Who Are You? What Do You Want? Where Are You Going? Whom Do You Serve – And Whom Do You Trust?!
One of our readers, named David Price, has ten g-mail accounts that he would like to donate to members of the military. He may be contacted at “daprice@gmail.com”. If you are not able to contact him via a “mil” address, be prepared to give some indication to him that you are, indeed, a member of the active duty military.
Thanks!
Sgt Mom
A quick head-up from the Office of Blog Management—
The name servers are going to be set to the new host tonight. There
might be a temprorary disruption of service during the next 24-48
hours and some odd bits might go wrong with the site as tweaking continues, in order to ensure everything works right.
So, anything wierd that happens on the site over the next two days? It’s not your fault. We… ummm… planned it this way.
Back in the ’80s, with foreign companies cleaning our clock, America’s business world embarked on a restructuring which lead to the productivity improvements which drove the economic expansion we are still seeing today. American news watchers learned several new terms back then. The most notorious of those being hostile takeover. Another is Turnaround Expert – the hired gun C.E.O. brought in specifically to shake things up and find new profitability in floundering companies.
America’s complacent, entrenched management culture, not to mention it’s cultural elite, feared and reviled the turnaround expert. This was because the job inevitably entailed handing out pink slips to all who were expendable, and heaping new duties on those who were not. It didn’t ease their ire any that the turnaround expert frequently brought in his own team to breathe new life into the place.
Today, the tactics of the turnaround expert have become business as usual. The possibility of getting downsized is something we’ve all learned to live with. Well, at least that’s how it is in the private sector. As usual, government is running behind the curve. The CIA, in particular, had become bloated, complacent, and inefficient.
So, when I see the controversy concerning Porter Goss’ takeover of the CIA, it just tells me good things are happening.
To: Those Inclined to write Letters to the Editor
From: Sgt Mom
Re: Certain Realities
1. It has come to my attention that a fair number of people have come unglued over the widely published photo of a young Marine in Fallujah, smoking a cigarette in a manner that would do Bill Mauldin’s Willy and Joe proud, and have written scandalized letters to the editors of their local papers expounding at length on how this is not a Nice Thing to Publish, not where the young and impressionable can see it.
2. My very dear, sensitive letter-to-the-editor writing people, I would address you all as “Noveau Victorians” except that the actual, historic Victorians— being hard-headed businessmen, and not nearly the sexual prudes they were reputed to be—had rather robust appetites for good food, lots of drink, and tobacco in several forms. While indulging in the pleasures of the table, tavern and pipe in public were generally restricted to the male of the species, the famous actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell summed up a certain attitude of toleration— and one that we might well take to heart in this modern age— when she remarked, “It does not matter what you do in the bedroom as long as you do not do it in the street and frighten the horses.”
Smoking a cigarette does not frighten the horses. Please trust me on this.
3. Allow me also to acquaint you with the following: members of the military— an organization dedicated primarily to killing our enemies and blowing stuff up— often indulge in;
Consumption of tobacco products
Consumption of alcohol products (occasionally to excess)
Excessive f**king profanity
Flamboyant tattoos
The romantic (or otherwise) pursuit of members of the opposite sex
A fondness for guns, bladed weapons and things that explode
4. Pictorial evidence of these qualities should not therefore be a cause for alarm, and half-witted twitterings to the editor of your paper. Should you feel moved to do so, please lie down on the fainting couch with a handkerchief dampened with eau-de-cologne over your forehead until the feeling passes.
Sincerely
Sgt. Mom
Cross-posted from my personal blog….
My favorite thing to do on the morning of Nov 16 each year is to call my dad and sing happy birthday to him. 🙂
Today was no exception. I sent him flowers, too – a nice autumn bouquet to brighten up his day. They arrived shortly before I called him, he said.
He’s 74 today, and it’s only by the grace of God that we have him with us at all. In July of 1976 he had a stroke. Well, it started out as an aneurism, and it gave him a really bad headache. In fact, it was so bad that my mom called the emergency squad to come and get him (she didn’t drive).
Anyway… the squad took him to the hospital, and they determined that it was an aneurism on one of the 2 major blood vessels that we have in the back of our necks, and they said they would need to do surgery and repair it. (He had aneurisms on both of those blood vessels, but only one was causing a problem, so they were going to do that one first).
Later that week they did the surgery. Dad was prepped, anesthetized, and wheeled in to the OR. The surgeon opened up the area where the aneurism was, and no sooner did he expose it than it burst. Because he was right there, he was able to clamp it and minimize the damage. Had it happened when Dad was anywhere else other than right there on the operating table with the aneurism already exposed, he would have died.
People used to tell Mom that it was a shame this had to happen when Dad was on vacation. We understand their point, but disagree with their conclusion.
Yes, it sucks to get seriously ill when you’re on vacation.
However, the vacation was being spent at home, working on our new house. We had built it the previous summer, and to save money we had the company only put up the shell of the house, and do the electrical/plumbing etc., things that had to be done by certified folks, and pass inspection. We were doing the finishing work ourselves. Mom and Dad, with friends and family, put on the vinyl siding, installed the shingles on the roof, put up the drywall, laid the hardwood floors, etc. So Dad was using his vacation time to do that kind of stuff.
On top of that…..
Dad drove an 18-wheeler around a 7-state area. Had he been at work, driving a tractor-trailer on the highway when that aneurism burst, not only would it have killed him, but who knows what other damage might have been done?
So all things considered, it was a blessing that he got sick while on vacation.
They repaired the other aneurism in Oct 1976, and Dad has been going strong ever since. It took him awhile to get back up to a functional level, and he *is* handicapped, but he can take care of himself, and up until this past summer he was mowing lawns for a bunch of elderly folks in his town. He finally decided that he’s allowed to retire, so he’s not going to do that anymore.
I saw him a couple weeks ago, and he’s looking good. I wish I could have been there today to give him a hug for his birthday, but I called, and his card’s in the mail, and his flowers are there, so those will have to act as his hugs, for me.
I love him more than I know how to express in words, but I’m sure that he knows that.
A new study shows getting enough sleep is important to weight loss. Well, I guess I’ll have to cut down on the exercise time so I can sleep more. 🙂
I’m currently watching the Discovery-Times special Recreating The Taliban. I have long been aware of third-world replications of the Kalasnakov. But when I saw a vendor holding up a perfect A1 or A2 spec M16, my jaw dropped.
On tonight’s The O’Reilly Factor, Bill blamed Bush 43’s deficits on the 9/11 terrorist attack.
HARDLY! The cause of the ‘Clinton Surplus’ was that the ‘Clinton Bubble’ caused revenues to grow much faster than the proflegate 105th and 106th Congresses could spend them. Despite the fact that the bubble has burst, the 107th and 108th Congresses have not attenuated their profligacy. But still, as a percentage of GDP, our deficit remains close to that of pre-Clinton Bubble times.
Never will we be able to do enough to compensate our soldiers who have been wounded in the line of duty. Every American owes these guys the highest respect for their bravery and courage in battle. I have found and checked out two sites, this one and the other founded by General Paul Vallely to honor his son, Scott who lost his life in a training accident. It is worth our time to visit these sites and to do what we can to help those who have given dearly in our interest. Thanks, guys (girls included…)
This request was posted to my e-mail yesterday—-Indulge yourselves
My research partner and I are professors at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and University of Tennessee-Knoxville. We are conducting an online survey that examines the credibility of online and traditional media, and the motivations for accessing the Web, weblogs, chat rooms, bulletin boards and other Internet resources for political information
We are specifically looking for individuals who connect to online political information to fill out our survey. We’re collecting data through Tuesday 11/16. We are wondering if you’d be willing to link to our survey. All we are asking is for an icon that directs your readers to the survey URL.
Our survey has been approved by the University of Tennessee institutional review board and is being conducted for academic purposes only and follows strict privacy protocols. Additionally, all responses are confidential and anonymous.
Your help would be greatly appreciated and we would be more than willing to share our findings with you.
Survey URL:
http://apps.ws.utk.edu/politics
Sincerely,
Barbara K. Kaye, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
University of Tennessee-Knoxville
Here’s a topic sure to raise some discussion. I have given some considerable thought in recent years to the matter of history’s greatest military strategists (not to be confused with greatest tacticians). I now have my top five:
1) Sun Tzu: while the exact autorship is a matter of debate The Art of War is the bible of military strategy..
2) Ho Chi Minh: The progenitor of modern guerilla warfare. We see the Islamofascists following his doctrines today.
3) Winfield Scott: The Anaconda Plan; a model for modern limited war (while Sherman’s March – certainly not ‘limited’, was a later-day addition) – need I say more?
4) Dwight Eisenhower: The invasion of Europe remains an unmatched example of modern multinational industrial warfare, where management by concensus and logistics play a greater strategic role than force placement.
5) Isoroku Yamamoto: From his “rifle behind every blade of grass” pronouncement, to Japan’s ability to sustain the war against the US, he might as well have been The Oracle of Delphi.
I’m currently watching CNBC’s Chris Matthews Show. One of the panelists is Andrew Sullivan, And it occurs to me that Andrew, like Mort Zuckerman, has become an omnipresence on cable news talking head shows. Further, he is widely read, not only on TNR, where he is a senior editor, but also Time and the NYT magazine.
But I am reminded of but two or three years ago, when he was virtually begging for contributions to his blog.
Andrew appeals to me because he is what I term a ‘rational liberal’, in the tradition of Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He has become a champion of the left because he is not only moderate and outwardly gay, but also OMG – English!
In any event, here’s to you, Andrew.
I bought a copy of Robert Harris’ “Pompeii” last week… well, it’s better than “The Last Days of Pompeii”, which….to put it tactfully, is a pretty easy accomplishment. Actually, it’s pretty fascinating, on a technical level, with the accounts of the aqueducts and waterworks and all, the engineering which was the rock-ribbed foundation of the Roman Empire, although the characters are pretty… stock B movie. Cecil B. DeMille would be entirely at home with this concept and materiel.
My daughter and I passed through the Campania, early in September 1985, on our way in the VEV from Athens to Zaragoza. We were on the car-ferry from Patras to Brindisi, and I drove from there, across the boot of Italy, and my experience of driving in Greece emboldened me to attempt the drive from Salerno, along the Amalfi Coast to Positano, along a road which was a bare lane and a half wide, slung along about half-way down a 3,000ft cliff with a lot of hairpin turns. Enormous tour busses invariably came hurtling at me, around every blind turn, it seemed, and I was forced to hug the sheer stone wall on the right-hand verge so intimately, that I was astounded to emerge at Positano with any paint at all on the passenger-side fender. On the map, it looked like the shorter way, but it took me nearly three days at the Casa Albertina in Positano to recover from the experience, and continue the journey along the coast towards Amalfi, and the fabled ruin of Pompeii, the 1st Century provincial city preserved like an insect in amber by the catastrophic eruption of Vesuvius. Everyone… simply everyone has had Pompeii on their touristic to-do list since the early 19th century.
My daughter and I walked up the ramp into the Porte Marina, once the main city gate, nearest the harbor and docks, under a blue September sky. It was cool in the stone tunnel, out of the morning sunshine, and the cobbled ramp sloped steeply upwards. When I had come here as a teenager in 1970, there had been a little museum in what had either been a gatehouse, or a structure built against the inside of the wall, and which opened into the tunnel. The cramped little rooms had featured some of the relics found over the years— among them a clutch of blackened eggshells in a pottery bowl, and two of the Henry Moore-ish plaster castings made wherever a hollow in the solidified materiel which had inundated the city 2,000 years ago had been found by excavators. The city was populated by those hollows, where people’s bodies had been, where they had fallen limp or in rictus, with a fold of cloth over the face, alone or with others, felled in a blast of super-hot air and a storm of ash and pumice. The flesh and fabric disintegrated, the ash solidified into something very nearly stone, until liquid plaster filled the space, and there was another pale ghost for the necropolis of Pompeii.
We walked out into the sunshine, into the ghost city, the walls around us up to first floor level, sometimes up to the second floor, a straight narrow avenue with lumpy sidewalks on either side. Iron wheels had carved narrow grooves into stone paving blocks, especially deep in the spaces between the stepping stones.
The curious thing about Pompeii is— although it is a tourist attraction, with fleets of tour busses drawn up in close-packed shoals every day of the week— that is it a huge place, street after street of tall, tightly packed walls, varied by open spaces, by courtyards, gardens and public spaces. It absorbs the presence of all these living people, smothers the noise and presence of them into a queer solitude and quiet. Walking along these once-peopled streets, venturing into the various houses and complexes, one felt very distant from al these other people, their voices and footsteps distant and muffled. In some places, the shades of the plaster ghosts felt somewhat closer than the living— in that private house where a metal faun danced joyously in the middle of a dry and dusty tiled pool, where now-crumbled walls afforded a view of the symmetrical slope of the volcano, at the nameless street-corner where a little café had a heated counter with inset wells for containers of food to be kept piping hot, to the walls of the villa outside the Porto Herculaneum with one of the rooms painted in black with elegant cameo-figures and motifs painted in pastels and gold… oh, yes, all these things speak to us, and we recognize them with because it is all so very familiar…
First, because this was a city, a city and a civilization with standards and facilities not very far removed from our own: running water, vulgar mass entertainment, a government administration, a common language, graffiti on the walls, bars and brothels and courtrooms, tenements and suburbs, all the rough messy business of living. It would have all been very familiar to us, although the smells of it all would have probably very nearly overwhelming— sweat and urine, horses and fermented fish sauce and all. Secondly, because a lot of it was handed down to us— the aesthetic of plaster and tile, pergolas and courtyards, domes and arches, the orders of Doric, Ionic and Corinthian, all translated over the centuries to Classical and Beaux-Arts, and various sorts of Wren and Spanish Colonial. We knew the faces of many of the dramatis personae, for the Romans maintained a pitiless standard of photorealism in their busts of the good and the great; every wart and wrinkle and receding hairline, stern and unsmiling, like faces in Mathew Brady’s Civil War portraits. And we had their writings, as well—poetry, history, philosophy and letters, and in Pompeii, the actual physical streets and houses of one small city, tiny part of the whole that had been the Roman Empire.
We have been looking at the relics and variants of Roman architecture all our lives, here in our New World, two thousand years later, and titillated by accounts of depravity amongst the imperials and the violence of the circuses, which often lead us to overlook the underlying bedrock of Roman virtues; of service to empire and the Senate and People of Rome, the sheer technical knowledge and organization which made possible the great technical marvels of aqueducts and roads and bridges. The emperors and Cesars came and went, but the empire endured nearly as long as the stones that Roman engineers set in place in places as far apart as Leptis Magna, in North Africa, in Trier on the German frontier, along the lines of Hadrian’s wall in the far north of England, and into a bridge over the Guadiana River at Merida in Spain.
Rome drew the whole of the known western world into it, and sent out its engineers and merchants and soldiers, money, language and cultural dominion in return. Often berated for arrogance and corruption, and sometimes quite spectacular displays of depravity… yet the empire endured, because in the end, they were superficial things, laid over the bedrock of Roman virtues and dedication.
Last week on Fox News Sunday, Charles Krauthammer characterized the todo surronding Yasser Arafat’s impending death as “the death-watch of a Mafia Don.”
I had a little trouble buying this at first. But after piecing this all together, from his wife’s insisting that he dies in France (where she has better legal claim to his ill-gotten assets), to the recent Palestinian-on-Palestian terrorism, nothing could be more spot-on. I fear that, despite the request for US help with elections, assention to the head of the PA will be far more of a turf-war than a political process.
I bought a copy of this from a catalogue because it looked amusing… and I confess to have once possessed and giggled frequently over a copy of National Lampoon’s “High School Annual”.
The Jetlag Travel Guide to “Molvania—A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry” is a perfect send-up of the modern travel guide. (Of which I have a shelf or two full, so I speak from experience). What more can you say about a guidebook with a map in the inside front cover which includes locations like the towns of Pysst, Drizl, and Katflaap, a place called Lake Skrotul and a capital city named Lutenblag, described thusly “Where old world charm meets concrete”.
Oh, wait— you could say that about Houston, too
Just read about this in Guideposts Magazine (nov 2004, p12)…
9-yo Ben Duskin has acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Diagnosed with it at age 5. As a way of keeping his thoughts positive to help his own healing, Ben (who loves video games) pictured his medicine like a giant PacMan, gobbling up all the cancer cells in his body. Ben’s convinced that the visualisation helped him into remission.
So he said he wanted a video game that would help kids fight cancer. Finally, the Make-A-Wish Foundation found a programmer who would do it. Eric (the programmer) has created games for Windows, Mac, Nintendo and Playstation, including some Indiana Jones games and some Star Wars games.
Ben & Eric worked together weekly for seven months to create “Ben’s Game.”
Players zoom around on a hover board, stocking up on medicine, health, attitude and weapons to fight cancer. They must defeat seven monsters – like the baldness causing “Q-ball” – to win shields that prevent the side-effects of chemotherapy.
Here’s the link to the game: Ben’s game
Kudos to Eric Johnston and LucasArts, for making a little boy’s wish come true.
The website also has a page where you can get updated on Ben’s health (he’s 10 now, and the leukemia’s back, but it’s responding well to his new drug regimen.) There are also links on the page to learn more about leukemia, and links to info on being a marrow donor.
Check it out, and pass it along.
Beautiful Wife has been cataloging our entire collection of pictures and putting them on the computer so I can burn some CDs and send them to Gorgeous Daughter for safe-keeping.
In keeping with the silly tradition of posting very old pictures of oneself…I humbly submit this for your perusal.
Also wanted to see if I could figure out how to upload pics. That was much easier than I expected.
Update: Wow…I’ve always had a big forehead…and here I thought it was age catching up to me…phew!
Wandering the web, I ran across this post at Mudville Gazette.
Go read it, about Army National Guard Sgt Stayton, who once upon a time was Maj Stayton in the Air National Guard, a USAF Academy grad and fighter pilot, until he left the military to spend time with his family and build up his law practice.
Today he’s a platoon leader in Iraq, because after 9/11 he felt the need to give some more back to his country than he had already given us with his previous service.
On a trip to his summer home in Arkansas in 2002, he stopped at an Army National Guard armory in Arkadelphia, where a recruiter listened to Sergeant Stayton’s story and promised him a spot if he passed a physical exam. That was easy for Sergeant Stayton, a stocky, muscular man with cropped graying hair. After nearly a year of bureaucratic snarls during which the Guard lost his records twice, Sergeant Stayton finally took his oath of service in June 2003 and reported for two weeks of annual training.
What’s amazing to me is not that that Sgt Stayton is over in Iraq, giving back to his country again. I’m amazed because the paper where Greyhawk found the article was none other than the New York Times (registration required).
Thank you, Sgt Stayton, for your service, both then and now.
Reader Michael Phillips forwarded this e-mail from a friend of his, a Marine currently serving in Fallujah. I have editied out certain identifying elements, in the interests of OpSec.
Hi Everyone, I am here in Fallujah and well. I have been forward for the last 36 hours or so and am back now in our camp for a bit before heading back out to the forward command post.
We are doing well… (the) Marines on our flank has taken some pretty good losses but we are killing the enemy in droves. They are hiding in houses that are heavily fortified and we just destroy the house with a tank shot or a bomb or missile. There is no negotiating or surrender for those guys. If we see the position and positively ID them as bad guys, we strike. When they run, we call it maneuver and we strike them too. Why? Yesterday the muj attacked an ambulance carrying our wounded. The attackers were hunted down and killed without quarter. These guys want to be martyrs…..we’re helping.
Don’t hear a lot of this on the news huh? Fox News is doing a pretty good job over here so stick with them for coverage.
This is the only way this place can ever be safe.
And in the midst of all this we’re helping to restore power and protect and feed and evacuate the ordinary citizens of Fallujah…..although most left the city as soon as the muj moved in.
And today is the Marine Corps’s 229th birthday. It is only fitting that we are engaged in combat and serving our country today . The beer, cake and steaks will flow once we’re all done…It’s one of my ! > responsibilities to see that they get just that. But for now it’s chow and water and fuel and ammo…..lots of ammo.
My thoughts are with all of you and thanks for keeping us in your prayers…..I’m sure God is around here somewhere, above all of this…keeping an eye on things and protecting the just and the angels…..that’s what our KIAs are referred to as…..but we all hope he turns a blind eye on the muj and their false beliefs as we find them and kill them.
And I’m just here doing my job.
C—–
Hurricane Charley gave my good old flag a bad tear, which was finished a few days later by hurricane Jeanne. It has been folded on the dinner table since that day in July. I sorely missed putting out my flag, and today I could not take it any longer. I went out and purchased a new one today and raised it with a private salute – and a few tears as I thought of those fine young Americans who have not and will not come home from Iraq. So horribly sad for them to die on such faraway battlefields, but such is the bravery and certitude of those who serve, putting country and honor above love of life. My heart goes out to their loved ones this Veteran’s Day, and my salute is to them – to the lives they lived and the honor they forever bring to all of us.
Joe Comer
I’ve started five or six articles over the past couple of weeks, but haven’t been able to stay on focus. On the bright side, I have good starts. 🙂 I have had a fairly good Veteran’s Day. It’s my first in the states since I got out 2 years ago. However, like every Veteran’s Day since I got out, I didn’t get the day as a holiday, although I think I could have used it as one of my floaters. Alas, I had system maintenance that needed to be done, and today was a good day for it.
My husband had an appointment with the surgeon today in preparation for getting “fixed.” Since the kids didn’t have school today, and I have more than enough hours built up this pay period, I stayed home this morning. I had a great time playing soccer with my 6 year old. I’m pretty sure I pulled something behind my knee as it hurts like the dickens, but it was well worth it.
As I was driving into work, an absolutely horrid song came on my favorite station so I started channel flipping. Eventually I ended up on a country station, which means there was crap on the rock and pop stations. The song was “Have you Forgotten” which I had never heard before, and I had my cry, because I have not forgotten nor do I expect I ever will.
Back during the summer, a couple of friends came to visit. The three of us were stationed at the JAC together, and shared many a misadventure. Dr Dre, so named over his userid, was an Army Specialist, now a contractor. NMI, for No Middle Initial, is a lifer. We often refer to her as the future Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, which she does not appreciate as we do. Dr Dre hated the Army. He was a sharp troop, and kicked butt at PT, but loathed awards. I could always count on him to ridicule me (or anyone else) over getting an award, or a promotion. His goal was to remain a SPC until he could get out. Needless to say, I gave him all kinds of grief over getting himself promotable, but he managed to get released from Stop Loss before he could go to PLDC.
Given Dr Dre’s aversion to anything military, what he told me when they were visiting was a surprise, albeit not a bad one. He told us that since 9/11, he is glad he had been in the Army. He said it gave him an understanding about what life is like for the soldiers that he wouldn’t have otherwise. We all agreed with him.
Now for my rant. One of the things I’ve been hearing over the past 3 years is people not wanting our troops dying for ill-fought, misguided, illegal wars. While I respect their freedom to spew, they need to understand something. You can’t speak for Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, or Airman if you have never worn a uniform. You can’t sympathize nor empathize because you cannot relate. So to them, I will exercise my freedom of speech and quote that great poster that says “How about a nice big cup of shut the f*** up.”
And to all the veterans, and those currently serving, Thank You. You have my respect and my gratitude.
The second stop on the “Virtual Book Tour” is here, courtesy of the Ranting Raven!
It is a sad distinction, to be the first in three generations to visit France while on active duty in the service of your country, and to be the first to actually live to tell the tale of it. For many Europeans, and subjects of the British Empire— especially those of a certain age, it is not at all uncommon to have lost a father or an uncle in World War Two, and a grandfather or great-uncle in World War One. It’s a rarer thing to have happened to an American family, perhaps one whose immigration between the old country and the new allowed for inadvertent participation, or a family who routinely choose the military as a career, generation after generation. Ours is but lately and only in a small way one of the latter, being instead brought in for a couple of years by a taste for adventure or a wartime draft.
When JP and Pippy and I were growing up, the memory of Mom’s brother, Jimmy-Junior was still a presence. His picture was in Granny Jessie’s living room, and he was frequently spoken of by Mom, and Granny Jessie, and sometimes by those neighbors and congregants at Trinity who remembered him best. JP, who had the same first name, was most particularly supposed to be like him. He was a presence, but a fairly benign one, brushed with the highlights of adventure and loss, buried far away in St. Avold, in France, after his B-17 fell out of the skies in 1943.
Our Great-Uncle Will, the other wartime loss in the family was hardly ever mentioned. We were only vaguely aware that Grandpa Al and Great-Aunt Nan had even had an older half-brother… a half-sister, too, if it came to that. Great-Grandpa George had been a widower with children when he married Grandpa Al and Great-Aunt Nan’s mother. The older sister had gone off as a governess around the last of the century before, and everyone else had emigrated to Canada or America. I think it rather careless of us to have misplaced a great-aunt, not when all the other elders managed to keep very good track of each other across two continents and three countries, and have no idea of where the governess eventually gravitated to, or if she ever married.
“She went to Switzerland, I think,” Said Great Aunt Nan. “But Will— he loved Mother very much. He jumped off the troop train when it passed near Reading, and went AWOL to came home and see us again, when the Princess Pats came over from Canada.” She sighed, reminiscently. We were all of us in the Plymouth, heading up to Camarillo for dinner with Grandpa Al and Granny Dodie— for some reason; we had Great-Aunt Nan in the back seat with us. I am not, at this date, very certain about when this conversation would have taken place, only that we were in the car— Mom and Dad in front, Nan and I in the back seat, with Pippy between us, and JP in the very back of the station wagon. Perhaps I held Sander on my lap, or more likely between Nan and I, with Pippy in the way-back with JP. Outside the car windows on either side of the highway, the rounded California hills swept past, upholstered with dry yellow grass crisped by the summer heat, and dotted here and there with dark green live oaks. I can’t remember what had been said, or what had brought Great Aunt Nan to suddenly begin talking, about her half-brother who had vanished in the mud of no-man’s land a half century before, only that we all listened, enthralled— even Dad as he drove.
“He fairly picked Mother up,” Nan said, fondly, “She was so tiny, and he was tall and strong. He had been out in Alberta, working as a lumberjack on the Peace River in the Mackenzie District.” She recited the names as if she were repeating something she had learned by heart a long time ago. “When the war began, he and one of his friends built a raft, and floated hundreds of miles down the river, to enlist.”
(William Hayden, enlisted on October 13, 1914 in the town of Port Arthur. His age was listed as 22, complexion fair with brown hair and brown eyes— which must have come from his birth mother, as Al and Nan had blue eyes and light hair. He was 6’, in excellent health and his profession listed as laborer, but his signatures on the enlistment document were in excellent penmanship)
“He didn’t get into so very much trouble, when he walked into camp the next day, “said Nan, “Mother and I were so glad to see him—he walked into the house, just like that. And he wrote, he always wrote, once the Princess Pats’ went to France and were in the line. He picked flowers in the no-mans’-land between the trenches, and pressed them into his letters to send to us.”
(There is only one family picture of William, old-fashioned formal studio portrait of him and Nan; he sits stiffly in a straight ornate chair, holding his uniform cover in his lap, a big young man in a military tunic with a high collar, while a 12 or 13year old Nan in a white dress leans against the arm of the chair. She has a heart-shaped face with delicate bones; William’s features are heavy, with a prominent jaw— he does not look terribly intelligent, and there isn’t any family resemblance to Nan, or any of the rest of us.)
“His Captain came to see us, after he was killed,” said Nan,” Will was a Corporal, by that time… poor man, he was the only one of their officers to survive, and he had but one arm and one eye. He thought the world of Will. He told us that one night, Will took five men, and went out into no-mans’-land to cut wire and eavesdrop on the German trenches, but the Germans put down a barrage into the sector where they were supposed to have gone, and they just never came back. Nothing was ever found.”
(No, of course— nothing would have ever been found, not a scrap of the men, or any of their gear, not in the shell-churned hell between the trenches on the Somme in July of 1916. And the loss of Great-Uncle William and his handful of men were a small footnote after the horrendous losses on the first day of July. In a single day, the British forces sustained 19,000 killed, 2,000 missing, 50,000 wounded. Wrote the poet Wilfred Owen
“What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,–
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells…”
And that war continued for another two years, all but decimating a generation of British, French, German and Russian males. Such violence was inflicted on the land that live munitions are still being found, 80 years later, and bodies of the missing, as well. The nations who participated most in the war sustained a such a near-mortal blow, suffered such trauma that the Armistice in 1918 only succeeded in putting a lid on the ensuing national resentments for another twenty years. But everyone was glad of it, on the day when the guns finally fell silent, on 11:00 o’clock of a morning, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
“Amazing, “Mom remarked later, “I wonder what brought that on— she talked more about him in ten minutes than I had ever heard in 20 years.”
I went back a few years ago, looking for Uncle Jimmy’s combat crew, and found them, too, but even then it was too late to look for anyone who had served with Great-Uncle Will—although, any time after 1916 may have been too late. But there is an archive, with his service records in it, and I may send away for them, to replace what little we had before the fire. But they will only confirm what we found out, when Great-Aunt Nan told us all about the brother she loved.
Thank you.
In your honor, a couple small bits of rhyme, both written while I was still active duty. One was written for Desert Storm, the other at the closing of my GLCM missile base in Belgium. Both are still applicable, I think, if perhaps a little dated.
Mary
TO OUR TROOPS IN THE GULF — A SALUTE
1991
Storming the desert on wings borne of flame,
riding jet-trails for freedom, not for personal fame.
Supported by many, but followed by few,
we’ve a word for our soldiers: Our hearts are with you!
Yellow ribbons adorning our trees and our cars,
Many windows displaying flags and blue stars
give a strong indication of pride in our troops,
so don’t be dismayed by a few hostile groups.
Know that you’re loved, and missed by us all,
that we appreciate your quickness to answer the call
of your country, despite your passion for peace,
and we’ll welcome you home, when hostilities cease.
Your families are waiting to be held in your arms,
and your bravery helps keep all our children from harm.
We send you our love, and our prayers, and this poem,
as a way to say “THANK YOU”, and please — “HURRY HOME.”
Mission Accomplished
1988
The klaxon of freedom rings down through the ages
The players may change, and also the stages
but never the plot — today it’s the same,
of those who serve Liberty, without seeking fame.
Four years, and more, of the mud and the rain,
of doing our best — not for personal gain —
not for wealth, nor rewards,
that our people could keep,
but so children all over the world safely sleep.
Four years, and more, of standing our ground,
of doing our best, and not lounging around.
Weeks spent in the woods, regardless of weather,
with “A Flight” — all groups from base working together.
Four years, and more, and our goal is achieved.
The treaty is signed; Excalibur sheathed.
But don’t fear increased danger with your guardian gone,
the memories of GLCM will long carry on.
Because all who were here gave all of their best,
the world will remember Uncle Sam’s GLCM test.
They’ll say that the missiles accomplished it all,
but even missiles need people to answer their call.
“The mission comes first”;
we know that it’s true.But no mission could work without people like you.
Long days make long weeks, but we got the job done.
Our mission’s accomplished — war’s over — we won!
Comiso, Florennes, Greenham Common, and all,
you’ve proven our point ’cause you answered our call.
You did it all — in all conditions, to boot —
Our hat’s off to you, in a GLCM salute.
Dedicated to all the men and women everywhere who made up the GLCM TEAM.
… for the Israeli Olympians murdered Munich in 32 years ago.
… for the countless other Israelis killed at the hands of Arafat’s thugs.
… for the Palestinian youngsters who have been (and probably will continue to be) misled into thinking that this man was their hero.
… for the Palestinian people, who could have already been living at peace with Israel were it not for Arafat’s scheming and stubbornness.
… and for Yasser Arafat, who (as far as I know) never repented of any of his actions.
Let us pray fervently that peace can now come to the Israeli and Palestinian people.
Haven’t posted anything since election night. We’re getting into the really, really hectic part of the semester.
Students think they’re the only ones looking toward the light at the end of the tunnel, but the profs are also anxious for the break. This has been a killer semester for me, and I’ve been overwhelmed.
Anyway, probably a few posts between now and mid-December. After that, I’ll try to get onto a more regular schedule (as if anybody cares). I am formulating some ideas related to the university community’s tendencies towards liberalism (the mood has been really dark in some parts of the campus since last Tuesday) and the contrast to another somewhat homogenous community — the military. There was an interesting article in the Chronicle of Higher Education related to liberalism on college campuses that I think needs some more dissecting (see here).
Glad to see the site is back up and running.
More later.