We just watched "The Sound of Music" and unfortunately I've been plagued by earworms from the songs ever since. Everything from Sixteen going on Seventeen to Maria to Edelweiss (My favorite) has been playing on in my mind non stop. It doesn't help that the school near my house plays Edelweiss as the school bell.
So I rewrote the lyrics of "My Favorite Things". I'm sure you all know what it sounds like.

My Favorite Things

Eyeballs and noses and red guts that glisten
Fingers and tonsils and ears that won’t listen
Gullets and brains that are splayed out in rings
These are a few of my favorite things

Guns that backfire and turn you to ashes
Tanks that roll over men, bloody car crashes
Stomachs and colons and bones of the kings
These are a few of my favorite things

Nuclear bombs, neutron bombs, much radiation
Machine gun bullets and crucification
Skulls used as cups and brain nerves used as strings
These are a few of my favorite things

When the guns roar
When the rounds hit
When you’re feeling mad
Just think about all of my favorite things
And then you won’t feel
So bad!

If you're wondering about the blog title, it says 101 Airborne all the way. Right? So who is the 101st Airborne? I'm glad you asked me that.
The 101st Airborne Division is known as the Screaming Eagles. Because their symbol is an Eagle with its mouth open. Get it? Screaming Eagle? Don't get it? Never mind.
So anyway. I think the image uploading thingum isn't working so I'll tell you more about the 101st Airborne first. It was the second Airborne Division to be created by the Army after its more illustrious and more experienced counterpart, the 82nd Airborne Division. It missed out on Sicily because they were still training but got Normandy (D-Day if you don't remember), Operation Market Garden and was made famous during the Battle of the Bulge by holding out around the small town of Bastogne. In case I've never told you this was the time that Gen. McAuliffe, acting commander of the 101st, said something rather rude to the Germans who wanted them to surrender. What did he say? "NUTS!"
His officer who brought the message back to the Germans had to explain that it mean "Go to h*ll". (I don't know if swear words are allowed so I'll just put an asterix there.)
So for their heroic stand they got some presidential unit citation and world fame and came to be known as the Battered Bast***ds of Bastogne.
Yay 101 airborne.

I did promise in the last post that I'd introduce you to Montgomery. I'll do it later. Because I'd like to talk about my FAILING grades. As all of you know my parents are crazy because they expect me to do so well for EVERYTHING (i.e. all A1s) except Chinese (B4) and Art (any grade as long as it's not a fail). But what do I get? Three A1s, Three A2s, One B3 and two C5s. Which is terrible.


And I seriously don't get the concept of blogging during Infocomm. Shouldn't we learn something that we don't know how to do instead of doing something that we already know how to do? Not that I'm complaining because it's all free time and we'll probably do whatever we want after we finish and after I stop complaining but I STILL DON'T GET why Generation X who is known for their total computer illiteracy is trying to teach Generation Y who is known for their absolute computer supremacy something computer-ish like BLOGGING.


So, anyway, let's talk about Montgomery and my favourite topic of the entire WWII - D-DAY. I know you'll probably fall asleep after reading this post because WWII is just such a bore for all you poor little non-enlightened people. (And yes, my sentences are abnormally long today and I don't know why, I think I'm just having a mild bout of long winded sentences. You should be thankful because I'm not as bad as the boy who wrote an entire composition with only one full stop.) But it's the only thing I know how to ramble about and get my blog posts to well over two hundred words because I've always prided myself on going way over the word limit in writing competitions.


By the way, James "Jumpin' Jim" Gavin's birthday was on March 22, four days ago so wish him a happy birthday. He would be a hundred and three years old this year. Unfortunately he died in 1990.


Anyway, Bernard Law Montgomery, or Monty as you all know him (maybe you don't know him or I wouldn't be telling you about him, right?) was this idiotic British General who was in command of the ground troops during D-Day. He's the bloke who came up with Operation Market Garden which ended up in roughly 4/5s of the British 1st Airborne being decimated and because of him Patton couldn't race across Europe resulting in the war ending a year late. You've seen his photo. Now let's talk about D-Day!


D-Day was on the 6th of June 1944. Basically summarised it means "THE INVASION OF NORMANDY BY THE ALLIED FORCES". It's your fault if you don't know where Normandy is or what the Allied Forces are.


The reason why I'm boring you to death with this is because a) I have nothing better to talk about, b) a historical thing is much easier to put up pictures and videos and c) because I like boring you to death. So there.


So anyway let's add photos, people! So that we can be done with this once and for all.


Right. So D-Day had five beaches. Omaha Beach, Utah Beach, Juno beach, Sword beach and Gold beach. Omaha and Utah are for the AMERICANS! 1st and 29th divisions for Omaha and 4th division for Utah. Juno was the Canadaians, Sword and Gold the British. Are you dead of boredom yet? Dying, perhaps? Good, let's go on.

These two pictures show Omaha Beach, although they could be any beach. Yeah. (WOW, that must be one of the shortest sentences in this post!) Omaha Beach was really, really, really, really bloody and suffered roughly 2000+++++++ casualties compared to Utah Beach's puny 200-. Of course if Theo Roosevelt Jr and his gang hadn't been blown off course Utah's casualties would've been a lot higher.


You think you're dead enough now? Yes? No? No? Ok, let's continue.

Let's just watch some footage from the history channel shall we?



I don't know if it'll work but who gives a -ahem- you know what. Anywaythis shows actual footage taken way back in 1944. So be proud.

If we still have to do this I'll talk about Iwo Jima next, or maybe Operation Market Garden or the Battle of the Bulge, but maybe I won't because this blog is probably going to be dead after this so-called competition ends.

You're probably wondering why I have created this blog when I have a perfectly good blog somewhere else (I will leave the location undisclosed, because the trainer will be reading this blog and so will everyone else in Infocomm and I don't exactly like to share my blog addresses).
The thing is, my CCA, Infocomm, has decided that they would like to teach us blogging. Imagine a teacher not of the third "computer savvy" generation trying to teach us how to blog. That's like lecturing me on D-Day. (Of course, some of you might not know what D-Day is. And I'm not going to tell you, because if you ask me to tell you I'll still be rambling on about it nine days later.)
Anyway, you get my point. Teachers should not tell students how to blog. Why should we be learning about blogging anyway? It's not like we don't know how to. And you should've seen some people's blogs. Extravagant. Music everywhere. Interesting.
That reminds me. We're supposed to be putting up pictures and videos. But I have no idea how any picture or video would tie in with some random post like this, so why not I go on to my favourite topic and that way we'll be able to put in loads of pictures?
Let's see. First there's this thing about how WWII started. I don't suppose you want to know but if I don't tell you you just may fail your Sec 3 history. So I'm helping you guys.
WWII started unofficially on 1st September 1939 when Germany, with absolute surprise on their side, invaded Poland. Yay. Axis:1. Allies:0.
All the way through 1940 the desperate Allies fought back, but in the end even the Brits were driven from Dunkirk in the most amazing evacuation ever staged. Yay. Axis:2. Allies:0.
Over in Hawaii on December 7 1941 the Japs come and bomb Pearl Harbor. USS Arizona gets some forward magazine blown up and kills 1777 of her crew. About 2200 people die. Yay. Axis:3. Allies:0.
I'll continue this some other day. Let's just leave you with a quote and a picture.

This is Bernard Law Montgomery. You don't know him yet. I promise you'll get acquainted soon.

~Quote of the Day~
On your way! Attacks don't succeed by standing still!
-Erwin Rommel

G'day, mate.