Happy Thanksgiving

 

Currently

It's been a while since I've done one of these posts and what better time write one up then on my birthday. 30. I'm 30 people. I thought it would be awful as I'm still living at home, not married, no children, but to be honest, I'm really looking forward to entering my 30's. I'm not really considered a young adult and it's coming to a point where I'm not caring at all what people say or what I say to people. 

Goodreads Reviews: Parachute Infantry

Parachute Infantry: An American Paratrooper's Memoir of D-Day and the Fall of the Third Reich by David Kenyon Webster

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

After reading several other biographies of the Easy Company men, I noticed hardly any of them spoke about David Webster. Donald Malarkey considered him a terrible soldier and felt that his role in the mini-series was a waste. It is sad to read that there seems to be no love loss for David Webster who fought for his country and believed in the same ideals of freedom. Webster didn't sign up for the paratroopers for any general death defying purpose or to be with the best. Although an ardent patriot, Webster was a writer not a soldier. His part as a Screaming Eagle was to observe and record warfare and military, both of which he despised.

Born into a well to do family in New York, David Webster was enrolled in Harvard University studying literature and journalism when Pearl Harbor was hit. He signed up for the paratroopers and was sent to Taccoa to train. Actually, David wasn't originally in Easy Company. He seemed to be sent to whatever company needed him at the time. However, David spent a lot of time with the men of Easy Company.

Over the course of the war, Webster meticulously chronicles the events of a soldiers life in the 101st Airborne. From Georgia to England (where he was constantly getting into trouble), to the first jump in Normandy and the events of the disastrous Operation Market-Garden, where he was wounded and sent back to England for recovery. He missed out on Bastogne, but returned for Haguenau and then the eventual taking over of Hitler's Eagle Nest.

David's opinions on the military were less than positive. He despised the higher ranking echelons and the military rank that interfered with the real reason they were at war. However, he respected and revered the company of soldiers he fought with and held great admiration for Dick Winters.

After the war, David had tried to get his book published over the years, but it was constantly rejected. In 1962, David was killed in a shark fishing accident. Parachute Infantry was posthumously published in 1994, shortly after the publishing of Band of Brothers. In the mini-series, David was featured prominently in episode 8-The Last Patrol, where he returns from England, but due to missing Bastogne, he's treated like an outsider and must fight to win back the respect of his friends.

Possibly the most detailed of the Easy Company series, Parachute Infantry combines David's recollections of WWII while they were still fresh in a young man's memory. War in David's mind was not something to be celebrated. He wondered if people would ever truly understand the hardships, the fear, the sacrifice of the soldiers who left their homes and families. Dying at 39, David was young his whole life. He would never know the gratitude that generations hold for the men he wrote of.

LOTR Read-Along: The Fellowship of the Ring: Many Meetings

We're into book two!

Frodo's alive!

And he's finally made it to Rivendell!

Oh look...Gandalf is back. 

LOTR Read-Along: The Fellowship of the Ring: Flight to the Ford

We're halfway through! The book really does pick up the pace after the hobbits head into Bree and thank goodness for that. After Frodo is wounded by the Morgul blade, he begins to sink deeper and deeper into madness. He won't die, but he will become like the Ringwraiths. For the next several days, Aragorn and the hobbits race against the clock to get Frodo to Rivendell, which is still miles away.

Inklings Link-Up~November 2020

Yahh! The Inklings Link-Up has become a series that I always look forward too! Here are my link-ups from September and October. 

1. At any time during the month, on your own blog post a scene from a book or film that matches the prompt, including a link back here in your post.

2. Link-back to Heidi's blog in the comments section with a link to you Inklings prompt.

November Prompt

A character making an undignified splash in book or film (i.e. landing in the likes of mud, or water dumped over their head etc.)

LOTR Read-Along: The Fellowship of the Ring: A Knife in the Dark

A lot happens in this chapter! The evil of Sauron is beginning to seep into the once safeguarded borders of the Shire. The ever watchful and quick thinking Brandybucks (Merry's family), sound the alarm warning all the hobbits that evil is approaching. Soon all of the Shire is awake with the sound of horns and alarms and the little folk successfully banish the Black Riders from their land, if only for a little time. 

To Be Alone--My Struggle with Loneliness

In January of 2019 I wrote this post The Popular Girl (Not) and to my surprise, I found it to be very relieving. After almost 10 years online and I'm just now allowing myself to express who I am, my thoughts, feelings, heartaches and past issues in my writing. So often, I used writing to mask what I was really feeling; almost a form of therapy to vent my emotions. Writing that post last year was the beginning of well...for lack of a better term...revealing myself to the world. A vulnerable and terrifying thing to do, but I feel so much stronger when I take that uncertain step and let my words take over. Since then I've written about abortion, menstrual cycles, political and religious beliefs, my own childhood struggles, personal family stories and feminism, with certainly more to come.

The Crown: Season 3

Seasons 1 & 2 Review

With the premiere of season 4 just around the corner I thought it was time I wrote this very overdue review! Season 3 was good, but not...great. The luster and beauty of the first two seasons that took place in post-war 40s and into the 50s is most definitely lacking in this season. We've now entered 1960's Great Britain, an era of absolute change, a desiring of what's new and the disregarding of what's old. With rebellion in the air and on the streets, the Royal Family have become an outdated tourist attraction. And members themselves are desperate to movie out of the Crown's heavy shadow.

Goodreads Reviews: The Five: The Untold Live of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper

The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I had never had an interest in Jack the Ripper or the terror he unleashed in Whitechapel, London in the 1880s. By disregarding this notorious murderer, I was by default disregarding his five victims. My whole life I had read that Jack the Ripper had murdered five prostitutes in the dead of the night. So because they were prostitutes then obviously they were of no importance to history. They must not have had names to remember, lives that had been lived, families they had loved.

Victorian Whitechapel was the center point of poverty, violence and prostitution. Little care or decency was given to the residents. They were all equally low in the eyes of society. So when a woman is killed in the night, she must be a prostitute because of course all women who traveled alone at night were considered prostitutes.

Hallie Rubenhold's book changed everything that I had heard or had at least bothered to hear. Through meticulous research and the use of family records, marriage certificates, work permits and poor house registrations, Hallie has completely destroyed the historical narrative of 'Jack the Ripper's five murdered prostitutes', and has presented the five real women, with real lives, dreams, families, loss and heartbreak. Several of these women did engage in prostitution, but only when they had lost everything and were in desperate survival.

Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elisabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly were five very different woman, with five very different lives and yet they shared many societal similarities. They were daughters from poor families that did the best they could for their girls. They were young women who fell in love with handsome men and had dreams of happy futures. They were mothers to big families that they desperately tried to raise amidst poverty and despair. They were also alcoholics and one by one as they either watched their children die or their husband break his marriage vow or society demanding to much from a young wife and mother, these women turned to alcohol to deaden the pain they were sinking into.

Alcohol led to homelessness and life on the streets in Whitechapel. And inevitably, their untimely end at the hands of Jack the Ripper.

This is probably one of the best books I have read this year! Hallie's concise writing style that borders on both biography and narrative really captures the essence of a well told history lesson. She was also rather harsh with history's representation of these women and that by glorifying their murderer, the world was turning a blind eye to the real suffering of these women. By claiming these women to all be prostitutes, Victorian London used them as examples of immorality and what can happen when a women loses all morals. That as a prostitute, she deserves death with no remorse.

These five women all deserve so much more than just casual mentions in history books. The Five finally gives these women the factual and overdue truth that has been denied them for centuries.

LOTR Read-Along: The Fellowship of the Ring: Strider

After Frodo's vanishing act, he knows he may have well and truly ended everything for himself and the mission. Unbeknownst to him though, is that an unexpected ally has been patiently waiting for him. The solitary Strider turns to be a friend of Gandalf's (whom the wizard had mentioned months ago to Frodo in his story of the Ring's origins) and has arrived at The Prancing Pony under Gandalf's request as he could not be there himself. 

LOTR Read-Along: The Fellowship of the Ring: At the Sign of the Prancing Pony

Now that we've survived the Barrow-Downs, a little fun may be in order. The Hobbits have arrived at Bree. A town populated by Big Folk, as well as other outlander hobbits, dwarves and the mysterious northern rangers. Bree is a crossroads town that sees the comings and going of different people groups and therefore stories, gossip and information filters through houses and pubs at a constant rate.

Unbroken: The Path to Redemption

Picking up literally where the first film left off, Path to Redemption is the final segment in Louis Zamprini's biography, Unbroken and the beginning of his new life that changed the world. Louis has overcome prejudice, crashes, war, prison camps and endless enemies. Yet, his greatest and most powerful war is about to begin. The war for his heart and his soul. PTSD which leads to alcoholism and the desire to hunt down and kill the man who almost destroyed him makes Louis his own worst enemy. Yet, the most difficult paths are often the ones that teach us, mold us, help us to fight stronger and run faster. Toward a life of insurmountable joy.