Funny response to a sad situation.

Homes for Heroes is keeping the tradition of “Funny Friday”…

Which Colleges Give Credit For Military Service?

Homes for Heroes suggests Military personnel who want to go to school should check this out…

Your service in the Military may have earned you up to a full semester of college credit. Military.com connects you to hundreds of schools who recognize the work you’ve already done.

Make sure to get college credit for military service. Find Military Friendly Schools Now.

Visit the site here.

61-year old to take final deployment.

Homes for Heroes admires this guy…

CAMP ATTERBURY JOINT MANEUVER TRAINING CENTER, Ind. – At 61-years-old, many folks are retired or planning on it. At 61, many spend time with grandchildren, focus energy on hobbies and live out their golden years. Of course, this doesn’t apply to everybody. Jim Brown is a husband, a father and a grandfather. He is a small-business owner and a Vietnam War veteran. He is also the Indiana National Guard’s former most senior enlisted non-commissioned officer and is readying for a yearlong deployment to Afghanistan.

Read the rest of the article here.

Vets Face Blizzard of Red Tape.

Homes for Heroes promises NO RED TAPE!

Combat veterans returning to the U.S. often find themselves facing frustrating and complex red tape when they try to access benefits or make appointments for services, according to a report released by Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). The report is expected to be the centerpiece of a campaign when Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are arranging to meet with members of Congress to talk about their needs. Improving the veterans’ benefits claims process is the top priority for 2010 of all major veterans groups, and several, including IAVA, are trying to draw up a
comprehensive plan to address claims delays. For further information or to read this article in full, please go to this site.

Big Welcome Home For Firefighter Injured On Duty

Homes for Heroes would like to welcome home firefighter Cory Broich of Minnesota!

ST. CLOUD, Minn. (WCCO) ―
He nearly lost his legs in a freak accident, but a Minnesota firefighter says he’s fortunate as he heads home from the hospital.

Read the rest of the article here.

How to prepare for a deployment to Iraq

Homes for Heroes found this humorous…as long as you don’t have to be there.

1. Sleep on a cot in the garage.

2. Replace the garage door with a curtain.

3. Six hours after you go to sleep, have your wife or girlfriend whip open the curtain, shine a flashlight in your eyes and mumble, “Sorry, wrong cot.”

4. Renovate your bathroom. Hang a green plastic sheet down from the middle of your bathtub and move the showerhead down to chest level.

Keep four inches of soapy cold water on the floor. Stop cleaning the toilet and pee everywhere but in the toilet itself. Leave two to three sheets of toilet paper. Or for best effect, remove it altogether. For a more realistic deployed bathroom experience, stop using your bathroom and use a neighbor’s. Choose a neighbor who lives at least a quarter mile away.

5. When you take showers, wear flip-flops and keep the lights off.

6. Every time there is a thunderstorm, go sit in a wobbly rocking chair and dump dirt on your head.

7. Put lube oil in your humidifier instead of water and set it on “HIGH”

for that tactical generator smell.

8. Don’t watch TV except for movies in the middle of the night. Have your family vote on which movie to watch and then show a different one.

9. Leave a lawnmower running in your living room 24 hours a day for proper noise level.

10. Have the paperboy give you a haircut.

11. Once a week, blow compressed air up through your chimney making sure the wind carries the soot across and on to your neighbor’s house. Laugh at him when he curses you.

12. Buy a trash compactor and only use it once a week. Store up garbage in the other side of your bathtub.

13. Wake up every night at midnight and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on a saltine cracker.

14. Make up your family menu a week ahead of time without looking in your food cabinets or refrigerator. Then serve some kind of meat in an unidentifiable sauce poured over noodles. Do this for every meal.

15. Set your alarm clock to go off at random times during the night.

When it goes off, jump out of bed and get to the shower as fast as you can. Simulate there is no hot water by running out into your yard and breaking out the garden hose.

16. Once a month, take every major appliance completely apart and put it back together again.

17. Use 18 scoops of coffee per pot and allow it to sit for five or six hours before drinking.

18. Invite at least 185 people you don’t really like because of their strange hygiene habits to come and visit for a couple of months.

Exchange clothes with them.

19. Have a fluorescent lamp installed on the bottom of your coffee table and lie under it to read books.

20. Raise the thresholds and lower the top sills of your front and back doors so that you either trip over the threshold or hit your head on the sill every time you pass through one of them.

21. Keep a roll of toilet paper on your night stand and bring it to the bathroom with you. And bring your gun and a flashlight.

22. Go to the bathroom when you just have to pass gas, “just in case.”

Every time.

23. Announce to your family that they have mail, have them report to you as you stand outside your open garage door after supper and then say, “Sorry, it’s for the other Smith.”

24. Wash only 15 items of laundry per week. Roll up the semi-wet clean clothes in a ball. Place them in a cloth sack in the corner of the

garage where the cat pees. After a week, unroll them and without

ironing or removing the mildew, proudly wear them to professional meetings and family gatherings. Pretend you don’t know what you look or smell like. Enthusiastically repeat the process for another week.

25. Go to the worst crime-infested place you can find, go heavily armed, wearing a flak jacket and a Kevlar helmet. Set up shop in a tent in a vacant lot. Announce to the residents that you are there to help them.

26. Eat a single M&M every Sunday and convince yourself it’s for Malaria.

27. Demand each family member be limited to 10 minutes per week for a morale phone call. Enforce this with your teenage daughter.

28. Shoot a few bullet holes in the walls of your home for proper ambiance.

29. Sandbag the floor of your car to protect from mine blasts and fragmentation.

30. While traveling down roads in your car, stop at each overpass and culvert and inspect them for remotely detonated explosives before proceeding.

31. Fire off 50 cherry bombs simultaneously in your driveway at 3:00 a.

m. When startled neighbors appear, tell them all is well, you are just registering mortars. Tell them plastic will make an acceptable substitute for their shattered windows.

32. Drink your milk and sodas warm.

33. Spread gravel throughout your house and yard.

34. Make your children clear their Super Soakers in a clearing barrel you placed outside the front door before they come in.

35. Make your family dig a survivability position with overhead cover in the backyard. Complain that the 4x4s are not 8 inches on center and make them rebuild it.

36. Continuously ask your spouse to allow you to go buy an M-Gator.

37. When your 5-year-old asks for a stick of gum, have him find the exact stick and flavor he wants on the Internet and print out the web page. Type up a Form 9 and staple the web page to the back. Submit the paperwork to your spouse for processing. After two weeks, give your son the gum.

38. Announce to your family that the dog is a vector for disease and shoot it. Throw the dog in a burn pit you dug in your neighbor’s back yard.

39. Wait for the coldest/hottest day of the year and announce to your family that there will be no heat/air conditioning that day so you can perform much needed maintenance on the heater/air conditioner. Tell them you are doing this so they won’t get cold/hot.

40. Just when you think you’re ready to resume a normal life, order yourself to repeat this process for another six months to simulate the next deployment you’ve been ordered to support.

COOK, WENDY R.

1LT, MP

Assistant S4

720th Military Police Battalion

Military OneSource Tax Filing Services

Homes for Heroes suggests Military personnel check out this site for help with their taxes!

Military OneSource brings you H&R Block At Home® (formerly TaxCut) online tax filing through the Military OneSource Web site and telephonic tax consultations by calling our tax hotline at 1-800-730-3802. Prepare your 2009 state and federal taxes with this easy-to-use program. Provided by the Department of Defense, H&R Block At Home® is and free to active duty, National Guard, and Reserve service members and their families. Have questions?

Please Catch My Baby!

Homes for Heroes wants to share this inspiring article about how firefighters rescued a family, including a 7-month old baby, from a fourth-floor window.

United States (New York) – Ten people including a 7-month-old child who was dangled from a fourth-floor window by her terrified cousin – were plucked from a Bronx apartment inferno in a stunning series of rescues yesterday, authorities said. Firefighters rushed to the high-rise on Pelham Parkway and Wallace Avenue shortly after 2 p.m. to find several people trapped in a smoke-clogged, three-bedroom apartment and many at windows gasping for air.

Read the rest here.

Nevada Officer Saved From Bullet By Badge

Homes for Heroes thinks this is an awesome story worth sharing…

The Associated Press

Sunday, Feb. 14, 2010 | 12:51 p.m.

A police officer’s badge may have saved his life when it stopped a bullet during an exchange of gunfire in North Las Vegas.

Police say the 31-year-old officer was patrolling just before 10 p.m. Saturday when he heard shots being fired in an apartment complex.

While investigating, the officer came upon a person with a gun and opened fire. The officer returned fire and was hit. But the bullet hit the badge, and the officer suffered only minor injuries.

The person with the gun fled.

Police continued to search Sunday for the suspect, who might also be injured.

The injured police officer’s name was not immediately released.

Article from this site.

Adding Patriotism To Your Marketing

Homes for Heroes suggests that you incorporate some of your patriotism into your business, and see how it helps…

Adding Patriotism To Your Marketing

by Gary Onks

Prior to September 11 of last year it was considered quite stuffy, old fashioned and even politically incorrect (in some circles) to wave the red, white and blue. Now we see flags flying almost everywhere, and being patriotic is not only back in vogue, it’s good business.

Patriotism touches hearts especially with seniors, most of whom are military veterans. All seniors lived through the terrors and problems caused by World War II and Korea, both abroad and at home. Boomers and GenX’s also served in the military or lost loved ones through the Vietnam War years of the sixties and early seventies and the Gulf War of the early nineties.

Continuing terrorist events have everyone longing for simpler, safer times. Patriotic, nostalgic, down-home, country or farmland images really link to tender memories in just about everyone.

Grab hold of motherhood, brotherhood, apple pie, hearth and home in your ads, and you’ve got yourself a winner. Are you using any advertising themes that show appreciation for our military veterans? How about doing salutes to the local police, fire and rescue personnel?

Give flags as closing gifts, along with a copy of the rules for the care and flying of the American flag. Include the rules in your next newsletter, or e-mail the rules on patriotic holidays to your farm.

Solicit testimonials and comments from your clients with this type of background and show the community just how much you and your company appreciates their efforts and sacrifices.

Capturing these types of feelings in your ads will score big time with everyone in your market area. Nostalgia and customers now go together like sentence structure – the Past is Perfect, but the Present is Tense.

Published: October 18, 2002

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.