Homecoming is a relief for Iraqi vet

A year or two ago critics of the continuing U.S. occupation in Iraq tried drawing parallels between this conflict and Vietnam. It was difficult for me to see sometimes. One’s a desert- the other’s a jungle. One had a draft, the other has extended deployments and stop-gap redeployments of National Guard units.

But there is at least one thing that Iraq now seems to have in common with Vietnam, and 2008 has in common with 1968. Both Republicans and Democrats are angry with the way the White House has handled things.

“Hawks” think that we may have gone in too soon, with too few allies, too few troops, insufficiently armed and supplied and without adequate planning for what to do after Saddam Hussein was removed.

Most “Doves,” of course, think we shouldn’t have gone in at all, but agree with too few allies and the inadequate planning. And both Hawks and Doves agree that we can’t blame the workers for a botched job. If there’s only one lesson that we seemed to learn from Vietnam, it’s that we should support our troops no matter how much we disagree with their Commander-in-Chief. At lease we’re agreeing on SOMETHING.

I know a young man who aspires to the discipline and prestige of the United States Marine Corps. He wants to make something of himself and he doesn’t see that happening at home on the farm. His girlfriend doesn’t want him to go but she’s so young that she’s not quite ready to wait for him either. He’s determined, even though he’s scared.

Sounds so cliché that I could’ve made it up doesn’t it?

One of my former students cam back from Iraq last week and came to see me. His stories were amazing. Being fired upon almost daily, having to return fire, not knowing when someone with a weapon is serving in a friendly force or an insurgent one. Bureaucratic headaches and personality conflicts all along the chains of command. Troops secure a territory on their patrol, but rather than staying there, they return to base and as soon as they leave, the insurgents return. Come to think of it, Iraq does sound a lot like Vietnam, doesn’t it?

He told me about how instead of trip wired for booby trap mine, now we call them improvised explosive devices (IEDs), they’ve taken to using those infrared or laser activated sensors like stores have in the mall, so that if you pass between the sensors you set off the bomb.

He told me about how the guardsmen worked on humanitarian projects to help the Iraqis in their neighborhoods and how he befriended the kids there. But it’s not the Army or the Guard that’s directly involved in these projects. The soldiers do it when they’re off duty. Sure, we finance things like community soccer fields, but according to this vet, there’s not much accountability. “You hand the Sheik $50,000 for the dirt work and see him driving by in a new car the next day, a week later he comes back and says that they got the dirt work done, but now they need another $70,000” and so on.
Story after story led me to believe that veterans of other wars who’d written anti-war books like Joseph Heller’s Catch 22, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5 and Richard Hooker’s MASH were not such absurd satires as they were accurate memoirs.

He had a buddy who covered a shift of guard duty for him who was shot and wondered if it should’ve been him. He misfired an ordinance he hadn’t been properly trained on which led to policy memos prohibiting anyone in the unit from “wasting” that particular type of ammunition.

He was on the phone with administrators who wanted a full, detailed damage report for a fire fight, WHILE the battle was going on. Difficult to do when you’re one of only two guys in the guard tower being shot at.

And of course there were stories of the chaos, the anarchy, the trash and the heat. Three Baghdad suburbs surrounded their part of Camp Victory and all three hated each other, even though two were both Sunni and only one was Shiite.

We talked a little bit about how we take care of our veterans, like about the Veteran’s Administration and the new G.I. Bill that’s been proposed in Congress. He seemed absolutely thrilled to be home, although through a paperwork SNAFU he was gypped out of a great deal of college funding. Despite that he’s applying for a full time job with the Guard.

I gingerly broached the subject of post-traumatic stress. He confided that there are nightmares, but not about battles or even being over in Iraq. The only dream that troubles him is the one where they call him back.

Support our troops, bring them home!

I recently got an email that complained-

"Americans who support our troops used to be called the "silent majority". We are no longer silent, and are voicing our love for God, country and home in record breaking numbers. We are not organized, boisterous or over-bearing. We get no liberal media coverage on TV, to reflect our message or our opinions."

I couldn't believe how persecuted they felt. They control all 3 branches of government. I clicked the "reply-all" button and fired back:

How the President and Secretary of Defense FAILED to support our troops:
1. Didn't send enough of them to Afghanistan
2. Began planning to send them to Iraq BEFORE they even got into office, let alone before 9/11
3. Lied to us to make us thing that Iraq had anything whatsoever to so with 9/11
4. Sent them to Iraq
5. Didn't send enough of them to Iraq
6. Didn't send them with enough or good enough supplies, from body armor to vehicle armor
7. Don't take good enough care of their families while they're gone
8. Don't take good enough care of them or their families once they come home
9. Didn't and still don't have a plan for the reconstruction of Iraq once Saddam Hussein was overthrown
10. Contract too many aspects of the operation out to private contractors, who get paid insanely greater amounts than our soldiers
11. Extended stays, re-ups, re-mobilizations
12. Failed to train them adequately for coping with IEDs and RPGs
13. Failed to train them adequately for security, infrastructure rebuilding and general peacekeeping duties of occupation (which should be reconstruction)
14. Failed to train them in ethics and human-relations OR actually instructed them to violate international treaties, leading to abuses in Abu Grahd, and Haditha- then let them take the fall for it in the courts and the media instead of taking responsibility at the command level.
15. Abused the National Guard system for major combat operations when they're supposed to be reserved for natural emergencies like Katrina and Rita. Especially when guys like Bush and Cheney conveniently avoided service in Vietnam by joining the Guard

Support our troops, remember them, pray for them, offer any assistance you can to their families at home, welcome them back with open arms when they do ge to come home, thank them for their service and sacrifice, give to veterans' charities, write to them and send them care packages, vote for them when they run for office once they get home, please, PLEASE keep them and their families in your prayers- but don't stop thinking, don't start hating people who think differently than you do, don't worship our leaders and follow them blindly without scrutinizing them. Support our troops by exercising the rights that they fight for. Best of all, support our troops by calling for their return home.

And don't send mindless, arrogant, foolish, prejudiced, right-wing propaganda to me unless you want me to answer back with the truth like this again.

Your fellow American, and member of the TRUE silent majority- the MIDDLE!

Faces of the Fallen

Faces of the Fallen
It doesn't matter if you're opposed to the war or all for it. We should all support our troops and we should all be praying for their families. This is an incredible website- it is an online gallery of the incredible art installation featuring portraits of those service men and women who have died in Iraq over the past two years. I believe that it is destined to become our most personal and powerful war memorial.
Click here

Annual Exclusive Interview

I wouldn’t have recognized him when he came in if he hadn’t been smoking the Meerschaum pipe that he told me he would be. Of course, he likes to travel incognito. I sat down in the booth across from him and took out my reporter’s notebook and pen. He had a Carhart jacket on a if he were just another farmer, and Dickie’s jeans, but wide red suspenders, like you might expect from him, and a buffalo plaid flannel shirt.

He asked me if I’d like a cup of coffee and he flagged down the waitress to order some for me. He welcomed me with a disarming grin as I sat down.

“How are you kiddo?” he asked.

“I’m good , Nick, just getting over my annual cold. How about you? Besides busy, I mean.?”

“Well, I’ll be honest with you, I’ve been better” he sighed.

“I’m so sorry, what’s wrong?” A nervous feeling pulled at my stomach. This was like seeing your father cry for the first time. He isn’t supposed to ever have anything wrong with him.

“It’s nothing, I probably shouldn’t have even mentioned it. Every so many years or so I sort of go through a bit of a funk. Nothing major. My version of Seasonal Affective Disorder, I suppose” he revealed.

“A funk. What kind of funk could you possibly have, I thought that you’re supposed to always be, well, jolly.”

“Well, see that’s part of it. People don’t allow me to be human. I have limitations, I have feelings, I even have off-days. I know I shouldn’t feel sorry for myself. I usually manage to keep my focus on others. That’s something that everyone should do. It’s the surest way to experience joy. I guess I’m having another one of my identity crisis’s.”

“Identity crisis?”

“Well sure. You’d have one too, if you were me. I was a philanthropist, a missionary, a Church leader. There were all kinds of expectations put on me. I always tried to point people to the Lord and to Scripture. The last thing I’d ever want to do is to eclipse my Lord. But when He performs a few miracles through you, people start seeing you as some kind of super hero.”

“Miracles, I knew about leaving gold in the stockings of the poor girls without dowries, but I didn’t know about any miracles, give me an example” I asked.

“Well,” he scratched his head, “A scary thing happened on my way to the Council of Nicea. (as in Nicean Creed) I stopped at an Inn along the way. There was a terrible famine. I was surprised that the innkeeper seemed to have plenty of food. I was appalled to discover that he was butchering children and intended to serve them to his unsuspecting guests. I prayed and God restored and revived three boys that had been packed in a salt barrel. The innkeeper was so shocked by the miracle that he repented and converted to Christianity.”

“Holy guacamole!” I said. “No wonder you became so famous.”

“After my death, my fame continued to spread throughout Europe and Asia.” He continued. “Fame is a cruel mistress. Anyone would have an identity crisis if they had so many people with their own ideas of who they think you are. I was declared the protector of children, virgins, merchants, and sailors and even the patron saint of Russia.”

I piped in- “Arlo Guthrie once pointed out that you wore a red suit, so you must be a communist. And a beard and long hair, so you must be a pacifist. He said “What’s in that pipe that he’s smoking?”

“If you must know, it’s Turkish blend of long leaf tobacco. I certainly don’t condone and even discourage smoking. It’s a filthy habit, but you try quitting a habit you’ve had for more than 1,700 years! And of course I am a pacifist, I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of the Communist party- but I told you last year that I don’t want to talk about politics. “

“As I was saying…An interesting thing about part of Russia- Siberian Christians lived in homes under the snow. They had a fire in the center and an opening at the top for the smoke. Essentially, their door was climbing a ladder through that smoke hole. I think that’s where people got the idea that I come down the chimney. They depended on reindeer for food, clothing and transportation. As Russians shared their stories about me with the Scandinavians, the reindeer and the chimney things stuck.”

“Things changed a lot with the Reformation. Some zealots not only wanted to stop celebrating St. Nicholas Day but Christmas too! Martin Luther enjoyed Christmas and saw no harm in using my example and my reputation to teach kids moral values. But it was important to other Protestants to rid Christianity of what they call 'the cult of the saints.' I appreciate that people should pray directly to the Lord, and I agree that even the greatest leaders and martyrs of the Church should be venerated, not worshiped- there’s a difference. But I can’t help feeling that we’ve lost a lot of great stories and teaching tools by wiping away so much history like that. I also wonder if that didn’t just backfire, you know.”

“What do you mean?” I interrupted.

“Well, after that, my image became much more secular, even mingled with all kinds of superstitions and pagan myths. All of a sudden I’m an elf, a pixie, “Father Christmas,” Old Man Winter, or even the gods Oden or Thor!”

“Some cultures tried to make Christ Child, not Nicholas, the gift giver. That never really took off. I understand that there’s that same old debate going on in the U.S. this year. Put the “Christ back in Christmas.” Let me tell you, I know the Lord, He’s a close friend of mine. I don’t think He’s always pleased that we celebrate His birthday by going into debt.”

“One of my nicknames, “Kriss Kringle” is kind of an Americanization of the German “Christ Kindle” which means "Christ Child." Like everything else in America, my image has pretty well been homogenized and pasteurized from everybody else’s ideas. “Santa Claus,” a corruption of the Dutch “Sinterklaas,” a shortened form of “Sint Nikolaas. You see my problem? Sometimes even I don’t know what my real name is!”

“You know what,” I interjected, as if little ‘ol me could help him somehow, “Is there anything I can do? I mean, can I tell my readers to do anything for you? What do YOU want for Christmas this year?”

“You know what, just being able to talk about this and get it all off my chest may be enough. I really don’t want anything for myself. But I’ll tell you what you can do. You can tell your readers that they can go to http://www.booksforsoldiers.com on the internet to find out how they can send books to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

“They can also buy lots of prepaid phone cards and send them to the injured and recovering service men and women at the V.A. hospital in Washington, that way they can call their families for Christmas. Here’s the address-“
He pulled out an index card with this address:

Medical Family Assistance Center
Walter Reed Medical Center
6900 Georgia Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20307-5001

“A lot of them have lost limbs. They’re not sure who they are anymore either. Are they soldiers? Are they husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters? Helping them get in touch with their folks during the holidays will help them reconnect and remember who they are. That will give lots of people a very Merry Christmas. That, and to keep them and all your service men and women in your prayers.”

I promised him I’d do at least that. But I think my daughters had a good ideas too. Their Great Grandma Laura brought us out a big batch of Christmas cookies and both girls have told me that I have to save some of them for him. So I will.

Rapid Deployment Kits

Rapid Deployment Kits
Here's a great way to show the troops that you support them, and that you're praying for them.

Books For Soldiers - Care packages for the mind.

Books For Soldiers - Care packages for the mind.
Hey this is really cool! What if everyone who found out about Books For Soldiers by landing on my Column site sent Bibles and devotional books like Portals of Prayer, Daily Bread, or Upper Room or Guideposts?

White Christmas

Growing up in Phoenix I’d sometimes get defensive around Michigan relatives who wondered how we could stand Christmas without snow. I’d trace my finger on a map or glob from Phoenix to Bethlehem just to point out that it’s not about the snow.

Needless to say, since my very first December in Nebraska, I’ve been converted. Mind you, I hate shoveling it as much as the next guy. This year I haven’t caught pneumonia or thrown out my back yet, but I have sprained my wrist. And one of the few things I miss about living in LA is sitting by the pool under the palms and bouganvillas this time of year, but now I too am one of those people who just don’t think it’s Christmas, unless the Christmas is white.

Bing Crosby first sang "White Christmas" on his NBC radio show on Christmas Day in 1941, just over two weeks after Pearl Harbor. Little did he know that the song Irving Berlin wrote for a 1942 movie "Holiday Inn" would win an Academy Award for best song. Nor did he have any idea that it become the biggest-selling single of all time.

Did he have any idea that it would become a song about yearning for peace and for "the ones we used to know?" "White Christmas" often brought tears to the eyes of many weary soldiers.
You can plan on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree

Christmas Eve will find me
Where the lovelight gleams
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams
Most years, hearing Crosby croon simply made me think about snow, or about the 1954 movie Crosby made with Danny Kay and Rosemary Clooney.

But this year I can’t help thinking about much more. For one thing, too many of the veterans who helped save the world from the NAZIs and fascism are no longer with us. Or, sick or suffering. For another, too many people my age are separated from their families this Christmas, soldiers in another war.

This time our government tried to lead us to believe that Iraq was to blame for terrorist acts committed by Al Queda, (which was centered in Afghanistan, not Iraq) and this time our government struck first without provocation.

I have a former student, Jamie, getting married this spring. Her brother Matt (another former student) is in Iraq, his unit has been fired upon and lost members in Black Hawk helicopters. Jamie worries so much she often cries herself to sleep.

I have a cheerleader who’ dad I’ve never met. He didn’t come to parent-teacher conferences. That’s because he’s over there too. Actually, he’s not allowed to tell his family where he is exactly. This 7th grade girl hasn’t seen her dad in almost two years. I can’t imagine not seeing my kids for that long.

I know that today’s service men and women are definitely not enjoying the sun, sand and palm trees in Kabal, Baghdad and Tekrit.

If Bob Hope were to take Bing Crosby and his USO show over there for Thanksgiving, I know they’d have gotten a lot of tears if they’d sing Crosby’s 1943 hit, “I'll be home for Christmas.”

Please keep our service men and women and their families in your prayers this season. May your days be merry and bright. And may all your Christmases be white.

Memorial Day

"Memorial Day...celebrates and solemnly reaffirms from year to year a national act of enthusiasm and faith. It embodies in the most impressive form our belief that to act with enthusiasm and faith is the condition of acting greatly"

~Oliver Wendell Holmes
From an address delivered for Memorial Day, May 30, 1884

Monday is Memorial Day, also known as Decoration Day, Ashes Day, not to be confused with Labor Day, it’s book end on the other side of summer or Veteran’s Day, it’s half-brother which was really intended for the living. Since World War I, it’s also been called Poppy Day, because volunteers sell small, red artificial flowers as a fund-raiser for disabled veterans.

Legend has it that throughout history, after major wars red poppies seem to pop up on battlefields and on soldiers graves. Poppy seeds lay dormant in the soil until it is violently turned or dug up, causing them to sprout.

After WWI in Flanders Field, Belgium. In the bomb craters and on mounds of rubble, poppies bloomed everywhere. The heavily churned earth and high concentration of lime from the limestone buildings made the perfect catalyst for the poppies to grow.

Some thought that the red poppies looked spilled blood. British mothers wore poppies in remembrance of their lost sons. The poppy has since become a symbol of peace and of remembering the sacrifice of the fallen soldier.

Memorial Day may have began in 1868, when Civil War General John A. Logan, commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, a Union veterans’ organization, said that May 30th should be special day to decorate the graves of Union soldiers.

He may have chose May 30th on the suggestion of a Franco-American veteran, who noted that May 30th was "The Day of Ashes" in France-the day that Napoleon's remains were returned to France in 1840 from his exile to the island of St. Helena 1200 miles off Africa. What Napoleon’s ashes have to do with Union veterans, I have no idea.

Northern states celebrate Memorial Day on the last Monday in May. This became a federal holiday in 1971. In the deep South, Memorial Day celebrations honor Confederate soldiers who died in "the war between the states." Mississippi and Alabama celebrate Confederate Memorial Day on the last Monday in April. In Florida and Georgia, the date is April 26. May 10 is Memorial Day in North and South Carolina, and the holiday is June 3 in Kentucky, Louisiana, and Tennessee. Texas observes Confederate Heroes Day on January 19 (Robert E. Lee's birthday).

The first large observance was held in 1868 at Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. The cemetery already held the remains of 20,000 Union dead and several hundred Confederate dead. After speeches, children from the Soldiers' and Sailors' Orphan Home and members of the GAR made their way through the cemetery, strewing flowers on both Union and Confederate graves, reciting prayers and singing hymns.

Many Americans don’t know is that how Arlington came to be our national cemetery. Arlington was the home of Gen. Robert E. Lee. Perhaps to send his family a message, Union sympathizers piled the remains of Confederate dead at his doorstep. You can imagine the stench.

Unfortunately the significance of this holiday is sometimes forgotten, buried in ads, sales, barbecues and water sports. It’s easy to see Memorial Day as just another day off. It certainly has a sweetness as the gateway to summer and a time for friends and families to gather.

But especially with two wars just in the last two years, I think we need to remember it for what it was intended, a day of mourning, and prayer for and gratitude to the men and women who lost their lives in the line of duty and their families.

Buy a poppy to support Veterans’ charities, pray for the widowed and orphaned families of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and thank God for your freedoms.

"Soldier, rest! Thy warfare o'er,
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,
Dream of battled fields no more.
Days of danger, nights of waking."

~Sir Walter Scott
1

What about Mike?

The strangest things can take you back, can’t they. A couple of weeks ago I was watching Boyer Valley get beaten by the West Harrison Hawkeyes and something sent me back to L.A.

I was doing my best to ignore the perennial emotional melodramas that cheerleaders seem to have to go through. It was just to hard to concentrate to much on the game since we were down by twenty points. So of all things I started noticing the back of some kid’s head.

Mind you, I’m not in the habit of looking at the backs of kids’ heads. It was a basketball player with a shaved head. It reminded me of Mike’s head.

Mike Merrill was an incredibly tall kid with a shaved head like this West Harrison kid, only taller. He had an Adam’s apple and a bit of a slouch so that he kind of reminded you of one of those cartoon vultures in Disney movies. In spite of that, he wasn’t a scrawny kid. Mike was pre-enlisted to become a Marine.

Mike’s Dad was in the Corps. Mike’s Grandpa served in Korea. Nobody could remember his first name, he was known only as “Sarge.” Sarge came to all of Mike’s Football games . We didn’t have a regulation length field, so we played our games on Saturday afternoons at the Baptist high school. Sarge sat in the hot California sun in his lawn chair with a beach umbrella to protect his white flat-top.

Sarge came to junior high games too since Mike’s little sister was a cheerleader. Friday evenings when the wind blew through the foothills it could make you shiver. Sarge would remind us that we didn’t know real cold if we didn’t fight in Korea. I knew as a history teacher that he knew what he was talking about. Each winter campaign from 1950-53 rivaled WWII’s Battle of the Bulge for the brutal cold and grueling storms.

My Dad was fortunate. When he was in the Marines during the Korean War, he was stationed on an air craft carrier in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. His dad was too old for active service during WWII, so he worked in the aircraft factories outside of Detroit. My Mom’s Dad served in the Navy in the Aleutian Islands. I, thank God was born during Vietnam, rather than 17 years earlier.

Military service never really occurred to me. Most of my generation was expected to go from high school to college, even if it was a two year college, it was an unspoken rule, an assumed expectation. No doubt just as military service, at least was National Guard service was an unspoken expectation of the generations before mine.

I’d seen several student enter the Army or Marine Corps before Mike Merrill. Usually they came back to Homecoming different, more respectful, more responsible, more poised, men. Andrew Beyang was a Malaysian-American student who became a Ranger in the First Airborne. He came back to my U.S. History class with a recruiting sergeant to talk about basic training. They actually showed video footage of soldiers throwing up after a poison gas endurance test. What a way to win over volunteers.

Last summer I received an email from a college classmate in Nebraska. Tom was joining the reserves. He said that after 9/11 he felt like he had to do something. He had always been into Civil War reenactment, so I figured he was in good enough shape to hack it. The last time I’d seen him he was working on his Master’s and he was an inspiring teacher , so I figure they’ll make him an officer. Still, it seemed odd to me.

“You’re 32 years old,” I thought, “you have two little kids at home. Are you nuts? A weekend-a-month, a month-a-year? Aren’t you spread thin enough between Church and school and coaching and reenactments? Besides, we’re at war, sort of, with these weird terrorists, you could, well, die.”

But I didn’t tell him that. I told him I admired him. I thanked him for service and sacrifice and I meant it, but I can’t help paying closer attention to the news when the latest troop mobilizations are announced. He’s a dear friend. How can I not worry.

The last I’d heard Mike Merrill was stationed in Okinawa, Japan. But where are Justin, Andrew, Rick, and any of the other kids I’ve taught over the years? Who says Okinawa is safe, just because it’s not in the Persian Gulf? It’s probably less than 600 miles from Soul, Korea.

When Tom and I were in elementary school we were scared to death of a nuclear war. I thought that fear had died along with the Soviet Union. Now, it seems that North Korea may have missiles capable of targeting the western United States.

As a high school student in the eighties I naively longed for the controversy of the sixties and seventies, but by college I was glad that I wasn’t faced with having to fight or take a stand in opposition to the Vietnam War. I’m still amazed at what good friends my uncles are. One who was a medic in Vietnam and one who fled to Canada.

I don’t doubt that Saddam Hussein is a genuine threat and I certainly don’t approve of dictatorships, but I’m not convinced that some of our current President’s rhetoric hasn’t been reckless. I think that positive, proactive engagement is always more productive than broad threats and angry assertions. And we may not be hypocritical imperialists like so many pacifists accused us of being during Vietnam, but I can sure see how half the Arab world might see us that way, while we support one nation’s dictator while staging a “pre-emptive” war to oust another.

So here we are, U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix reports to the U.N. Security Council this Monday, Jan. 27. Many analysts, pundits, and experts expect that to be when President Bush makes the decision of Mike Merrill’s life. At least 60 to 250,000 American troops, Men, Women, boys and girls may be about to go to war. The first Gulf War took place in February too.

I think we should support our troops and pray for them like we did during the first Gulf War. Vietnam Vets didn’t deserve all of the hatred and anger unleashed on them upon their return home. But war isn’t something we should be enthusiastic about and we shouldn’t support our political leaders blindly.

All I know is, I wish all that Mike Merrill had to worry about was still where to take his cheerleader girlfriend for a date after the game.