Lessons from DC

This was written while waiting for my flight...

I've spent nearly five days in Washington, DC and sleep deprivation has taken hold and I lack the cognitive abilities to do more than make a list. So here's a list of lessons learned (in no particular order)...

1. Interacting at the fringes of the DC power/money culture leaves me feeling like an Amazon adventurer meeting the tribes he's only read about.
2. I know enough about the above to be only a minor but inoffensive curiosity to that culture at worst, or at my best manage to convince them for a couple hours that I belong--the latter of which is a frightening thought on many levels.
3. 4-star admirals apparently appreciate being introduced to Gold Star fathers.
4. Former soldiers, a giant-sized gay choreographer, and a right-wing radio producer (and little ol' me) can all get along famously at "8th & I" with drinks in hand (young Marines out with their girls for the Birthday Ball, however, can be a little bit touchy).
   
5. Floor-length ballgowns are worth the hassle because you can stash your shoes in a corner and no one will know you're walking around barefoot.
6. 4-star admirals' wives can be unflappable when you approach in a ballgown with spike heels in hand... unless you happen to thank them for their decades of service and sacrifice, too (whereupon they turn into a somewhat startled pile of goo and kiss your cheek).
7. I've spent enough time in DC in the last four years to be irritated by tourists on the Metro.
8. I may have to start carrying a purse on a regular basis. At the very least it's useful for leaving at expensive restaurants so that VIPs remember me and our dinner together because we have to turn the car back to pick it up.
   
9. I have now met the kinds of people about whom jokes regarding Republicans and sex were written. Yes, they really exist.
   
10. Apparently I have to start wearing lipstick because to do otherwise offends Greta's sensibilities, and Macy's makeup artist, too--"people pay for those kinds of lips and you're hiding them??!!!"
11. Guys sitting in a bar telling stories about SF and parachute jumps attract surprising numbers of short, soft idiots who want a fight.
12. Watching those guys winding up the idiots until they have to either take on someone one-and-a-half times their size and trained in hand-to-hand combat or else back down is perversely amusing (they back down).
13. Reminder: Wars are fought collectively and suffered individually... and that sucks beyond words. We owe them. Bigtime. [Note to self: next visit, plan for exercise time to do something about that urge to assault the nearest wall with your fist.]
14. DC Airport conversations these days are absolutely fascinating--apparently some people think that having worked for someone who was considered for Assistant to the Assistant Undersecretary for Nothing at the Department of Meaningless Governent Work for the New Administration gives you "pull" and entitles you to be an arrogant ass to someone on the phone even if you are only about 26 years old.
    
15. Other conversations are equally fascinating. On the topic of a career in entertainment law: "It's great because you get to meet celebrities. That's what I want to do with my life."
    
16. Rituals of the elite must be observed even among "friends."
17. Standing in the flight path of Flight 77 at the Pentagon will give you chills... and then make you ragingly angry all over again.
18. Pentagon tour guides can walk backwards for miles.
    
19. It's almost frightening how much I can enjoy just a little luxury and access to power. I could really start to like this if not for the queasy feeling it all gives me...

This little country mouse is definitely very tired of pretending to be a city mouse.

UPDATE: Sleeping in one's own bed and being able to sit around in sweats helps with equilibrium. This morning (Nov. 10), I asked a friend who does a lot of consulting for DC people and organizations how he handles operating in that millieu, after he admitted it was draining. His response? "Living in California helps." Absolutely. I'm beginning to suspect it wasn't necessarily a bad thing that job in DC I was up for awhile back fell apart... This kind of work is fun and rewarding, but only in small doses.

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Disappointing

Not the politics, but the ignorance.

I met Matthew Modine in 2006. Not being the starstruck type, the fact that he was attending Soldier Ride had been of only passing interest me. I even suspect he heard me unknowingly walking behind him while I asked aloud, "What [movie] would I know him from?" and responded that I'd never watched Full Metal Jacket, so I wasn't quite sure who he was.

But then I heard his heartfelt words of patriotism, and saw the obvious rapport he had with the wounded soldiers with whom he'd ridden, his honest admiration for their sacrifice and spirit. I was impressed. Later when he was told of my work with Valour-IT, he gifted me with a signed copy of Full Metal Jacket Diary. I became a fan.

Then I read this today:

[Refusing release as a POW] has earned McCain endless accolades, but Modine thinks that McCain's rejection of the release offer is yet another example of McCain's shortcomings. "And he wasn't even a good prisoner of war," said Modine. "He should have left as soon as he could. That's what you're supposed to do as a prisoner of war: Leave when you can. It defeats the enemy. It makes them look bad and it weakens them."

Heh. He is Hollywood, after all; I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to find his grasp on certain concepts rather tenuous.

Sigh...

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Racism vs. "Racism"

[Update: apparently my initial formatting on this post was confusing. To clarify, this is not my story, but that of a relative. I merely added some commentary before and after.]

Like many observers, I was stunned by Obama’s selection of Biden (decades-long senator from Delaware), particularly considering Biden’s awful racial “gaffe” last year. I was discussing the issue with a family member who had some rather insightful things to say, which I have asked her to share here.

One side of my family has a long history in both Pennsylvania and the Delmarva Peninsula (Delaware, Eastern Maryland, part of Virginia; an agricultural and fishing area also called the Eastern Shore). I myself spent the ages of five to thirteen in Delaware and Eastern Maryland and saw the echoes of what she experienced. Here is what she wrote:

I am close to the age of Joe Biden, and I have lived in both areas from which he hails. When I was five, my family moved from Philadelphia to the Eastern Shore part of Maryland. When Biden enthusiastically described Barak Obama as “articulate and bright and clean,” I knew immediately what he meant.

During my childhood in that part of the county, the vast majority of African Americans I encountered were extremely poor, living in shacks—often without water for good hygiene—and with substandard educational opportunities. I attended small religious-run schools in white neighborhoods most of my 12 grades, so I did not know many black people personally. As a white child, my opinion (which would change in later life) was formed by what I observed from a distance in my limited world, one that was far from unique among whites in that time and place.

My father spent some time contracted to a shipping company. His work included 3-4 hours a day going from place to place—“flophouse to flophouse,” as he called it—trying to find his crew of black men to load chickens from the farms because most could not be counted on to meet him for work at a set time and location. One summer when I was 12 or 13, I remember standing outside while my mother went into the house to get paychecks for Dad’s employees, who showed up at various times on payday. In the past, farm tools, tack, and supplies had been stolen from our barn and yard while mother was inside getting the checks.

At one point, a talented black mechanic who worked for Dad was hired to drive a semi within the state, transporting chickens to market. One weekend he disappeared and returned days later with bullet holes in the truck and no good explanation. My parents (who had generous and compassionate natures) continually tried to help him and his family. Mother taught the wife how to preserve food for winter and find ways to improve their existence (we were not far from poor ourselves, but Mother’s homemaking skills made our lives supremely more comfortable). But none of these efforts seemed to make a difference for that family.

As a teenager (I'm embarrassed to say), I watched the movement Dr. King led and the March on Washington, puzzled by what all the fuss was about. In my young world, I couldn't understand the problem, since they had the right to vote and work.

In my early 20’s (the early 1960s) I worked a night shift in the local hospital with a young black women in the business office, the first black person with whom I had regular and sustained contact. She told me that she was one of the few girls in her high school class who wasn't pregnant by 16, and that her grandmother who raised her was very, very strict with her. It was paying off, because she was going to college and her fiancé was about to graduate from college with wonderful professional opportunities laid out for the taking. All this was impressive to my prejudiced mind, as she was the exception to my experiences so far.

In 1965, I went to work in Washington, DC and my world expanded further. The blacks in the federal government had had the benefits of education and jobs; these were not the black people I knew from back home on the Peninsula. There, I met a black woman my age who had grown up much the same way I did, in a home with both parents, conservative, hardworking, and with a religious tradition; we were astounded at how similar we were in every way but color. Our assumptions of each other’s race fell away. We grew a lot, made jokes at each other’s expense, teased, fought, shared an apartment, and became sisters in every way. In the decades since, we’ve been through marriages and births, buried parents and a baby boy, and laughed and wept over our lives together. Knowing her changed my thinking and taught me to consider people one at a time.

But early on when I invited my new black friend to come home with me for the weekend to meet my parents, my father asked me not to come. It was 1966 and H. Rap Brown of the Black Panthers was in Cambridge, Maryland urging blacks to arm themselves and “prepare to die.” Violence and fires broke out and spilled over into other towns on the Eastern Shore. Dad did not think it would be safe. He was right. Blacks rode up and down the streets, shooting randomly at houses, outbuildings, trashcans and vehicles.

In the years since those terrible times, the area has improved in tolerance, integration and racial acceptance on both sides, as has the rest of the country. Yet those of us who grew up there and then left to live around the country had to unlearn the conscious and unconscious lessons of race we'd been taught.

But this is where Joe Biden has lived since he was 10. I’m sure he saw calling Barack Obama clean and articulate as a compliment. But when I heard him say that months ago, my first reaction was horror that Biden would use those words. Unfortunately, I understood exactly where he was coming from and what he meant.

Regardless of his subsequent political work on civil rights, Biden's evaluation of Obama was not a simple slip of the tongue or a misstatement, it was a regression into what still lurks in places he pretends don't exist anymore. "Clean" meant exactly what it sounds like, and "articulate" (educated) speaks for itself--nothing coded or hidden about it. Yet Biden's decidedly un-PC comments are called “refreshing candor” and an indicator of "strength and character." Meanwhile, we’ve spent the last month dissecting McCain’s ads and every Republican pronouncement on Obama for “coded” messages of “subliminal/subterranean racism.”

And yet this is the man Obama embraces? I'm still stunned (and a bit appalled) by the choice.

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Class

Spent the evening at the ballpark. All-in-all a fun time, despite the abysmal performance of the home team.

But there was one particularly charming moment early in the game when the "Smile Cam" roved the stands for happy fans. Children, families, young and old... all joined in the simple joy of finding themselves the momentary center of attention. One attractive, late twenty-something woman started with excitement when she realized she and her beloved were on the big screen. Eyes wide and mouth grinning, she turned to him to point out their great good fortune, in which he instantly endeavored to partake by...

flipping off the entire stadium.

Can somebody please explain something to me? What in the world does behavior like that do for him? Seriously, I don't get it.

Me? I like to think it got him escorted out of the stadium with his girlfriend trailing behind, saying, "I have never been more embarrassed in my life, you stupid lout." Followed soon by her absence from his life.

But while I'm sure the first part of that scenario happened, I somehow doubt the last parts did, since guys like that somehow manage to reproduce.

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Transitions

Meet a giant of the organ music world: Marilyn Keiser.

My first organ teacher in a little college in California formed the foundation of my attitudes about the purpose of church music, the role of the musicians, and the standards to which I should hold myself. But Marilyn Keiser was the model, the dean of church music in America. She was always the headliner for the concert artists talent agency that seemed to have a lock on the back cover ads of the professional magazines, spoken of in nearly hushed tones, someone I could only hope to meet if she passed through our local American Guild of Organists chapter for a workshop... or maybe I could someday go to a national convention and shake her hand.

But only a few years after beginning to learn the instrument, I found myself sitting at an organ bench with her at my side. A more gentle, gracious, kind and talented woman I doubt you could find. And brilliant, detail-oriented and dedicated. Not only did I sit in her classes about choral conducting from the keyboard and attend her performance masterclasses, but for one glorious semester I had her for "independent study" in church music--just the two of us each week discussing books, philosophy, and the technical details of leading congregations in music... holding our own one-on-one performance masterclasses in all things church music. She recommended me for my first professional organist and assistant choral conductor's position, and with a recommendation from Marilyn Keiser in Bloomington, you don't really need anything else.

I just found out she's retiring this year. I almost wrote her a note to tell her again how much I appreciated her kindness, how much I learned from her, and how much her support and encouragement had meant to me (she's the kind of lady one writes to by U.S. mail on elegant stationery). But knowing her, she'd write back and want to know what I'm up to... and how do you tell Dr. Keiser you haven't touched an organ in three years? That you don't appear to be using all the knowledge and spirit she poured into you? And how to explain that even though that's true, it doesn't change how much what you learned back then is still a part of you today?

And why should writing this make my eyeballs start to sweat? I'm glad I'm not a music teacher right now; I don't want to go back to that crazy-making job. But now that everything else is going so well, maybe I need to go find the inner musician I left by the wayside a couple years ago--apparently she's still alive.

Photo courtesy of Indiana University

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You Couldn't Write This...

Here's my scene for a baseball-related novel: famous baseball player hits line drive that breaks the nose of his opponent's #2 pitcher. Two batters later, same player barrels down the baseline to homeplate...

Whereupon he collides with the team's back-up catcher and gives him a sprained ankle. All of which occurs the day after their #1 pitcher (2007 Cy Young Award winner) is placed on the disabled list, and while their regular starting catcher--who got injured a couple days into the season while simply throwing a ball back to the pitcher--is still doing rehab in the minor leagues.

Think anybody would believe it?

Picked to contend in their division--for the fourth year straight--the Padres have been a disaster. These first two months of the season have been full of bizzarro bounces of the ball, once-reliable players making unexplainable errors, dead bats, and incomprehensible umpires. As one of the Padres broadcasters said tonight after the second injury, "I'd ask, 'what's next?' But I'm afraid to find out!"

Well, there's always next year...

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MG Lynch, Part II: Security

"We're close to that."
- MG Rick Lynch, Commanding General, 3ID/MND-C

As outlined in Part I, the shift in security in 3ID's Area of Operations since they arrived has been startling. The biggest reason attacks are down to less than two per day is that there are simply fewer hardliners left to cause problems. In the last year, 3ID has killed or captured over 6,000 al Qaeda terrorists and insurgents in the AO, reports MG Lynch. But though attacks are down sharply, Lynch refers to the security situation as "tenuous" because the enemy is still capable of what he describes as isolated spectacular attacks such as lethal bombings.

However, Lynch does not see opposition forces as capable of coordinated and sustained action. "We’re at the point now where we believe there is no more than 100 AQ in our area…in isolated cells of 5 or 10 people," he reports. The situation is similar in regards to what he calls "Shia extremists." Though they number at an estimated 650, they are not connected and coordinated.

Some of the analysis of recent operations in Southern Iraq has described resistance as being comprised of largely criminal elements, despite whatever ideological affiliations such elements may claim. With that in mind, I asked MG Lynch how much of the attacks or unrest in his area was simply criminal activity. He again pointed to the remaining pockets of al Qaeda, but added that "Many Shia [insurgents] are purely motivated to criminal activity," and repeated a line I've heard him use before: "The best way to train for Iraq these days is to watch the 6^th season of The Sopranos.

Another big factor in the improved security situation in 3ID's AO is the continuing development of Iraqis creating and maintaining their own security, of which Sons of Iraq and Iraqi Security Forces (army and police) are a significant part. MG Lynch described the SOI program as "maturing" and swelling to 40,000 participants. The SOI "provide sustainable security, which is defined as locals under positive control securing their community."

The development of Iraq Security Forces themselves has obviously pleased MG Lynch. "Great progress with ISF," he enthused, mentioning three patrol bases that are currently being transitioned to the control of Iraqi units. "It’s an amazing thing to me—the progress that is being made in the Iraqi Army."

Within the 3ID AO, the Iraqi Army is comprised of 14 brigade-size units that are near fully functional. "In the majority of cases, they are capable of planning and executing operations on their own," MG Lynch reported. "All they need is logistic or supply support. [There are] several provinces where they are fully in the lead, including Wasit and al Kut."

The big issue with ISF today is the police. This is one area that obviously concerns MG Lynch. "Not making a lot of progress improving the capability of police," he laments. Corruption/lack of professionalism is a huge problem with many Iraqi police units.

Part of the challenge comes down to a problem with availability of Coalition personnel. There are 96 Iraqi Police stations within 3ID's AO, but there are only 27 Police Transition Teams (civilian/military training and mentoring units). This leaves the vast majority of new Iraqi police units under-trained and unsupervised. With the Iraqi Army now taking the lead more and more, this is 3ID's current focus in the area of ISF development. When I spoke to MG Lynch last week, a reorganization and restructuring of the Military Transition Teams was underway in an attempt to--wherever possible--move qualified Americans from the MiTTs into the PiTTs.

Despite generally good security in the AO, what MG Lynch calls "continuing pressure on the enemy" remains an important part of 3ID's mission. For example, as part of Marne Piledriver, there are significant combat operations in Wasit Province and al Kut (two of the provinces where Iraqi Army units are in the lead). However, Lynch was quick to point out the ways in which combat and stabilization operations go hand-in-hand in counter-insurgency. "At the same time," he said, "you do what you can do to meet the needs of the populations." This includes building governing institutions and relationships, efforts in which he has reported "significant progress."

When I asked MG Lynch about relations between the various religious factions, he replied flatly, "No sectarian violence at all." He said many local councils have Sunni/Shia working together very effectively, a pattern that is also seen in the SOI units. He believes he sees the population coalescing around common bonds and fundamental desires: "People identifying themselves as Iraqi, not as members of a sect." He spoke of a focus among Iraqis--across a variety of backgrounds--on basic safety, good jobs, and the opportunity to improve their station. "I’m convinced more than ever that the people of Iraq want what you and I want," he said with conviction.

I also asked MG Lynch if he believes the AO has "turned a corner," that if current troop levels and Iraqi capabilities were unchanged there would be no going back to the violence and chaos of the past. He declined to use such language, but he is obviously optimistic. "We’re working towards irreversible momentum," he replied. "And we’re close to that."

In the final installment (tomorrow): economic development, transition and expected challenges for 3ID's MND-C replacements, and the burden of long and repeated deployments.

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Of Mothers and Soldiers

I've had a secret since last night... It was a hard secret to keep. This afternoon as I sat next to my mother at the baseball game (my team won!), I kept smiling as I suddenly remembered once again:

Patti was voted "America's Favorite Mom!"

Humbled by the honor, Patti is thrilled to be able to use it to continue the Soldiers’ Angels mission of “May No Soldier Go Unloved.” As the grand prize winner, she will receive $250,000, a set of household appliances, and other valuable items. Patti hopes to apply the winnings to her plans for a small ranch that will allow newly returned soldiers to relax with their families after deployments.

“I really am lucky to know so many heroes in my life,” said Patti, who herself has two sons in the Army, one currently deployed to Iraq. “Whether they are the troops who serve our country or the amazing mothers here on this America’s Favorite Mom program, I am honored to be in the presence of such inspirational people and also am humbled to know that America thinks the same of me.”

There are so many wonderful mothers out there (including my awesome, incredible, fabulous mom!), but there are few out there who positioned to do as much as Patti will with the gift of being recognized as such.

Because Patti has been recognized for being "mom" to hundreds of thousands of soldiers and thousands more Angels, even more people are going to be drawn into her wake as her energy, inspiration and enthusiasm connect people across the country with the men and women of the U.S. military who need our nationwide love and support.

In the September of 2001 when it became clear what kind of war lay ahead of us, my mother and I talked on the phone about what war can do to those caught up in it. I was soon in tenderhearted tears at the thought of what others might be enduring on my behalf. When I commented that our warfighters were going to be fundamentally changed by their experiences, having voluntarily given a piece of themselves to our ultimate benefit, she said something I've never forgotten: "And that's exactly why we must welcome them back with open arms when they come home, always make sure they have what they need, always be there for them."

Patti has become the embodiment of that ethic my mother voiced that day:

May no soldier go unloved,
May no soldier walk alone,
May no soldier be forgotten,
Until they all come home.

The more I have gotten to know Patti and to see how Soldiers' Angels operates, the more amazed I am at what motivated, dedicated and open-hearted people can accomplish. To call Patti "America's Favorite Mom" is to highlight an army of men an women who are mothering our warfighters. 'Cause even soldiers need an army of Moms at their backs...

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Jeremiah Wright

Much of his radical theology disgusts me, and I have a very strong intellectual disagreement with it. However, growing up a pastor's kid in a religion well-represented among both white and black communities (and more integrated than most), I understand a bit about where he's coming from--politics tends to be more overtly a part of black churches and theology than white, and there is more confidence in calling a spade a spade in the black religious tradition (church being a refuge from white control and interference going back to even the slavery days). But Jeremiah Wright is far beyond the tradition of black churches railing against injustice and pulling together to address or mitigate that injustice as much as possible.

While listening to the extended excerpts Hugh Hewitt played last week, I sat with my mouth hanging open. Literally. I had tried so hard to "understand," to consider that maybe Wright tended to get carried away to hyperbole with his emotionalism, that perhaps he spoke more metaphorically as is often the case in black churches. But there it was, staring me in the face.

I had two reactions after I was done: 1) I now "get" the Obamas. Michelle's speeches, her tone, her body language... the awkwardness of having said she'd never been proud of her country until her husband ran for president... I had never been able to form a coherent vision of her. Listening to Wright's sermons was like a final piece of the puzzle that made the picture pull into focus. And even moreso, I understood the cult of personality that Barak cultivated in his campaign. Whether she and Barak Obama believed as Wright does when they joined the church, twenty years of hearing things like I did as I listened cannot help but shape a person's intellect and attitude. 2) I need a shower; I felt like I'd had the worst kind of sludge poured over me for the last hour.

Mere transcripts do not do justice to the mood of Wright's diatribes against this country and people who don't look like him or believe like him. I was stunned and appalled. So much rage, so much carefully-considered and clearly-laid-out venom for the country he once served as a Marine and which has enabled him to retire in wealth to a gated community. Those short excerpts we heard were not moments of overwhelming emotion or ill-considered metaphors/similes/parallels. They were snippets in carefully-constructed and consciously-delivered sermons of rage, hatred, uber-left-wing politics, and a desire for the destruction of this country and anybody who didn't agree with him.

In response, I at first felt anger. But that quickly gave way to pity, and finally a sense of filthiness for continuing to listen... much as one feels if looking too closely at the car wreck as one drives by. It is appalling, and even moreso when you subsequently listen to the mild-mannered and "oh-so-reasonable" man Bill Moyers interviewed last week. I was forcibly reminded of the wolf in sheep's clothing, but I don't think I've ever seen the two sides so starkly drawn as they are in Reverend Wright.

Over at Powerline, John Hinderocker comes close to summing up my opinion on this, though perhaps with a bit more resentment/offense than I had (I mostly feel pity for someone so obviously consumed with rage and the more destructive emotions of this life):

I had a busy weekend, and missed it when Hugh Hewitt posted extensive transcripts of the sermons of Jeremiah Wright on Friday evening. The transcripts are devastating to Wright. He is a despicable human being, and the fact that has been ordained, apparently, is a disgrace. Wright has been claiming that he was quoted out of context, and Barack Obama has suggested that Americans would view Wright differently if they heard his whole sermons instead of a few sound bites. In fact, the context makes it worse, and the whole sermons are outrageous. It turns out that "God damn America" understates the baroque hatefulness of Wright's theology.

Still unexplained is what Wright's political screeds have to do with Christianity. I don't know anyone who would sit still for a minister who persistently abused the pulpit to preach hate instead of the Gospel. As a Christian, I am outraged that "Reverend" Wright has hijacked my faith to preach hate and to sow falsehood. How Barack Obama could have participated in this charade for twenty years, and then held himself out as someone fit to lead this nation, is inexplicable.

Let the charges of racism begin...

[Note: if you are unfamiliar with the original definition of baroque (the one NOT referring to classical music), look it up. Hinderocker obviously chose his words very carefully here.]

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A "Feminine" Mistake*

Things like this just leave me sad. There is more wrong with her attitude and behavior and conception of marriage in that article than I could catalog in a dozen blog posts. I truly pity her husband. And just think what this example does to her children...

Having never been married, I have no proof of the kind of wife I'd be, but I like to think I know what I wouldn'tbe. For starters, I'm smart enough not to marry someone I'd consider a "fixer-upper" of a man or one whose lifestyle isn't compatible with mine, and so I expect I'd feel no need to become a nagging harpy in order to get what I want/need (not that that's a good tactic, anyway). If he isn't what I need, I wouldn't marry him. If I need something in a relationship that I'm not getting, I discuss it with respect, like a loving adult. Simple, isn't it?

Yet women like her are a stereotype for a reason, and they are an embarrassment to me as a female. More than that, they are an impediment. I can't count the number of men I've met in the last 5 years who automatically assume I have more in common with someone like her than someone who genuinely loves men: I'm female, therefore I'd become a _________ [fill in the blank with any nasty description of a female] if I ever got a ring on my finger... that is, if they haven't automatically assumed I already go through life as a manipulative ball-buster.

Leslie, you give the rest of us a bad name.

*The fact that this woman has authored a book called The Feminine Mistake should surprise no one.

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An American Journey

"There are only two important things in life: the people who you love and who love you, and your country."

Take a close look at that group of pictures above. They're all of the same person.

He grew up in an abusive household, one in which his drunk of a father shot his mother after they had divorced when he was eight... and before they remarried when he was ten. As an adult, he was a baseball player--Rookie of the Year, World Series MVP, a member of the great New York Yankees post-WWII teams. He's famous today for broadcasting baseball games on CBS and San Diego Padres radio. In fact, he's in the broadcasters' wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame. And...

He's a highly-decorated dive-bomber and fighter pilot, veteran of WWII and Korea. A Marine Corps colonel.

But according to his colleagues and friends, you wouldn't know any of that from entering his home. They report it contains no displays of baseball awards or artifacts from his famous teammates, no medals or "I love me" wall as some veterans have, no pictures or plaques from his ongoing broadcasting days. When he is spoken of by those who know him, instead of talking about his achievements, they use the word "gentleman" a lot. "Not a nicer guy around," is often heard, too--both from colleagues and fans. And in his life of 32 years as a San Diego celebrity, the worst thing anyone has ever said about him is that he has a habit of being married to younger women. But hey, when you're 83 years old, most of the women out there are younger!

Getting him to talk about himself is a challenge to those who have interviewed him. He jokes about being a terrible baseball player, and prefers instead to talk about how lucky he was to know the other people on his team. He doesn't talk about being a Marine, and he acts as if he's amazed to find himself in the Baseball Hall of Fame. But after years of "nagging" from his wife, he has finally put it all on paper for the rest of us.

Meet Jerry Coleman, beloved broadcaster of the San Diego Padres (from listening to him call games for 20 years, I assure you that interview is vintage Jerry--in his humility, gentlemanly behavior, and humor). His long-time broadcast partner Ted Leitner gets away with calling him "Colonel," but I suspect Ted has a special dispensation. To the rest of us he's just our favorite Padres broadcaster, our guide to the game, Mr. Malapropism, and another amazing example of that "Greatest Generation."

A tough childhood amid the Great Depression, baseball in the heyday of Maris and Mantle, service in WWII and Korea, and life in the paradise of Southern California... enough for at least three quintessentially American lives... and still going strong. As soon as I can scrape together the shekels, I'm buying this.

[Update: cross-posted at The Castle]

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Disturbing

If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen, a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? What do you have then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero's path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed. - Colonel David Grossman.

J.D. Johannes has created an excellent short film on the Vets for Freedom visit to Kansas City, contrasting how military heroes are received today versus years past.

The part of the film that stuck with me was David Bellavia talking about the response he received from parents of the children's soccer team he was coaching when his book about the first Battle of Fallujah came out. The parents were horrified to discover the violent things Bellavia had done while fighting in Fallujah; they acted as if they expected his capacity for lethal violence would burst out again at any moment.

As Bellavia points out, the parents' responses are indicative of the discomfort many civilians feel with what warriors do in wartime, and how that affects their interactions with and opinion of veterans. The sheep-sheepdog-wolf allegory addresses this: the sheepdog, though protective of the sheep, is a little too much like the wolf for some sheep's taste. We sheep can't imagine ourselves having to kill someone, or finding satisfaction in physically destroying an enemy. We don't think we have in us the same spirit that causes an old war dog to strain against his age when he hears and smells the distant battle. Thinking on such things confounds us, makes us a little uncomfortable, makes us wonder... reminds us of what we don't understand.

But frankly, we don't have to understand in order to appreciate the service the sheepdogs render. The problem is, the self-centered, weak and morally arrogant among us tackle that sense of discomfort and ignorance by deciding that if the sheepdogs are different than us in some way and we can't integrate their battlefield experience into our life experience, then there must be something wrong with them; we're "normal/good/sane," so they must be "abnormal/evil/insane." Like the protesters who recoil at the idea that others are killing on their behalf, such people calm their fears of the unknown and incomprehensible by reassuring themselves of that unknown's "separateness" from them.

I don't know how it feels to have to kill someone, to watch them die, or to know that my decisions and actions resulted in the death of some faceless person I will never meet. And because of those who serve in our armed forces, I fortunately, most-likely never will.

Neither do I pretend to fully understand how having to do such a thing changes a person--changes how he sees the world, how he sees himself, what he thinks about in the predawn hours before he (hopefully) finally lays the battlefield ghosts to rest. But I do know some people who have experienced those changes. Arms that wrestled with and dispatched a man on the battlefield have enveloped me in tender affection; powerful hands trained to kill even when empty have gently "spoken" to me with a touch when words were inadequate; minds that planned and executed actions that ended the lives of people simply unlucky enough to be forced into military service under the wrong country's flag have formed words to me reflecting the best of humanity--kindness, perceptiveness, inspiration, and wisdom. Bodies trained for war have been put to the business of cooking my food, protecting me as I walk down the street, making me laugh, and holding me close.

To me it sometimes seems a conundrum that people of great gentleness and goodness can also accomplish feats of ferocity and violence; but they do. I don't pretend to understand how the sheepdogs harness any wolfish tendencies to the protective ends of the sheepdog's calling rather than the wolf's predations. But having had the opportunity to know some sheepdogs, I know that's exactly what they do.

They've told me how their training made them master the human tendency to violence rather than let it restlessly lurk in the unacknowledged shadows of their psyche, like the rest of us who would rather play the odds that the beast in us will never be activated by random experience. They've taught me that being face-to-face with what humanity is capable of can shatter some people, and that it takes time for many warriors to find their equilibrium again. But they have also been the proof that the majority of those who go face-to-face with the darkness come back more self-aware and more wedded to the good in their world--with fierce tenderness for the naturally weaker or defenseless, joy in the blessings of a loving family, and a level-headed knowledge that the "big issues" aren't really that big after all.

Hearing Bellavia talk about those parents made my heart hurt, made me angry. Kudos to him for obviously having the sense and the support system to not let such treatment get him down. But shame on those who use a misplaced sense of moral superiority to mask their own weakness, ignorance and fundamental lack of humanity.

[cross-posted at The Castle; h/t to Jimbo of Blackfive for the video]

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Islam and Terrorism?

A couple readings in the last few days all came together for me today...

Over at The Tank, Steve Schippert asked a great question: "Why Isn't al-Qaeda Iran's Sunni Enemy In Iraq?" In other words, since al-Qaeda is Sunni and Iran is Shia, why are we finding supportive connections/relationships between Iran and al Qaeda fighters in Iraq?

An older form of that question: Why were we surprised to find secular Saddam Hussein aligning himself with both Sunni and Shia terrorists around the world?

The Roundtable with COL Bacon last week revealed another piece of the puzzle: al Qaeda suicide-bombing recruits are often seduced into it by people who offer to help them make their Islamic worship "more correct." Whereupon they are handed off to people who entertain them at bars and discos on their way to Iraq.

And then there's this comment from BillT (on a post by John), currently training Iraqi student pilots as part of rebuilding the Iraqi Air Force:

There's Islam, there's Islam, and then there's Islam. My [students] are Shi'a, Sunni, Shi'a-from-the-Sunni-Triangle, Sunni from Kurdistan and secular. They know I'm a card-carrying Crusader and they neither fear nor hate me: "You keep talking about the Brotherhood of Aviators, but you don't make us feel like your brothers -- you make us feel like your sons."

They've all lost family -- immediate family, as well as extended -- to the [terrorists].

Interestingly enough, considering all the learned discourse on just *what* PC term we should use for the terrorists, the Iraqis call *all* of them, no matter what outfit they belong to, "Wahabi"...

Maybe it's not as much about religious alliances as many would like to think...

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Five Years Ago Today...

I was in a college town in Indiana, up to my eyeballs in the student teaching phase of my training, and supervised by a harridan who was making my life miserable. Every hour outside the classroom was spent perfecting lessons plans and trying to be above reproach.

I knew what was going on in Iraq, but didn't have the time to absorb the details; my professional future was at stake, and my memories of that time are not comprised of the vivid pictures and events of the opening days of the war that everyone else seems to have. I remember President Bush talking on the White House lawn, and I remember snippets of video from the bombing of Baghdad, but that's all.

I didn't know anybody in the military, but I loved and honored them in the abstract. My heart was heavy with apprehension, and concentration was difficult. I remember sitting in an empty classroom, trying desperately to finish a lesson plan while my brain insisted on wondering what was happening on the other side of the world, fervently hoping this would be as easy as some of us thought, and worrying about what might be unleashed in response to America's actions. And I remember knowing that between Afghanistan, Iraq, and who knows what else the future held, I was going to get a long lesson on living as a citizen whose country was at war--I'd always wondered how the homefront coped with years of war in WWII... now I would find out.

Five years later, it drags on. We are older and wiser, and maybe not as idealistic. We've seen how hard it can be, learned names of people we thought were "everyday Americans" who turned out to be extraordinary heroes. We've seen and heard from those who were eyewitnesses to the depravity and evil humans are capable of, a depth many of us no longer pretend doesn't exist.

Five years later, I'm not teaching. Instead, my two jobs are neck-deep in military-related activities. Five years later, I know soldiers and sailors and Marines who have very recently "seen the elephant," and I've heard their stories. Five years later, I've interviewed colonels and generals, won awards for blogging (didn't even know what a blog was in 2003), sat in a veteran's truck while I touched the hands he held out as proof of his healing as he described the blast that had come through the humvee's windshield, returned to the hospital grounds my father walked before I was born, and served as a privileged funnel for the astounding generosity and energy of people who wanted to help the wounded.

Five years later, I've been told "you're one of us." Five years later, I cry with pride, fear and love when I think of the people I know who are "over there," those who will be there soon, and those who are waiting for them at home. Five years later, I find that volumes can be spoken in the look and touch of a stranger. Five years later, I know the difference between a colonel and a corporal, can spot a serviceman's rank and branch when he's in civilian garb, and have harvested enough acronyms that I find I am possessed of a civilian language and a military language that I must choose between when addressing someone.

Five years ago, dear friends I didn't know yet were standing on the decks of ships, peering out of tanks, worrying about their loved ones on the ground, and doing what had to be done in the middle of a man-made hell on the other side of the world.

Five years later, I know what my freedom has been bought with... for the last 230 years. War changes people--the closer to the fighting, the more they are changed. But it changes us all.

For a less self-centered retrospective, read what I wish I'd written.

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MacGyver

CBS is offering the entire first season of my teenage favorite--MacGyver, the small screen Indiana Jones--via online streaming. I think I'm in heaven...

Richard Dean Anderson's picture never made it to my bedroom wall (nobody's did). But a couple pictures of him and Pierce Brosnan as Remington Steele did get collected and stored way. Because... well... they were just so dashing and fun to look at!

So far I've watched the first six of the streamed MacGyver episodes. It's amazing to see them through adult instead of teenage eyes. The show was quite liberal, even for its time, but still... a show with such fundamental optimism, a hero of such purity, and an underlying theme of the cold-war driven belief that people dreamed of going to America would never make it to the screen these days. It was a reflection of its time--the sunny patriotism of the Reagan years, when it seemed we all believed in the power of American ingenuity and spirit.

And yes, my adult eyes also saw that the writing was uneven (depending on who had the script that week), and the dialogue could be groan-inducing at times. But the thing is, today I still like MacGyver the character for the same reasons I always did: he's blazingly smart, confident but understated, resourceful, witty, both appreciative and respectful/protective of women, and possessed of an essential elegance whether he's up to his elbows in grease or wearing nothing but a towel.

Hmm... funny to look back and realize that almost every man in "real life" that I've been strongly attracted to as an adult has had most of those same characteristics.

And here I'd thought I was all grown up, now... What an embarrassing discovery! ;)

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The Iraqi Economy: Rebuilding and Regrowth

The final post on my interview about the Iraqi economy is up at The Castle. I have been posting merely links here, but on John's advice I'm going to put the whole thing up for your perusal, starting with Part I.

Part I: Overview and background

Part II: Infrastructure--energy, banking and transportation

Part III: Growth sectors, the National Investment Commission and engagement with foreign companies

******************************

On February 21st when I interviewed Brigadier General Cardon, he shared his opinion that “The real story over the next several months is going to be political and economic.” He discussed the potential for foreign investors who would bring industry and jobs to Iraqis and said now is the time for business to come and take a look. “This is a country of personal engagement…. Getting here early is a good thing if you want to have a long-term business arrangement.”

This statement inspired interest among readers in learning more about economic development and investment in Iraq. The request to 3ID's public affairs office for someone who could speak more authoritatively on the subject ultimately landed at the State Department, and what follows is the result.

This past Wednesday evening I spoke for nearly an hour with America's senior man in Iraq for economic development: Ambassador Charles Ries, Coordinator for Economic Transition in Iraq and Economics Minister. The focus of the interview was Iraq's readiness to receive foreign investment, but in a very forthcoming manner he covered topics ranging from banking and other infrastructure to labor, agriculture, and the challenges facing attempts to create a modern Iraqi economy.

The most striking message of the interview was how much security and economic development go hand in hand, reinforcing each other. They are completely inter-dependent; each without the other will not result in sustainable peace or success. Over-arching all of this is the legislative factor: full implementation of many plans and activities awaits action by Iraqi governmental leadership.

And so, in listening to Ambassador Ries, one is left with the impression of Iraq as an immensely complicated economic jigsaw puzzle, each part dependent on the other and full of bottled-up potential. The biggest challenge is the bottleneck through which it seems each piece must pass. Not surprisingly, it all comes back to oil. It is oil revenue that will fund Iraq's government, and thus fund almost every project that descends from the government. The problem right now is that because oil revenue-sharing is still not completely resolved, many of the needed improvements to oil production capabilities (which will result in increased production/revenue) can't yet be made. The success of almost all the plans and processes covered in my discussion with Ambassador Ries ultimately hinges on the Iraqis' ability to successfully resolve the revenue-sharing issues.

Despite the bottle-neck over oil revenue, a great deal of economic development is occurring in Iraq, and there is much to be excited about. "Iraq is seeing the economic indications of the successful security surge," says Ambassador Ries. "Since the middle of last year we have seen the revival of markets, more economic activity [and the] very early starts of permanent investment and banking activity. We are quite pleased."

The International Monetary fund predicts 7% growth in Iraq's economy, though predictions have repeatedly fallen flat in the past. However, Ambassador Ries is very optimistic, pointing to several factors that he says will increase growth beyond last year's sluggish rate. According to the ambassador, the lack of security in the first half of 2007 created a strong drag on the economy. "Things that couldn't happen due to the security situation were like a tax on the economy," holding it down. But with the success of the “surge” and its accompanying counter-insurgency tactics, security has improved and removed that “tax.” As an example, Ambassador Ries pointed to oil production and exports. In July (shortly after the "surge" reached full strength and just before it began to show results), Iraq was exporting about 1.5 million barrels of oil a day. Today, Iraq is "nudging up against 2 million barrels a day" (total production went from 2 to 2.5 million barrels during that time).

Ambassador Ries predicts this increase in oil production and exports will have a "trickle-down" effect that will fuel the entire economy in the coming year as oil revenue is immediately rolled over into government development projects such as construction sites. Money is already flowing into the provinces and governmental ministries for things like fixing streets, building schools, and dealing with infrastructure problems stemming from war and neglect. This results in greater employment, since people are needed to implement these projects, and the newly-employed workers in turn create demand for products they want to purchase with their earnings... Which creates money-making opportunities for other citizens, etc.

Though specific governmental ministries have been soliciting bids for very narrow projects, it is in many ways a little bit too soon to speak of general foreign investment in Iraq. As of yet, there is no way for a prospective investor to call up a single person in the Iraqi government and say, "I'd like to build a glass factory in your country." However, a highly-regarded Iraqi has been nominated to head the newly-developed National Investment Commission at rank of Minister, and his approval is expected when the legislature returns from its break. Meanwhile, the groundwork is being laid, and like so much in Iraq, is on the edge of bearing fruit.

That groundwork for investment includes not only the creation of a National Investment Commission, but rehabilitation of the energy infrastructure, development of the banking system, and most-importantly, capacity-building--the formation of functional governmental systems to enable development, research, and delivery of services to its citizens, as well as attract and process foreign investment. Over and over again in the interview, Ambassador Ries pointed to coalition efforts to teach basic governmental skills/mechanisms--everything from project management to industrial maintenance to funds distribution. Much is being done in these areas, and in many ways Iraq's economy is on the edge of a boom... a half-finished quilt in which solid and intricate squares await the national government to sew them into a larger and more functional entity.

In the meantime, the Provincial Reconstruction teams are not only reconstructing local infrastructure and business/agriculture, but teaching basic governmental skills and facilitating government functionality at the Province level. Early in the "surge," there were problems with staffing and distribution of the PRTs, but Ambassador Ries now points with obvious pride to the 25 PRTs operating throughout Iraq, "We tried to recast the way we work on civilian side to match/reinforce the strategy of the new way forward [counter-insurgency]." Five of the teams are based with provincial government, teaching and facilitating government function. The rest are called Embedded PRTs (ePRTs), and work hand-in-glove with coalition military forces. All teams are mixed civilian-military, comprised of State Department and USAID personnel, agriculture advisors, engineers, etc.

The province-based PRTs offer "lots of assistance" for local governments to help them effectively use the money they get from the federal government. Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq was a centrally-planned economy, and Ambassador Ries reports that before 2004 no money was allocated to provincial governments. Thus part of the PRTs' effort is focused on teaching project planning, acceptance of contact bids, etc.

Ambassador Ries describes the biggest role of the province-based PRTs as "de-bottlenecking problems." One example he gave was their "instrumental" role in in dealing with a cash-flow problem at the end of last year. Iraq is still a cash economy, and with the economic growth at the end of last year, Diyala Province developed a sudden and severe physical cash-flow problem. Iraqi Dinars are printed in London and must be carried by truck into Diyala. The Diyala PRT was able to use the State Department's connections and expertise to accelerate the printing and delivery of the Dinars. Ambassador Ries said that the PRT members were in constant contact with the treasury personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, and "American expertise and connections made a noticeable difference in Diyala."

The cash-flow issue is indicative of what Ambassador Ries describes as "moving out of the bricks and mortar phase and towards capacity-building... trying to help the Iraqi government operate as a government." Efforts to provides services such as power, attract investment, develop banking, etc., is happening from the top-down in Baghdad while the ePRTs are operating with the military from the ground-up (typical counter-insurgency strategy).

The top-down and ground-up efforts meet at the still-jagged edge of foreign investment--of both money and expertise. So far, the economic rehabilitation is being driven by what Ambasssador Ries called "small-scale revival," retail development fueled by micro-grants/loans and the efforts of the ePRTs. Foreign investment and support of the banking sector are "needed to get to the next stage for lasting growth." This includes helping Iraqis tackle the big energy problems: attracting investments and developing more expertise in oil, and catching up with the demand for electricity. "Both are very large, difficult problems," says Ambassador Ries, which will "make a huge difference" once they are solved.

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Jodys at Work

[Note: this post is about a type of woman, not a specific one]

There are few things in this world as depressing as becoming a statistic. I haven’t taken the armor out of my vest though, like CPT Whiteback did in 2003 when he received his Dear John. So I got that going for me. Which is nice.

I don't get it. I really don't. Just this week a friend whose judgment and compassion are absolutely stellar, stared me down when I expressed my displeasure upon hearing a woman had left her wounded soldier-husband in the middle of his suffering. She said I couldn't begin to imagine the strains, but the line that finally made me relent was her reminder, "She's very young." True... and the whole situation has been even more hellish than is "normal" for wounded couples.

But then I think of teen wives, such as Josie Salzman (just turned 20), who have come through these things with flying colors--after getting suddenly married on his pre-deployment leave--and are still holding up amazingly well as the aftershocks rumble through their lives.

My mother suggested that maybe these girlfriends (and wives) just really don't understand what a Dear John letter does to a deployed soldier, especially one in direct combat. Maybe they don't. Their men's hearts break like any other man's, but it's more than that. For soldiers all too often, the soft and loving arms of their girl is the singular ribbon that connects them to Home and Real Life... the thread they hang onto when it seems there is nothing but the insanity of war... the warm light that promises a return to Normal someday... the thoughts that soothe a troubled mind... the literal strength to do what must be done.

I’ll keep those jaded words tucked away in my personal ramblings, where they belong. The juxtaposition...between three years of sunny memories filled with smiles and laughs and a cold, empty combat outpost at 0-Dark-Thirty in the middle of freakin' Iraq...

I'll never forget reading a Ranger Instructor who wrote that almost without fail it was the men with a significant other or a beloved mother who made it through the toughest and darkest parts of the training that pushed them beyond their previous limits--it was she who inspired him. Soldier lore is full of stories of men who got absent-minded, "careless," or "unlucky" after receiving a Dear John letter.

And yet the girls keep doing it. I don't get it. I really don't. If you have loved someone, don't you care about his health and safety even if you don't have the hots for him anymore? If you've discovered you don't really love him "that way," after all, can't you control yourself until he gets back so that at least he's not in danger of getting his head blown off after you break his heart and rummage through his psyche? If you got drunk and turned stupid, is it important for him to know about that while he's on the other side of the world and living in mortal danger? Shouldn't that be your version of "embrace the suck" as you live with your guilty feelings rather than unburdening them onto him when he has more important things to worry about... like survival? I've gone years without a man at my side. Surely you can go up to 18 months; spend some time learning to live with yourself instead of attaching to the next thing with a Y-chromosome that turns your head.

You get to sit stateside and cry about a relationship gone sour. Maybe "cocoon" yourself for a few days, go out and get plastered with your girlfriends and begin to wash away the pain and regret. He doesn't get the option. Instead, he has to find a way to pick up the broken pieces and try to clear his mind... because he's got a patrol in two hours, his brothers are counting on him and people are going to try to kill them.

"Appallingly self-centered" is about the nicest adjective I can find to describe girls who do this. I openly acknowledge: I don't understand... not one bit.

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History and Noise

Greyhawk has returned from his long sabbatical following his recent deployment. And he returns with a bang--a song that I'm sure will soon be "going places:"

Greyhawk cautions that it's incomplete, but the pictures and music tell the story:

But this is still a rough draft - a basic and incomplete cut. Each part was recorded in one take, (including the lead solo which was improvised on the spot) and the result is something that exists only because I wanted to turn an idea into a reality that I could build on. (On the other hand, my time is such that this may be all it ever is...)

FWIW: I first used the phrase "They're making noise, we're making history" a few years ago as a comment to a fellow milblogger who was taking a tremendous amount of crap in his comments section on one of his posts from Iraq. It was my way of saying "don't worry about these REMFs - it's a hell of a lot easier to write from the comfort of their living rooms than it is in a tent. One of your words is worth about a thousand of theirs."

He posts his words on Mudville Gazette:

The Free and the Brave
Greyhawk

Over in America, home of the free
Land of unlimited opportunity
People in the streets protest whatever they can
While over in Iraq and Afghanistan

The brave, far from home, are standing tall
and toeing the line, so they can have it all
Some try to complicate it but it's simple to me
They're making noise, we're making history

Click and read/hear it all.

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Evil and Good and Shades of Gray

"The Wolf" at Blackfive pointed us to a mind-bending post by Michael Totten the other day, and I followed the embedded links deeper into Totten's site. Here's what I came away with:

Short of the occasional psychotic serial killer on a spree that makes national news, or the most horrific cases of child abuse, most of us in America are not confronted with true evil on a regular basis. We read about (or in one case for me, know about) how damaged are children who grow up in an environment of unspeakable abuse, but those are the are exceptions that prove the rule we like to believe is the norm. Here in our largely safe and well-structured society, we get to pretend that humanity, despite it's great capacity for selfishness and narcissism, isn't really that bad, all-in-all. And so we look at places like Iraq and think, "What is wrong with those people?" or, "How barbaric/unmotivated they must be to not instantly adopt the Western sensibilities that come so naturally to us."

A response to such ideas can be found in a couple of posts by Totten. Almost two years ago he wrote about a former "prison" of Saddam Hussein's secret police (now a museum) he toured in northern Iraq:

Dozens of people were packed into single caged cells. This one, pictured below, needed to have blood scrubbed off the walls before it could be opened to visitors.

...10,725 people were killed in this one building alone. All died during torture. Formal execution actually took place in Abu Ghraib.

More recently, he toured a current jail (temporary holding site for accused criminals) run entirely by the Iraqis:

“This is the room for minors,” Sergeant Dehaan said. “They're treated better.”

They are? The cell was the size of my living room. Two dozen children lived in this place. They slept on the floor on blankets and had no personal space whatsoever. The kids were grubby, but they didn't appear beaten down or even in bad spirits necessarily.

He moves on to a cell of adults:

There was no furniture. Most men sat on blankets and carpets. A few near the door cautiously stood up to greet us, but they did not shake our hands. They seemed slightly wary, and had a weird look of innocence on their faces, almost like the kids in the previous room who really were mostly innocent.

And finally, a roomful of those suspected/accused of being al Qaeda:

Not all Middle Eastern terrorists are alike. I have been inside Hezbollah’s headquarters south of Beirut. I brushed shoulders with Hamas leaders in the Palestinian parliament, although I was there to interview other people. Never once did I worry that the Lebanese or Palestinian terrorists would actually harm me. Al Qaeda is different. These guys are like Arabic Hannibal Lectors.

“Is it safe to be in here?” I said.

“Well,” Sergeant Dehaan said. “There’s five cops. And me.”

Last summer in Ramadi I met a handful of detainees who were suspected of being Al Qaeda. They looked like doofuses who couldn’t get a date or a job.

Most of the men in this room looked like they were perfectly willing to murder us all with their hands. I could see it in their eyes, in the sinister way some of them squinted at me, in the tightness of their jaw muscles. I wished I had a gun of my own.

Should we have even been standing there in the first place? More than 50 potential killers all but surrounded us. They sat on the floor, but some of them were less than three feet away.

“The nastiest ones are the little guys,” Sergeant Dehaan said. “The little rat-looking bastards. They're the ones who have done the worst things to people.”

Totten ends the post with a mind-blower of a statement that makes the entire post worth reading. But what tied things all together for me was a statement by a commenter on the first post I linked, referring back to the conditions of prisons under Hussein's rule:

When we first got to Abu Ghraib, the MPs had been at work for a month and a half making the place habitable for human beings. After 45 days, they hadn't even touched the execution building. I can't even describe it. Rumsfeld showed about about two weeks later to inspect the prison as a whole, and make sure it was up to our standards for a detention facility... He walked in to the execution building, came back out 30 seconds later, and ordered the place walled off until engineers could arrive to demolish it.

What was so horrifying about that building that he wanted it walled off and then demolished? "It's just a building..." Surely it could be cleaned up and put to good use.

But I'm not so sure about that. I believe good and evil (and shades of gray in-between) exist and act on people who are immersed in one or the other, or hold it to their hearts--for example, the Christian tradition believes we are changed by what we behold, and even moreso by our reactions to the vision.

Our military fights a physical war, and does it very well. But I suspect the Iraqis are also engaged in a spiritual war. Blackfive has written of radiating circles of influence in the context of the great things collectively done in support of our warfighters. But it works on the evil side of the chart, too... Evil radiating from people and places like those associated with the execution building of Abu Ghraib.

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Long-distance Harrassment

I'm sure all of you have been angered and pained by the anti-military activities of the Berkely City Council and the stupid antics of people like the mayor of Toledo. But maybe that seems distant to you. And yes, it's true that they are a small group who are just very vocal and recipients of a lot of attention, whose antics in most cases don't have much impact beyond their localities.

But not quite. There's a message going out, and it's being heard.

Chuck doesn't live on the West Coast and he's a long drive from Toldeo, but he's hearing it. He was wounded over two and a half years ago and recently completed what is hoped to be his final surgery (#35):

More and more often, those of us in uniform are being shunned. Reading commentary on news articles, it’s apparent that many view the military as a dreadnaught, bent on the eventual establishment of a military dictatorship. [snip]

I would be hard pressed to convince my son or daughter to defend them.

And so I am left a soldier who holds a large part of his nations’ population in contempt rivaling the scorn they hold me in. [snip]

I’m spent. I am exhausted mentally and physically drained as well. Pain and medication both take their toll, wearing me down until I just don’t want to resist any more… just want the niggling pain to disappear, instead of simply being kept at bay. I want to sleep without dreams, without memories that leave me breathless and awake; my heart pounding so hard I feel it will erupt from my chest. And then alone, awake, with my thoughts, fears, and regret, to suffer until I can at long last collapse—hopefully too tired to dream.

It must be the brainwashing and mind-control beams again… time to buy more Reynolds’s wrap.

Lest those who don't know him think this is typical whining from a typical whiner, I assure you I've never read a post like that from Chuck before. Just one more reason to despise those people with an intensity beyond my ability to express.

UPDATE: Counter-protesters will be in Berkeley today. My prayer is that they will conduct themselves with honor and integrity, and master the righteous rage that surely wells up in them.

UPDATE II: "Auld Soldier" John talks to Chuck, brother to brother.

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