Sitting on my three-season porch with the Kitty, sipping some coffee, and listening to Dido being streamed via the wireless lan via iTunes, and plugging away on a work project that will take me all day.
It’s amazing how much more productive one is when away from the office. For me, I think it’s partially about the environment. My office lacks windows (I do, however, have a door, which can be a luxury item), and just isn’t the same.
Having a wooded lot helps.
More later, back to work…
Off to lovely Newport, RI, forty minutes south of here, for two days of meetings.
I abhor meetings, but lately I’ve been doing them for a living. At least I’ll be with a group of good people, at a nice hotel, on the beach no less.. and we’re having a clambake tonight. Whee!
Play nicely amongst yourselves….
Do I shell out money for Bill Clinton’s book or not.
Hmm.
I really don’t want to give that fucker any of my money. But I want to read his book.
I’ve long thought that The West Wing was one of the best shows on network television. It can almost compete with HBO’s Original Series like the Sopranos and Six Feet Under, but just almost.
The single best West Wing episode ever made is Two Cathedrals – the season finale of West Wing’s Second Season.
The closing segment of the episode, set to Dire Strait’s Brothers in Arms is an amazing combination of scenery, dialogue, music, and cinematography.
These mist covered mountains
Are a home now for me
But my home is the lowlands
And always will be
Some day you’ll return to
Your valleys and your farms
And you’ll no longer burn
To be brothers in arms
Former President Ronald Reagan has passed away, aged 93, at his home in California.
The first of what is sure to be extensive news coverage has begun:
Ronald Reagan, the cheerful crusader who devoted his presidency to winning the Cold War, trying to scale back government and making people believe it was “morning again in America,” died Saturday after a long twilight struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. He was 93.
He died at his home in California, according to a family friend, who initially disclosed the death on condition of anonymity. The friend said the family has turned to making funeral arrangements. A formal statement from the family was expected later.
In Paris, White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said President Bush was notified of Reagan’s death in Paris at about 4:10 p.m., EDT, by White House chief of staff Andy Card.
The United States flag over the White House was lowered to half staff within an hour.
Derided by his adversaries as glib, doctrinaire and uninformed — a mere actor, they scoffed — Reagan demonstrated throughout his political career the power that comes from being underestimated.
He won power by defeating overconfident Democratic incumbents — Gov. Pat Brown in California in 1966 and President Jimmy Carter in the 1980 presidential election.
“It was said of Dwight Eisenhower (and could have been said of Ronald Reagan) that his smile was his philosophy,” wrote columnist George Will. And many Americans found Reagan’s smiling optimism appealing.
Reagan led a conservative revolution that set the economic and cultural tone of the 1980s, hastened the end of the Cold War and revitalized the Republican Party. He suffered from Alzheimer’s disease since at least late 1994.
At least two of his children and his wife, Nancy, were at his bedside, according to the former president’s Los Angeles office.
Ron Reagan Jr. and Patty Davis — children from his current marriage to Nancy Davis Reagan — were with him, the office said.
Ronald Reagan, an infectiously optimistic president who forged an enduring relationship with the American people, dedicated his presidency to two goals — the destruction of Soviet communism abroad and the reduction of government at home. He lived to see the first achieved, if not the second.
[…]
Five years after he left office, he revealed, on Nov. 5, 1994, in a note in his own handwriting, that he was a victim of Alzheimer’s, a mind-crippling disease, and had begun the journey “into the sunset of my life.”
Through a lifetime in the public eye, Reagan demonstrated an uncommon ability to give voice to the innate patriotism of the American people. And, more than any other politician of his time, he had an affectionate, long-lasting relationship with his countrymen.
Personally, Reagan was the first President that I was really aware of. He was sworn into office when I was but seven years old – but I remember that day. I also remember the hostages from the Iranian Embassy returning home in the days that followed. I remember my mother coming to me in early 1981 to tell me that the President had been shot. And I remember watching the political conventions with my grandparents to see Reagan and others speak.
It’s a coincidence that Reagan’s speech at Pointe du Hoc twenty years ago today that ranks as one of his best:
We’re here to mark that day in history when the Allied peoples joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved, and the world prayed for its rescue. Here in Normandy the rescue began. Here the Allies stood and fought against tyranny in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.
We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but forty years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs. Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.
The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers — at the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machine-guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting only ninety could still bear arms.
Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there.
These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.
Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender’s poem. You are men who in your ‘lives fought for life…and left the vivid air signed with your honor’…
Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith, and belief; it was loyalty and love.
The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge — and pray God we have not lost it — that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.
You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One’s country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.
RIP, President Reagan. Rest in Peace.
In conversation with my parents today, who have now read my post about the World War II Memorial, revealed additional details of which I was unaware.
In the Second World War, my grandfather and his two brothers served in the military.
My grandfather, James Strawser, who died long before I was born, served in the Army in a construction unit in Europe.
His brother, Roy Strawser, whom I don’t believe I ever met, served in the Navy and was a survivor of Pearl Harbor.
His brother, Glenn Strawser, whom I knew well growing up in Covington, joined the Marines and fought in the Pacific. Glenn died when I was a teenager. I remember some fishing trips with him at Sugar Mill Lake in rural Fountain County, Indiana.
Their sister, AnnaRose, married Guy Smith, who served in the Army in Europe. Guy passed away when I was a teenager as well.
Guy’s brother Jim Smith, who was my next door neighbor growing up, served in the Army in Europe and wound up married to a German woman, Lottie Smith. Jim retired from the Army as a Master Sergeant. He is in a hospital today, facing a terminal illness.
My parents have added all of their information to the World War II Memorial Registry, because, as my father said, “I felt it was the right thing to do.. they deserve their due”
Indeed… while I knew of my grandfather’s service and that of my neighbor Jim Smith, I knew nothing of these other relatives.
And this is just one sampling of my own small family in my own small corner of Indiana.
For the last week, I’ve been mulling over how to best write about Memorial Day in the context of the dedication of the National World War II Memorial in Washington, DC.
I grew up in Covington, Indiana, a very small town in west central Indiana. Military service runs strong in my family and in my hometown. I am the son of a Navy Vietnam Veteran and the grandson of two veterans of World War II. Many of my family members, neighbors, and community leaders served in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and other conflicts. Many cousins and classmates of mine served – and still serve – in the Army, Air Force, Marines, Navy, Coast Guard, the Reserves, and the National Guard.
I remember Carmen Abernathy, who taught music at Covington Elementary School for many decades, talking to my classes about her husband, who served in World War II as a pilot in the Army Air Corps, flying B-17s. We learned the music, the culture, the stories, and many of the events of the Second World War. And stories such as those told by Mrs. Abernathy brought those events to life for us.
Marine Corps General David Shoup, who earned the Medal of Honor for leading his Marine regiment in an assault on Tarawa during the Second World War, grew up in my hometown. He later served as the 22nd Commandant of the Marine Corps. I remember the day that he died in 1983 – we held a moment of silence in my elementary school. General Shoup was buried at Arlington National Cemetary. Later, the bridge over the Wabash River in Covington was named for General Shoup.
The war – even though it occurred nearly thirty years before my birth – has always been a part of the fabric of my life. Its impact on my hometown – and on the people who lives there – was huge.
My father, a Vietnam Veteran, was active in the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and the American Legion. He twice serves as Commander of American Legion Post 291 – housed in an old historic log cabin in Covington’s city park. As a Boy Scout in Troop 291 – sponsored by the same American Legion post, I would stop and read the plaques and study the pictures mounted on the wall.
Post 291 was named the Fulton – Banta American Legion Post. I remember an old black and white photograph of Ensign John William Banta – for whom the post was co-named. Ensign Banta was Covington’s first casualty in World War II. Fulton, whose background escapes me at the time of this writing, was Covington’s first casualty in World War I.
Something about the way that I was brought up – the combination of small town Indiana and the military service history of my family and neighbors – has always instilled in me a deep respect for the sacrifice of those of served – and those who gave their all. It may come from a deep understanding of freedom – an underlying theme that I heard growing up. From the 4th of July Fireworks, to planting flags as a young Boy Scout on the graves of hundreds of veterans in Fountain County, Indiana, that message was reinforced in my head over and over… and I also learned from the veterans and others who had lived through the Second World War that freedom came with a price. I knew that from the honored pictures of Fulton and Ensign Banta in the American Legion Post.
This weekend, we finally gave them their due with the dedication of the National World War II Memorial in Washington, DC.
It is difficult today to realize the situation as it existed throughout the world from 1939 – 1945 – the entire world was truly at war. In Saturday’s Washington Post, Pulitzer Prize Winner Rick Atkinson wrote:
From the German invasion of Poland in 1939 until the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay in 1945, the war lasted 2,193 days and claimed an average of 27,600 lives every day, or 1,150 an hour, or 19 a minute, or one death every three seconds. In the time it takes to read this paragraph aloud, 10 people perished in World War II — an estimated total of 60 million.
It was truly a war of good versus evil. Once we were attacked by Japan, we dumped the Great Depression and partisan politics on the floor and went to war. Millions volunteered – others were drafted. Even women volunteered, as one Army Women’s Service volunteer told her granddaughter, “You have to understand how it was for everyone at the time. There was a war.”
Many from Covington volunteered and served. Ensign Banta did and was killed in action. Marvin Bodine fought at Leyte Gulf and lost an eye. Steven Abernathy served as a Browning Machine Gunner in France and Germany and was awarded the Bronze Star. His grandson writes “a stronger patriot never walked the earth.” Robert Grady served as a B-17 pilot with the 2nd Bomb Group – 15th Air Force and received the Purple Heart. Charles Macy served as a Seaman 1/C and was killed in action. And there were more that served as well – this is just a sampling.
What happened when they went to war? Again, Rick Atkinson sums up the American war effort in his Washington Post article:
The American war can be summarized in a paragraph: After the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the United States — in alliance with London, Moscow and others — resolved to first crush Germany, the strongest of the Axis partners, and to then defeat Japan. A brutal but successful seven-month campaign to occupy North Africa — and thus regain control of the Mediterranean Sea — was followed in mid-1943 by invasions of Sicily and the Italian mainland. Island-hopping thrusts in the Central and Southwest Pacific brought U.S. air power within range of Japan, with devastating results. The invasion of France on June 6, 1944, and southern France two months later, squeezed Germany between the Anglo-Americans from the West and the Russian juggernaut from the East. Adolf Hitler’s suicide, on April 30, 1945, was followed eight days later by Germany’s unconditional surrender. Japan followed suit after a new American weapon, dubbed the atomic bomb, obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August.
And when the war ended in 1945, more than 291,000 of them had given their lives to defend freedom around the world. My hometown lost many – as did others around the world. My current home, Taunton, Massachusetts, had nearly a thousand serving in World War II – and an untold number of dead.
These men and women set out to keep the world free. And they succeeded. And when it was over, they came home and led even more fascinating lives. And it’s a shame that it has taken us so long to build a monument worthy of their service – and sacrifice.
How does one build a monument to this generation – to this seminal event in the history of the world? Again Atkinson writes in the Washington Post:
To be an enduring success, this memorial must “respond to a very simple question that a 15-year-old high school student who comes to Washington asks the teacher 100, 200 years from now,” Friedrich St. Florian, an Austrian-born architect who won the memorial design competition, said in an interview several years ago. “So what was World War II about? How was it different from the Mexican war, or the Spanish war, or World War I?”
Part of that answer can be found in the assessment of the British historian Martin Gilbert: “Although the Second World War is now far distant, its shadows are long, its echoes loud. How else could it be with an event, lasting for nearly six years, in which courage and cruelty, hope and horror, violence and virtue, massacre and survival, were so closely intertwined?”
I hope that hundreds of years from now young Americans come to Washington, DC – take the time to gaze upon this monument – and remember what it means. And what this war meant to the world. I believe that the monument will connect them to this past.
Atkinson ends his Washington Post article with this thought along the same lines:
The memorial dedicated this weekend is part of that mnemonic migration, a tribute not only to those who served, or the 291,000 U.S. battle deaths, or the 670,000 U.S. wounded, or the tens of millions who labored in factories and fields and dockyards. It is an effort to convey, to generations hence, that the war was a struggle both about territory and, as the historian Gerhard L. Weinberg has written, “about who would live and control the resources of the globe, and which peoples would vanish entirely because they were believed inferior or undesirable by the victors.”
The monument contains a field of stars commemorating those that gave their lives during the war – that section is marked with this simple saying:
HERE WE MARK THE PRICE OF FREEDOM
And nearby is another:
HERE IN THE PRESENCE OF WASHINGTON AND LINCOLN,
ONE THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY FATHER AND THE OTHER THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY PRESERVER OF OUR NATION, WE HONOR
THOSE TWENTIETH CENTURY AMERICANS WHO TOOK UP THE STRUGGLE
DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND MADE THE SACRIFICES TO
PERPETUATE THE GIFT OUR FOREFATHERS ENTRUSTED TO US:
A NATION CONCEIVED IN LIBERTY AND JUSTICE.
The generation that fought this war – that sacrificed so much – is waning quickly. The average veteran from that age is now 79 years old. Once again, Atkinson writes in the Washington Post:
Inexorably, the day is approaching when not a single human alive has a personal recollection of the war, which then will slide fully into mythology, history and collective memory. Although 16.4 million Americans served during the war, fewer than 5 million remain alive; the youngest survivors now are in their late seventies, and they are passing at the rate of 1,100 a day.
I will likely live to see the last of the World War II veterans pass this world.
And we will be much the lesser when they are gone.