disagreement with the United States. They are right and America is in the wrong here. The White House is behaving dishonorably, and the legislators who know it but do nothing are cowards.

[Sarah Longwell @SarahLongwell25]

Everything out of his mouth is a disgraceful lie.

[Chris W. @rakesofmallow]

You have to wonder if Joey McGuire and Texas Tech playing a more competitive schedule this season - perhaps a robust and varied independent slate? - would have better prepared them for the Orange Bowl.