The day I Filled in for Santa

 Picture of me in my “Get Up” visiting my Grandpa

      “What the heck are you doing in that outfit????”  Jeffrey P. asked me when I walked into the shop that morning.  It was about a week before Christmas and I decided to wear my new   $35.00 Santa outfit  to work.  You can do that sort of thing when you’re a subcontractor

     Ben and I  had been framing a small building over the mailboxes at Idlewild.     I thought to myself the night before- wouldn’t it be fun to dress up like Santa when we shingled ?   So that’s where that idea came from.

     Initially, Ben wasn’t sure he liked the idea of me drawing so much  attention to the two of us, but by the end of the day, he told  me, the  next time this happened  he was going to find  a green elf hat! 

      Couple of people stopped  and asked to take our picture.  Someone told me later, I made the local paper but I never saw it so I can’t be sure.  

      It was cold that day.- Single digits, so underneath my Santa out fit, I  had on my  Carharts.- that plus the beard, and I  was sweating like a pig in no time-  but we laughter and that made it all worth while.

        I’ve said this before but just in case you’ve never heard it: 

“Do what you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

       I love my job- (I’m a general contractor) and as you can tell, I don’t take myself too serious.  Now I can be as productive and focused as the next guy, but life is too short to not mix it up on occasion.  Nothing worse than a grumpy boss or a stodgy work enviroment. I  do have a choice in the attitudes I bring with me to work.

     On my commute home, I spotted a stranded motorist so I pulled over to see what he needed ( I still had my full get up on @ this point)  As it turned out, he’d  ran out of gas.  The guy had been drinking and when he leaned in the window and saw Santa Claus, I remember him slurring, “Nobody’s going to believe me when I tell them  Santa Claus stopped to help me out!”

     How about you- what is the craziest (or funniest )  thing you’ve ever done?   It doesn’t have to be in the context of work although it could be.  Tell me your story.

Overcoming thoughts of Ugliness

    

       “You are one ugly Mother F&*#$%@ “  Jim B said to me  on a bus ride home from school my freshman year. 

      His comment came totally out of the blue and confirmed something I’d already thought  to myself- I was odd looking, ugly even.  I thought I  had big ears, people called me “Monkey”, I had  pop bottle wire rim glasses,  a nerdy hair cut,  hadn’t hit puberty yet, I was shy, loved to read , played trumpet in band while  my  younger brother was the athlete.     

    The fact that Jim had given voice to it only confirmed it.    He was a couple of years younger than me, one of those kids that was always getting into trouble because of his mouth.    I  proceeded to beat the tar out of him, but deep inside I knew he was right.

      When I was 22  I approached an older friend   and told her I struggled with low self-esteem and wanted help.    She was passionate about her faith,    she was a nurturer, and I instinctively sensed she might be able to help.   Those early conversations were the beginning of an emotional healing process that   rooted out 90% of the negative self talk and thoughts that used to control my life. 

       Last night as my wife and I listened to a new    CD titled  ” I Declare” by Sharon Collins, I realized I still have a  negative thought that casts a long shadow over my life.  I’m embarrassed to give voice to it but I’m betting I’m not the only one who battles with it so here goes…

I am ugly.

     What I’d really like to be doing now is telling  you a story of  how I over came  negative thoughts of ugliness  but the truth is, I’m  stuck.    

     I’ve lived long  enough to observe that real beauty (and ugliness) is as much  what we think about ourselves as anything.   

     The story of the Ugly Duckling still  resonates  with me- I feel like a  duck trapped in a swan’s body.

    Thoughts, comments, questions, suggestions?

Who is to say if it’s good or bad?

   

Once there was a farmer who  had one son and one horse.  One day his horse ran away.    When his neighbors heard about it, they came to comfort him.  “Such bad luck- we’re sorry your only horse ran away.” they said.

     “Who is to say whether it’s good or bad, replied the farmer.  All I can say for sure is, my horse has run away.  Time will tell whether this is good or bad.”   His neighbors just shook their heads and walk away.

      A week later, his horse returned home-  along with 20 wild horses!!!

    His neighbors, upon hearing the news, came to congratulate him.  “What good luck you have.  Not only did your horse return, but he brought with him 20 more.  Such a lucky man you are!”

      “Who is to say whether it’s good or bad-  All I know is my horse has come home along with 20 wild horses-  and leave it at that.”  Again, his neighbors shook their heads and  scoffed -  “Of course it’s good luck you old fool!  Twenty new horses is obviously good luck!”

     The next week the  farmer’s son was out riding in the pen with the new horses, fell off and broke his leg.  Upon hearing the news, the neighbors came over to comfort the farmer.  “You were right- Those wild horses were not a sign of good fortune- now your son has broken his leg- and right before the harvest.  Such bad luck!”

      Again the farmer replied- “Why do you constantly want to label something as good or bad.  Why can’t you just say, “My son has broken his leg while riding a horse and leave it at that.  Who is to say whether it is good or bad?”

       Upon hearing this, the neighbors were indignant- ” Listen old man, to have your son break his leg at this time is unfortunate and a sign of bad luck.  You are such a fool to think otherwise.”

       The following week, an army came to town and drafted all the eligible young men, and sent them off to war in a far away place.  They did not take the farmer’s son on account of his broken leg.  Afterwards, the people were heartbroken and came to the farmer in tears-  You were right-  our sons are gone, we’ll probably never see them again- such bad luck our town has experienced!. 

    The old farmer (again) said- ”Why do you continue to insist an event is good or bad?  We do not know the end from the beginning. Why can’t you just say, Our sons have been drafted, and only time will tell if it is good or not.

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    I (DM) have come across this story twice this  past year, and it continues to speak to me.   Wanted to pass it on to you. It reminds me so much of the story of Joseph (boy w/ coat of many colors) .  

        Last year, I bid on a new house, it was close to home, initially it sounded like I’d got the job- at the last-minute, another contractor underbid me.            

       Work was not real plentiful last Summer.  Long story short, the story of the farmer came to mind-  I’ve been in construction long enough (34 years)  to know sometimes you’re better off when you don’t get a job.  A month later, I was approached by  someone to help with a 24,000 sq ft warehouse- I would not have been in a position to help on the warehouse  had I been working on the 2400 sq ft house.  The house was an  8 week job, where as the warehouse will be an 8 month job.

        I’m a dad to 4 great kids (and adopted dad  to another young woman)  The youngest is 21 and the oldest is 34.  I’ve watched again and again  as God has used painful consequences to teach life lessons to my children.  I try not to get too worked up when I hear  some of the heartache that comes into their lives.

      A night in jail is not necessarily a bad experience…..

     I always told them- If you get busted, I’m not going to come and bail you out.”  “I never want to go back to that place as long as I live!!!”  they tell us later.    It took a while, but we as a family have laughed as this child has recounted the details of their experience in that night.

     Co-sign   with your live- in on a bed  (who  I said right along was  bad news.)   Then comes the  break up, Bad News  keeps bed,  defaults on the payments,  tanks  our kids credit score in the process…is this good or bad?  Well, that all depends-  The true colors of the “ex” have been exposed, and child is no longer in that emotionally abusive relationship…me thinketh some good has come out of it.   

   How about putting the apartment  phone in your name- while your “friends and room mates ” rack up hundreds of dollars of long distance phone calls and refuse to compensate you?    (along with some other poor financial choice) – is this good or bad?

     Flash forward to today- This child is much wiser financially it gives me joy to see  where they are today.

   Tell me about some of the hard things in your life that have eventually resulted in good.  As always, thanks for reading along! DM

Looking back at our decision to Home School 19 years later…

     

     Family photo in 1994

 I was not in favor of home schooling our 4 children for several years…for the same reasons people  today who don’t understand it usually give -

“What about Socialization? - I didn’t want our  children  to turn into  nerds  unable to make it in the “real” world. 

“What about extra- curricular activities like band,  football, school dances?”

“How are we  going to teach the subjects we’re not qualified to teach?”

What about college?

        In the end, it was the gentle persuasion of my wife that changed my heart to  take a year for the two of us to seriously research the idea and then make a final decision.  That was in 1991- 

     Here I sit 19 years later.

  As Paul Harvey used to say…this is the rest of the story.

         The first thing I discovered as I researched  the home schooling movement   was there was  more than one model on how to do it.  It was confusing.   The amount of information to assimilate was overwhelming. 

      If you were to come to me today and ask “where is a good place to start? – I would point you to Doctor Raymond and Dorothy Moore’s book  The Successful Home school Family Handbook  (it is a later version than the one we had back in 1991)- but from where I sit today, that is still the one I remember best for a general overview.  Get it- you won’t regret it.

      Secondly, our children ranged in age from 3 to 11 when we took over the job of teaching them.  Our oldest two had already completed the 4th and 5th grade in public school,  it took two or three  years for us  to find our rhythm. 

        Now feel free to duplicate a traditional educational model in your home, I know people who do- they get metal desks, they set up a room just like an elementary school room, the whole package,  like I said initially, that is one model of home education. 

     There’s also the classical model,   a  unit study model, a  dual enrollment model (where your kids take some of their classes at a local public or private school and some of their classes at home)

 Lots of experts, lots of good ideas.   At the end of the day, you need to find what works best for you. 
       I will tell you this, when we finally did start home schooling, it wasn’t too many months into it  before we all started to burn out- we were putting a lot of pressure on the kids and ourselves.

     Children  are naturally curious and love to learn (believe it or not) so when  that’s not happening- that is just like the check engine light coming on in your car-  you need to pull over and figure out what’s wrong.

         Our first year, we purchasing a curriculum package- put out by Christian Liberty Academy. http://www.homeschools.org/

     What I liked about their set up (and they’re not the only one on the market), was the fact they gave us a complete set of books for each student.  They offered a payment plan- so we could spread out the expenses over time.  And you could either buy just the books, or for an additional fee, have the  kids actually enroll through their school long distance.  I liked it the first year, it felt like we had a  safety net under us.

      Over the course of a couple of years, as our confidence grew, we began to design our own unit studies, and didn’t need that  net. 

      Here’s some final thoughts-  Home schooling is not for everyone….it’s not even necessarily for every child  in your home-   I can already hear  someone squawking about not letting the world shape your children- like I said, you need to find what works best for you.

       As our kids got into the 9th and 10th grade, we involved them in the decision process, whether to home school, go to public school or do a combination of the two, which in our state is called “dual enrollment”.  All of them dual enrolled, except our youngest, who decided to go to public school full-time once he hit 9th grade.  Since the 3 oldest only went to the public school part-time, they didn’t have enough credit hours for a diploma- so they each tested out and got a GED through the local community college.

      I don’t regret it for a minute that we chose the home school route, I wish I could have done it myself when I was growing up. 

There is so much more I could say, so if  you have a question- I’d be glad to talk with you more about it-  just leave a comment w/ your e-mail address and I promise to get back to you. DM

Appointment with Love

Pretense: The act of pretending; a false appearance or action intended to deceive.  Mere show without reality; outward appearance.

      I hate pretense in relationships/ business or personal-  maybe that’s why I love this story.

        DM

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      Six minutes to six, said the great round clock over the information booth in Grand Central Station.  The tall young Army lieutenant who had just come from the direction of the tracks lifted his sunburned face, and his eyes narrowed to note the exact time.  His heart was pounding with a beat that shocked him because he could not control it.  In six minutes, he would see the woman who had filled such a special place in his life for the past 13 months, the woman he had never seen, yet whose written words had been with him and sustained him unfailingly.

     He placed himself as close as he could to the information booth, just beyond the ring of people besieging the clerks…

      Lieutenant Blanford remembered one night in particular, the worst of the fighting, when his plane had been caught in the midst of a pack of Zeros.  He had seen the grinning face of one of the enemy pilots.

     In one of his letters, he had confessed to her that he often felt fear, and only a few days before this battle, he had received her answer: “Of course you fear…all brave men do.  Didn’t King David know fear?  That’s why he wrote the 23rd Psalm.  Next time you doubt yourself, I want you to hear my voice reciting to you, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for Thou art with me.”  And he had remembered;  he had heard her imagined voice, and it had renewed his strength and skill.

     Now he was going to hear her real voice.  Four minutes to six.  His face grew sharp. 

       Under the immense, starred roof, people were walking fast, like threads of color being woven into a grey web.  A girl passed close to him,  and Lieutenant Blanford started.  She was wearing a red flower in her suit lapel, but it was a crimson sweet pea, not the little red rose they had agreed upon.  Besides this girl was too young, about 18, whereas Hollis Meynell had frankly told him she was 30.  “Well, what of it?” he had answered.  “I’m 32.  He was 29.

     His mind went back to that book- the book the Lord Himself must have put into his hands out of the hundreds of Army  library books sent to the Florida training camp.  Of Human Bondage, it was; and throughout the book were notes in a woman’s writing.  He had always hated that writing-in habit, but these remarks were different.  He had never believed that a woman could see into a man’s heart so tenderly, so understandingly.  Her name was on the book-plate  Hollis Meynell.  He had got hold of a New York City telephone book and found her address.  He had written, she had answered.  Next day he had been shipped out, but they had gone on writing.

     For 13 months, she had faithfully replied, and more than replied.  When his letters did not arrive, she wrote anyway, and now he believed he loved her, and she loved him.

     But she had refused all his pleas to sent him a photograph.  That seemed rather bad, of course.  But she had explained: “If your feeling for me has any reality, any honest basis, what I look like won’t matter.  Suppose I’m beautiful.  I’d always be haunted by the feeling that you had been taking a chance on just that, and that kind of love would disgust me.  Suppose I’m plain (and you must admit that this is more likely) Then I’d always fear that you were going on writing me only because you were lonely and had no one else.  No, don’t ask for my picture.  When you come to New York, you shall see me and they you shall make your decision.  Remember, both of us are free to stop or go on after that- whichever we choose…”

      One minute to six- he pulled hard on the cigarette.

     Then Lieutenant Blanford’s heard leaped higher than his plane had ever done.

     A young woman was coming toward him.  Her figure was long and slim; her blond hair lay back in curls from her delicate ears.  Her eyes were blue and flowers, her lips and chin had a gentle firmness.  In her pale green suit, she was like springtime come alive.

     He started toward her, entirely forgetting to notice that she was wearing no rose, and as he moved, a small, provocative smile curved her lips.

      Going my way soldier?” she murmured.

      Uncontrollably, he made one step closer to her.  Then he saw Hollis Meynell.

      She was standing almost directly behind the girl, a woman well past 40, her greying hair tucked under a worn hat.  She was more than plump; her thick-ankled feet were thrust into low-heeled shoes.  But she wore a red rose in a rumpled lapel of her brown coat.

     The girl in the green suit was walking quickly away.

     Blanford felt that though he were being split in two, so keen was his desire to follow the girl, yet so deep was his longing for the woman whose spirit had truly companioned and upheld his own; and there she stood.  Her pale  plump face was gentle and sensible;  he could see that now.  Her gray eyes had a warm, kindly twinkle.

     Lieutenant Blanford did not hesitate.  His fingers gripped the small, worn, blue leather copy of Of Human Bondage, which was to identify him to her.  This would  not be love, but it would be something precious, something perhaps even rarer than love- a friendship for which he had been and must ever be grateful.

     He squared his broad shoulders, saluted and held the book out toward the woman, although even while he spoke, he felt shocked by the bitterness of his disappointment.

      “I”m lieutenant John Blanford, and you- you are Miss Meynell.  I’m so glad you could meet me.  May…..may I take you to dinner?”

      The woman’s face broadened into a tolerant smile.  “I don’t know what this is all about, son,” she answered.  “That young lady in the green suit- the one who just went by- begged me to wear this rose on my coat.  And she said that if you asked me to go out with you, I should tell you that she’s waiting for you in that big restaurant across the street.  She said it was some kind of a test.  I’ve got two boys with Uncle Sam myself, so I didn’t mind to oblige you.”  Sulamith Ish-Kishor 

 from A  3rd serving of Chicken Soup for the Soul.

Ben

     The last time I saw Ben alive, she was running  up to the door of our house- right  behind Oscar.  It was dark, the snow was falling and the wind was starting to pick up.

          I’d named Ben after one of the guys on my construction crew- A young man named Ben.

      Ben (at work)  had this habit of being underfoot  all the time-  He wanted so much to please-  but just like the cat- he  would follow me so close, I would literally  trip over him, so when our family cat evidenced the same tendency, I just had to call her  ”Ben”- even though  it was a she 

    Ben  hated to be picked up-  I suspected she’d been abused as a  kitten.

           Both Oscar and Ben are outdoor pets, but the temperature  that night was  20 degrees and dropping.     The weather man was predicting 6 to 12 inches of snow , 30- to 40 mph winds,  and dangerous wind chills so  I reluctantly let Oscar in the door, then  against my better judgement, told Ben she could come  in as well.  

        She  wasn’t housebroken, I knew there’d be a mess before it was all over, but this verse from the Bible popped into my mind as I stood in the door way -something about  the wicked man being  cruel to his beast  so I thought to myself,  what the heck   ”Come on in.”  

     Ben poked her  head in the door, then turned around and headed  into the night.

     That was one week ago.  The Winter storm lasted 3 days.  I got concerned after the 3rd day-  The cat food had not been touched. Ben normally slept in the shed where I park my pickup, and there was no sight of  her.  Since she was neutered, she wasn’t the type of cat to run the neighborhood.

     I realized   by the 4th day , I missed that quirky little cat. 

     Remember that song by the Counting Crows- Big Yellow Taxi?

    I heard it on the radio this week- and  these words caught my ear:

    “That you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” 

     That got me to thinking about other relationships in my life- from the big-ticket ones like my parents, and children, right down to some of the more casual ones I have on facebook…..so for the last 3 days I have been savoring the relationships/ big and small in my life….

     I even breathed a silent thank you  heavenward for  the life  lesson my little buddy Ben the cat had taught me.

    Then low and behold this morning as I sat drinking coffee in bed with my wife-  I spotted that unmistakable calico hide of Ben the cat- running across the driveway.   She was home.

John Piper’s Prodigal son

  

    We were driving down Old Mt Vernon Road tonight headed to Mercy Hospital then  Home Depot.   As I listened to 101.9 FM KNWS on the radio   my ears perked up when I heard the name   John Piper in the same sentence as  ”his prodigal son” Abraham

     John Piper is a widely respected Christian author and pastor.  He’s a little deep for me but he’s the real deal.  And to think that even he and his wife had dealt with a prodigal son in some strange way gave me hope. 

     At this point in my parenting journey, I  am still carrying the heartache of prodigal children-  Fortunately, we have great lines of communication with each of them,so  I’m not going to post something on the internet to in any way jeopardize that. 

     Here’s a portion of what I heard on the radio tonight:

      When I was 19, I decided I’d be honest and stop saying I was  a Christian.

     At first, I pretended that my reasoning was high-minded and philosophical.  But really I just wanted to drink gallons of cheap sangria and sleep around.  Four years of this and I was strung out, stupefied and generally pretty low.  Especially when I was sober or alone.

      My parents, who are strong believers and who raised their kids as well as any parents I’ve ever seen, were broken-hearted and baffled.  I’m sure they wondered why the child the tried to raise right was such a ridiculous screw-up now.  But God was in control.

     One Tuesday morning before 8 o’clock, I went to the library to check my e-mail.  I had a message from a girl I’d met a few weeks before, and her e-mail mentioned a verse in Romans.  I went down to the Circle K and bought a 40-ounce can of Miller High Life for $1.29.  Then I went back to where I was staying, rolled a few cigarettes, cracked open my drin, and started reading Romans.  I wanted to read the verse from the e-mail, but I couldn’t remember what it was, so I started at the beginning of the book  By the time I got to chapter 10, the beer was gone, the ashtray needed emptying and I was a Christian.

     The best way I know to describe what happened to me that morning is that God made it possible for me to love Jesus.  When He makes this possible and at the same time gives you a glimpse of the true wonder of Jesus, it is impossible to resist His call.

     Looking back on my years of rejecting Christ, I offer these suggestions to help you reach your wayward child so that they too, would wake up to Christ’s amazing power to save even the worst of us.

1.  Point them to Christ

      Your rebellious child’s real problem is not drugs, or sex or cigarettes or porn or laziness or crime or cussing or slovenliness or homosexuality or being in a punk band.  The real problem is that your child doesn’t see Jesus clearly.  The best thing you can do for rebellious children-

4.  Don’t expect them to be Christlike

     If your son is not a Christian, he won’t act like one, and it’s hypocrisy if he does.  If he has forsaken your faith, he has little motivation to live by your standards, and you have little reason to expect him to.

     If he’s struggling to believe in Jesus, there is little significance in his admitting that it’s wrong to get wasted, for instance.  You want to protect him, yes, but his most dangerous problem is unbelief- not partying….

12.  Point them to Christ

    This can’t be stressed enough.  It’s the whole point.  No strategy for reaching your son or daughter will have any lasting effect if the underlying goal isn’t to help them know Jesus.

     The goal is not that they will be good kids again.  It’s not that they’ll get their hair cut and start taking showers….the goal is not for you to stop being embarrassed at your weekly Bible study or even for you to be able to sleep at night, knowing they’re not going to hell…”

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If you’d like to read this  whole letter check out this link

Well, we’ve been invited out for dinner so I need to go-  DM

Through the eyes of one soldier-part 2

   

  This is the second installment in a series  written by a friend of mine -Steve who served in  Viet Nam. You can read the first installment here  

    “So, OK, I got myself into this mess on my own. It is what you do when you haven’t any real plan as to what is next in your life. For as long as I can remember, and it is still true today, I have never known what, exactly it was I wanted to do with my life. It’s not that I lack skills and abilities, certainly I have them. It is more knowing exactly what it is that you want to do with those skills or that ability. Secretly I have always admired someone who for whatever reason, woke up one day and said, “By golly, I want to be a lawyer! That is what I want to do and that is where I’m going to pour all my energy!” When you are that cock sure of yourself, it makes everything work for you, there are no detours in the road, you won’t waste your time and energy doing stuff because you are clueless what it is you want.

       Well, for many of us, the biggest detour in the road of life was the military. Even with the Army making decisions for us, they often were no surer about what they wanted than we were. Often the military showed its hand and they had squat. It wasn’t long before we could see the mindlessness of the United States Army, it seems to be a part of the procedure to convince you the only way this sucker works is to let these fools handle everything and never, ever, think for yourself, it only gets you in more trouble!

       When I finally was called up, I was living in Texas. That required me to make a bus trip all the way back to Iowa. Believe me when I say this is not a trip you ever want to make unless you feel it necessary to feel like a homeless person. Not having had a decent ten minutes sleep in a couple of days and when you ate nothing but food out of a vending machine at three AM will you know something of that lifestyle. You feel grimy, Greyhound isn’t known for its exceptionally clean rest room facilities and certainly, they have no showers.

      Anyway, I drug myself back to Des Moines only to catch a flight to Dallas, Texas; obviously, it had to be the place I had started from to get back to Des Moines, why else would they route the flight that way other than to make me look like an idiot. Once we arrived in Dallas, we were grounded waiting for a flight to take us to Fort Polk, Louisiana. I’m surprised they didn’t call a bus company and drive us there. Our next link in the airline chain was an outfit that is now long gone called TTA. The acronym TTA stood for Trans Texas Airways, but was locally known as “Tree Top Airlines.” I think that about says all you need to know about the reliability of this outfit. Our grounding at Dallas was for repairs and we were about three hours waiting to get moving again.

      By some stroke of brilliance, I had determined Louisiana was likely to be my basic training location, and concluded that if I was going to basic I was going to be in a warmer climate during the winter for this experience. I set up the delayed enlistment plan for late October and it was fortunate I didn’t get sent to Fort Knox, Kentucky or Fort Reilly. Kansas, as it would have really foiled my plans to leave Iowa winters behind. As it was, the high humidity in that little hell hole of a place was enough to chill you to the bone at 5AM but would boil you in your own juices by 11 in the morning. Basic Training sites seem to be created in places not fit for man or beast, no matter where they are located; it must be a rule. After the general harassment, you always expect coming into a basic, with its yellow foot pads painted on the tarmac and a DI screaming at you for no apparent reason, we were finally off to a holding company barracks. They throw you into such places until you have been issued clothing, have started the vaccination process, gotten the obligatory haircut and such as that.

      It was here I discovered not all privates are created equal. Although I don’t remember his name, there was one professional golfer who had signed up for the National Guard. He, of course, had to complete basic training before returning home to do his six years of meetings. He lasted about three days in the holding company and after his discovery, never showed his face anywhere except on the Fort Polk golf links giving tips to general officers on their golf game. The fact he could manage getting assigned to a National Guard Unit was in itself an amazing feat. For any poor kid in Iowa, there was a waiting list for the National Guard of over a year, mostly because the guard didn’t go overseas. While Vietnam was eating up men, they eventually found ways to activate the guard for missions in Vietnam. Something that today is so obvious wasn’t so during Vietnam for a time. Basic training is like every story you ever heard about such things. In our case, they were in a hurry to get people into the field, and that meant Vietnam.

       My first official day in the Army was October 23, 1968. Our “training” finished up before Christmas that year. Hardly the usual cycle of basic training, but for us, we could careless, the sooner it was over the better. Another feature of my basic training company was its racial make up. We had a bit of everything but one of the most important features of my company was its large contingent of Cajun’s and blacks from Algiers, Louisiana.

      It was an eye opening experience for a kid who had grown accustom to predominately white folks and the occasional foreign exchange student. I found these crazy and fun loving fellas enlightening with their devil may care attitude. As far as they were concerned if the Army wanted to cycle them through basic training several times it was OK by them! Usually that was considered a threat for failing some portion of your training, but these guy’s had it figured out. The sooner they were out of there the sooner the bullets would start to fly, you couldn’t get shot in basic! Naturally, no one failed basic, that would be unheard of! There is little to say for the basic training experience that hasn’t been heard a dozen times before. It consists in tearing you down to the point no one thinks independently and then they train you to work together in a group process. It is dehumanizing with other interesting ramifications especially when their intention is readying troops to kill other people. Reducing your enemy down to something that sounds less than human-dink, zipperhead, gook, slope, etc. makes them easier to kill since they obviously aren’t human in the first place. It took awhile before I realized this was a part of why they did what they did.

       The only thing I remember of importance historically was while I was there Johnson gave his I will not run speech. Less important was the mean and nasty assistant DI who booted Griffin in the hind end on the PT grounds. Louisiana gets lots of rain and all the outside physical training areas are filled with sawdust, more like saw mud. Griffin was a long gangly black guy from some poor slum in the south. He generally was a happy go lucky sort who couldn’t help himself when it came to a broad smile at every opportunity. He sported two very large gold teeth right smack in the middle of that smile. Because he was so gangly he often had an awful time doing push ups and laughing at him only made it worse. While holding himself in some sort of suspension bridge sort of push up stance, he started to laugh as his suspension bridge pose started to sink towards the sawdust pit beneath him. Without his knowing it our mean little Mexican DI came up behind him and drilled him square in the behind with his boot. Knowing something was up behind me after the sergeant had finished his deed and a large contingent of Louisiana boys were laughing heartily I turned to look back behind me and all I could see was those two gold teeth plowing a furrow in the wet sawdust! Griffin was none the worse for wear, and after spitting out some excess saw dust turned on his smile once more, there was no undoing what was just a natural part of Griffin.

       Our short cycle was so short they managed to cut our graduation exercises completely out. To this day I have never marched in any sort of formal function as my advanced training graduation was also canceled and the rest of my time I spent in Vietnam. Somehow, I don’t think I was cut out for that sort of thing. I have always been somewhat left footed when everyone else was on the right, so maybe it was all for the best.

       Since basic was finished just before Christmas, Wes C., a troublemaker who I looked up to, offered a ride in his family station wagon back to Iowa. The reason he found himself in the service was Wes burglarized a state liquor store in Toledo. It was in those days you could be sentenced either to the reformatory or to the Army, Wes chose wisely. Another guy named Jim Taylor from Ames also got an invite and our trip back north was about as memorable as any I’ve made.

      Our first night on the road found us at Fayetteville Arkansas. The three of us clowns got a room of our own and set out to see if we could get lucky and score some beer about town. The three of us monkeys with class A uniforms on and hair only a shadow of what had been ours a mere few months before, stood out like a ROTC drill team. We were trying to play the poor veteran card since none of us was old enough to buy booze in Arkansas. It was a Saturday and the town seemed to be jumping, we had no clue as to why. From one establishment to the next we were maintaining a very poor record in getting lucky at beer buying. We saw a particularly busy joint called the Huddle Club, and thought maybe if we headed to the back, they would over look us and sell us a pitcher of beer. While we waited for the next rejection, a boisterous group settled into a rather large round table right in front of our booth. Instantly they noticed our uniforms and invited us to join them! Eureka! We finally would score some beer on someone else’s nickel! A GI’s dream comes true.

      The place was jumping and the servers didn’t have a chance to give us so much as a passing glance, everything was finally working! It appears it was a football weekend and we had managed to find ourselves sitting with the winning teams coaching staff.

     Once things quieted down the wait staff soon discovered we were not of age and we were asked to leave. Not wanting to create a scene we were intent on withdrawing quietly. Our host was incensed that GI’s couldn’t expect to drink beer in a tavern but would be expected to go to places like Vietnam and fight for this country. The staff at the club was insistent, but so was our host, when he finally decided it was a lost cause, he announced he would take us to a liquor store and buy whatever we wanted if they weren’t going to serve it there.

      Finding this an acceptable compromise, we were happy to save face and remove ourselves for a trip to the booze shop! We also got a ride back to our motel room where we iced our refreshments down in the tub and proceeded to celebrate our good fortune! Jim kept saying there was something familiar about that guy, but he couldn’t place it. Not being college football addicted I had no clue and I think Wes was otherwise occupied with criminal activity to not pay much attention either. The following day, Jim finally concluded the person who had treated us so well was Johnny Majors, former coach at Iowa State and at the time coach of the Tennessee Volunteers.

      Twenty-five years later I ran into Jim Taylor in Ames. He told me he had gone to a function at the college in the previous year where Johnny Majors was a guest. He went through the reception line and asked Majors if he remembered three shave tail GI’s at Fayetteville, Arkansas that fateful day when he served us illegally. He said he sure did remember it and it still pissed him off they wouldn’t serve people who were fighting for the country! Jim shook his hand and told him he was one of the three that had been involved!

     This part of the story is not of great value, but does show there were at least a few people who believed in us at the time to at least buy you a beer. In due time we arrived at our destination of Toledo Iowa; Wes’ dad gave me a ride to the bus depot and being a good sport bought my ticket home from there. I never saw Wes or his family again, but I still remember his Dad wishing me a safe trip home and a hardy handshake.

     Last I knew, Wes made it home alive and somehow found a good job at John Deere, I never looked him up, probably because I didn’t want to find out that at some point it had all fallen apart and Wes had found himself like a lot of my friends, on the wrong end of the shit stick.

     Taylor, well he too made it home, he managed to get himself wounded three times, an amazing feat for someone who worked on electrical generators, but these things happen in war time. Nothing was to serious as I recall, he had wandered about the country some but eventually had come back to Ames, thinking he could help out his dad in his office service business. His dad, like my own, had been in the second world war, had come back to his hometown and built a fairly decent business for himself. By the time Jim got involved with the company, it was all but on the verge of bankruptcy, and for no fault of his dad, really. Jim’s father was honest to a fault, he paid his full complement of taxes, no fudging on anything. But of course, people who write tax code don’t expect people to be so fastidious, they are only trying to make sure the chiselers pay something. The end result is the company was going down because all the cash was going out to pay taxes. Jim took a firm hand, he bought his fathers failing business from him when no one would have and gave him a more than fair price for it. Last I knew, Jim had righted the business, eliminated lots of dead weight and had bought a condo for he and his wife to live in.

     I made only one visit and like Wes, left things on a happy note, much better to remember old friends doing well than finding them crushed beneath the weight of a failed marriage, alcohol and drug abuse or a host of other problems that haunt many a returned vet.

      Sometimes it is best not to know, even if things work out well, you always have that feeling of impending failure, when will the other shoe drop sort of feeling. All part of that isolation stuff so many of my vet friends talk about.

      Naturally it was December in Iowa at the time, I personally could do without the snow, but it is just a fact of life here. My leave was for only seven days and I had to be at Fort Eustis, Virginia January 2. Nothing is particularly memorable about that leave, I had moved out of my folks house while I was still in High school and graduated while living in a rooming house in Monticello at the time.

      Maybe this was when I established there was only enough good will to allow me to be under my old man’s roof for one week before all hell would break loose. It seems to have been a rule that stood me in good stead.

     The only thing I can remember about that time are two things, my sister had one of those instant camera’s that gave you a picture on the spot. You had to wipe some sort of chemical on it to fix the photo but I took a couple of pictures of the snow in front of the house looking toward the barn. I had them for quite a long time in my wall locker in Vietnam.

     The other thing is I told my mom that I was very likely going to be in Vietnam by the following Christmas. If that happened, she didn’t need to send me any Christmas packages but one thing I did want was a home grown Christmas tree. We had grown trees on the farm for a number of years, I doubt we ever made a dime on them if you compared the amount of money spent buying the trees and the old man’s liquor bills entertaining all his customers. Getting a Christmas tree from us was a whole different game for the swarm that came out, especially if the old man knew you, he had to offer you a drink or two or three. Let us say, Christmas cheer overflowed the Christmas tree business by quite a bit. Anyway, I felt that it was my turn to have a tree for my next Christmas since I had planted hundreds of the damned things, I should at least have one for myself! After that I forgot about it and soon my time was up and I was on a plane for Virginia.”

to be continued….

The “Why” behind the Fort Hood attack from an American Muslim’s perspective

As I pulled my truck into the garage tonight I caught a portion of a story on NPR discussing the possible motives behind the Fort Hood massacre last week.  

 “Maybe  Hasan just snapped from dealing with the trauma of counseling soldiers coming back from the battlefield.” 

    I thought to myself- are the “experts” really that stupid???  I’ve been reading and trying to understand the “why behind  Islamic terrorist attacks  around the world  for the  past  three years and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell you why- heck they (the terrorists)  have been telling us “why” right along- Why do some of us  refuse  to take  them at their word?

    One of my regular and trusted sources is from a fellow Muslim-  M. Zuhdi Jasser, MD

    If you’d like a concise, readable, and reasonable explanation (from a Muslim perspective )  I would highly recommend subscribing to this website  : http://www.aifdemocracy.org/

 M. Zuhdi Jasser, MD is a Muslim,  a family physician, and an American, who served our country in the military.   Here is a video clip of him discussing the recent attack at Ft Hood:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkbFVVi9618

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America at War- Through the eyes of one soldier

      

  Veterans Day I saw this posting from  my friend Steve on facebook  :

    Today is Veterans day- the next person who says “Thank you for your service” I’m going to ask them exactly what they are talking about.   We weren’t defending America from people in black pajamas and keeping them from invading the US any more than the Iraqi’s or the Afghan people intend to make an attack on the US, so what was I doing beyond insuring war profiteers made a goodly amount of money at my and my brothers expense.”

   

     I asked  Steve  if he would tell me his story from the beginning-  even if it turned into a book.  Here is his first installment:

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         “I recall that many of us in the high school class of 1968 were nearing the end of what could be considered normal adolescence. The Tet offensive in Vietnam in early January was a touch of reality none of us wanted to face. For many, and especially the ones who had pretty much been passed over as not college material, the potential of impending death or possible maiming was beyond what anyone wanted to really consider. We were young, dumb, and full of…well, you get the idea. Since we were all doing this slow race to the finish of school, and because it really was a period of oddly different sorts of possibilities, everybody seemed to take on a care less approach, and that included those who were college bound. I seem to recall the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills as a period of swiftly filling in dots in random patterns. The resulting poor scores was something that made our class an anomaly of the worst sort, especially to those attempting to educate us! Our Junior year was no different than our Senior year in high school. We out showed the senior class in our ability to make trouble or accomplish goals beyond the usual when it had to do with something other than education!

        When a miscreant senior reduced our huge pile of fire wood to ashes less than three days from the annual homecoming snake dance and bonfire, we managed to regroup and rebuild beyond the original bonfire pile by hauling anything and everything we could find that would burn. We worked night and day to accomplish our rather meaningless goal. By the time of the parade and snake dance came to a halt around the huge bonfire, several others and yours truly had reduced a house in Sand Spring to the foundation. The coup de grace was a huge three holer out house; it somehow managed to find a place of honor on the very top of the bonfire pile. From whence this huge edifice came, I will never tell. Suffice to say it was never missed by its original owners who knew nothing of its’ removal.

       The beer parties and near weekly theft of case after case of beer from the beer trucks parked in the middle of a major street in Monticello, never were detected. these “resources” pooled with the many other sources of alcohol and beer that came from straight up buying it in Cascade or from friends, managed to keep the party atmosphere alive and well.

         Many of us were not involved with the local party scene, we had moved on to other areas of mayhem in communities where we were known more for other abilities and not so much for the money we had. So long as someone had a vehicle and enough gas, we were celebrating our last days of school at dances in Prairieburg, Stanwood, and even occasionally Cedar Falls. Chasing women and drinking beer was a pretty good avocation and most of my buddies had jobs during school hours that helped finance our after hours education.

          Although we were a fun loving lot, occasionally we would have to consider our options for the future. I had considered going to school at Kirkwood, it was so very new no one had much of an idea what it would mean to even graduate from there. At that time “there” was nothing more than a few rented buildings and about as fly by night as we were! Some of my friends did go and somehow, by the luck of the draw, averted the military. Had I waited, I too would probably not be the person I am today, simply because the lottery would have passed me over. I was not to become aware of that fact until I had already spent about eight months in Vietnam, dam the luck! Somehow, I ended up talking to John Cook, who at that time was a cop in Monticello. He knew, he absolutely knew, who needed to be pointed in a direction so he wouldn’t have to contend with some of us! Somehow he made that reality of making a choice that would prevent one from the potential of humping the boondocks AND at the same time get you a free education doing something you liked to do anyway seem so, well, shall we say, alluring? On the face of it, how could you go wrong? There was still the possibility you might not go to Vietnam, and besides the beer flowed in the Army for 18 year olds legally and cheaply, both good points. So, in the words of the white haired and wall-eyed old master from Kung Fu, “It was time to chose, Grasshopper!”

        So, I went in to talk to the recruiter, to see what kind of a deal I could get. Initially I decided I wanted to fly, it sounded really cool, go fly a helicopter and become a warrant officer, man, what a deal that would be! Start out in flight school as a sergeant and be paid like a sergeant instead of a peon! The recruiter listened intently, knowing he had the biggest sucker on the face of the earth firmly within his grasp! “How’s you math and algebra skills?” he said in a rather mater of fact way. Well, considering I squeaked through freshman algebra with a D, a C and one F, this was dashing my hopes in a pretty major way. I am so thankful I didn’t end up jockeying one of those flying beer cans in the middle of a turkey shoot! To this day I do not feel any animosity to Mr. Shubeck for his inability to teach me something I just could not comprehend at that time! It could very well have saved my bacon!

          No recruiter worth his salt doesn’t have a Plan “B” for just such an occasion. Noting I was a bit crushed by this opening shot, it was all part of the plan. Well, if you want to fly you can do that without being a pilot. Naturally, thinking in terms of being a passenger instead of being the jockey was not very appealing. So to make it more so, he concluded that since I was not thinking in terms of going to college in the first place there was only two things that interested recruits more, women and wrenches. Noting a certain love of money coming from my speculation that getting paid as a sergeant was better than as a private E-duce, he moved right in on what appeared to be the perfect marriage, sans the woman part! “

        The Army has ‘Critical Need Specialties’ that will accelerate your pay while you are still training”, he said. Looking back, one would have to be an idiot not to see why there was such a critical need for anything in the Army without connecting the dots to Vietnam! Well now, this seemed like a pretty good deal, which was another way of saying, you go recruiter, it is time to sink the hook! Before I know it I was toying with being a Turbine Engine Repairman and by the time I finished my training I was going to be an E-4 ! Now we are talking! None of this private E-1, E-2 and E-3 stuff, we are moving up to being a specialist with equal rank and pay of a Corporal right out the shoot! At the time I wouldn’t have known a turbine engine from my elbow, but what the hay! I was darned sure there was no bullets that came out of it, and one could feel a certain amount of confidence where you worked on an engine would have to have a certain amount of security that came with it.

         All looked good, but I decided and the recruiter concluded it would be a good idea, to go home and think on it before signing up. For whatever reason, letting the line out to let the fish run before dragging him back has always been a good practice for hauling in the big ones! Well it wasn’t but a couple of days and I was back, very self assured I knew exactly what I was getting into, and certainly didn’t feel one bit of pressure from the recruiter. On the other hand I wasn’t encouraged to ask a lot of questions either, and in some of those un asked questions would have been some answers that could easily have let me live out my life as a civilian. To never have gone through this meat grinder, even as a simple wrench bender, would have changed my life. Just being in that place was enough to leave you with a case of PTSD, but. at the time they didn’t even know what that was, for good reason! …(More to come)