ELECTION 2024

This marks my final comments on the upcoming election. After today I will cease my involvement other than to transport anyone needing the help to go and vote. I am optimistic that America will not descend into anarchy and fascism. I think we will defeat the madness. The military, and life, have taught me, however, to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. So I must consider the unthinkable.

If Americans should make the worst decision they have made since 1861 and the election, as it currently determines success, should unfold against my choices, I will accept the result. But I will mourn, as did the Psalmist, who sang "By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion."

My life is almost over, so I’ll not mourn for myself. First, I’ll mourn for my friends who have children and grandchildren facing life in a country without a moral base. I’ll mourn for those living outside a “bell curve of normality” due to race, religion, origin, sexual makeup, or gender. I’ll mourn for “the least of those among us” who will have no place other than servitude in a country refitted to serve only the wealthy and their immediate allies. I’ll mourn for the rest of a world that looked to America for guidance. Also, I’ll mourn for those upon whom reality will most tragically and destructively dawn—a large portion of those who will have voted for the brigands and grifters. Yes, those who voted against their best interest.

But will I comply and remain silent? No. The military also taught me to, if captured, resist the oppressors. This can weaken them and make their jobs so much harder. It undermines their efforts to forbid righteousness. It helps keep them from dreaming up additional evil. I’ll resist as best I can until she receives the word to send a squad for me. My place on the list will probably be somewhere below the teachers and librarians. If I live long enough to see my country saved from fascism, I’ll not be in the group forced by our saviors to walk by and view the corpses of our brothers and sisters who met destruction while we said, “We knew nothing,” even as the stench of the death camps rolled across our beloved land with every breeze.

Do I imagine myself as a hero? No. But I am an American, and I’ve still got some fight left in me.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 IMMUNITY

There was a fellow on our Navy ship, a two-year seaman apprentice which meant that he didn’t meet some standard for full enlistment. This shipmate was, as they say in LA, “a bit limited.” It may have been autism for, at any moment, in any situation, in any context, he would say whatever the voices in his head suggested.

Bigotry determined most of his utterances, whether alone, in the presence of white shipmates, a mixed crowd, or a crowd of African American shipmates, known as “brothers” in those days. Odd thing was: he never suffered for his utterances. No matter what bigotry emerged from him, shipmates ignored him. It was like he lived in a separate universe, one free of ordinary judgement.

For nearly two years, he lived free from serious punishment that would have resulted in severe repercussions if done by any other person. These were tense times, racially, in the military following the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. Racial epithets did not enjoy a great deal of tolerance.

But with this shipmate, even his supervisors would say, "It's only [him]."

The closest person I have seen to him since is Donald Trump.

That is why I predict he will emerge as “the victor” in the upcoming debate.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 STONES

Maybe it is because I am a veteran of a foreign war that several people have asked for my impressions of The Great Arlington Campaign Photo Op. My thought? Thank goodness for the United States Navy wherein I learned language appropriate to the task, language that I shall try to avoid.

The white tombstones called to mind a story I heard once. An older veteran of World War Two told it to me. He was a former member of United States Naval Construction Battalions, better known as the Navy Seabees. That organization accepted older enlistees, and given his age, it was his only chance to serve. And serve he did, for almost four years in the South Pacific. Never sell "elderly" men short.

He told me of coming home on a troop ship. As it sailed through the Golden Gate, people on the Marin County side had painted huge white boulders and placed them on the hillside. They spelled out, "Welcome Home Boys."

That always touched me. It still does when I think of the fact that no such welcome sign greeted our plane when it landed in California. A much different welcome awaited us.

So what do I think of a draft-dodger desecrating a sacred place like Arlington Cemetery? I think Donald J. Trump and his followers are living ancestor of the sons of bitches that yelled "Baby Killers" at us on our arrival home.