National Guards Keepers of the Dream for 378 Years

You show up when your neighbors are facing fires, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes and snowstorms. You show up even though your family is going through the same thing and need you there too.

You show up no matter what you had planned for the day when fellow citizens decide they will take the opportunity of a protest to turn into looting and vandalizing their own neighborhoods.

You show up when someone in your community needs help and much of those efforts are for the poor, needy, forgotten and the elderly.

You also show up on regular jobs working in offices, for hospitals, driving ambulances, riding on firetrucks and in police cruisers. You show up as teachers and even some preachers. You show up in college classrooms as students and in your kids schools as members of the PTA.

You also show up and get shipped out to foreign lands away from those jobs and from your own families.

The thing is, no matter how many times we ignore how much you do for us, you still do it and that, that a lot of us are eternally grateful for.

We recognize December 13th as the birthday of the National Guard.

On this date in 1636, the first militia regiments in North America were organized in Massachusetts. Based upon an order of the Massachusetts Bay Colony's General Court, the colony's militia was organized into three permanent regiments to better defend the colony.

Today, the descendants of these first regiments - the 181st Infantry, the 182nd Infantry, the 101st Field Artillery, and the 101st Engineer Battalion of the Massachusetts Army National Guard – share the distinction of being the oldest units in the U.S. military.

December 13, 1636, thus marks the beginning of the organized militia, and the birth of the National Guard's oldest organized units is symbolic of the founding of all the state, territory, and District of Columbia militias that collectively make up today's National Guard.

NATIONAL GUARDS THE KEEPERS OF THE DREAM. This is a message to anyone who ever believed they could be something great when they grow up. It’s an invitation to the future deliverers of promise and agents of change. To all who want to better themselves and the world around them by taking a path with purpose and being a part of something bigger. Join the heroes who have taken the vow to rebuild the broken and defend the good. Welcome to the greatest cause of your lifetime. Your own.

Terrible Love is in the Austin Film Festival

"A bittersweet autopsy of mental illness and lost love, Terrible Love tells the story of Rufus, a wounded veteran returning home from Iraq with post-traumatic stress disorder, and his devoted wife Amy. They promised themselves never to leave each other, but that promise is put to the ultimate test when Rufus’ PTSD becomes violent. Terrible Love dives head first into the heart-breaking effects of PTSD, the relationships it hurts, and the lives it threatens."

Terrible Love Winner of the Audience Award at the 2014 Austin Film Festival
This is just to let you know you do matter to a lot of people and we care about what is happening to you over there as much as we care about what happens to you here.