Don’t misuse the term “hero”

The weekend is here once again. Today features bright blue skies, temperatures in the high 60s and little chance of rain. We have reservations for dinner at “The Dining Room” in Jonesborough tonight. Cuban food sounds good today. It has been at least a month since we tried this restaurant.


An internet friend of long standing emailed me yesterday with a link to a Leonard Cohen concert that has been up-loaded to a torrent site. He happened across the link while looking for something else and was kind enough to think of Gloria and me.

I’ve avoided downloading music other than a brief foray into Napster when it was the net-wide concern that provided free downloads. My friend took the time to coach me through initial program acquisition and setup, offered to provide backup service if needed. After a false start I managed to download a good copy of the show, converted it from .flac files to .wav files, and then promptly screwed up all by myself.

The files downloaded with a sequential alpha- numeric label. I promptly edited them into alpha labels, ignoring the numeric component as I had a valid set list for sequencing. What was initially an ordered and complete concert became a bunch of music files arranged in alphabetic order. I can convert the original files I downloaded once more and leave them in alphanumeric labeling, I can simply play the files by using the play list I generated to match the concert set list. The latter is most likely. But I’ll remember not to make this mistake again. FWIW, it was an excellent show and worth the trouble.

Today is the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. October 17th was the date in Russia which had yet to adopt the Gregorian calendar instead of the Julian in use in Russia at the time. I’ve always wondered what would have happened in the USSR if Trotsky had managed to have Stalin purged instead of being ejected himself. No way of knowing, of course.

The weekend is here once again. The television channels will be jammed with various athletic contests. Sports announcers who were once athletes/coaches and others who are simply groupies and camp followers will spend hours providing commentary and color. At some point in the weekend every one of them will use the word “hero” to describe an athlete. And I if I happen to hear it – unlikely except during the inevitable overtime that will delay the non-athletic programming for Sunday evening – I will see red and look for something to imagine throwing at the commentator.

The word “hero” has become, sadly and most likely permanently diluted in this nation and others.” Men and women who excel at some athletic contest have become greatly over-paid role models for youth who see ability at games as their ticket to fame and fortune. These athletes are wrongly described as heroes and the media seems to be unable to avoid reinforcing such a misnomer.

I understand that it takes practice and determination to learn a game’s physical skill sets. I understand that some games involve physical pain while competing and, in some cases, risk of physical injury and even death. But no one begins playing these games believing that they will die during competition. Instead, they begin playing these games hoping for local, regional, and national fame. They hope to win slots in the higher level competition teams that bring with them fame and exorbitant salaries. They hope to become advertising icons, trading their prowess at a game for endorsements. The entire athletic competition structure is greed-driven, filled with men, and women, who like playing games far more than studying, who have been brought up to believe that physical prowess permits them to avoid following laws, to explain away transgressions as due to their famous status, in effect to be celebrated as “heroes” while breaking laws concerning personal behavior, substance abuse, physical violence, and a host of others that would land most citizens in jail at the first commission.

Playing with injuries to avoid losing millions of dollars in salaries and endorsements does not make one a hero. Funneling money into tax dodges disguised as do-good foundations does not make one a hero. Visiting sick children and taking a camera crew along for PR purposes does not equate with heroism. Returning to a team after being suspending for gambling, for violence, for dog fighting, or any of a host of illegal acts does not afford anyone hero status.

Who are the heroes in our society?

The policemen and firefighters who leave home each day, willing to put their lives on the line for the well-being and protection of the people in their community, for precious little pay, are heroes. Every call is potentially a trip toward death for them.

The men and women who make up our armed forces, who willingly place their lives at risk in service of the nation’s need to project force and protect its citizens and borders, are heroes. And their pay is pitiful in light of the risks they assume. The medics who run or crawl out under fire to rescue and treat wounded comrades, the infantrymen who place their bodies between wounded friends and the gunfire of enemies, aircrews who routinely fly into enemy fire to provide close air support or to extract wounded, are all heroes but are seldom recognized as such beyond their units. Coast Guardsmen who perform countless searches and rescues in dangerous waters are heroes.

The civilian police officer who placed her life in jeopardy at Ft. Hood in order to attempt stopping a slaughter by an apparent Moslem extremist is a hero. The unarmed soldiers, men and women, stationed at Ft. Hood who rescued their bleeding comrades from under fire and worked without concern for their own safety to provide first aid and transportation to surgical care and safety are heroes. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/06/AR2009110604350_3.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2009110604506

The men and women who make up our poorly-paid volunteer armed forces, who are deployed in multiple combat tours without the chance to recover physically, emotionally, or financially from the previous tours, who sacrifice normal lives to answer a call to serve the nation they believe in are heroes. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/07/opinion/07herbert.html?ref=opinion

The men and women who fought the last wars and then came home to build and continue their lives despite the damage done to them by their bit of their particular war are heroes. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/07/opinion/07cleland.html?ref=opinion

Next Wednesday, 11 November, is Veterans’ Day. It is a day set aside by Congress to honor the veterans of our armed forces. It is a day which is supposed to remind us who pays the price of building and maintaining a nation such as ours. It is a day to honor our heroes, those who happened to commit their selfless acts of bravery within sight of someone who lived to recommend them for formal honors, and those who simply did their jobs and took care of their comrades-in-arms. It doesn’t take a medal to make one a hero. No one can honestly set out to become a military hero. Such thoughts cost lives, usually the lives of others. No one wants to serve with, or under, a would-be-hero.

Here’s my wish for Veterans’ Day. I sincerely wish that no “sports” announcer describe any athlete, professional, or at any other farm team level down to middle school as a “hero.” They aren’t, and with rare exception, they will never be.

Bullwinkle’s corner:

No Relief in Sight

There's only one more klick to hump today,

How many times they've fooled me with that lie.

We'll have to hump back out, because it's raining,

The clouds too low to let the choppers fly.


Of course it's only a klick or five,

Of course I know it'll keep us alive,

But I've been doing this for months,

And there's no relief in sight.


The other squads all took their turns at ambush

Your squad will have to go again tonight.

We know they’re somewhere out there, just can't find em,

So go, the Colonel's spoiling for a fight.


Of course, you know you can sleep in late,

We'll just tell Charlie he has to wait.

Hey, don't you know there's a war on,

And there's no relief in sight.


Hey, Doc, you want to help me write some letters, man.

To the families of the troops who just got killed.

I know you're feeling' bad you couldn't save 'em

But, Doc, you know we had to take that hill.


And it doesn't matter, not even a bit,

That we hadn't a single use for it.

We killed some soldiers and flew away,

And there's no relief in sight.


 I sit and think of the boys who fell that morning.

Who died when the choppers were tasked to another fight,

Who might have lived if only we could have evac'ed 'em,

Who might be writing their own notes home tonight.


t was dragging the wounded down off the hill,

Tagging and bagging them dead off the hill,

Dragging the bodies off some nameless hill

And there's no relief in sight.


So what did we do, we denied the enemy shelter,

And what did we win; well we took contested ground,

And what of the two platoons we left to follow us off the hill,

Well, they're shaking the trees to knock the dog tags down.


Cause some of the boys are MIA,

Only reported in yesterday,

(They were only cherries, anyway)

I know you lost some friends, but, Hey!

There's no relief in sight


We only assaulted eleven days,

Count up the wounded and KIA's

We won a hell of a victory,

And there's no relief in sight

I’ve seen the future baby it is murder

Before the bodies are cold in Texas, someone else is killing office workers in Orlando.


I’ve been angry at people before but never so angry that I made plans to murder them. I’ve been in combat; there was nothing about it I wish to re-experience. Nor do I wish to subject anyone else to such experiences. At the end of days spent in combat, I was glad that I was a medic. Yet being a medic was horribly frustrating and depressing because people die in combat and medics/corpsmen/nurses/doctors can’t prevent or change that no matter how hard we try.

There is a great anger in the land of America with its foundations in many problems. No one group of people elected to represent and lead us created all these problems although my opinion is that the Reagan and Bush administrations are largely responsible for more of them than are the Clinton and Obama administrations. The GOP, when in control, has elevated greed to a credo, allowed the Christian fundamentalists to gain far more prevalence and political power than they deserve. The GOP has essentially encouraged racism and bigotry by marketing to the populations most likely to believe racist and bigoted propaganda. The GOP has made false patriotism a measuring stick for the public behavior of citizens and elected officials. The GOP has supported illegal and un-necessary wars in Granada, Panama, and Iraq while underfunding and understaffing the armed forces it claims to admire. In fact, the GOP has presided over the creation and employment of mercenary forces to perform tasks that the armed forces once performed and paying them at much greater rates of pay than the troops who wear our uniforms.

Meanwhile, the Democrats have made patriotism into a thing to be scorned, have alienated many veterans, and have insisted that illegal aliens be provided housing, food, education, and health care that many citizens cannot afford. Many Democrats and voters on the extreme left want to do away with borders, object to any mention of English as a national language. They tend to champion gun control and look down on people who hunt and fish as “knuckle-draggers,” hicks, and red-necks.

There is no common course or common cause in our land today.

There is no political party for many Americans.

I reject the greed, corruption, bigotry, theocracy, false patriotism, and willingness to destroy our government and our nation that characterizes the Republican Party.

I reject the failure of the Democratic party to understand the need for a strong military presence, for their inability to understand that we must secure our borders, that we must stop illegal immigration, for their inability to act in concert when they have control of the legislature.

I reject the Libertarians for their utter lack of concern for the bulk of the populace, for their failure to recognize that public schools, parks, forests, and national services such as DCD & FDA are necessary and good for all of us. I reject them for their continual waving of the 2nd and 10th amendments in our faces as if ownership of firearms and the insistence on a literal 18th century interpretation of federal powers vs. states’ rights; as if that problem hadn’t been settled by the Civil War.

And they all reject me for fitting none of their molds. I believe in social safety nets, public education, and health care for all citizens in a manner similar to the models of Canada and France. I believe in a strong military presence – we need the biggest stick. I believe we need a national education standard – no more Kansas or Deep South models. I believe we need to declare English our national language, repeal the anchor baby clause in the 14th amendment, and send Mexican illegals back to Mexico so they can protest and rebuild their country, using Spanish if they like. We need to jail employers who hire illegals. We need to remove all religion from government, school, and public matters. I don’t want a Christmas tree on public land in December. But I don’t want a Chanukiot (candle stick commonly mislabeled a menorah) there either. Religious holidays should be celebrated at home or in places of worship by people who honestly believe in that particular faith rather than be the impetus for maniacal shopping sprees.

For most of us, there really is no political party that welcomes us by matching what we believe in. The GOP comes closest to matching the theocratic oligarchy its leaders, financial backers, and remaining base call for. I don’t want them in power, ever again. 1929, 1987, 2008, you’d think we might have learned not to let them run anything having to do with money. But we haven’t yet. I don’t know that we ever will.

One thing I know is that we must have some influx of jobs to reduce the unemployment rate or we will never recover from the depression that Reagan, Cheney, and the Bush’s dug for the nation. The private sector, despite all the GOP posturing and imagination of the tea party idiots, will never forego profits for the good of the nation. They’ll be off shoring jobs when the last flag is hauled down and burned by jobless citizens, in order to get that final billion dollar bonus. The jobs are going to have to come from the Government and as of now, the GOP’s scorched earth policy and the Democrat’s inability to work together continues to block that avenue of recovery.

The neighbor across the road has a flag staff at his gate. We have one in the driveway island. We are currently flying the third flag I’ve purchased since we moved in. We won’t fly a torn flag. It’s against the U.S. flag code as well as wrong at several other levels. His flag is barely recognizable as a U.S. flag. If it were anyone else but him, we’d buy another flag and drop it off. From earlier conversations, it is clear that he regards this scrap cloth as some sort of “last real American symbol. Guess who he voted for. Guess why. See what we’re up against.

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin!

Thunder Road Convoy




Waiting for the MP's to open up the gates,

All gassed up and lined out, each one with its load

Drivers and their shotguns waiting for the go ahead,

Up endless klicks of highway that we call the Thunder Road



Have you written home today? Have you made your will out, troop?

Are you the lucky bastards with the ordnance in your load?

Are you hauling mogas, diesel fuel or JP-4?

God ain't riding any truck that's running Thunder Road



Black smoke coughing skyward, multi-fuelers rumbling,

Passing through the gates you hear the shotguns lock and load.

Helmets weighing heads down, flack vests zipped to sit upon,

Sandbags on the floorboards 'cause they're running Thunder Road.



When the war was younger, wasn't any open road,

Jungle brushed the sidestakes and blocked out the overhead.

Set up in the brush nearby, ambushes were hard to spot,

Troopers running Thunder Road too often wound up dead.



Enter high technology, Monsanto, Dow and chemistry,

Sprayed it with defoliants that burned the jungle back.

Agent Orange, Agent White, one of them will work just right,

Turn the Thunder Road into an open, safer track.



Next the Rome Plows came along, tore the dying jungle down,

Opened up the land one hundred meters either side,

Left an open area of stunted brush and head high grass,

200 open meters for the ambush teams to hide.



From Lai Khe up to Loc Ninh, anxious damned kilometers,

Ain't a single klick that can't be ambushed, sniped or mined.

Lead off with a jeep that mounts a single .50 caliber,

Close the convoy with another .50 back behind.



Every single pothole is the one that hides a waiting mine,

Lots of ruts and potholes form in Asian laterite

Follow in the tire tracks of the truck that’s just ahead in line

If we make it through, we'll sleep in Loc Ninh's wire tonight



Paddies line the lower road, water boo and wooden plows,

Slow down through the hamlets where they try to steal the loads,

Children running after us, "Souvenir me C rats, Joe!"

All of them are VC and they're watching Thunder Road





Women mob the market place, old men squatting in the shade,

Counting 4 by's, 6 by's and the fuel trucks as we go,

Accelerating, roaring north, up highway 13 toward Loc Ninh

Bound to where the mines are buried out on Thunder Road



Trying to relax a bit, hands and arms are cramped and sore,

Tension and the road ruts knot the muscles in our backs,

Someone plays a radio, barely heard above the noise,

Of diesel engines crawling up the twisting, climbing track.



Quon Loi turn-off falls behind, heading for Cambodia

Defoliants have lost their grip; the jungle's closing in,

Rolling through the Michelin, Rome plows never made it here,

Can't upset the planters who still live outside Loc Ninh.



Haggard faces in the trucks caked with thick red laterite

Sweat trails turning dust to mud and not a breath of wind,

To blow the dust away from us as the truck tires churn it up,

It clogs our mouths and noses and it infiltrates our skin.



Every one is twitchy now. If they ambush, should be soon.

Road is down to just one lane and daylight's getting thin

Thunder Road is nearly run; we've survived another day,

Stop! The tanker has to back and fill to make the bend.



Jungle slowly falls behind, sudden tropic nightfall near,

Racing up the final klicks while fading daylight shows.

Road has opened out again, lifting tension from our minds,

Flash! The fuel truck up ahead is blown right off the road



Windshield shatters suddenly, fragments slashing into skin,

Shit! He's hauling Mogas; see the fire consume the load.

Driver never had a chance, torn and burned, cremated there,

The thunder of the mines was why we named it Thunder Road.



Black smoke blowing over us, brings the stench of burning flesh,

B-40 from the tree line detonates another load

Popping of the 16's as we crouch in weed-choked ditches,

Firing 'cross the evil ground that borders Thunder Road.



Choppers strafe the tree lines but Charlie isn't hanging round,

He's killed some long-nosed devils and destroyed a couple loads.

Heading back to safety he can hear the secondary sounds,

Of ammo cooking off in dying trucks on Thunder Road.



Policing up the dead then, nothing left that looks like men

Zip 'em in a body bag and write the letters home.

"Sorry 'bout that, folks, your son got greased below Loc Ninh

On a convoy running highway 13 known as Thunder Road."



Have you written home today? Have you made your will out, troop?

Are you the lucky bastards with the ordnance in your load?

Are you hauling mogas, diesel fuel or JP-4?

Listen to the mines exploding out on Thunder Road

Shootings at Ft Hood I don’t know what is the worst or the best case scenario

We left home this morning about 1130. All was far from right in the world but it was a beautiful morning.


After an easy drive to Johnson City we returned and borrowed books at the Johnson City Library. Leaving the library, we drove to Eastern Tennessee State University. Gloria plans to audit a class next spring, in order to learn more about metal smithing in jewelry design. I may audit a history course or some physical science course or a music course. Both of us filled out and submitted applications to be admitted as undergrad special students, not pursuing a degree or receiving a grade for any class we audit... We should be admitted and able to finish registration sometime next week.

Earth Fare is a short distance from ETSU. We had a late lunch at Earth Fare, bought groceries, and came home. The neighbor across the street was burning trash so we’ll need to stand fire guard tonight.

The horrid thing we heard about first on TV at about 1630, the shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, are incredibly disturbing.

Someone made their way onto a U.S. Army base and deliberately murdered at least 11 people. About 30 more are listed as wounded as of 1714 EST. One shooter is reported dead with two more in custody.

Is this crime something attributable to delayed stress? Did soldiers unable to deal with PTSD any longer choose this way to attempt to end their own pain? Did they plan and attempt a “suicide by MP” event?

Are these domestic terrorists such as McVeigh and Rudolph, driven by religious fanaticism and bigotry? Did they plan on stealing weapons from Ft. Hood? Is there the likelihood of more such attacks?

Or, are these attacks planned and carried out by soldiers of Moslem faith against non-Moslem soldiers such as happened in the run-up to the Iraqi invasion. This aspect particularly bothers me. If it becomes a prevalent or even rare occurrence it will question the ability of the Armed forces to enlist and deploy any troops of Moslem faith. That would not only alienate Moslem Americans but could further alienate black Americans.

Back to the PTSD causation theory:

Reports at 1730 indicate that the shooting took place at the “Soldier Readiness Center,” a pre-deployment processing facility designed to complete all processing and evaluation of the troops prior to shipping them overseas. This must include, mental health evaluation, medical, dental, financial, family networking, all those manifold things that each troop must check off as completed prior to being shipped out again. Apparently there were three soldiers who chose this center as their point of no return.

Another report has indicated that the incidence of soldier-on-soldier violence has increased at Ft. Hood. This source attributed some of that increase to lowered acceptance requirements for enlistment, criminal history and lack of education being less likely to exclude entry than in the pre-Iraq/Afghanistan period. I’m ready to believe this lack of higher caliber recruits is a serious factor in the ability of our troops to deal with combat stress. Yet, intellectual ability is not preventive for PTSD. Education is neither a preventive nor cure for combat stress related disorders.

We need to find better ways to diagnose and treat PTSD in our troops. Every one of them is at grave risk of suicide and is also more likely to harm others because of his or her PTSD.

These are my brothers and sisters in arms, part of the thin red line, the thin blue line, or the long gray line. They are hurting and many other veterans of other wars are hurting for them.

1754 – One shooter identified as Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan – Sleeper agent? Option 3 above?

Bullwinkle’s corner:

The Banshee Call



Riding on the storm winds, traveling the night,

The drums of war are beating, keeping tempo for the pipes.

We all go marching to it from the point of no return,

In half a hundred centuries you'd think we might have learned.

You might think we'd pay attention to those old and frightening tales,

Of the death and horror waiting out there where the Banshee wails.



Where a sister loses brother, where a mother loses son,

Where a family is shattered by the whining Maxim* gun,

Where a generation's gutted and a country's laid to waste,

But it's not a craving satisfied unless you've had a taste,

Of the killing and the dying and the trauma that it means,

Of the bodies that get broken while the Banshee stands and screams.



There's a few that comes to like it and, thank God, they're just a few.

There's many more who know it's just a job they have to do.

There're some who're born for leaders and they're some who must be led,

There're some who come home heroes but too many come home dead.

You can see the black stars, pasted on the windows of their homes,

You can see it yet again when the Banshee starts her moans.



But we can't ignore the piping; it's as if we're born to fight.

So we take our turns at bringing on the military night.

When the nations rise their banners and the drums begin to play,

You can see the boys come running, they can't wait to go away,

From the families that raised them up to be polite and clean,

But they cower in the mud each time the Banshee starts to keen.



The vultures and the jackals know the barking of the guns,

They see the bodies falling, see them blacken in the sun.

And the hearses start to roll again when we forget the tales,

Of the grim and bloody death that beckons where the Banshee wails.

But the piping and the drumming all give lie to what it means,

When you feel yourself fall dying while the bloody Banshee screams.



*Maxim gun

The first self-powered machine gun.

I kid you not, Subway

You may be jealous. I would be if someone posted pictures of this nature every day for me to view while living in more urban environs. Or you may be glad you don’t have to make a 30 – 70 mile round trip to buy groceries, see a doctor, borrow books from the library, or eat something not of your own preparation.

Today dawns peacefully if one discounts the strident squawk of the clock radio. The once “semi-annual” time change, now the “sort of- semi-annual-thanks to Congressional meddling- time-change” that has taken place when badly needed, Sunday around 0 dark-thirty allows me to stumble out to the mail box to retrieve the paper in post sunrise light. The sun has yet to crest the eastern ridge then. The moon is still brightly visible along with the few 1st magnitude stars that speckle the vault. The dog can see what she wants to sniff at most of all. But despite the presence of daylight I don’t let her linger as I want to get back inside and let the aroma from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters’ “Vermont Country Blend” teases some of the residual fog from my mind.

I want to turn on CNN, for lack of anything less filled with puff pieces, preachers plugging books, and just plain nasty segments of what others might choose to call “cute,” in order to find out if the planet still spins in orbit or if we’ve suffered an abrupt departure from our current gravity-determined place in the time and space continuum. That grim fate not imminent, I get a quick scan of what is supposed to pass for national and international news these days.

For those of us who need something bigger than a 2x3 inch screen on a phone/television/video/MP3 player designed to guarantee carpal tunnel, hearing loss, and several other medical conditions that did not exist before Apple found the letter “I;” we must take what the cable providers and programmers offer as “news” via television – the bigger the screen the better- or computer – pretty much your choice of size.

After retrieving the paper, I get to shuffle through it while CNN babbles in background. It offers us what passes for local news, food ads, and arrest reports. Most of the political commentary in it is far right of center. Two or three times a week a centrist or mildly left-leaning column sneaks in. Doonesbury, one of the few cartoons I bother with anymore is never with the rest of the cartoons and comics, nor even on the editorial page. I have to find it among the classifieds. It is hidden there lest the eyes of impressionable children fall across it and be somehow directed down the path to “socialism.”

But what should we expect from the Johnson City Press. After all, it uses a restaurant critic of such discernment and culinary knowledge that last week’s “mystery diner” column featured “Subway.” Other notable reviews of the past few months include various other fast food chain stores, and one of those shops that serves nothing but juice blended with over the hill fruit and yogurt, with a helping of food substitute vitamin powder. Gloria and I have offered to take over the column and actually visit real restaurants. The lack of invitation leads us to think that the food critic is related to someone in the publisher’s family. I hope that’s the case. I can’t think of any other excuse to keep the writer on staff.

By the time I’ve scanned the paper, the coffee is ready. I fix breakfast, take my daily vitamin tablet and fish oil capsules. Time to wake Gloria. The smile in her voice is always a treat. So, too, the smile in her eyes.

Today’s schedule took her to stained glass class in Limestone, then to Greeneville and back. I stayed here with a repairman who came to replace a faulty wiring harness in the new range hood.

Shortly after sitting down at my computer today I stumbled across a delightful column published in the Miami Herald. Fair warning, this is another smack at Sarah Palin. If you wish to avoid it, feel free. But if you are regularly reading anything I write, it will probably strike you as funny as it does me.

http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/columnists/story/1309387.html?storylink=fbuser I sent this to many people by email broadcast. If you are among them, be happy. You have two chances, today, to laugh at political incompetency.

Tonight’s dinner will be a Thai soup, Tom Yum with shrimp and thickened/extended by adding coconut milk. There’s a new sushi restaurant in Johnson City, a chain shop called Edo. We may look at that for lunch tomorrow. We need to go to the library, to Earth Fare, and to ETSU.

Or we may throw caution to the winds and dine at the highly acclaimed "Subway," and hope it won't make you jealous of us.

Music playing today:

Leonard Cohen: live in London, Songs From A Room, New Skin For An Old Ceremony

P, P& M: tracks from several albums

Jerry Garcia Band: How Sweet It Is

Garcia & Grisman: No Just For Kids



Bullwinkle’s Corner:

Sapper's Hours

Between the dreadful fall of night, and the longed-for break of day,

South of the 17th parallel and west of Cam Rahn Bay,

In a hundred impermanent NDP's surrounded by curtains of wire,

The grunts all wait on half alert and scan their fields of fire.

Chorus:

For the sapper battalions roam tonight,

From the delta to the Z,

And every satchel charge they toss,

Is aimed at a grunt like me.

They don't go home when the rains begin, for they have no fear of the mud,

They're out to collect a toll tonight and the payment they want is blood.

They are skilled at infiltration; they’ve vengeance in their hearts,

By the time we learn they've come to call, they've blown someone apart.

Chorus:

There ain't no one invincible, but they sure as hell are good,

I've never caught one comin’ in on any watch I've stood,

I know we have to shoot 'em before they ever get that close,

But I'd rather be inside the wire than out on a listening post.

Chorus:

I'm out too far to get back in if anything goes down,

Whichever side should start to shoot, I'm right in the killing ground.

There's nothing but brush for cover and brush is terribly thin,

Skoshi protection overhead if they walk the mortars in.

Chorus:

From Dong Ha down to Ban Me Thuot, and over to Nui Ba Dinh,

We sit and watch tonight against the sappers creepin’ in,

From the mouth of the muddy Mekong river and northward to Quang Tri,

The sapper battalions roam tonight to kill the grunts like me.

They’re willing to negotiate until the last drop of blood is expended

That is, of course, your blood, not theirs.


Somewhere there’s a shooting war going on and our troops are doing what troops always do. They’re paying for the failure of diplomats and statesmen to carry out their job descriptions as men and women who solve problems between nations and forge peace from centuries-old conflicts. The diplomats and statesmen/women work long and hard at being understood by others of their profession while having great care to utter nothing that might be misunderstood or be taken as insult by the peoples of a nation that has no real international significance or hope of international greatness. The diplomats pay a horrid cost in lost sleep, in upset stomachs due to ceremonial feasting and drinking, in jet lag, varicosities, and the occasional bad photograph showing them disheveled. The troops risk is much less. They pay for failure, from the diplomatic levels down to the fire-team level, in blood, their blood and that of their squad mates.

Diplomacy practices dating back to the days of divine right monarchies insisted that diplomats be afforded the courtesy and some of the privileges that would be shown to a monarch by another. Thus, insulting an ambassador was seen as simultaneously insulting that ambassador’s sovereign. When and if one monarch needed to raise more foot soldiers and camp-followers to invade another’s lands or fend off invasion of one’s own; somehow the original insult was conveyed to the potential recruits in such scurrilous and often inaccurate repetitions as to question the masculinity and bravery of the poor serfs who were being dragooned into yet another bloody interruption in their already short lives.

So today, we find ourselves chained to a system that is designed more to avoid insult to monarchies which either exist in regal impotency or which exist only in national memory.

Spain once owned half the globe, Portugal the other half. This division of land and populace between two divine right monarchies was courtesy of the Roman church. This was the non-Christianized world, of course. The “most Catholic” royal houses were expected to export the Roman Church’s dogma and rule, converting those by force, if required, who had been, previously, lucky enough to not need conversion.

Lines dividing the non-Christian world between Castille (modern Spain) and Portugal: the 1494 Tordesillas meridian (purple) and the 1529 Zaragoza antimeridian (green)


Before Spain, the Caliphate ruled much of the world bordering the Mediterranean. Since Islam converted and controlled by the sword, diplomacy often fell prey to perceived insult. Other empires stretching back to dim history record tale after tale of diplomatic failure leading to battle.


After Spain, England carved an empire as did France. Both nations exist today: the English still a world power with a respected if diminished military and the French as the butt of jokes by other European nations and the mob who attend Fox Tea Parties.

Japan and China have societies that require every citizen to practice diplomacy in public. What goes on at home is the stuff of a thousand movies and the foundation of countless monasteries.

The Soviets did to diplomacy what the Russian mob has done to the myth of honor among thieves. And while the U.S. pretends to be the center of egalitarian government, we are rapidly becoming yet another oligarchy with a nearly hereditary diplomatic caste.

Propping all this pomp and fussy protocol, all this supposed honor rendered to representatives of world powers and to beggar nations and failing states are the men and women who carry the spears, serve the guns, and leave bits and pieces of their selves behind in foreign lands.

As a nation we have foreign policy goals and desires. We want oil; we want cheap raw materials – less so than previously – trade treaties, and access to travel routes. We want other nations to work and play well together so as to meet our needs and goals. As a rule, other nations don’t care that much what we want. They have their own needs and goals.

We are the dominant military power in today’s world. That’s good, far better to be dominant than to need assistance from another nation merely to use common sea lanes. Unfortunately, the nature of warfare has been changed irrevocably by the technology of warfare. Dominance no longer assures victory on the field of battle. Irregulars, insurgents, pirates, jihadis, and other combatants willing to die for their cause can often wreak battle damage or terrorist attacks that seem to far outweigh their numerical and technical makeup. And being dominant does not protect our troops from such attacks.

We still make demands of other nations. We call them requests and deliver them in polite, diplomatic language. Other nations decline or refuse them using the same language. When the demand is important enough to one nation, and refusal will not or cannot be avoided, it falls to the troops to achieve what the diplomats can’t.

It might be that the time has come to stop pretending that we, as a nation, care about hurt feelings or sense of insult perceived by citizens of other nations. Having been one of the troops on the ground, I have no compunction, at all, to avoid insulting another nation and would feel absolutely no remorse at personally delivering that insult in verbal form that can be clearly understood. I value my blood and that of every other man and woman in our armed forces very highly. There are no diplomats or heads of state that merit that regard. There are no religious leaders or figures that merit that regard. There is no national population on this planet that merits that regard.

Is it time for diplomacy to be carried out in plain language? Would we have fewer failures, fewer wars, if we made our demands and our reasons clear at the beginning of any diplomatic exchange? Could we lay our bottom line along with our initial demands and stop pretending that anything but power and money are really at stake in all such negotiations? For the sake of our men and women in our armed forces, I hope we can affect such changes.

I hope we can admit that our purpose in Iraq and Afghanistan is driven by monetary concerns that our government is acting, incorrectly, to benefit commercial concerns. I hope we can admit that stopping piracy on the high seas is different than toppling dictators and religious fanatics who lack the capability to actually wage war against us. I hope we can admit that sending in covert teams to capture or kill those who actually do attack our nation is acceptable while wholesale invasion of other nations with no clear purpose, goal, or exit strategy is not. And I hope we can agree that in any future war, we will draft those politicians who vote to fight it, diplomats who failed in their missions, along with their family members of adult age and place them squarely on the field of battle, to share the risk and to risk their own blood and family futures. Maybe then, diplomacy will become less a holdover from the days of divine right rulers and more an actual tool to resolve disputes between nations.

Dinner tonight will be cheeseburgers with a sweet potato for Gloria and home fries for me.

The day is bright and sunny. Trees are shedding their leaves faster than I am shedding hair from my head. I imagined myself with gray hair when I was younger but never imagined losing my hair. Since I almost always wear a hat outside the house for the shade it provides my eyes, and since I long ago learned that mirrors satisfied no vanity in my mind, as long as Gloria can live with my scalp I can too.

It is supposed to drop below freezing tonight. Later this afternoon I’ll lug another 40 pound of salt pellets over to the well and add them to the filter system. Then I’ll plug in one lamp and drop some warfarin bait in for the mice. That should pretty much wreck my shoulder and arm for the day.

Gloria had a routine checkup Dr’s appointment today. She’s been very concerned about post-prandial glucose levels. Her physician was very pleased with her recorded glucose levels obtained by home monitor. She works very hard at maintaining very tight glucose control. I feel sorry for her as she has had to give up many of her favorite foods. Genetic predisposition to a disease is wicked and generally inescapable. Knowing that doesn’t ease the affliction.

In a perverse manner, I’m enjoying listening to some of my more rabidly right wing correspondents complain about the shortage of H1N1 vaccine. They, of course, want to lay the blame on Obama. They are all too willing to ignore that the disease appeared and reached pandemic status during the Bush administration. They also fail to understand that their vaunted “free market” opted out of vaccine production in this nation, for the most part, as far back as the 1970’s. As I recall, the profit margin was too small and there was too much fear of lawsuits filed by parents who had autistic children and believed the thimerosal component of some vaccines was at fault. The result is an inadequate supply of vaccine today. The free market could have easily ramped up production when the virus first was declared pandemic. The major manufacturers chose profit over public service once again. Quelle Surpris!

Bullwinkle’s poetry corner:


Blue Flannel and Socks


Blue flannel and socks, curled up quiet next to me,

Unspoken symbols of trust in the morning of our love,

Knew that I'd accept her as she really was and somehow,

Quickly realized that I was worthy of her absolute trust.

She didn't know what flannel did to me, she couldn't

Said, this is who I am, no pretense, subterfuge, just us.



She had to hope that I was worthy of her confidence,

Made the huge commitment, showed me who she really was,

Turned a sudden corner, accepting the relationship, quite fully,

Before she went upstairs to change out of her daytime clothes,

But still, she had to feel some trepidation, padding softly,

Gently down the stairs to sit beside me, legs bare, but for socks.



Curled up there with her head upon my shoulder, quiet comfort,

Basking in the peace that cycled back and forth between us,

Thinking of the comfort that was instantly apparent,

Radiating like warm microwaves around us,

Healing any doubts that might have still remained,

Welding tightly bonds we forged that night between us.



Isn’t it amazing how little things like flannel speak so loudly

If you’ve only ears to hear them when they whisper in the night,

The creature comforts we assume that tell so much about us,

The simple things we cherish that make us feel relaxed, feel alright,

And I cherish that one instant when she said so much about herself to me,

A silent moment wrapped in flannel, trust freely given me that winter's night

No “Democracy” coming to the USA

Other than that omission, an absolutely spectacular concert took place last night. Leonard Cohen rewarded a sold out house for their attendance by delivering slightly over three hours of high energy, tour-tested music and poetry to a crowd that came expecting much and left well satisfied.


We drove to Asheville, leaving the dog to guard the house and keep the free world safe from cats and the GOP. Pleasant drive over except for one stretch where the setting sun was blazing through a cloud layer and literally destroying all forward vision. Since I was wearing my glasses without sun clips – highly unusual – all I could do was to follow a truck slowly climbing the pass, using the truck body for as much shadow and road definition as possible. Once past that stretch, traffic flowed well and we arrived at the venue when planned. We found convenient garage parking and walked to the restaurant we had chosen. It was an easy walk, a bit chilly as the sun went down.

The restaurant didn’t look all that busy. We were seated and quickly decided what we would order. Gloria had trout filets crusted with falafel, served with saffron rice and a remoulade of vegetables. I had Kafta with the same rice dish and grilled vegetables. We both drank Lebanese mint tea. The plates arrived quickly and we fell to refueling. There was another couple seated next to us. Gloria struck up a conversation and we discovered they were also in town to see Cohen perform. Two more tables of people showed up while we were eating and they, too, were concert bound. We traded travel information, concert histories, and discussed many of the inconsequential things that make us fans of particular performers. I added a very nice baklava for dessert and we both ordered Turkish coffee, made for us without sugar. It was a very pleasant meal and we’d happily dine there again.

Back at the venue, we found our seats and settled into row B orchestra right. The more expensive rows AA & BB turned out to be stackable convention floor chairs with no arm rests and no padding, little better than folding chairs. Neither the venue or the ticket purveyors had made this plain to buyers and there were several very unhappy fans when they saw what their extra dollars brought them. Our row filled up, large people occupied the seats on both sides of us. The venue was poorly ventilated and overly warm. It remained that way throughout the evening. The speaker stacks were, unfortunately, arranged so that we had a partially obstructed view of the band.

Leonard Cohen took the stage, running onto it, precisely on time. As has been the practice for this tour, the opener was “Dance Me To The End Of Love” for the next three hours we were treated to song after song from the newer material and the older. With the exception of a 15 minute intermission Cohen and his excellent band of musicians and vocalists played and sang continually until 2315. There was no downtime between songs, no idle chatter. The performance began at a high energy level and never fell below that line. Every minute on stage was treated as valuable and every person on stage gave peak effort and attention to every note played or sang. There was no impression of a band bored by repeating a show many times. They played with the enthusiasm and promise of the first night of a tour. They laughed with the audience, nailed harmonies, improvised when the music wanted improvisation. Everyone on stage was offered ample time to solo and to demonstrate their particular expertise. They were treated like friends by Cohen rather than as “side men and back-up singers.” The result is a band or extremely tight and cohesive nature.

While our view was somewhat obstructed, we found the sound crew, part of the tour crew rather than local hires, to be experts in their field. Every note played or sung was recognized and treated as the thing of value to the overall performance that the musician or singer meant it to be.

Cohen did two full sets including The Future, Bird On a Wire, In My Secret Life, Waiting For The Miracle, Chelsea Hotel #2, Hallelujah, Boogie Street, Anthem, Who By Fire, Ain’t No Cure For Love, Everybody Knows, Gypsy Wife, Suzanne, Tower of Song, I’m Your Man, Take This Waltz, A Thousand Kisses Deep, Sisters of Mercy, and others I don’t recognize by name. We were treated to a new blues number that as yet has not been named on the fan sites. There were three encores which included a wonderful “If It Be Your Will, First We Take Manhattan, Closing Time, and the final “I Tried To Leave You, sung half in jest at the audience’s reluctance to allow the band to quit.

Gloria and I enjoyed many of the references to Jewish tradition and lyrics taken in part from our liturgy. These certainly increase our appreciation of his ability as a poet and lyricist, and in some cases deepen our own understanding of the liturgical and textual elements Cohen has used in his writing. We both agreed that we had just seen one of the best concerts we could recall. Given Gloria’s long history with the Washington Folk Festival and her access to great bands while living in the DC metro area that says quite a lot. I value my opinion as a musician but she has been able to see many more live performances by musicians that I know only by broadcast or by album work.

It’s hard to say which material we enjoyed most. The opening has tremendous meaning for us. Had we been more aware of this when we married we would have used it in our music for the day. Both of us discovered Cohen early but followed other tracks until we both rediscovered his work via a PBS program. For me, the instrumental lead in to “Who By Fire,” richly Sephardic in character, scored with incredible bass-driven harmonics at the low end of audibility where sound becomes more physical presence than hearing, was certainly a highlight. The words and melody echo the Unetaneh Tokef, an 11th century liturgical poem recited on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. It’s a visceral response to the evocation of essential Judaism. There wasn’t a bad choice of material offered us. Cohen wisely rotates his material in frequency and placement while on tour. We hit a particularly good night. A new song in the repertoire is always interesting and sometime good. Last night’s unnamed offering was good, better than the Chicago reading I heard today.

The drive home went smoothly. We hit some patches of fog going up to Sam’s Pass and most of the way downhill to home had patchy to dense fog. The Pathfinder has good fog lamps and I know when and how to use them. We pulled into the driveway ca. 0115 after leaving the parking garage in Asheville at 2325. All in all a wonderful evening of music and food not to be soon repeated.

We’re hoping to recover enough to dance in Jonesborough Saturday evening. Time will tell.

 Cell phone photograph 1 November 2009 Thomas Wolf Auditorium Asheville NC

The day is occupied with those things that enable and enrich life. Bright blue sky, moderate temperatures, the loud music of the creek, laundry, meal planning, and the affection of a dog who forgave us for making her stand sentry duty alone, last night.

Gloria had hoped to hear “Democracy” last night, as had I. She was disappointed that it was not played.


“It's coming from the women and the men.

O baby, we'll be making love again.
We'll be going down so deep

the river's going to weep,

and the mountain's going to shout Amen!

It's coming like the tidal flood

beneath the lunar sway,

imperial, mysterious,

in amorous array:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on

O mighty Ship of State!

To the Shores of Need

Past the Reefs of Greed

Through the Squalls of Hate

Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.”

She’s very correct in her hope – We could use a refresher course in our own system of government. Cohen has described the course we need to steer if we only can.

Remember that 1st pesky amendment? or, “1-2-3 what are we fighting for?”

Soldiers In Afghanistan Given Bibles, Told To "Hunt People For Jesus" (VIDEO)


A U.S. church raised money to send Bibles, printed in the Pashtu and Dari languages, to American soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, a report on Al Jazeera documented Sunday night.

It is against military rules to proselytize -- a regulation one of the soldiers filmed by the network readily acknowledged. "You cannot proselytize, but you can give gifts," says the soldier. It is a crime in Afghanistan to attempt to convert anyone from Islam to any other religion. "I also want to praise God because my church collected some money to get Bibles for Afghanistan. They came and sent the money out." The footage is said to be roughly a year old.

The Al Jazeera report also shows a military preacher urging army parishioners to "hunt people for Jesus."

"The Special Forces guys, they hunt men. Basically, we do the same things as Christians. We hunt people for Jesus. We do, we hunt them down. Get the hound of heaven after them, so we get them into the Kingdom. That's what we do, that's our business," he says.

A White House spokesman referred questions to the Department of Defense, which did not immediately return a call. A military spokesman did tell Reuters, however, that none of the Bibles were, as far as she knew, ever actually distributed.

"That specific case involved a soldier who brought in a donation of translated Bibles that were sent to his personal address by his home church. He showed them to the group and the chaplain explained that he cannot distribute them," said Major Jennifer Willis.

"The translated Bibles were never distributed as far as we know, because the soldier understood that if he distributed them he would be in violation of general order 1, and he would be subject to punishment."

President Bush created an international uproar when he referred to the "war on terror" as a "crusade."

UPDATE: A defense official tells the Huffington Post that the preacher did not mean that soldiers should hunt for Afghani souls, but was speaking in general terms. He also said that the Pashtun and Dari Bibles were confiscated so that they could not be distributed to the population.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/04/soldiers-in-afghanistan-g_n_195674.html

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/cspanjunkie/us-military-burns-bibles-afghanistan



This is scary. This is wrong. This is a blatant attempt by a corporate structure masquerading as a legitimately tax free organization to use the U.S. military to export religion by force of arms.

If this particular church, or any, wishes to collect money to send one or more of its members to Afghanistan as missionaries, they have every right to do so. But they have no right, despite what their clergy tell them, to involve the U.S. government, any of its branches of service, or any of its men and women in uniform in proselyltization of non-Christians anywhere on earth, and most particularly not in a combat zone in an Islamic nation. The church won’t send its own missionaries. After all, trying to convert Moslems is a capital offense in Afghanistan. While they may be quite willing to allow some poor soldier to become a martyr, they are far less willing to put their own lives on the line.

This entire episode should never have taken place. Despite what the members of this or any church may believe, the rest of the world is under no obligation to allow them to try to convert people who are practicing any faith or no faith to Christianity. Despite the presence of evangelicals in the armed forces, the United States government is not and has never been an agent in the spread of Christianity or any other religion. This is not a Christian nation. We have no official religion nor should we have. Our founders were extremely wise in incorporating the 1st Amendment into our Constitution.

The additional furor concerning the Army’s decision to destroy the offending books by burning them demonstrates a complete lack of understanding why it was done. Having confiscated illegal books, the Army was under no obligation to return them to the shippers or to pay for their return. Having them in-country could have led to a grave misunderstanding on the part of the local citizens who have no desire to be proselytized or converted. In accidental release of the items into the population might have led to the deaths of any Afghanistan citizen found with them in their possession. The entire shipment of books was an international religious incident waiting to happen. They had to be disposed of by the most cost effective and expedient means. Like other trash generated by the Army, they were burned.

While I would object to anyone burning Torah scrolls, I don’t attach the same significance to printed and bound copies of the Tanach – the original Bible used by Jews. Whether it be Tanach, New Testament, Koran, or any other religious book of modern printing and manufacture, I see no divinity in the object. Written words convey information, opinion, entertainment, but not divinity, and are not sanctified by the words within or by the concepts within. They are books. In this case they were books that were likely to result in the death of anyone possessing them – stupidity on the part of the Taliban and religious fundamentalists and evangelists on both sides of this gap.

Combat is difficult enough, dangerous enough, and deadly enough without some would-be missionaries ramping up the anger level of the other side’s combatants and alienating the non-combatants. If I’d been a member of any combat unit containing a member who intended to distribute religious books or proselytize the local people, I’d have been highly tempted to take the appropriate action myself.

We danced last night, traveling to and from Jonesborough in light to moderate rain. Lots of costumes, some good, some very good. http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=132601&id=693575457&ref=mf

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=35966&id=1035635299&ref=mf

We didn’t show up in the photographic history last night except for edge of photo appearances. The band and caller were quite good. There was a lot of confusion in some of the dances as some of the figures were not being carried out correctly. Still, a good time was had.

Yesterday we received 0.83 inches of rain. We received another 0.25 this morning. At 1330 the sun is beginning to burn through the cloud cover. November arrives with colder temperatures and blue skies. The creek is up, high but clear, today.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
We go to Asheville to see Leonard Cohen tonight. We’ll dine before the show at Jerusalem Garden Café and hope it will live up to our expectations. We both like Middle Eastern food. It they have more than humus and salads in that discipline, we should be alright. The show is sold out.


We slept in a bit this morning. Breakfast was buckwheat pancakes with peppered and smoked dry-cured bacon. Burgers Smokehouse makes and sells this and it is some of the best bacon I’ve ever eaten. It is hard to find locally. We buy it, when we can find it, at a local shop run by Mennonite. We also buy eggs, cheese, butter, and some nuts and spices from them.

Heard the first Christmas commercials on television yesterday. I’m dreading the overhead Christmas aural onslaught that moves to center in the Muzak rotations. Wal-Mart is absolutely off limits until January of next year. I’m sure it won’t be long until I see internet complaints about the wars on Christmas and Christianity. This would be funny if it wasn’t so desperately a symptom of the bitter partition that divides many people in this nation so deeply.

In my opinion – here it comes – there is no war against Christmas or Christianity. What does exist is a refusal by many of us to allow the evangelicals and theocrats to hammer us over the head with their belief that some passage in a printed text gives them absolute right and privilege to insist everyone else pray and live as they are supposed to be praying and living. No one wants to stop them practicing their faith; it is merely that it does not belong in schools, in government, in public affairs. Nor does any other faith or subset of faith including my own. Science should not be replaced or negated in our schools by religion. The county court house should not have religious symbols on its lawn, and WWI veterans should not be buried collectively under a cross when, most certainly, not all of them were Christians. Let our flag be used to demarcate our soldiers’ cemeteries. It would be much more appropriate there than overhead an auto dealership or fast food chain shop.

We will, doubtless visit this topic again before January. But for today, here’s a temporary bottom line.

The Crusades are over. The Moslems won. In case anyone forgets, it is Istanbul, not Constantinople.   We'd be very stupid, indeed, to start that war again.  Despite what many Americans believe about the aims of Islam long term, they are little different from the aims of Christianity, long term.  The major differences in their Taliban and ours are most concentrated in language and who was last spoken to by which deity.  Neither theirs nor ours want what is best for a people, a nation, or the world.

Bullwinkles Poetry Corner:


The Destroyers

"THE strength of twice three thousand horse

That seeks the single goal;

The line that holds the rending course,

The hate that swings the whole:

The stripped hulls, slinking through the gloom,

At gaze and gone again --

The Brides of Death that wait the groom --

The Choosers of the Slain. "


The complete poem can be read at:

http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_destroy1.htm