No one wrote down what the Mexican commander Ugartechea (how would you like to be a kid trying to spell that name?) said, but I\u2019ll bet it sounded something like \u201c$%^&*$#@$%\u201d but with a Mexican accent.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t much of a battle, the Texians won.\u00a0 The Mexicans eventually got the cannon back at The Alamo (We think.\u00a0 No one knows for certain.)<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not really the point anyway. I just keep wondering about what kind of men decide \u201cBy golly, they\u2019re not taking this from us,\u201d and are willing to back it up with their lives.\u00a0 (The Mexican Army didn\u2019t take prisoners, y\u2019all.\u00a0 There were 2 choices, win or die.)<\/p>\n
They were the same kind of men who looked out of the mission at Goliad and saw the approaching Mexican Army, did a quick head count and knew they were toast.\u00a0 100+ settlers against over 1000 seasoned soldiers? You would think they\u2019d have slipped out in the night.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t.\u00a0 They grabbed hold of some red paint and made this little beauty:<\/p>\n
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The message was clear.\u00a0 Those boys\u2019d rather cut off their own right arms than live under tyranny.\u00a0 The Mexicans took them up on that and killed all but a handful in a dreadful massacre.<\/p>\n
************************************************<\/p>\n
There\u2019s something odd in going to the memorials of famous (or not so famous in the cases of Gonzales and Goliad) battlegrounds. Now, they are simply old buildings and grass.\u00a0 If not for the signs and displays, there would be no way of knowing what was done on those spots.\u00a0 There would be no record of the incredible bravery of those men.<\/p>\n
And, by gum, they were men.<\/i> (None of this crazy metro-sexual stuff going on at The Alamo, I can promise you that!)<\/p>\n
I\u2019d like to think that this kind of man still exists today.\u00a0 I hope even more that my boys are that kind.\u00a0 I hope for my sons to be men of conviction, to stand up for freedom and right. I want them to be willing to call evil by its name and not be ashamed of the consequences that come from it.\u00a0 I want them to be willing to die for what they know to be true.\u00a0 I want them to be prepared for martyrdom even as I pray they never are asked to pay that price.<\/p>\n
I want them to be strong, proud, and a little bit salty.\u00a0 I want my sons to be men like Davy Crockett who told his detractors \u201cYou may all go to Hell. I\u2019m going to Texas.\u201d\u00a0 How do I raise boys like that?<\/p>\n
How do we go about teaching our boys that sometimes you have to charge Hell with a bucket of water and the Devil take the consequences?<\/p>\n
How do we make them fearless in a world of over-protection?<\/p>\n
I suppose it begins with them on their knees.\u00a0 They\u2019ll have to start out there or they\u2019ll never have the strength to stand.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/9\/9c\/Cenotaph_of_the_Alamo_defenders_%28fragment%29%2C_San_Antonio%2C_Texas%2C_USA.jpg\")
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\u00a0<\/p>\n
**Photo credits:<\/span><\/p>\nFront view of the Alamo \u2013 By Bigroger27509 (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons<\/span><\/p>\nGonzalez Battle Flag \u2013 By DevinCook (talk).DevinCook at en.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons<\/span><\/p>\nGoliad Battle Flag \u2013 By Glasshouse (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons<\/span><\/p>\nCenotaph of the Alamo Memorial \u2013 By Zygmunt Put Zetpe0202 (Own work) [GFDL (http:\/\/www.gnu.org\/copyleft\/fdl.html), CC BY-SA 4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0), GFDL (http:\/\/www.gnu.org\/copyleft\/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today is the 179th anniversary of the Fall of the Alamo, and it has me thinking\u2026 Once upon a time in Texas (which is how all good stories should begin) a group of Texians (I don\u2019t know when we ditched the \u201ci\u201d, but we are the better for it) at the beginning of the Texas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1979,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9,29,25,21],"class_list":["post-473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-parenting","tag-texas","tag-thinking","tag-truth"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/b\/be\/The_Alamo_front_view.JPG\")
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