A Nation of Maimed Men ~

For all our ingenuity, where is the inventor of a device to let landmines explode before courageous Ukrainians pass over. 

No Questions Asked ~

Down around the corner from where we live in Germany, a vacant house has been made available for Ukrainian refugees who arrived here with little more than their backpacks. 

Remembering with Gratitude ~

Today is VE-Day. 

I look out my window and think what it would be like had Hitler not been stopped.

Coming into Focus ~

With 80-plus finally coming to understand what a momentous, catastrophic event the First World War was.

Mothers of the Fallen ~

How the pain of loss and its sting comes creeping into the daily life of 

the living mothers

 of the fallen soldiers. And they sit alone, suffering.

Poetic Tribute

Remnants of WW II ~

Forty-five thousand people evacuated today in the city of Koblenz on the Rhine.
In the shallow water of the river [no rain in months] bombs have been uncovered from World War II. They are hoping to defuse them today.

General Petraeus ~

I liked one of his lines about fighting in asymetrical combat: "a soldier has to be comfortable in chaos".

A Mother's Pain ~

Does the suffering of the mothers who have lost a son in war ever cease, or does the pain only end as she breathes her final breath?

Lancaster, Pennsylvania ~

I walked out before breakfast into a bursting rising sun. Walked along the edge of a cornfield and thought the whole time about the young 24-25 year olds, young lovers, who went into battle here in the Civil War, and had to die in these fields. I thought that after having had to experience the horrible spiritual death of being wrenched apart from the girl they loved, they must have faced their bodily death in the enemy's fire, willingly.

Flight: Detroit, Michigan to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania ~

She sat beside me, wife of a Marine, mother of two teenagers eager to join. She was very concerned about that, but knew they would be enlisting soon. Her eyes filled. Said she was so happy that her husband had made it through Vietnam.

General Robert E. Lee ~

Then I ran across this observation by the famous Civil War tactician:

"It is well that war is so terrible, else we should grow too fond of it."

Bitter Lessons ~

It must have been a bitter lesson for George W. Bush to learn. We learned it in grade school: America doesn't want a king or an absolute ruler. That's why we fought the Revolutionary War. It is ingrained in us.

Iraq ~

Today the cost of the Iraq War reached $250,000,000,000.

Changing One's Mind ~

Today I read that an overwhelming majority of 72% of American troops serving in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country within the next year, and more than one in four say the troops should leave immediately. Article

State of the Union ~ President Bush

State of the Union: $439,000,000,000 allocated for defence in 2007. When will we have a President who spends half of that on making peace in the world?

War ~

And this nagging thought keeps coming back: We are a nation that was duped into war. Even though we know that, we take it all in stride. Where is the rage?

Five More Ohio Marines ~

This morning they reported five more Marines killed in Iraq on a road patrol. It breaks my heart to hear that so many young boys, twenty-year-olds in the blossom of manhood, are being killed. Knowing about the background of our involvement, this is a sacrifice for having made a mistake. What a terrible blame our President has to carry.

On reading about these boys and feeling the pain that the parents and friends of these soldiers are experiencing I sat down and wrote a poem entitled:

Tribute to 20 Ohio Marines