Lazy Days

Leaves are beginning to fall in Northern Virginia. The trees have yet to turn, but some leaves, not knowing any better, have begun to fall and cover the back yard. It is the turning of the seasons. Some trees have the first blush of colour, some have started to go yellow, and others remain summer green. But the leaves have begun to fall. Today, Columbus Day, we celebrated European discovery of Western Hemisphere by working in the yard. My wife raked up the first leaves of autumn and I mowed our scant fifth of an acre for what I hope will be the last time this season. Each time I mow, I am freshly amazed at the number of mini-climates of which I am steward. Today, the weather was too perfect not to be outdoors. In this weather, autumn often seems better than spring, more settled, more laid back and relaxed. Days like today, joy is found in the simple and ordinary things of life -- a sunny day, an autumn breeze, and the smell of fresh cut grass. Sometimes, life just can't be more perfect.

Never Again

Several readers have been kind enough to take exception to my last post in which I expressed rage at being attacked on 9/11, rage at the perpetrators of those attacks, rage at those who persist in saying "Peace, peace!" when there is no peace, and rage at those who lack both the passion to recognise that a great wrong has been done and the resolve to see it righted.

My rage is born of passion and I am passionate about only a few things.

I am passionate in my love of this, my country, which I have served, for which I have killed, and for which I've bled and nearly been killed myself. I carry in my body scars that are the results of that passion. I always will. Whatever else, I am a soldier and will always remain so. A great evil has been and is being done to my country.

Should I not be angry? Should I not as a soldier and a citizen be resolved that this evil shall not triumph?

I am passionate in my devotion to my family, for whom I would give my life and possessions, and for whose welfare I labor daily.

Should I not be angry at any and all who seek to enslave them? Should I not be resolved to oppose all who seek such slavery with my every waking breath?

And I am passionate in my desire that evil shall not triumph. In my church, when we recite the creed that states, in part "We are called to be the church ... to seek justice and resist evil," I passionately believe in the meaning every one of those words.

Should I not be angry when I experience a great evil? Should I not be resolved that it never be allowed again?

My good friend Lash pointed out in an email earlier this week, that, in the end, my rage is less about anger and more about resolve. In his words "It would have been easy to roll over and accept our earlier great Satan's: the NAZI's, or military rule by the Japanese, or domination by the Soviet Union's Communism; but we did not take the easy way out. We didn't just give in or give up in order to avoid war and deaths. We were even willing to use our ultimate weapon to end WW-II!! Then we helped those enemies recover. Those enemies are now some of our closest allies... Also, "ISLAM" needs to be 'Judged' by free people everywhere! If 'they' (the majority of Muslims) can't see the difference between murder, freedom, individual rights, respect for other religious beliefs, then they need to be judged and dealt with harshly; just like the other Great Satan's."

We must maintain our resolve, if not our anger, and never forget and NEVER LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN"

That Day

“Dies illa, Dies irae, Calamitatis et miseriae” (That day, day of wrath, calamity and suffering...) Gabriel Faure, Requiem.

This morning, I raised the American flag over my small suburban lot and said a prayer of remembrance. It is 9/11. It is time to remember, and in my memory, September 11, 2001 remains as vivid as yesterday.

On that day, I was at work in the Pentagon. At 9:38 am, I was less than 200 feet from where the right engine of American Airlines Flight 77 tore through C ring before coming to rest against the wall across A-E drive. I smelled the smoke. I saw the fire. I stepped over debris as I exited the building. Outside, I watched as the victims were cared for.

When I learned that what I had experienced was the result of a deliberate act, I was enraged. I remain so. I am enraged that my country was attacked in the name of 'a religion of peace'. Neither terror nor mass murder can ever be part of any rational definition of peace, nor can they ever.

I am enraged.

I am enraged that it took less than six weeks for our elected representatives to start speaking of compromise and negotiation rather than retaliation against those whose sole objective is to obliterate us as a nation. We negotiate. We compromise. We appease. We accommodate. They want to kill us.

I am enraged!

I am enraged that no one in the Islamic world has come forward to condemn these acts of murder for what they are. It's been nine years.

I am enraged!

I am enraged that so many of our priests, ministers, and bishops have joined our pettifogging Congress in blaming us, the victims, for this unprovoked attack. Pale comfort, that.

I am enraged!

I am enraged that even today, we are letting ourselves to be bullied into building a shrine to the religion whose teachings led to the despicable acts of 9/11 at the site of one of those attacks.

I am enraged!

And I am enraged that we cringe so much in fear of the Islamic world that we refuse to advance our rights as a free people living in a free nation. Giving in to bullying is the moral equivalent of “paying protection” in Chicago and only benefits the bullies.

I am enraged.

Everything I ever needed to know about Islam, I learned on 9/11 in the Pentagon. Nothing since then has changed my mind.

And I am enraged!

The Gospel of Labor

This year, I attained the age at which most American citizens choose to retire from full-time employment go on to whatever comes next. As one who chooses to remain part of the workforce for the foreseeable future, I find myself increasingly called on to answer the question "Why?" and the honest answer is I don't really know. Maybe I continue to work because it's a habit and I'm simply too old to know better or to change. I've been called to work since I was grown enough to make a difference on Dad's farm, where I learned a lot of truth at the end of a long handled hoe. I've worked in a machine shop, and learned the value of always striving to be a master of the craft. I've been a full-time student, earning grades rather than money. I've been a soldier and known the freedom of eagle flying armed helicopters in harm's way. Most recently and currently, I am employed as a systems engineer (and refugee from a Dilbert Look-alike Contest) figuring out how to make diverse hardware and software platforms play together in perfect harmony to do useful things. I know of no life without useful work. Maybe I continue to work because I like what I'm doing. All of my jobs have been interesting. All have spoken to some aspect of my psyche. And all have been emotionally if not monetarily satisfying. I like getting paid to do interesting things. Or maybe I continue to work because work is what I was made to do. The way I read the creation story, God placed the man he had created in the garden, to dress and to keep it. And when the man and his wife were driven from the garden the curse was not on the man but on the ground, that it not yield its fruit without increased labor. And so, I continue to work and to eat my bread by the sweat of my brow. And, as I age, I find it all good. In the words of an anonymous poet, "This is the gospel of labor, Peal forth, ye bells of the kirk, For the Lord of Love Came down from above To live with men who work. And this is the seed that He planted, Here, in this thorn-curs'd soil: Heaven is blessed With eternal rest, But the blessing of life is toil." Have a great labor day!

Content Free Warning

Somewhere over mid-America, I opened a pack of airline peanuts packaged by King Nut Companies of Solon, Ohio, an excellent product and one I recommend. After consuming my peanuts, I was surprised to read that the contents were "Produced in a facility that processes peanuts and other nuts".

I realise that the notice is probably a legal requirement meant as a warning to those with nut allergies, but really, is there any other way?

Did this warning, so carefully worded and prominently placed on the wrapper, really transmit any new information?

The package was labelled "Peanuts". Is it really to possible to obtain a package of salted peanuts that are not produced in a facility that processes peanuts? Or is the American public so dense as to not realise that peanuts are and indeed must be processed in a facility "that processes peanuts"?

Is the company so frightened of potential litigation that they feel obligated to post a a content-free warning on their product? Did some judge actually decide that peanuts were such a danger to the public that all foods processed in facilities that process peanuts and other nuts, including peanuts, must be so labelled?

Why not rather assume that when we open a package of peanuts or other nuts it comes from a facility in which such things are processed and leave it at that. Please, save us from any more content free warnings, and leave us free to enjoy our peanuts as we see fit.

Nostalgia

At lunchtime today, I walked out into one of those midsummer days such as I remember when I was a boy. The air is soft and humid with just enough breeze to keep it comfortable. Trees and grass are lush shades of green. The sun is bright and the sky a brilliant blue. In the west, cottony clouds are building with the promise of an evening thundershower. The light, the colors, the smells, and the touch of the breeze on my skin take me back, to make me think, to make me remember not only days but also events of long ago .  

Has it really been more than half a century since I first experienced the summer in images so real that even today they rush to my memory with all of the freshness and power of current impressions?

“Yes,” my soul tells me. “It has.”

Has it really been over 45 years since I first saw a girl in a green dress and fell tail over teacups in love? Has it really been that long since our first date and all of our subsequent dates, since movies and prom nights and football games and Sunday afternoons when our chief joy was being with each other?

“Yes,” my soul tells me. “It has.”

And has it really been 43 years since that same girl, dressed in white this time, walked down the aisle and joined her hand and life to mine? We were two kids with huge dreams and absolutely no idea what they were getting into, and none of that really mattered. For better or worse, we were together. 

And has it really been nearly forty years since our eldest made his appearance, and thirty since our youngest? And have we really lived at our current address for over 25 years? It’s just not possible.

And are there now kids that call me “Grand Dad”?

“Yes,” my soul tells me. “It is so.”

Good times, fun times, challenging times, and even trying times, all long past, but at the same time still fresh and new, continuing in memory. 

Someone once wrote that we are all products of our pasts and I am no exception. My past was very good but I am constrained to live in the present. 

Here, in the present, at the juncture of past and future, it is my job every day to wrest from each moment every ounce of flavor that life has to offer. For it is the moments of the now that will make up all of the fond memories of the future.

In the Company of Heroes

I recently returned from a week in the company of heroes; of men who answered the call of their country and went to war in Vietnam behind the controls of a helicopter. War correspondent Joe Galloway called us "God's own lunatics", and, whatever we flew, "God's own lunatics" is a label in which we continue to take considerable pride. Those who flew the Light Observation Helicopter (LOH or "Loach") had the mission of flying low and slow to observe the enemy and mark targets. The rest of us joked that our target would be marked by a burning loach. We didn't need to be convinced that deliberately trying to draw fire was insane. We knew it . Those who flew the UH-1 Huey, or Slick were workhorses. Slicks hauled the infantry into and out of the fight, often landing under fire to deliver reinforcements, food, water, and ammunition; to carry the wounded to aid; and to bring the dead home. When they were called, they came. Where LOH pilots were high spirited and exuberant, Slick drivers were more subdued and business like. The heavy lifters who flew Chinooks and Sky Cranes didn't get enough respect. They just showed up and did their job of moving heavy objects, relocating artillery and resupplying firebases day in and day out every day, faithfully maintaining their part of the supply chain. LOH drivers had callsigns like "Scalp Hunter"; slick drivers had call signs like "Robin Hood", "Crusader", and "Gladiator". Heavy Lifters carried call signs like "Playtex", "Pachyderm", and "Big Windy". Then, there are the gunship pilots. Gunship pilots had call signs like "Bucaneer", "Joker", "Cougar", and "Panther". Gunship pilots directly engaged the enemy and, whether they flew Bravo models, Charlie models or the AH-1G Cobra, always knew themselves to be members of the elite. Gunships covered and protected loaches, performed airmobile escort, and provided fire support; those who flew them knew they were special. As my friend Mike takes pride in saying "Three kinds of people flew helicopters in Vietnam -- those who were Panthers, those who were covered by the Panthers, and those who wish to God they were one of the other two!" Every year, when I attend the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots' reunion, I leave with a deep sense of appreciation and honor to be numbered as a member of this company of heroes. Someone once asked if I was a real hero. "No", I replied. "But I've drunk beer with a lot of people who are." Most of my Vietnam Helicopter Pilot friends would say the same.