An Officer - No Matter How High His Rank - Salutes a Medal of Honor Winner

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medal_of_Honor#section_4

Sgt. John Baker, Moline, RIP.

The President may award, and present in the name of Congress, a medal of honor of appropriate design, with ribbons and appurtenances, to a person who while a member of the Army (naval service; Navy and Marine Corps) (Air Force) (Coast Guard), distinguished himself conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty.^[80]

Privileges and courtesies

The Medal of Honor confers special privileges on its recipients. By law, recipients have several benefits:^[81][82]

• Each Medal of Honor recipient may have his or her name entered on the Medal of Honor Roll (38 U.S.C. § 1560). Each person whose name is placed on the Medal of Honor Roll is certified to the United States Department of Veterans Affairs as being entitled to receive a monthly pension above and beyond any military pensions or other benefits for which they may be eligible. The pension is subject to cost-of-living increases; as of 2011, it is $1,237 a month.^[83]

• Enlisted recipients of the Medal of Honor are entitled to a supplemental uniform allowance.^[84]

• Recipients receive special entitlements to air transportation under the provisions of DOD Regulation 4515.13-R. This benefit allows the recipient to travel as he or she deems fit across geographical locations, and allows the recipient's dependents to travel either Overseas-Overseas, Overseas-Continental US, or Continental US-Overseas when accompanied by the recipient.^[85]

• Special identification cards and commissary and exchange privileges are provided for Medal of Honor recipients and their eligible dependents.^[86]

• Recipients are granted eligibility for interment at Arlington National Cemetery, if not otherwise eligible.^[87]

• Fully qualified children of recipients are eligible for admission to the United States military academies without regard to the nomination and quota requirements.^[88]

• Recipients receive a 10 percent increase in retired pay.^[89]

• Those awarded the medal after October 23, 2002, receive a Medal of Honor Flag. The law specified that all 103 living prior recipients as of that date would receive a flag.^[90]

• Recipients receive an invitation to all future presidential inaugurations and inaugural balls.^[91]

• As with all medals, retired personnel may wear the Medal of Honor on "appropriate" civilian clothing. Regulations specify that recipients of the Medal of Honor are allowed to wear the uniform "at their pleasure" with standard restrictions on political, commercial, or extremist purposes (other former members of the armed forces may do so only at certain ceremonial occasions).^[92]

• Most states (40) offer a special license plate for certain types of vehicles to recipients at little or low cost to the recipient.^[93] The states that do not offer Medal of Honor specific license plate offer special license plates for veterans which recipients may be eligible for.^[94]

Saluting

Admiral Eric T. Olson salutes Sergeant First Class Leroy Petry at a ceremony at The Pentagon.

• Although not required by law or military regulation,^[95] members of the uniformed services are encouraged to render salutes to recipients of the Medal of Honor as a matter of respect and courtesy regardless of rank or status and, if the recipients are wearing the medal, whether or not they are in uniform.^[96] This is the only instance where a living member of the military will receive salute from members of a higher rank.

The New York Times Has a Message for Synodical Property Thieves.

The Lutheran synods have a habit of loaning money to congregations so that each parish pays for its own church and parsonage, charging interest - sometimes quite a bit for the times.

When the synod wants to grab the property and the equity built up by the members, they have all kinds of tricks to use, such as denying them a pastor or starting the church over with a new name (like Glende's Star of Bethlehem in Illinois).

Pastor Kevin Hastings thinks that the two men who seized St. John Lutheran Church in Milwaukee (without a voters meeting, without notice, but with WELS support) will not have services during Holy Week.

I am not so sure. Since the two men are the dictators of the congregation for the moment, they can invite anyone they want to preach.

ELCA pastors are ready to serve you.

Trucks

bruce-church (https://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Intrepid Lutherans Commend Ecclesia Augustana Blog...":

Since everyone has to deal with trucks on the highways and byways, many will find this short slide show very interesting, for instance, the last slide tells why there aren't as many truck jack-knife accidents, and why rollovers are now the most common accident:

10 Things You Didn't Know About Semi Trucks - Popular Mechanics:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/news/pictures/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-semi-trucks

***

GJ - A truck jack-knifed next to me in Phoenix. It sounded like garbage cans grinding on the concrete.

Higher Education Meltdown Reaching Seminaries Too

A Thrivent salesman is a divine call, according to WELS -
Planned Giving Counselor.

bruce-church (https://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "LCMS Seminary Cost Scandal: Fabulous Costs To Supp...":

The Pentagon has stopped funding or subsidizing the continuing education of their troops due to the 2013 Sequester. An even more important bit of news is the US Congress is trying to make colleges and universities stop committing fraud of the US taxpayer. How so? Often when a student transfers, one school does not accept the credits of another school, even when the first school is accredited and disburses federal student aid and grants, such as Pell Grants. Either the first school is committing fraud by not keeping to the necessary standards, or the second school is committing fraud by making the student take the course twice for frivolous reasons. Legislators not that non-transfer of credits is one reason the average full-time student is taking in excess of 5 years now to obtain a 4-year degrees, and 3 years to obtain a 2-year Associates degree! Graduate schools are also lengthening student stays in order to pad their bills, and students are over a barrel so they either sign on for more federal loans, or abandon the quest for a degree. The latter happens all too often, politicians note, and one can't blame the student most of the time, since the effort and money poured out by the students who drop out used to be sufficient to obtain the degrees only a generation ago. In 2012 Democrats proposed legislation requiring schools to accept transfer credits or else face sanctions, but the lobbyists for colleges intervened so the bill remains dormant. Also, Obama has a separate effort meant to penalize schools that raise prices faster than inflation:

========

Stopping the clock: Colleges under fire over transfer credits that don't count:

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/22/17403973-stopping-the-clock-colleges-under-fire-over-transfer-credits-that-dont-count?lite

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Making college affordable: five ways that states, schools are trying to help

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2012/0719/Making-college-affordable-five-ways-that-states-schools-are-trying-to-help/Streamline-transfers-from-community-colleges

House Democrats introduced the Transferring Credits for College Completion Act of 2012 this week to try to broaden that approach. The bill would make transfer information more transparent and require that all public institutions that receive federal aid allow students to count an associate’s degree as the first two years of a related four-year degree in the same state.

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Military halts popular tuition assistance to save money

http://www.thestate.com/2013/03/14/2674837/military-halts-popular-tuition.html

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GJ - As shown on earlier posts, seminary education takes much longer than needed. An accredited MDiv should be much shorter in length, by national standards. The seminaries make the stay longer to absorb much tuition money and keep more synod drones employed.

I think LCMS has the only accredited MDivs, but those are worthless outside of the sect. Someone with $100,000 to spend on an MDiv should go to Yale or another school where the degree will lead to an executive position.

As many know, graduating from a SynCon seminary has little to do with obtaining a call or even staying in the ministry. The hire and fire mentality starts at the top with the DPs.

Missouri will fail a guy in his vicarage, prevent him from repeating that year, and exclude him from finishing the degree. Besides that, the vicarage year is simply invented, not required for the degree (by national standards) and costly in terms of wages lost.

Intrepid Lutherans Commend Ecclesia Augustana Blog.

SP Mark Schroeder bought the bar for The CORE,
after Ski and Glende got themselves into big trouble.

http://www.intrepidlutherans.com/2013/03/what-was-missing-in-my-life-was.html#comment-form

Anonymous said...

Mr. Lindee is correct, please take the time to listen to the podcast. The Evangelical Dreck described is exactly what has been dragged into the WELS with the approval, tacit or not, of the WELS' leadership. Please support those on this blog and others who have been "encouraged" to remove their names.
Scott E. Jungen

MARCH 22, 2013 AT 7:16 AM

Anonymous said...

Mr. Jungen,

I couldn't agree with you more.

The first quote in the box from the podcast says:

"They've completely transformed the church service. It's no longer a pastor who is an undershepherd of the Good shepherd, feeding God's sheep with God's Word, making disciples, giving them Word and Sacrament, proclaiming and announcing the forgiveness of sins won by Jesus Christ on the Cross. Instead, it has been turned into a psychological freakshow."

There are those who read this website who will say to that quote "never in the WELS, not even close". Yet one WELS church in my area had there "vision planning" meeting this year in an Evangelical Community church to learn how to emulate their pratices, and are rushing to implement those practices in their WELS church.

Yes, please support those on this and other similar blogs. In particular, I want to commend the young men at Ecclesia Augustana. They are displaying a high level of spiritual maturity faithful to the truth of Scripture that is rare and seldom seen in others many years their elder. And they are being called out in a way that would cause many to shudder in fear. Two names come to mind who similarly faced criticism by the established churches of their time. One was Martin Luther. Perhaps from that name, you might be able to guess the name of the other that I am thinking of.

Vernon

MARCH 22, 2013 AT 8:15 AM

Anonymous said...

Vernon,
I also want to commend the young men from Ecclesia Augustana. Reading their blog gives me earthly hope for the future of the WELS. Having been there (slightly) myself, these young men may have a difficult time in the ministry, if they even get there. Sadly, these are just the kind of young men we need in the ministry.

Now that other name, do we have to start using the "R word" now?
Scott E. Jungen

MARCH 22, 2013 AT 9:14 AM

The Keystone Konference of Presidents will make sure everything is kosher.
Engelbrecht and Rutschow posed for a formal portrait.

Congregations Also Have To Follow the Law.View the St. John Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, Constitution

Many have attended the organ concerts arranged
by friends of St. John Lutheran Church in Milwaukee

The building is magnificent.
Musicians love the pipe organ.

Constitution, St. John Lutheran Church, Milwaukee

The Antinomians do not need the Law, because they are a law unto themselves.

The syphilitic sex cult leader, Bishop Martin Stephan, brought his group over from Europe, infused with the convenient dogma of Easter absolution. They were the only true church in Germany, they imagined, and did not allow anyone in their group to think otherwise.

Walther took over the dictatorship after his organized mob threatened Stephan's life, robbed him of a fortune  (gold, books, land), and forced him at gunpoint across the river to Illinois.

The Loehe group created the Missouri Synod and asked the Perryville cult to join them. That probably saved the LCMS from becoming another version of Mormonism, but gratitude was never a virtue for Walther. He enjoyed the benefits of the Loehe association while denouncing his fellow Pietist.

A pastor's family (LCMS) told this story. When the pastor was dying in the hospital, the elders piously informed the man's wife that she could stay in the parsonage the rest of the month if he died. Doubtless their meeting began and ended with prayer, confirming their conviction that they were most glorious manifestation of the Gospel since the Apostolic Age, perhaps a tad better.

Nevertheless, congregations are legal entities that must obey the law. The divine call is a legal contract, issued and signed by parish leaders.

Walther's heirs do not think they need to follow the law. WELS has a long history of nastiness, so they consider this sort of affair normal, Scriptural, yea even Confessional. (Walther used "yea even" often in his writing, so I feel compelled to copy him.)

WELS leaders forced J. P. Koehler, the president of the Sausage Factory, out of his job and home. His opponent, August Pieper, was a firebrand for UOJ.

August served St. Marcus in Milwaukee--the cathedral church of Mark and Avoid Jeske, who likes to remind his associates that he is a Pieper.

The Protes'tant split in WELS came from the Wisconsin leaders forcing out the congregations that dared to disagree with the thin-skinned leaders. Imagine this - no surprise to anyone with WELS experience. The sect had a meeting where the Protes'tants were kicked out, one by one, and allowed to say nothing.

DP Patterson used the same method in getting rid of Joe and Lisa Krohn. "Y'all can listen to us rant at you, but you cannot say a word."

Deputy Doug and Tim Glende did the same with Rick Techlin, but what did they do with Ski?

Silence.

WELS borrowed its Antinomian leadership principles from Stephan and Walther. Everything they do is right in their own eyes.

Step by step, the abusive sects are bringing themselves down.

St. John Lutheran Church became HerChurch in one giant leap for manned kine.

That can be reversed if people are strong and persistent.

WELS has a homosexual network?
Ask about the mattress room at Mequon,
where two students were caught in the act,
but ordained anyway.

GODDESS MURAL Project at "HerChurch," - Once the Mother Church of the Augustana Synod, West Coast.It Can Happen in Your Synod Too. It Just Happened at St. John Lutheran in Milwaukee

GODDESS MURAL Project:

View the 3 minute slideshow of “Paint us into Being” the Goddess Mural at herchurch by artist Sybil Erden, original music by Alison Newvine and Dionne Kohler.

We know that visual art can bring about liberation and reform.  It can also bring healing and peace to our souls. 

The Goddess mural will rise 64 feet high with four basic symbolic representations of the divine feminine: The Earth Mother, the Black Madonna, the Christ-Sophia, and an androgynous Kali-Kundalini figure whose chakras merge with the phases of the moon and the universe.  They will be surrounded by colorful and playful animals, birds, plants and earth’s elements. The mural will be held in place by the purple church.

This mural will be attached, via 32 panels, to the 64 foot high tower of herchurch in San Francisco. Visionary Artist Sybil Erden has freely offered three years of her time to create a magnificent mural that heralds the return of the divine feminine.

The only thing that we need to do is raise the money for the paint, supplies, staging area materials, transportation, and installation of this beautiful work. Do not miss your opportunity to be at ground zero for the unfolding of one of the most exciting projects of the century which will help usher in a new age – her time has come!

Destined to be a San Francisco landmark the Goddess Mural will be a visual sign of hope, beauty and the possibility of unfolding justice.

Please join us in raising that $40,000 needed for the assembly and installation of the Goddess Mural.  In so doing we give thanks to Artist Sybil Erden. Her work, valued at over half-a-million dollars, will honor the Goddess within and around us.

It is time for this kind of liberation and reform, healing and beauty to grace our city and world. 

The first 10 panels (upper portion) of the mural have arrived and are displayed in the herchurch fellowship hall.  Come by and see them as you are able.

Those making contributions to the Goddess Mural will become a part of the permanent records, along with the artist and herchurch SF, as being responsible for this everlasting landmark art in tribute to the Goddess.

Please send checks to

• Ebenezer/herchurch
• 678 Portola Dr.
• San Francisco  CA  94127
• Earmarked: Mural Fund

'via Blog this'