Re: hats

[Guest guest]

I love hats. i have tons of hats. At any given time I have maybe

seven or eight hats hanging all over the place in my classroom on campus

with more at home. I have a hat to match every dress that I wear...when

we go outside the kids ask which color hat I want to wear or they just

look at my dress and try to find the right color hat for me that day.

But my favorite hat is one my daughter gave me. I wear it alot although

it does not match my dresses. That hat has a story behind it...that hat

has seen carnage, that hat has seen what hate really is...that hat has

seen heroism, and that hat has seen trust, compassion and strength.

That hat that i wear often is the hat she was wearing when she was

aboard the USS Cole on October 12, 2000 in the Port of Arden in

Yemen...that hat went thru a terrorists bombing...that hat crawled thru

the mangeld messhall over broken glass, twisted pieces of metal, live

wires, body parts to save trapped sailors that were screaming for their

shipmates to help them. That hat carried a two hundred pound sailor out

on the wearers back to triage...that hat saved that sailors life...that

hat manned a machine gun on the deck for forty eight hours straight

protecting her ship until the marines arrived....That hat was the hat my

daughter wore on that day that i learned so much about hatred...how

others can hate Americans so much, that they would want to destroy a

symbol of American might....a Naval Destroyer...

But that hat and the other hats aboard prevailed...they kept that ship

afloat,...they put out the fires...they searched and rescued their

shipmates and they found their dead and prayed...That hat i wear

sometimes at school I am so very proud of cause it was worn by a

hero...my daughter....USS Cole = October 12, 2000...never forget the

seventeen...chippy