The weather here has been so nice this past week or so. I've started walking again and decided to put in five miles split into two halves, two and a half miles each. I'll probably cover less distance than that, almost certainly less, but ever since I started walking seriously for exercise back in the early 90's, I've been a counter of paces; one, two, three, four; two, two, three, four; ... three-hundred-seventy-two, two, three, four; etc. There was a time when each of my steps was a yard. I verified by pacing off yardage markers on golf courses, and would also check out my walking mileage thus calculated with the car's odometer. But I'm far heavier now, my legs are thicker, and I'm much older. Time takes its toll. So, what I'm really trying to do is work up to 10,000 paces each day.
I saw and heard this as I approached the crest of a hill about 3/4 miles (660 paces) into the jaunt. Two dogs came running and barking from south side of the house on the Northwest corner of that intersection where a woman was doing yard work. The sound of a car approaching was enough to convince me to stop, and besides, a yield sign for me sealed the deal. The car made a sharp turn into the driveway of the house and I could it was being driven by a boy, probably late teens. The dogs switched course no longer running towards me but circling back towards the car. The tone of their barking had changed too, from one of annoyance, to one of joy. The woman was calling to the dogs to come back to her.
A soldier exited the passenger door and walked around the front of the car heading to the south side of the house. The car's driver had a huge grin on his face. As the woman turned the corner and could now see the driveway and the soldier, she shrieked with joy and gratitude, "Oh my God!"
"Hi mom," the soldier gently said, as they rapidly walked towards each other and embraced.
I smiled, feeling very happy for them both.
The scene reminded me so much of the story my mom has told about the first time my uncle, 1st Lt James Raymond Hockett returned home from his first tour of duty in Vietnam. Jimmie made the secret plans with the youngest of the sisters, my mother, to pick him up at O'Hare Airport and then drive him home. He gave strict orders that this was to be a secret operation, and mom obeyed. Grandma Verna was startled, overjoyed, excited to see Jimmie, all the while ANGRY at mom. "Why didn't you tell me he was coming home?" she wanted to know.
Only within the last five years or so did I learn from my mother that later, when Grandma Verna had become a gold star mother, that she told mom that if I got a low lottery number, she should send me to Canada. Having lost her only son to the war. She was determined to lose none of her grandsons to the war.
Clearly, what she most feared was not that if "we" didn't fight "the commies" over "there" then "we" would have to fight "them" "here." Nor did she fear the stigma that would attach to her oldest grandson being a draft evader as much as she feared losing another of her boys to god-forsaken, god-awful war.
Only the American people have the power to end invasions and occupations of the middle east (and Africa, and South America, and the beat goes on and on and on and on and on). This is reality. Only the American people can amass the political will to stop the fighting. When a majority of the politicians come to fear getting voted out of office then these cruel, brutal, destructive, criminal wars against an enemy that has no army, that has no navy, that has no air force, that has no tanks, that has no air planes, will end.
Armies win wars, and armies lose wars. But governments start wars, and governments end wars.
The enemy most feared by the US government is the people of the United States. Interestingly, this is the enemy most feared by the corporate elite. It is enough that most of the population is very much aware of how close they are to losing their job, to losing their home, to becoming poor, and thus that the majority internalize their fear, or direct it at "radical Islamsts" or "immigrants" or "liberals" or "the homosexual agenda" or those who would preach or practice "social justice."
Divide and rule, as effective a means of governance as has ever been hatched to permit the rich to get richer while the poor get poorer; while the have's and the have not's and the have more's ultimately are robbed by the have-lots-of-yatchs (otherwise known as the never-will-have-enoughs).
The road to serfdom is being paved upon long forgotten dreams of people whose fathers were able to support a family of 6, own a home, and be the sole income provider while holding down a decent-paying union job with good benefits, or, whose fathers were able to support a fmily of 6, own a home, and be the sole income provider because of the job he was able to get based on the college education he got that was paid for by the G.I. bill.
Those were the days my friend
When and where did they end?
And why did not the dirges sound
The day, the music, died.
