BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: "The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself."

This sidewalk in Carentan, France is covered with American flags and 101st Airborne logos and I can’t get enough of it. 🇺🇸

Had a great day competing at Indiana University yesterday. Learning from the best and going against strong competition. Won both of my 1 on 1s reps as well. @CoachWells1 @Coach_Atwater @Coach_AHiggins

Don't get joy from work, but bring it to work. Doesn't matter if you're 0-10 or 10-0, you will still have joy.

If you've watched Band of Brothers, you know Carentan. What the show doesn't fully capture is the math of what Easy Company was asked to do. To take Carentan, paratroopers of the 101st Airborne had to advance down a single flooded causeway with zero cover, under direct machine gun fire, with nowhere to go but forward. Men froze. Not from cowardice. The human brain simply stops when it calculates the odds correctly. Lt. Richard Winters reportedly had to physically push men forward himself. They took the causeway. They took the town on June 12 after fighting began around June 10. Carentan connected Utah and Omaha beach. Without it, the two beachheads remained cut off from each other. Every logistics line that fed the D-Day invasion ran through a town that almost didn't fall.

Check out @RockyRiverLax vs. @BWHSlacrosse State Championship Highlights - 2026 youtu.be/jkzGVPyxs2M?si=I_Ci… via @ResoluteLax

A 15-2 triumph over Winchester pushes @SJP_Lacrosse into the Division 1 state semifinals for a sixth straight season, where a familiar foe in BC High awaits salemnews.com/sports/sixth-s…

The idea was brilliant. The execution was catastrophic. Allied planners knew that the men hitting the beaches of Normandy would be cut apart without armor support in those first critical minutes. The solution was the DD tank. The Duplex Drive Sherman. A standard 33-ton Sherman tank fitted with a collapsible canvas flotation screen and two small propellers bolted to the rear. Raise the screen, drop into the water, swim to shore, lower the screen, start shooting. Tanks arriving with the first wave, ahead of the infantry, suppressing German positions before the ramps even dropped. The concept worked perfectly in testing. The designers had one requirement: waves no higher than one foot. On the morning of June 6th, 1944, the waves off Omaha Beach were six feet high. Nobody stopped the launch. At 5:40 AM, the 741st Tank Battalion began dropping their DD tanks into the English Channel, six thousand yards from shore. More than three miles of open water, in seas that were six times rougher than the tanks were designed to handle. The first tank hit the water. The canvas screen, designed to hold the weight of a Sherman afloat, was immediately overwhelmed. Waves crashed over the top. Water flooded in. The tank went down. Then another. Then another. The canvas screens collapsed like paper bags in the swell. Tanks that had been designed to float became 33-ton anchors the moment they hit the water. Crews inside had seconds. Some got out through the hatches. Many did not. The tanks took them straight to the bottom of the English Channel. Some crews managed to get a radio signal out as their tank went under, warning the following units not to launch. The warnings either did not get through or came too late. 29 DD tanks were launched by the 741st Tank Battalion that morning. 27 sank before reaching the beach. The entire left flank of Omaha Beach, where the 1st Infantry Division was assaulting, had five tanks to support it. Five. Against fortified German positions housing hundreds of machine guns, 88mm guns, and mortars zeroed on every inch of that sand. The infantry arrived first. Alone. What happened next at Omaha Beach, the 2,400 casualties, the slaughter in the first ten minutes, the near-total destruction of Company A, is inseparable from the loss of those tanks. They were supposed to be there. They were supposed to be firing at German positions while the ramps were still closed. Instead they were on the bottom of the Channel with their crews. The story of the 743rd Tank Battalion makes it worse. The 743rd was assigned to the western sector of Omaha Beach. Their LCT flotilla commander looked at the sea conditions that morning, looked at the waves, and made a different decision. He refused to launch his tanks into the water. Instead he drove his LCTs directly onto the beach and dropped the ramps in the shallows. The tanks rolled off onto sand. Nine tanks were knocked out by German fire during the assault. But they were there. They were fighting. The infantry had armor. At Utah Beach, the sea was calmer, protected from the prevailing winds. 28 of 32 DD tanks launched there made it ashore. The infantry had support. Utah Beach cost 197 casualties. Omaha cost 2,400. The sunken tanks of the 741st Tank Battalion still lie on the bottom of the English Channel off Omaha Beach. They have never been raised. Divers have visited them. Inside some of the wrecks, they found what they expected. They are still there today, 82 years later, three miles off the coast of Normandy, on the bottom of the sea. Today is June 6th. Remember them.

After successfully landing on the beaches, American troops established temporary, floating docks for the disembarkment of future vessels. Shown here are US vehicles traveling from Temporary Mulberry Harbor A to Omaha Beach, across Pontoon Bridge, on June 16, 1944.

Late goal stuns Watterson boys lacrosse in Division II state final dispatch.com/story/sports/hi…

Hit A New PR On Bench. 270 Pounds. Numbers Keep Moving Up! Putting In The Offseason Weightroom Work! @Coach_Atwater @CoachWells1 @CoachChad_T3 @morr_movement_ @football_t3

26 year olds today: "my anxiety is high, I am overwhelmed by my email job" 26 year olds in 1944:

I hope everyone gets to experience a moment like this… Our boys choose not to ‘give up the ship’ tonight, making an epic comeback to stay undefeated and win our first boys State Championship since 1929. Congrats boys! You’ve earned the moment and your place in history.

🏆🥍 #OHSAA BOYS LACROSSE: Congratulations to Rocky River for winning the 2026 Division II Boys Lacrosse State Championship! This is the Pirates’ first lacrosse state title in school history!

@RockyRiverLax state champions! Congratulations!!🏴‍☠️🏆

82 years ago today, thousands of Americans stormed the beaches of Normandy to defend the free world from tyranny. Their bravery and heroic sacrifice will never be forgotten. #DDay

Let’s Go!!!! Bring it home!🏴‍☠️

June 6, 1944 We stand on the shoulders of giants. 🇺🇸

HONORING OUR HEROES: Today marks the 82nd anniversary of the D-Day landings — a pivotal moment in World War II, when tens of thousands of Allied soldiers stormed the French coastline to liberate an imprisoned Europe. “Thousands of brave Americans advanced into chaos to save civilization,” said U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker in a message honoring those brave Americans. “We stand forever grateful for these heroes.”