2021 Year in Review

 Just Sat down with Meghan and jotted down things that happened this year. A bit of a word vomit, but here it is, the Blansett Family's 2021 year in review. (Pay no attention to the careless hopping between 1st and 3rd person)

Blansett Family Year in Review: 2021

January: 

• Due to extenuating circumstance we had to be out of our house by the end of February – all out sprint to figure out what we were going to do – looking for new rentals in town, looking into living on base, looking into moving trucks etc.. Finally ended up deciding we would have to move everything into storage, Meghan would have to take aspen and the dogs and live with her mom until we were able to buy a house at our new duty station (we still didn’t know where this would be).

• Announced Pregnant on Christmas Day 2020 to Friends and Family

• Aspen turned 7 months old

• Meghan began to slowly pack up the house into boxes

• Courtney Bergeman Visits

• Meghan begins to show the house (that we are renting and she is packing up) to potential buyers per our property management company’s request.

• Infantry Officer Course Starts January 12 with the CET (Combat Endurance Test).

• Meghan helps me weave together a homemade ghillie suite (cobra hood) for an upcoming field exercise. 

February:

• Able to be home for Valentines day and take Meghan and Aspen to the Metro Diner (one of our favorite places to eat breakfast, enjoy coffee, and maybe play scrabble if Aspen was behaving.)

• Trade in the truck to get a Ford Fiesta. Reliable and good gas mileage.. But TINY. 

• Feb 21 I spend my last weekend at home before a long field event during which the girls would be moving to missouri. We had to say goodbye for the next 5 months until we are albe to all live under the same roof again.  We had a great last Saturday morning at Cracker Barrel and Aspen grabbed the menu all by herself. 

• Feb 26th Movers come to pack up the house in Fredericksburg and move our entire house into storage – Financial help from family made this possible. 

• Meghan drives to Missouri with Dana, Aspen, Olive in her Tummy, Rogue, and Mattis to spend the next few months living with Dana awaiting our orders to find out where we will live, and where we will need to buy a house. Unsure of when we will find this out!

March:

• Get orders to Camp Lejeune on Jo’s Birthday March 5. Meghan is now able to begin looking for a house and putting in offers. (She does this all by herself as Jo was in the field for almost the entire month.)

• March 27 Palm Fex is over (The last major exercise of IOC – There is no no chance of injury or being dropped, I will graduate!)

• Return from 29 Palms California and prepare to Graduate the hardest school I will go through. I feel too relieved to put it into words. 

• 29th after Palm Fex Is over I get my phone and meghan tells me an offer was accepted for a house! We are going off of a few pictures on Zillow and spending way over budget. But it is a house!

April:

• Meghan flys into DC and we spend the night together in the Trump Hotel April 1st and 2nd.

• Aspen crawls for the first time in the hotel on April 3rd. 

• IOC Graduation on April 2nd. 

• Spend easter together in DC as a family. Eat at the hard rock café and then on easter Drop Meghan off at the airport/ tears as I watch her carry both of my daughters away. One in her arms and one in her womb to spend another month away from their Dad. And to spend another month away from eachother. Begin to think about the sustainability of this career path. Watching your family walk through the airport terminal away from you is a sombering and saddening moment. But just one more difficult school to get through and then the rest of the year we will be at least within a 4 hour driving distance and be able to spend every weekend together. 

• Scout Sniper Employment Course Begins

• April 21st. Beth meets Aspen for the first time in Odessa. 

• Scout sniper Graduation April 30th. 

• April 30th at 1 am Meghan, Bill, Beth, Aspen, Olive in the tummy, and the doggies begin the drive from Missouri to Virginia Beach to an Airbnb that I will meet them at. 

• April 30th I arrive in VA beach at the air bnb later than expected around 9 pm and reunite with my family. 

• Meghans Birthday!

May:

• May 1st Aspen Goes to the Beach for the first time. 

• Tactical Intelligence Officer’s Course starts in Dam Neck VA

• Meghan is able to spend time with Mom and Bill in the Air bnb. Such a joy to see my Mom with Aspen. I love seeing her be a grandma and wish that I could see that more often. Such a treasured time. 

• May 6th Move to a different Air Bnb

• Celebrate mothers day on May 9th at Blue Petes restaurant. 

• We say goodbye to mom and Bill on May 7. I never feel like I am able to say enough of a goodbye. After they leave I feel I didn’t say enough to make them appreciate how much we love them and miss them. This is likely always the feeling when you are saying goodbye for the next year to two years. 

• Celebrate our 3 Year anniversary at the melting pot. 

• May 14th able to move into house early – We have an air mattress, pack and play, and no furniture but begin painting that weekend. 

• May 17th Movers arrive to move all of our household items that have been in storage the past couple of months. 

• May 29th Aspen gets her ears pierced for her 1 year birthday present. She did great!

• 31st have aspens zoom birthday party with cake . 

June:

• June 2nd Meg drives up to Dam Neck  - we go to the beach for crab hunting with Aspen. Stay the night in my hotel room (twin bed). 

• June 3rd Meg fly’s out to Missouri for Dana’s wedding. 

• June 4th Jo fly’s out to Missouri.

• June 5th Dana’s Wedding – Aspen has about 10 crazy poopy diapers, and unbeknownst to us is beginning to get sick. 

• 6th. All fly back to VA Beach together. Aspen gets very sick on the plane, A nice bystander gives us a pair of clothes in the airport because Aspen pooped and or threw up on all the clothes we had for her. 

• 20th Celebrate Father’s day together. 

• 26th finished our first home project, downstairs bathroom remodel. 

• 27th Finished a homemade babygate for the stairs. 

• TIOC Graduation

July:

• Ground Intelligence Officer’s Course starts in Dam Neck VA

• Same routine for Ryans wedding in Missouri – meg drives up and flys out of VA, I follow a few days later day of the wedding. 

• July 3rd – visit our old friend Ralf in St. Louis , Aspen goes swimming in a pool for the first time. 

• July 3rd. Air conditioner goes capoot while we are out of state and floods the stairs. Our dogsitter is able to coordinate getting a tech in to fix. 

• July 3rd. visit Ken and Alex. 

• Aspen walks for the first time!

• GIOC Graduation July 27– Receive the Terrance C. Graves Award for being the Honor Graduate. Receive the Captain Brent L. Morel Award for being voted by peers to be the 0203 who will make the greatest positive impact on the USMC and Intelligence Community.

• Make the Drive from Dam Neck to Jacksonville NC for the LAST TIME and am Finally Home!!!

August:

• 3rd begin Garage project to make a home gym. 

• Become Members at Pillar Church of Jacksonville. 

• Keith visits for a weekend.

• Start taking Aspen to the Beach regularly.

• 13th False alarm. 

• Dana drives out to stay during expected due date to help.

• 17th Jo checks into 2 Marine Division

• 20th Begin work on the Fireplace

• 26 Meg goes into Labor

• 27 Olive is born at 8:02 Am!

• Meghan is Bed ridden for over a week due to bad epidural. ER visit unsuccessful/very frustrating, they want to separate meg from Olive for her to get treatment for her epidural and wont let me or aspen in the waiting room or the treatment room due to covid. The obvious hysteria is very evident as covid is valued over separating a mother from her newborn baby. We are disgusted with cool aid drinking going on all around us. 

September:

• 2. Olive’s first bath at home!

• 6th Family Photos!

• 7th. First outdoor fire in the partially completed fireplace. 

• 10 Cook Pizza on outdoor oven for the first time

• Spend lots of time at home together as a family this month. Also lots of work on the fireplace. 

October:

• Morgan Shippy visits for a weekend. 

• Aspen Wears bell bottoms to our small group for Halloween. 

November:

• 5 Jo checks in to 1st Battalion 6th Marines as the s2 Alpha. 

• Tony visits for a week. 

• Dana visits 

• Both girls get sick

• Olive spends the night in the ER. High temp and heartrate. 

 -     Jo shares testimony to the church

• Caleb and Lily visit for thanksgiving and we eat our meal on my moms old Africa plateware. 

• Caleb helps me put the mantle on the Outdoor fireplace. 

• Go to a Christmas tree farm and find a tree. 

• Caleb takes our Christmas family photo. 

• 27 Decorate for Christmas

December:

• Advent starts (Meghan makes a full calendar of events for each day and we follow a reading plan at dinner each night. Really helped us be in the right mindset to anticipate Christmas Day and be thankful and at peace. 

• Promoted to 1st Lt on 14th. 

• Hayride Christmas light show. Surprised that at the end they played the national anthem and everyone on the ride stood to say the pledge of allegiance (its been years we had seen anything like this outside of the military.) Was great to see patriotic americans in the public when so often this isn’t what is conveyed or observed. 

• Dana Visits for Christmas

• Deana suprises us and shows up on Christmas eve. The more the merrier! 

• What a year it has been!!!

Proposed 2022 Reading

 

2022 Reading

January:

• “The path to Being a Pastor” – Bobby Jamieson (Pillar Jax Leaders Cohort)

• “Weapons and Tactics” – Jim Wilson (Men’s book group on base)

• “Ploductivity” – Douglas Wilson (Personal)

• “Excused Absence” – (Plodding with Todd)

• “Orthodoxy” – G.K Chesterton (Commute Listen)

• “So Come to Jesus” – Douglas Wilson (Daily Devotional)

February:

• “Knowing God” – J.I. Packer (Pillar Jax Leaders Cohort)

• “Gates of Fire” – Steven Pressfield (Commute Listen)

• “Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace” – Doctrinal Pub (Professional)

• “So Come to Jesus” – Douglas Wilson (Daily Devotional)

March:

• “Praying the Bible” – Don Whitney (Pillar Jax Leaders Cohort)

• 9 Marks Journal on The Church Praying (Pillar Jax Leaders Cohort)

• “The Killer Angels” – Michael Shaara (Commute Listen)

• “Warfighting” –MCDP 1 (Professional)

• “So Come to Jesus” – Douglas Wilson (Daily Devotional)

April:

• “Family Driven Faith” – Voddie Baucham (Pillar Jax Leaders Cohort)

• 9 Marks Journal The Pastor and Pornography (Pillar Jax Leaders Cohort)

• “Tactics” – MCDP 1-3 (Professional)

• “So Come to Jesus” – Douglas Wilson (Daily Devotional)

May:

• “The Unquenchable Flame” – Michael Reeves (Pillar Jax Leaders Cohort)

• “Word-Centered Church” – Jonathan Leeman (Pillar Jax Leaders Cohort)

• “Old Paths” – J.C. Ryle

• “So Come to Jesus” – Douglas Wilson (Daily Devotional)

June:

• “Hidden in the Gospel” – William Farley (Pillar Jax Leaders Cohort)

• “Multiply” (Second Half) – Francis Chan (Pillar Jax Leaders Cohort)

• “So Come to Jesus” – Douglas Wilson (Daily Devotional)

July:

• “Multiply” (First Half) – Francis Chan (Pillar Jax Leaders Cohort)

• “So Come to Jesus” – Douglas Wilson (Daily Devotional)

August:

• “Principles of War” – Jim Wilson (Pillar Jax Leaders Cohort)

• “So Come to Jesus” – Douglas Wilson (Daily Devotional)

September:

• “Church Planting Basics” – Clint Clifton (Pillar Jax Leaders Cohort)

• “So Come to Jesus” – Douglas Wilson (Daily Devotional)

October:

• “Church Planting is for Wimps” – Mike McKinley (Pillar Jax Leaders Cohort)

• 9 Marks Journal on Revitalization (Pillar Jax Leaders Cohort)

• “So Come to Jesus” – Douglas Wilson (Daily Devotional)

November:

• “The Leadership Formula” – Juan Sanchez (Pillar Jax Leaders Cohort)

• “So Come to Jesus” – Douglas Wilson (Daily Devotional)

December:

• “Side by Side” – Edward Welch (Pillar Jax Leaders Cohort)

• “So Come to Jesus” – Douglas Wilson (Daily Devotional)

Don’t Know when; But in the queue:

• Rules for Reformers
• Restoring the Foundation of Civilization
• Mere Christianity
• Why Children Matter
• Reforming Marriage
• Standing on the Promises
• Thoughts for Young Men
• Future Men
• What he must be in order to Marry my Daughter
• Abolition of Man
• The Great Game: The myth and Reality od Espionage 
• Intelligence and Military operations: London Frank Cass & Co
• Intelligence in War: the value and limitations of what the military can learn about the enemy
• The secret war for the union. The untold story of military intelligence in the civil war
• G-2: intelligence for Patton
• Informal logic: a handbook for critical argumentation second edition
• How to lie with statistics 
• Cheating and deception: bell j bower
• Anticipating surprise: Cynthia grabo
• All 32 Worldview Guide Series from Canon Press
• Continued Reading with Todd
• Continued Reading with Men’s group on base

Others will be added as we go. 

This would have me at at least 40 books for the year. I would like to get as close to 100 as possible!

Books completed in 2022

-January

1. Empires of Dirt - Douglas Wilson
2. On Secular Education - R.L Dabney (Essay)
3. Worldview Guide Frankenstein - 
4. The Path to Being a Pastor - Bobbie Jamieson
5. Orthodoxy - G.K. Chesterton

-February

    6. It's Good to be a Man - Michael Foster

    7. 

-March

-April

-May

 8. Tribe - Sebastian Junger

-June

Easy Times

I recently saw a quote, "Hard times create strong men. Strong men create easy times. Easy times create weak men. Weak men create hard times. " 

This does illuminate a cycle present in history. It is very evident we are living in easy times, one must only look at the men in this country, and the sheer fact that saying "men" could be seen as a trigger. 

Belief in truth creates disciplined men. Disciplined men raise disciplined families. 

Belief in relative truth creates undisciplined, greedy men. Undisciplined, greedy men don't raise families, and when they do, they raise undisciplined, greedy families.  

The life of the latter feeds off the environment created by the former, and its ranks increase. 

The cycle repeats because truth cannot be undone, and the arbiter of truth cannot be unthroned. Truth prevails; but we are a sinful lot, for even our discipline can lead to the sin of self-righteousness. 

Before sending troops to stop the North Korean advance into South Korea the US Military had faced years of drawback. We sent in an Army contingent "Task Force Smith" and they lasted all but a few hours against the North's advance. The phrase is now commonplace in military circles - "No more Task Force Smiths" Untrained men do no good in war. 

We are living the warning laid out in Deuteronomy 6, and it strikes me each time we read it before Shabbat each weekend. You will inherent wells which you did not dig and cities which you did not build. And when you have eaten and are full, then beware lest you forget the lord your God. We are living in a country built by stronger men in our past, we did not labor for the freedoms we enjoy. We are plump and heavy from our pleasure driven culture, and as a nation, we have forgotten the Lord our God. 

Our family shall not forget. 

Don't shoot for a glistening trough.

 Proverbs 14:4 "Where no oxen are, the trough is clean; but much increase comes by the strength of an ox."

For oxen to gain strength they must eat from the trough. To accomplish work on the land, the oxen must be fed. If the trough is unused, it is safe to say the land is unworked. 

Don't be afraid of the mess that may be a byproduct of diligent work. Look ahead to the fruit of the labor. 

Where there are no children, a house may be perfectly organized and clean; but change in the world comes by the rearing of children. 

Great encouragement for myself and also Meghan as messes abound in this season. 

The implications of this verse are not limited to the application above. 

You don't have to worry about cleaning up after oxen if you don't have any, but you also won't have much profit. 

We will always have problems in life, we should seek after those problems that are associated with blessings. 

Some problems are good problems. 

Men's Breakfast Notes / Thoughts

 Attended a men's breakfast this morning at church - the topic of discussion was Worship and I wrote a handful of ideas down in my notebook that I wanted to transfer here and possibly expand upon if able. Also just some general notes/thoughts to follow

Books to read: C.S. Lewis "Letters to Malcom" also "The Analects" by Confucius. The latter was mentioned today in that Confucius wrote how conflicts arise generally because we miss title things or fail to define things correctly. Or we don't treat things as the title demands they be treated i.e. the title no longer has a meaning that it once did. Interested in getting a copy to read more. Also of note just came across Confuscious in another book I am listening to on my commute called "The hundred year marathon" about chinas strategic 100 year plan for world dominance which is currently being carried out, to be completed in 2049 so hang tight. I digress, Confucius was quoted in that book saying something along the lines of, the sky cannot have two suns, nor the earth two emperors. 

Psalm 96 vs 4-5" For the Lord is great and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are idols." 

If you read this and say amen, but then fail to identify what exactly the 'gods of the peoples' are in our society today then you may find yourself giving praise (with your time, effort, devotion, and fear) to one of the said gods of the people. So, it is necessary to ask, what are the false gods of our age? How do people serve them? Am I serving them? Do I fear them? Do I fear the repurcussions of not fearing them? You cannot answer those questions unless you actually define them. I think this is a point that is often missed in sermons and christian cirlces. We don't go deep enough to understand our current times and what to do with them. Like the men of Issachar, those men of old. 

Romans 1 vs 21 - 22 "Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools" This verse came up in discussion, definitely one that is underlined in my bible. Worldly wisdom is not wisdom at all. 

On Abraham and Isaac. I had never realized until today that before Abraham took Isaac up the mountain and left the rest of their party at the bottom he told them to stay and he said "when WE return". He didn't know what was going to happen but he knew that someone there would be descendants as numerous as the stars that would come from Isaac and he trusted that Promise that God had given him. Made me think about recent things I have read in which people question God and request signs in order to believe him - this is a time when Abraham didn't need any further questions to be answered but fully trusted in the Lord. Genesis 22

2 Timothy 3: 1-5  Throws in that children will be disobedient to their parents with a whole host of other sins . that they will appear righteous but deny God's power. Just another great verse that is underlined. And a good one to have in memory when thinking about disciplining children. 

Starting a book study with two other Leutenants from church. Going to read through Principles of war by jim wilson first and go from there. Excited to be doing a study with other guys at work. 1x infantry officer and 1x ground intel officer. Hope to add more as we go. 

Will be promoted to first Lt on Dec 15, Comes with a pay increase. And increase in responsibility as well as room for maneuver as more will trust automatically that you know what you are doing. 

Enjoying our advent this year, today is baking cookies to take to the neighbors and I am holding everyone up by typing so farewell, lets bake cookies!!

Sun Szu on spoiled children

 "Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even into death. 

If, however, you are indulgent, but unable to make your authority felt, kind-hearted but unable to enforce your commands; and incapable, moreover, of quelling disorder, then your soldiers must be likened to spoiled children; they are useless for any practical purpose. "

-Art of War, Sun Tzu

Likewise, regard your children as soldiers, for they will need to follow you into the deepest of valleys. They will need to stay the course until death. 

My Battalion Commander, LtCol Robeson, assigned a book for the Lts to read: This Kind of War, by T.R. Fehrenbach - A comprehensive history of the Korean War. I am thoroughly enjoying it. One key piece I have already taken away is that society aims to make us soft, they do not understand what it is that needs to be done or what kind of men are required to do it. "For he who desires peace must prepare for war. " Task Force Smith is a prime example. The first US Troops (Army) engaged to stop the advance of the North Koreans. They only lasted about 7 hours. 

The reality sunk in that deteriorating our efforts in training and equipping in times of peace is not a recipe for success in times of war. And times of war will undoubtably arise. 

Its not the critic who counts.

 

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

― Theodore Roosevelt

Miracle on 34th St.

One of the activities Meg has included in our advent calendar was to watch a christmas movie. This weekend we were scrolling through potential options and ended up watching just the preview for "Miracle on 34th St." 

I have not watched the movie, but from the preview I gathered the general synopsis. There is an old man who dresses up as Santa Clause each year (as many do across the country) for photo ops and to hear children's wish lists. Differing from most Santa's, this man truly does believe he is Santa Clause. It ends up going to court (again I haven't actually watched the movie) and his defendant makes a statement that was the climax of the preview:

"Would you rather have a truth that sheds a tear, or a lie that brings a smile."

Let that simmer. Let it further simmer that in context this was meant to be a rallying cry to viewers to empathize and agree with the defense. Let it simmer again, and watch the grease splatter from the pan, as you realize that many in our culture today not only would prefer the latter in this hypothetical situation, but are, in reality, living out this notion.

Meghan and I had a good laugh. This movie was definitely made in the 90s or so, and you can see that this ideology (subjective truth) has been playing the long game. They call it "my truth" now, and in the 90's they admitted it was a lie, and appealed to your emotions to get you to be okay with it. 

First men could marry men because it would be rude of you not to allow it, you homophobic. Now Men can marry men because the definition of marriage has changed all together. The culture has believed the lie because it came with a smile, 'tolerance' they rejoiced. We would have been much better off to have the truth, and let a few cry. 

Praise God we know which long game will win in the end, and already has. 

Death has been defeated. The serpent and all his efforts, are in vain

 

Quotes to Remember

 I read this today in Orthodoxy and thought it worth its own post - nothing further to be said; other than that I whole-heartedly agree, I have seen it now in my own daughters, and I believe it is this that Jesus references when he says:

 “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven."

Think of all the men who stick up their noses to monotony because they simply are not strong enough to exult in it. 

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy: "It might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "do it again"; and the grown up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, and has never gotten tired of making them. It may be that he has the eternal appetite of infancy: For we have sinned and grown old, and our father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore."