Happy Father's Day

Know Your Medal of Honor Recipients:

Private Charles N. Gardner (US Army) received his Medal of Honor for his actions on April 1, 1865, at Five Forks, Virginia. His citation reads:

Capture of flag.

Private Charles Gardner (US Army) received his Medal of Honor for his actions from August to October 1868, in Arizona. His citation reads:

Bravery in scouts and actions against Indians.

First Lieutenant James A. Gardner (US Army) received his Medal of Honor for his actions on February 7, 1966, at My Canh, Vietnam. His citation reads:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. 1st Lt. Gardner's platoon was advancing to relieve a company of the 1st Battalion that had been pinned down for several hours by a numerically superior enemy force in the village of My Canh, Vietnam. The enemy occupied a series of strongly fortified bunker positions which were mutually supporting and expertly concealed. Approaches to the position were well covered by an integrated pattern of fire including automatic weapons, machine guns and mortars. Air strikes and artillery placed on the fortifications had little effect. 1st Lt. Gardner's platoon was to relieve the friendly company by encircling and destroying the enemy force. Even as it moved to begin the attack, the platoon was under heavy enemy fire. During the attack, the enemy fire intensified. Leading the assault and disregarding his own safety, 1st Lt. Gardner charged through a withering hail of fire across an open rice paddy. On reaching the first bunker he destroyed it with a grenade and without hesitation dashed to the second bunker and eliminated it by tossing a grenade inside. Then, crawling swiftly along the dike of a rice paddy, he reached the third bunker. Before he could arm a grenade, the enemy gunner leaped forth, firing at him. 1st Lt. Gardner instantly returned the fire and killed the enemy gunner at a distance of 6 feet. Following the seizure of the main enemy position, he reorganized the platoon to continue the attack. Advancing to the new assault position, the platoon was pinned down by an enemy machine gun emplaced in a fortified bunker. 1st Lt. Gardner immediately collected several grenades and charged the enemy position, firing his rifle as he advanced to neutralize the defenders. He dropped a grenade into the bunker and vaulted beyond. As the bunker blew up, he came under fire again. Rolling into a ditch to gain cover, he moved toward the new source of fire. Nearing the position, he leaped from the ditch and advanced with a grenade in one hand and firing his rifle with the other. He was gravely wounded just before he reached the bunker, but with a last valiant effort he staggered forward and destroyed the bunker, and its defenders with a grenade. Although he fell dead on the rim of the bunker, his extraordinary actions so inspired the men of his platoon that they resumed the attack and completely routed the enemy. 1st Lt. Gardner's conspicuous gallantry were in the highest traditions of the U.S. Army.


Happy Father’s Day to all of the dads out there (including new dad, my friend Michael). I hope you enjoy it because if your house is anything like mine, this is probably the only day when everyone will be nice to you. :)

I could say some more about my Dad, but I decided instead to give some fatherly advice to Daniel, my Godson Lucas, and my nephew Austin. Right now, this advice is really more for Austin, but if Daniel and Lucas ever play baseball it will be for them too. I would let Sonny give this advice to Austin, but I’m not sure he was on a baseball team that ever really won anything, so I’ll step up here. Before we get to the advice, allow me to tell you a little story…

The year was 1994 and I was a freshman on the James Island baseball team. In all honesty, my main role on this team was to keep the book. I know it doesn’t sound like much to you, but I learned a ton about the mental game of baseball and about coaching baseball during my time keeping the book. But that’s not the point of this story. That team won the 8-AAA Region Championship (the first of 5 straight)… but we didn’t know we’d won it until the next day. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but I think we had to wait for the result of the Hilton Head game before we knew if we’d won it or not. Anyway, we found out we won the next day at practice. At the end of practice, Coach Hatley told everyone to get where they were at the end of the game the night before. He had the pitcher throw a pitch and then he yell “We just won the region!” Everyone ran to the mound for the ‘dogpile’. It was a blast! It was so much fun that we wanted to keep winning so that we’d have a chance to do that again (that wasn’t the only reason… but it really was a big reason). I might be wrong, but I think we did it when we won the district in the playoffs and I know we did it when we won the Lower State and State championships. In all of these, I got there from the bench and it was great. The one thing I regret is that in the 3 years after that, we never had a dogpile after “just” winning the region. We just acted like we’d been there before (because we had). Still, I wish that instead of acting like we’d been there before, we would have acted like we might never get there again. Anyway, it wasn’t until my junior year that we won the State Championship again. I don’t remember if we had a dogpile after winning Lower State… but I do remember the one after State. I was playing Second Base and the last hit came my way. I went far to my left, go the ball and threw a perfect strike to first (and by “perfect strike”, I mean I threw the ball a good 2 to 3 feet wide of the base… lucky for me my good friend Theo McDaniel was playing first and he was always able to catch anything I threw him while keeping his foot on the bag. So there it was, we won state! I got to the mound about the same time as the catcher and ended up at the bottom of the pile with our catcher (Moose) and our pitcher (Adam). All I remember is us being on the bottom yelling for everyone to get up. I thought my head was going to get crushed like a grape.

This leads me to my advice. The dogpile is great… it’s a ton of fun… but do your best to never be on the bottom. I know there might be times when you can’t help it (if you’re a pitcher or catcher and you win while you’re in the field, protocol states that you be on the bottom… I don’t know why it is, but that’s how it is). If you score the winning run, you’ll probably be on the bottom. But, trust me when I tell you this… If you can ever help it, don’t be on the bottom of the dogpile. If you find yourself close (like I was playing second base) take some time to “Tebow” or just jump up and down for a second and point at the sky. I mean, you don’t want to be on the bottom of the pile… but you don’t want to look like you don’t want to be there. So you can’t just stand and wait… you have to look like you’re doing something and rushing to get there. But do your best to not get there too soon. You’ll thank me.


The I’m just sayin… Bible Verse of the Week
PROVERBS 23:24

The father of a righteous child has great joy;
    a man who fathers a wise son rejoices in him.