Cpl. Brian Downard

Brian Downard was 23 years old, a father, a country music fan, and a corporal of Marines. He joined the Marine Corps in July of 2005, and would do two deployments to two different scenic locales. The first was to Iraq, where he served from November of ’06 to April of the following year. While in Iraq, Brian suffered a concussion from an IED strike while patrolling. Undeterred, Brian stayed in the Marines and deployed to Burma in 2008 when Marines and sailors with the Essex Amphibious Readiness Group provided humanitarian assistance operations to aid the cyclone-stricken country. He would eventually leave the service just last July, after four honorable years of service.

One month after separation, he discovered that he had testicular cancer, and a very aggressive strain at that. The cancer spread quickly to his muscles and fatty tissues, and Brian suffered so greatly with the pain that they put him on morphine. He was released from the VA to enjoy his last days with the love from his mom and his 7-year-old son Jesse.

You can read the rest of Cpl. Downard’s story here.

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

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This Weeks Post Was Suggested By Mike Golch

Lt. Ronald Markiewicz

The year is 1971. A Lieutenant in the United States Army by the name of Ronald Markiewicz is serving near the Laotian border. He is a helicopter pilot. In March of that year he is sent out to fly two missions. The first one was to resupply a group of Vietnamese Marines and pick up wounded service members. The second mission was to allow troops to recover the crew of a downed helicopter. One both occasions he faces anti-aircraft fire and is wounded each time.

Fast forward to 2010 and Lt. Ronald Markiewicz finally received the Silver Star and a Distinguished Flying Cross. The awards he earned 39 years ago.

All Information Was Found On And Copied From ArmyTimes.com

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

Click the pic for full sized image.

This week Pet’s garden blog is going to be home to a new carnival. Well it’s actually an old carnival with a new name! Due to circumstances beyond Pet’s control, after agreeing to host the Carnival of the Dogs, Pet learned that there was no way to transfer the carnival. Blog Carnival is experiencing “technical difficulties”.

Yep, makes me want to run and hide under the bed with SirWoody, just thinking about all that! But we were able to create a new name…
So welcome one and all to ” It Went To The Dogs”, a Carnival of all things canine.
The Canine Carnival hosted by Pamibe last year has been on hiatus looking for a new sponsor, which she found!

The Carnival will be accepting submissions through the modulator, Boarding The Friday Ark, blog carnival,or emailing LoliTheBigBlackDog at, itwenttothedogs(at)gmail(dot)com

Submissions will close on midnight Saturday, with the carnival going up on Sunday.LoliTheBigBlackDog and Pet hope you enjoy the carnival, we think its going to be fun!