Another Birthday.

Birthdays.  I look at this from the perspective of growing up in the USA from the age of about 11, for what I think of as the typical mainstream person, as I experienced them while growing up and as I think my kids experienced them growing up into the fine young adults they are now.  In your early days, they are probably fun, with the traditional party, presents and possible trip to one of any number of places that can make it easier on the parents such as McDonalds, or for a bit more fun Chukee Cheese.  I remember thinking how cool my birthdays were in the early years, in part because it meant I was older and could do more.  More freedom, more decisions.  Since my family probably was a defining member of the term "lower middle class" in terms of the amount of income we had, my sister's and my parties tended to be very low cost get-togethers and we knew better than to ask for expensive gifts, though of course we wanted to have more.  I think that for the middle class American kid, if some friends do not show up, or your most desired present does not end up in your hands by the end of the day, a disappointment is felt, but overall the day is fun and a good time is had by most.  For the most part, birthdays are fun but certainly not perfect.  To much want, to little get.  Later on birthdays become a bit quieter, since school or work will not take time out to celebrate and friends will not be dropping off that hot car or other top list present you were wanting, and while jumping around in the ball maze would still be fun they do not make them in adult size and that sad sense of needing to be cool would stop a lot of people from hitting the maze anyway.  Seeing Sheldon and Leonard in the ball maze in The Big Bang Theory was a great moment in TV in part because they put aside the typical adult aversion to not being cool.  And so it goes.  At some point your outlook on birthdays starts to shift, with your life view, and you stop wishing you could be just a little older.  This is probably about the time when you have left your parent's house, and you start to realize that they were right.  All is not wonderful just because you are an adult, since now you start taking on responsibilities.  No more recess.  No more excuses for not getting your schoolwork done, etc etc etc.  You realize that your parents had to juggle a lot when you were younger, what with work, keeping the home going, your crisis of the day.  And probably, at the edge of your inner being, you start to realize that a special day marking the passage of time is, in fact, marking the passage of your life.  You are no longer able to hide the fact from yourself that you are not immortal. 

The circle of life continues, and you keep moving with it.  Once you have your own family and time starts to speed up, it is for you to plan the birthday celebrations, just as it is for you to deal with the constant grind of life, and the little lives you have helped create.  Unless you can afford to throw a huge party, the celebrations with family and friends for your own birthdays tend to be geared towards appreciating those who are in your life.  And at some time you stop expecting the huge present, or perhaps even wishing for it.  That speeding up of time is of course subjective, or is it?  What if time exists for each measuring device able to feel it?  Perhaps a great physicist will take that up some day.  I wonder how many actually feel time speeding up as they get older?  A non-scientific experiment over several years with several dozen participants reveals that no one in the slug cars that I have been riding to and from work in for a long time now, or some friends at work, has ever not agreed with the premise that it seems that time is speeding up, though I have only broached the subject with people about my age this at least gives comfort that the phenomenon.  So, as time speeds up, birthdays seem to crowd together.  And time that others choose to spend with you becomes more precious.  A gathering of friends a few years ago, at "Zum Rheingarten", one of the best restaurants in this area, ranks as one of the best birthdays I have had for a long time. 

So I started writing this post a day or so after my latest birthday, and finish it now two months later.  Sorry, there is nothing here but my perspective, and this nugget of advice:  When you are young, and think that time drags on, and that each birthday is one of an endless string, think about what I have written here, and cherish those birthdays, and the time, that is yours.

Family History - The early years

Mom and Dad had spent most of the first 6 or so years they knew each other apart.  I do not think that Mom was able to see him get commissioned, which now a-days would be a rare thing.  My Dad's duty as an anti-black market officer in Germany, and later as the commander of a rescue boat squadron in Marseille, France, kept him in Europe, and Mom stayed in Canada.  Why?  Why not be together during these early days, months, and years?  Well, try to imagine what it was like in just-post war torn Europe.  Huge numbers of young men had been sacrificed to the war, and so rebuilding was slowed and that included rebuilding the whole food and other goods making infrastructure.  Many civilians had died taking valuable skills with them.  So life for a civilian, even married to an American serviceman, would have been hard.  Also, once Dad was sent to France, how safe would Mom have been being with him in a country that lost their part of the war as badly as they did to the Germans?  When Guderian, Rommel, and the rest of the Panzer generals utterly crushed the French armies within weeks of the start of the Western Campaign it was bad enough, but years under the thumb of the political generals and despicable Nazi rule certainly left some unfortunate but understandable bad blood towards anything German.  I can only imagine how much my parents missed being together, but both would have known that it was not safe for Mom to be there at that time.

I only heard anything about Dad's time as an anti-black market officer (and the duty title is almost certainly wrong) from my Cousin Georg Bayer, once in the mid-90's when I spent a wonderful weekend with the family in Southern Germany and we spent a fantastic few hours sitting in his and Angelika's well kept apartment drinking good German beer and talking of things past, present, and future.  How I wish to be able to do that now, under these trying times, Cousin and Friend.  But that will have to wait until God allows us to meet again.  Someday I will tell you how much the Bayers mean to me, to our whole family, but for now those tales must wait.  Dad was very good at his job, at stopping profiteering and black marketeering that would have been significant at undercutting the rebuilding of Europe.  Georg told me that he was known as the "Black Devil" by those who were trying to profit through the black market.  They feared him.  I can only imagine, with pride, how they would react when he would come into a room to "discuss" their illegal activities.  His very broad shoulders squared, the Apache face betraying no hint that he had ever learned how to smile, menace written in the cold, hard look.  Yes, that would bring fear to someone who knew they had done wrong.  According to Georg, he was very good at his job.  I believe it was during this time that his interest in opera, perhaps in classical music itself, was sparked, and knowing that he had a good voice he went to a voice teacher to see if he had a future in singing great music.  The teacher was impressed, said that with work he could sing as well as one of the stars of opera, who we later had a record of.  Unfortunately, whether due to lack of time, or money, Dad never developed his talent, but he did have a fine voice.  Perhaps he should have followed that dream, but we can never know the "what ifs".

I heard bits and pieces from Dad himself about his time in France.  Mom also spoke of his time there, and I gathered that this assignment was much more pleasant than the previous one.  I think at this time he had been recently commissioned.  He was on a train, a new Lieutenant, and a fairly senior Sergeant came through looking for a seat.  Not used to sitting while senior sergeants stood, he rose and offered his seat to the NCO, who declined since it would be unseemly to be sitting while an officer stood.  Dad, still not used to his new status, said "Its OK Sarge, I'm only a Lieutenant".  He commanded, as he said "one of the largest fleets in the Mediterranean" at Marseille.  His fleet was a group of crash boats for use when the aircraft that we had stationed in France after the war, and perhaps while France was still in NATO the first time, would go down at sea.  He enjoyed himself in this pleasant French city.  Stories from that time:  He was once enjoying a coffee on the patio of a restaurant and a man approached, informing him that "Madam Countess would like the pleasure of your company."  He went over and the countess, an elderly lady, and him spent a pleasant afternoon talking.  He joined a local Chess Club, and became fairly good at the game.   Once he was in the city and someone needed help with a phone call.  Dad ended up helping to translate between French, which he was learning, and Italian, which one of the other people knew through use of his German and English with one of the operators.

I never heard if there was another tour before Dad was reassigned to the US.  I believe that after France he came home.  It was either then, or before his tour in Germany that he had an assignment to be a fighter pilot.  Unfortunately, due to the malaria and other diseases that he had suffered through in WW II he washed out, possibly because of the hot weather at pilot training.  Another what if.  If he had made it through and become one of the golden boys in the new USAF, what if?  Perhaps he would have gone on to be famous, an Ace in Korea.  Or perhaps he would have died when one of the new jets crashed.  In any event, at some point he and Mom were reunited and they ended up at Walker AFB with Dad a bombardier flying one of the most awe inspiring aircraft ever made, the B-36.  Oh yes, Walker AFB is near Roswell, NM.

While there they had a daughter, whose name was Anne.  I never heard what happened except that she died when she was about one and a half years old.  Very sad for Mom and Dad, who had already suffered so much and were now hurt by this.  But they were tough, strong, and carried on.  Soon enough Mom was with child again, only this time it was twins.  Of course this could not be allowed to progress normally either.  My brother and I were conjoined.  I was attached to him at my knees and the outer areas of my middle thighs, and I had the only functioning (or perhaps the only existing) heart between the two of us.  While I do not know this, I believe my brother was doomed, that there was no way he could have survived being born.  So another heartbreak for my parents, and a bit of wistfulness for me every once in a while when I wonder about him.  About a month before my brother and I were supposed to be born we apparently tore lose from each other in the womb, and this likely killed him and triggered a miscarriage which of course pushed me into the world before I was ready.  Naturally I cannot remember this happening, which is good since there must have been a lot of pain and confusion.  Mom, or Dad, told me that I was the strong one, the one who had to fight to even survive before being born.  The scars from where we were attached show this to be true, though I would have gladly had a brother.

To be continued ... 

Youth.  So wasted on the young.  Some young people may have great natural intelligence that God, nature, luck, or whatever you chose to call it, provides them with.  But for most of those all that intelligence is not going to help much until some wisdom is added to go with it.  Wisdom comes usually from experience, but if you bother to learn from those who have lived and learned from experience your ride through life can be a lot smoother.  Obvious.  E.g., if you are approaching the road you want to turn onto at a high speed that will not allow a safe turn, perhaps you should not try to make the turn and instead go to the next intersection to circle back rather than slamming into the turn so fast that you end up hitting the car stopped waiting to turn onto the road you were on, or perhaps even better you should have gone with driving at a safe speed to begin with like parents and / or the driving instructor told you.  At least I presume that someone told the distraught but seemingly intelligent young girl who hit us in that situation about safe driving habits.  Let us begin.

A brilliant and wonderful young person, who sometimes challenges my way of thinking, or occasionally frustrates, with thoughts that express interesting mental pathways, brought up an idea a few days ago that made me consider the idea of the sound bite as perhaps a hidden evil.  He said words to the effect that "those who want to go back to the way things were do not remember how bad they were".  This was not the first time I have heard this sound bite, and I finally realized why I had not liked the idea when I heard it before.  There was no time to discuss, but if there had been I would have agreed with the obvious part of this but noted that such sound bites carry with them unstated falsehoods.  Examine by example:  Yes, it is better to have regulations and laws preventing lead in paint used on houses and gasoline, due to health impacts.  Or advances that allow us to drive safer cars.  Or to not let anyone starve/be homeless/be without medical care even if they are not able to or do not choose to work.  However, not all regulations and laws are good, and there needs to be control over those who make them, since they are neither smart enough nor wise enough to speak for us all, to not overstep their bounds.  To not allow their sometimes overindulgent concepts of economic / social justice is important, if we are not to go into a permanent economic crisis and loss of fundamental freedoms.  It is critical to have limits in how far those rules go, and in what can be a rule.  For example, there is ample evidence that breathing mercury fumes is bad for people.  So why do we allow rules that practically dictate the use of mercury containing light bulbs to combat global warming which may or may not be a serious problem?  And why do we allow rules for improving gas mileage that drive the cost of cars up instead of letting the industry do this through competition, which might take longer but has the advantage of allowing those who chose to drive the over sized gas hogs the right to drive a safer vehicle at the cost of paying for more gas?  Should those on welfare who chose not to work be paid more for having kids, or allowed to vote for greater and greater benefits for themselves thus increasing the enslavement of the working class?

We can see that some rules are good, some are bad.  Unfortunately the bad ones are not dealt with by being deleted, and even the good ones do not have changes made to remove or modify the bad aspects that they have (the Americans with Disabilities Act, allowing scum lawyers a field day suing small business, for example).  To combat the wrong, what we need to do is go back to the way things were for our foundations.  Yes, here is where the sound bite bites the dust.  We need to use the foundations of this great country to prevent regulations and laws that should not be allowed from hurting the American people worse than they have been already.  We need to use the Constitutional guarantees and definition of the proper functions of government to limit what that government can do to us.  What about those rules I used as examples before?  I started with accepting restrictions on the use of lead.  Pure competition allows the use of lead since it was probably cheaper, thus conferring a competitive advantage.  But the cost to the citizens was high, in terms of medical problems, a cost that the paint and gasoline makers shifted to the people instead of bearing themselves.  So it was right to have the federal government step in to reduce the harm based on the interstate nature of the problem.  The rules for safer cars impact not only those who drive the cars who were often not informed of the problem a car had with safety before being purchased (and so were uninformed and unprotected from the car makers), but also those nearby who benefit by not being involved if an unsafe car goes out of control.  And providing some support for the needs for those who chose not to work, while not a guarantee in the Constitution, is the right thing to do, as long as the amount provided does not become excessive.

The regulation of light bulbs and gas mileage, however, present no such case of third party loss.  Given that there is no proven impact that either energy use for lighting or gas consumption in cars presents an overriding impact on the world or third parties (sorry, but the whole global warming issue, especially mankind's role in it if it is happening, remains a theory without solid foundation.  I suggest looking up the problems that lack of critical knowledge about some aspects of how weather works that had to be guessed at in the models used to show future warming have as a start) there is no valid excuse to force high prices and loss of choice through government rules mandating certain light bulbs and high gas mileage.  The thorny issue about support for the poor has me thinking.  Perhaps in addition to not paying for children, there should be a limit to how long a person who does not have physical disabilities should be able to receive welfare?  This would solve two problems.  First, the cost of government for entitlement programs would drop, second, the illegal problem would take a hit since the unskilled citizens would be taking those jobs.  Genius, and wise.  Who would have guessed?

Another aspect of how things have changed for the worse is the "de-niceification" of our society.  Manners mostly gone, both on and off the road.  The loss of honesty and respect when dealing with people.  The attitude of taking being better than working together.  All these traits helped make the US, and the West in general strong, and their loss in today's world makes us all weak.  Perhaps I will consider why this self imposed collapse of our society is occurring in a future post, but for now, I wish you all well.

Rights and Responsibilities.  Another Greg view.  Both are important and it is obvious, since without responsibilities rights become meaningless, that responsibilities need to be considered more pressing than rights.  But we, at least in the West, go about this backwards, screaming for rights but ignoring the responsibilities.  Many think they have a right to take from others, to take what those who work earn even though they have no interest in working.  They claim to have no responsibility to produce anything of value to earn their home and food.  This is wrong.  When you are legally allowed to steal from others, those others are in a state of slavery, and as we all know that is wrong.  OK, calm down!  I am not talking about those who are so aged, or infirm, or chronically ill, or who have conditions such that they cannot work.  For those, society should provide enough comfort to live, with a few basic enjoyments to make life at least somewhat pleasurable.  But those who choose to not work should not be given lifelong handouts from other people's goods.  I include in these those who choose to do drugs, including abusing alcohol, those who choose to play the "entitlement" game known as welfare, those who choose to go from job to job only working long enough for unemployment.  Note that those who are caught between jobs, meaning that they are without work for a while through no fault of their own, are not included in this list of those who should not be helped by the government.

Other rights that should not really exist without a strong dose of responsibility include privacy.  Hold on, keep the indignation in check for a moment and let me bound this.  Privacy in the home should be absolute as long as there are no people involved who are either to young or not mature enough to not avoid being involved, and as long as anyone is not coerced or forced into participating, and as long as no illegal acts are being planned or committed against parties outside of the home.  OK, so we have:  age of consent, no disabling handicap, ability to option out, and nothing that will take away the rights of someone else.  Fair enough?  Let us define home not only where you live, but also in legal temporary living arrangements and where privacy should be expected (hotels, staying with friends, public restrooms).  Where you should have no expectation of privacy is pretty much everyplace else.  In your car?  No way.  You have a responsibility to drive safely, you do not have a right to privacy as you zip through that red light endangering those whose turn it is to move.  So if there is a traffic camera there, the state should have the right to get a picture of your smiling face as you force better drivers to slam on their brakes, instead of just taking a picture of your license plate.  Why I care about this?  Because of how many times I see people go through red, and hearing about how in jurisdictions' with red light cameras the registered owner can send a signed letter to the police stating that they were not driving to avoid the fine.  Ridiculous!  Have read where some brag about lying to avoid paying.  Either allow picture ID to prove who was driving, or the owner pays the fine and he/she can take it up with the real driver about how the cost is to be made up.

Having kids?  Sorry but no.  Violent criminals, sexual predators, those who are insane who killed kids, drug addicts, those who have shown that they are incapable of raising a child without criminal neglect, and those who collect welfare should not have kids.  For the criminals in this group, the ban should be permanent.  For the others, for as long as the condition lasts.  The reason is simple:  If we are to believe in evolution, than we must believe that traits are passed through the generations.  Not saying that a child will always carry on the parent's violent or lazy ways but why would you want to have a child at risk in a violent offender's home, and why would you want to risk that the trait is passed down so violence can be continued through the years?  Still not convinced?  Why do we, as a society, need to keep producing damaged kids when there are so many people around to continue populating the earth who do not have these negative traits and will not inflict negative upbringing on children, adding the environmental component for future troubles to the genetic component from the parents?  Of course the welfare case deserves special mention, and the reason is simple:  If you cannot take care of yourself without leeching off the work of others, why should you be allowed to produce offspring who you have an almost impossible chance of bringing up to be a good much less productive citizens?  Get your stuff together, go back to school, this time with the intent to learn something useful instead of wasting the taxes spent on providing public schooling, and get and keep a job.  Or if you can't learn, get out into the real world and take an illegal immigrants job picking produce so you can contribute something to the nation who has so unwisely offered you a free ride using other people's labor. 

So, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are what we have as rights, with the important understanding that our enjoyment of these rights stop where those same rigths are being enjoyed by others.

Family history and change, continued.  So it is now after WW II.  Dad spends a year recovering in the hospital, then I think does some uranium prospecting for a time, then back in the Service but this time in the newly created Air Force as a anti-black marketeer in Germany.  My cousin Georg told me that he was known to the underworld there as The Black Devil, and he would have been a formidable man to be interrogated by.  Six foot one, very broad shoulders, again with a powerful build after having recovered from the horrible treatment as a POW.  His expression when angry was fierce, and that was all that it took to bring us kids in line, and I can imagine that a criminal would cringe when my Dad would enter the interrogation room and give him The Look.  Apparently he had great success.  He was a Technical Seargent during some part of this time, and we have the picture of him with his usual "tough" face that most of his pictures have in uniform. 

Mom heads to Germany, leaving Vienna, Austria and the sister that walked there with her.  She ends up working as a waitress at the Officer's Club at Rhein Main Air Base, where at some point she has impressed the management so much that they select her to be General Eisenhower's waitress when he visits.  She too has to recover from years of having less food than needed for good health, and sadly has started smoking cigarettes, which was common during the war.  More importantly for these ramblings, which to date it appears that no one but me has read, that is where they meet and fall in love.  Sadly, like so many other things, my parents never told us much about this time of their lives.  Of course it could be, sometimes like my kids today, that I appeared to busy, or brusque, to them and they decided to not waste their time telling tales of their past to someone who would not appreciate it, and if this is the case I apologize to you Mom and Dad, from the deepest part of my soul, for at all hurting you if I did.  Please know that now, with more wisdom in me after over 50 years, I would cherish knowing those things that I feel you may have wanted to share.  But we do not know the future when we are still in the past, do not know what we give up in our youth what would be treasure in our later years. 

So the tidbits I know are few.  Frankfurt was a big city even then, and as Germany rebuilt after the war it was busy.  My Mom lived in a small apartment in the house of a nice couple, whose name I fail to remember but believe was Misfeld.  But they had a dog, a german shepherd who they told me a little about.  Anka.  Or, as I thought of the dog growing up, Anka the Anka Dog.  Typical of his breed, he was smart, loved "his people" which came to include Mom and Dad, and inspired them years later to get our own German Shepherd for Christmas when I was 11, which has led to my lifelong love of that breed.  Story time.  Once Dad picked up Mom for a date, bringing a whole or a half roasted chicken over.  (Or perhaps they went out, got the chicken, and went out again.)  The chicken was left in Mom's room.  The doors had lever handles, and Anka had learned how to open them.  After they left, and feeling like having a snack, he went into Mom's room, took the chicken, and hopped up on her bed to devour it.  Which is where he was when they came home.  Of course they could not stay angry at the wonderful dog, and Mom told me that story with a smile.

Over the years, Dad mentioned a few of the qualities that led him to pick Mom.  One, he knew she would be a great Mom because she was strong, and she was a nurse which was a good skill to have if you have kids, and she was smart.  She also knew how to react in a possible dangerous situations, or she would not have survived the war.  If we misbehaved, or rather when we misbehaved, and did not show her the proper respect, he would calmly note that he had chosen us a wonderful mother who loved us and we had better start treating her right.  That always solved whatever little dilemma we were having with obeying the rules.

At some point Mom was able to emigrate to Canada, wanting to start a new life.  She moved to Montreal, and worked for a very wealthy couple as the maid.  It was a nice time for her, with enough food for the first time in years.  The people were nice, and being rich had the obligatory Montreal Canadians season tickets.  But they were not true fans and so did not go to many games, except during the playoffs which occurred frequently for that storied team, letting Mom use the tickets instead.  Thus her being a lifelong fan, and thus me being a lifelong fan as well.  Dad of course was in the Service, and so they were parted.  But they both knew they wanted to make their life with the other, and so made the long distance relationship work.  Dad eventually decided to pop the question, but in his own way.

One day Mom gets a phone call, and hears something to the effect of "Be ready in two weeks.  I'm coming over there and we are getting married."  And that was that.  Dad borrowed $500 from one of his fellow officers (I saw the promissory note, all properly signed including the repayment) and arrived as spoken.  Canadian law is, or at least was, very smart when it came to marriages.  Before getting married you were required to have a contract, which I'm sure stopped a lot of pure emotion  no-thought people from getting hitched only to have reality smack them apart a while later.  Among other requirements you were supposed to provide a home and furniture.  That document is in the family papers and holding it makes me wonder about how my parents were in those days.  I imagine the strong formidable man, and the smaller 5'2" or 5'4" medium built blue eyed brown blond haired woman next to him, with their language and cultural differences overrun by the incredible love that they shared.  Both shared great strength, of character, commitment, determination.  Both had seen evil in the world, had stood up to it, and been forged by those experiences into tougher people.  So when they went to the Catholic priest and he told them that they would need a six week course on being married before he would marry them in the Church they explained that they knew a thing or two about life and that this relationship was not a spur of the moment thing and that they had less then two weeks until Dad had to go back, but he refused to waive the course, and on that day they became Protestants.  A few days later they married in a civil ceremony, and that began the rest of their lives.

It is back to Europe for Dad, and a few more years in Canada for Mom, including moving to Toronto.  Never found out why she would move west like that, or for how long it was, or what she did there.

Friday, 10 Feb 12.  Operation Wounded Warrior at the Pentagon.  Wounded vets are given the option to tour the Pentagon while they are getting care at Walter Reed.  They are brought into the building with hospital escorts, and if they want, family members.  The Pentagon inhabitants are told when this is going to happen, so that the young men and women who are doing the fighting and getting wounded for us can be properly greeted and thanked for giving their service to a nation that has in many quarters ignored them.  Here is what I noticed this last Friday, between trying unsuccessfully to keep tears from welling up as I saw these brave young ones who were in some cases badly hurt, but coming back.

The greeting hall is second floor fourth corridor, from where the hero's turn into the building in the E ring (closest to the outside) all the way to where the corridor joins the A ring.  I arrived there about 20 minutes before the warriors were due, and found a place about halfway down the corridor, since more than 100 were already lined up waiting taking up the closer places.  I believe that it was an Army four piece brass band waiting as well.  In the next few minutes the corridor filled up completely, I would guess the total number of us exceeded 300.

The clapping, rhythmical, constant, powerful, started before the first of our guests turned into the corridor.  The military march music added to that a moment later.  Most of us had served, or were serving, and so this was an emotional event, this thanking.  The first man rounded the corner a moment later, and the clapping rose in power, a non-verbal roar going through us as we saw him.  He had lost a leg, had a wife or girlfriend walking a step of so behind with the attendant, and was obviously surprised at the greeting.  People, including generals and colonels, reaching out to shake hands, the "thank yous" from all sides seemed to bring a touch of a smile to his face.  And so it went for another 20 minutes or so.  Some holding their kids, some followed by their kids and wives.  Most of the kids just hugged Daddy, just glad to be with the biggest man in their life, who had been almost taken away from them in their service.  Some got into the moment, walking proudly, knowing now forever that their Daddy is someone special.  The wives, girlfriends usually looked surprised, but glad to see the attention focused on their Man.  There were a few wounded women warriors as well, though none had kids with them.  One soldier in a wheelchair, who had several members of the greeting group recognize him when they stepped out and shook his hand, greeted him, was glad to see them again.  Warriors greeting one another.  Some in uniform, some in civilian cloths.  One with a service dog, companions now in yet another chapter of best friends man and dog.  Some caught up in the emotion, their faces reflecting the thanks we gave them with thanks for us taking the time to greet them, some not showing much emotion at all.  It was an honor to be there.  To let them know that someone knew, cared.  Made no difference to us how badly wounded, what their personal circumstances were, they were all ours.  All part of us.

So young.  These men and women are so young.  Some had already been fitted for the prosthetics that will be part of their lives forever, walking with crutches or in some cases without even those.  Proud, defying the wounds and enemy who wounded them.  They showed us all how spirited the American fighting man/woman is, showed us the high quality of those that swear to serve the United States and go into harm's way to make this country strong.

Most poignant moment.  Another wheelchair, another young warrior without a foot.  At this time I'm having a hard time not showing the tears that have been near the surface since the first man came by.  Tears of thanks both for what they have done for us and that they survived, tears for their loss, tears of joy and thanks for their families.  He glances up, where I am clapping like a maniac.  And mouths the words "Thank You".  Imagine.  He is thanking me for taking an hour out of my day to pay due honor to him and his fellow warriors.  My return "Thank You" was all I could manage ...  

All honor to our men and women in uniform! 
   

Family History, The Beginning

In the introduction I promised to write some more about my parents.  My reasoning here is that to some extent you are influenced throughout life by your parents.  Yes, the old genetic vs. environment debate.  My view is that both are important.  Try telling someone who has a bad genetic condition that genetics are not important, or enjoy the response when you note how much they look like their father, or mother, or a grandfather or grandmother.  And yes, like it or not intelligence and other similar characteristics are determined to some extent by genetics too, just as the easier to see physical characteristics.  Weighing in on how important environmental input can be is easy, too.  Obviously if you have grown up being taught certain skills and lifestyle, ways of doing things, and right from wrong, you will turn out differently than someone who has been brought up differently.  So, if you are considering becoming a parent, perhaps one of the really important issues you should carefully consider is "should one of us stay home with the kid(s) to help them grow up to be good people, or should we both go for the money and risk having people who we do not know teaching our kid(s)?"  Back to the history.

Mom was born to a very rich farm family in the old country of Yugoslavia, in 1927.  She was of good German heritage, since years before the Germans had settled there after a war turned that area over to them.  Her mom and dad were very influential, and she grew up with manners and well earned wealth.  I believe that sometime before WW II  her mother died in an accident on the farm, and that her dad remarried.  The village, or small town, was called Kathreinfeld and worked well in my opinion because of the strong work ethic the people had, and their shared values.  They were all of German stock and made the area a pleasant place to live, from the stories I heard and the research I have done.

Dad was born in Bakersfied, CA, in 1924.  He was pure blood Apache, and his family was not rich.  His dad either left them when my dad was young, or died, and my grandmother  worked as a cook and as a domestic to get her and the two kids through.  Times were hard in the depression, much more so than most of us can imagine, but she got them through it with hard work.  As WW II loomed my dad, like most of the realists of the day, knew that the US would not be able to sit on the sidelines as tyrants moved against the free world, and joined the Army before Pearl Harbor. 

The war was hard on both.  At first the Germans were winning, which you would think was good for my Mom's family.  But the Nazi ideology was not something they embraced, and when the German army decided to quarter troops in the people's homes there were some rough times.  Of course the GESTAPO did their search of local records for any hint of Jewish blood in the family tree.  To add to the risk, the family hid a Jewish person or family in the barn.  This was risky, but from the little Mom said nothing ever went wrong until the end of the war when the person or people they were hiding turned them in to the victorious Red forces after my grandfather refused to give them the family silver that had also been hidden.  No good deed goes unpunished, it seems.  So Granddad and one Uncle ended up dying in communist concentration camps, but that happened some time after the war.  Back on track now:  None of the "wrong" blood was found, so the family was "allowed" to quarter and supply some of the troops that were turning Europe upside down.  Later the Soviets started to win, and my mom's dad knew that their life was going to change for the worse, so he sent my mom and one of her sister's on a long walk to Austria to escape the communists. 

It was a long walk, several hundred kilometers to Vienna.  She did not talk about this part of her life, except to once correct an attitude I, or perhaps my sister, were having (probably about wanting something) by noting that she had once traded a diamond earring for a loaf of bread and that I, or Sis, or the two of us had better not think we had it so bad.  Anna Maria had to find a job, and she chose to become a nurse.  She passed the test and was trained to be a war nurse - the test being a group being assembled in an operating room, a body being wheeled in and cut open; those who did not pass out or throw up went into nurse training while the rest became orderlies.  Lack of food, bombings that left her trapped in a collapsed house once, and other deprivations completed her war years.

In the Pacific, at first the Japanese were winning, and since my dad was stationed in the Philippines in the Army Air Force (34th Pursuit Squadron) things went bad for him from the start.  The Japanese attacked the Philippines a few days after the attack on Pearl, and due to the shortsightedness of Roosevelt and the rest of the politicians of the time we were unprepared for war.  At a time when for years there had been ever increasing signs that the war that was raging in Asia and Europe was going to drag us in, the American politicians continued to play politics with the economy, funding social programs while ignoring the military.  Due to their idiotic blunders the US had barely started the rearmament that would have saved so many soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen in the early part of the war, starting with the nearly 3000 who were killed on Dec 7th, 1941.  In the early part of the war, WW I era equipment was used by most of our troops.  Look at the pictures of what our troops were equipped with.  The old style helmets are an obvious indicator, but worse are the facts that most of the guns, ships, and ammo was older than the men using it.  With this disgusting lack of equipment it was no wonder that the Philippines, and our army in that nation, were doomed.  We had no ships that could run supplies to the troops, since the Japanese had a more advanced, and much larger, navy.  So our troops starved, died from lack of medical care, and fought with weapons that soon ran out of ammo or, if ammo was available, were far less capable than what their enemy was using.  Bottom line:  Death or surrender was inevitable, but our troops fought a brilliant and brave campaign that resulted in the Japanese schedule being thrown off for several months, with much greater loss to the enemy than we could have hoped for.  Amazing what power our troops displayed under those deplorable conditions.  The surrender of Bataan led to the infamous Death March, were hundreds of American and thousands of Filipino troops were killed by the Japanese, than prisoner of war camps that led to more thousands of deaths due to continued starvation, lack of medical care, slave work, brutal discipline including near daily beatings and executions.  For him as for many others captivity in Japan was next as the West started to grind down the Japanese army and navy, followed by more slave labor in a coal mine.  First he had to get to Japan, and the Japanese did this by stuffing hundreds into the holds of old cargo ships, giving the prisoners little room to even lay down without having to be on or next to others.  The food was poor quality slop, and little of that, the sadistic Japanese provided much to little water, and there was no way to bleed off the tropical heat except to open the hatches and the scum inhumane captors often did not even do that.  Also, the ships were not marked as they should have been according to the Geneva Convention, and so were legitimate targets for our aircraft who were gunning for anything flying the Japanese flag.  He apparently was one of the few who made it off of the ship that like several others was sunk by our own air force, only to be loaded onto the Canadian Explorer for a second, successful, voyage.  He ended up in Fukuoka POW Camp 1 Kashii (Pine Tree) Camp on Kyushu Island, mining coal as a slave laborer.  Near Nagasaki.

Side note:  Do not yammer at me about how using the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was wrong, or not needed to finish the war, unless you can discuss how your solution would have saved the approximately 110,000 to 140,000 Allied POWs that the Japanese had on their home soil.  I have no doubt that the only reason I am here is that we finished the war without an invasion, without a long drawn out blockade, and without giving the Japanese time to hide the evil they had done, that being the horrible treatment of the POWs throughout the war.  Those two cities had to die, in order for the POWs to live, and given that the Japanese would have killed the captives under any other plausible scenario, the trade was totally right.  The reasoning:  Late in the war, when it became obvious that the Allies were winning, the Japanese high command sent an order, instructing that all POWs were to be killed when the invasion started.  There are several witness accounts of preparations they made to do this that I have read, and during the war they had indeed killed off their local POWs several times as various islands fell, so unless you are living in some fairy-tale world you will agree that most of the prisoners would have been killed at the start of an invasion.  You will also agree that since the prisoners were starved even during the early part of the war when there was more food that a blockade would have resulted in most of the prisoners starving to death before the Japanese were allowed to suffer that fate.  Care to discuss? 

Side note:  When I was about 11 or 12 I was reading a big book on WW II.  I happened to be reading about the Death March of Bataan, and my Mom happened by.  She interrupted my reading, turning the page back to where this picture was, and pointing at my Dad's picture, asked if I knew who that was.  Of course I did not, but thankfully did not respond with the smart aleck answer that was bubbling up when she asked an obvious question like that - something in her demeanor said she was serious.  Her answer to my "No" was:  "That is your father".  Then she walked off and my understanding of Dad changed forever.  Yes, he had PTSD, which he handled by being quiet and moody at times.  But he never lashed out at his family, and when he found some of his old companions (when we lived in Seattle he and his good friend Bryce Lilly were reunited - I always liked it when these two old warriors got back together to share old times, times that none of the rest of us could be included in.  The positive energy at those meetings was a good thing) they helped each other by being there just as they had as POWs.  I remember with greatest respect Mr. Jack Pennant, who had been my father's friend during the war, and was during his final years. 

                                         Think about this:  At the end of the war, it is almost
                                         certain that many of these men were dead.  My Dad: 
                                         He is sitting in front of the second tree from the right. 
                                         He is centered on the tree, his head slightly forward. 

More on Family history, and how that leads to the Greg view of the world, soon.  For now, I wish you all a good day.

Subject:  I feel old.  Not ancient, but old. 

I know I'm not that old, but to think back on my earliest memories and to compare those with what we see every day is a study in welcoming a new world.  I really feel for those, like my Mom-in-Law, who have even more time on this earth and who have seen changes that must truly be baffling.  Imagine what it was to have been born in the 1920's or 1930's, and now to live in today's world.  Back then, no TV, radio for the masses in it's infancy, many places with no electricity including lights.  Cars are becoming popular, but airplanes are still wood frame open cockpit and, except during WW I, not common.  The telephone not yet common.  In some other ways, possibly even more disconcerting, is the change in society.  The fall of good manners, the rise of me! me! me! as a driving force for most of society; the old order changed and not always for the better.  The speed of daily life was much slower in those days, and the daily tasks to stay alive, much less to stay healthy, took much more time then they do today.  The focus in the old days was for most people, as I interpret it, much more on the base of the Maslowian pyramid because we as a nation and a species had far fewer resources to spend on the higher levels, the "wants" rather than "needs", of the pyramid.  Technology had not invented many of the items that we take for granted today that improve our lives.  More thoughts on this soon, but for now, it is time to avail ourselves of two changes in this day and age that make life much easier and faster:  The chain restaurant and the supermarket.  Best to you all.

Introduction, or "Happy New Blog!"

Goal:  To share a probably different viewpoint.  I consider myself a realist, and that the way I view the world is realistic, thus Life Wisdom.  Hopefully it is not as rough as I see it, but until proven different, this is it.  That being said, I hope to make contact with others who are willing to share their viewpoints as well.  Perhaps we can all learn and benefit from these shared wisdoms?

Background:  Where does this view, this wisdom, come from?  Probably from a healthy knowledge of history, not to mention a strong daily look at current events.  Check it out!  If you do, you will almost certainly come to the conclusion that the "everyone be nice to everyone else" view that permeates our western, including our US, view of life is most strange and very unusual.  Unusual because we choose to use so many resources in pursuits that will never lead to any economic, strategic, or measurable benefit to the greater mass of our people, and in that we make these sacrifices with so few noting how much we give up by spending as we do.  Given that an economy cannot continue to grow unless adequate investment is made in economically valuable projects, the sad waste of future growth in pursuit of some vaporous social benefit is a damaging blight to our future well being.

Specifics:  Both my parents and my wife's parents lived through the depression, and World War II, and the social chaos as we redefined our society.  More on this, which probably helped form the basis for the life viewpoints, soon.  For now, I have much to learn about how to blog.