In Memory

Yesterday was Memorial Day, a day in which we remember those who have given their lives in the pursuit of defending the freedoms we enjoy.  It is a strange irony but our country was founded out of a pursuit of peace, yet for our entirety we have had to pursue war to maintain it.  Some may argue about certain wars, the futility of war.  Vietnam is a good example, as are the more recent conflicts of our current century.  Whatever we may think or believe however, our men and women have always tried to stand for the stalwart, upstanding values we all hold dear.

Army Sergeant First Class Leroy Arthur Petry is a good example of this.  For those who aren't familiar with him, he is the only living recipient to be awarded the medal of honor in several generations.  Petry's story has been all over the news, how he went back for his fallen companions when they were ambushed by Taliban in a secluded valley in Afganistan.  On Sixty Minutes, Petry described himself as a mediocre soldier, no better or worse than any of the other men.  His humility, selflessness, and righteousness should be an example to all of us.

Petry and other soldiers fight for people who will probably never see real conflict like what is going on overseas.  The constant bombardment of rockets and the threat of attack isn't some vague concept debated by conservatives or liberals, its real.  Men and women die by the hands of others, violently.  The pictures of the true horror of war are not often seen on television or in the news.  We like to keep it out of our minds I think.  But on this day, of all days, we try to remember, to think about those who have given and are giving their lives for us.

In my view however, this is not enough.  We need to think of our soldiers every day.  We need to hear more of their stories, get more of them involved.  The amount of elderly, homeless veterans in America is 16 percent.  This is astounding.  We should have none, no homeless veterans.  The thought of these people, these brave men and women living under a bridge is a travesty to our country.  We should be ashamed, no we are ashamed.  We look the other way.  We spend billions on war, but nothing on our wounded warriors.  I've said it and said it again, we need to do more.  For them and for the memories of all veterans.

Of the Rapture

May 21 was supposed to be the Rapture, at least that was the claim of a certain pastor and some of his followers.  These people gave up lives, money and time in the expectation that Jesus Christ was going to come down and wipe out all life on Darth and deliver them unto heaven.   Frankly as a Christian and a Catholic, I am very insulted.

I never understood the prophecies of end days.   People seem to gleam onto these stories with an almost mindless and slavering belief.  They give up all self-respect, all other doubt.  They listen with such attention to stories of such terrible death and destruction.  They hope, no, WANT for these things to happen; for fire to reign from the skies, for rivers of blood stream from every mountain top.  People want to see the four horsemen of the apocalypse ride up to their door and politely ask them to lay down so that they can ride over them.  I am sorry, but even as a believer of Christ I cannot buy into such a vision of the end-days.

If people want to see war, famine, pestilence and death they need only turn on the TV.  Violence and aggression is the word-of-the-day on the news.  Radio and TV announcers bicker back and forth, the sharing of equally important ideas diminished to one person shouting over another and then the first shouting over them.  Discourse has become a thing of the playground folly I see at work. Men and woman regress into little children with their thumbs in their ears singing "Blah blah blah" I cant hear you.  In other words, if we want to see examples of the end of times we need look no further than the present, not the future.

I sometimes wonder what Jesus thinks when he looks down at us.  Certainly all the worlds troubles are not limited to Christianity.  I don't doubt Mohammad and Moses stand beside him and shake their heads in disbelief.  I highly doubt any of our religious fore-bearers would want to see any of their followers so singularly fixated on the end of times.  Aren't many of the teachings in the religion about the preservation and the living of life?   Do we not have short enough spans as it is without wanting it to end sooner?

Certainly we all want to live a long and happy existence.  Were the end to come tomorrow, however, I think we would want to look back on both the good and the bad in our lives.  We wouldn't want to see a reflection of ourselves with so singular and narrow a purpose waiting only for that end-time.  As it is, I for one would like very much to wake up in the morning and be glad to do so.  

The Audacity of Youth

Again I am two weeks without posting, which is my own fault.  Things get busy and between back and forth shifts its been a tough one.  Still, work has once again inspired something I want to discuss.

The other day while at the elementary school where I work, amidst my duties of cleaning up after the children, a little girl walked up to me to ask a question.  Now, I'm used to questions.  Being the school's night custodian I don't usually get a chance to talk to the kids, so its always nice when I work days to interact.  She was probably a third grader, if my five years experience around short people is any indication of understanding age, very bright eyed and bushy tailed at 8:00 A.M.  I remember standing near the door and she padded up to me, resting her hands behind her back and asked, "Did you dream of being a Janitor when you were my age?"

My first reaction was one of slight irritation.  I hate when people apply the term "Janitor" to me.  It seems like a very derogatory term, almost like demoting me to the stereotypical shlub who does nothing but mop floors and sit back in a chair eating chips telling folks he is on break all the time.  That is not me.  I work hard at my job.   Its taken me five years to get to the point where they've started calling me Mister Johnston or even William in some cases.  I have to thank the the teachers at the school for teaching the kids to call me by my name or proper title.

The second thing that came to mind was that frankly, no I hadn't dreamed of that.  When I was her age I dreamed of being a teacher.  That was what my parents and my grandparents on both sides of my family had been.  It wasn't until I'd graduated from college and shadowed a special education teacher that I learned I just didn't have what it took to stand in front of kids and keep their attention for a day.  Ultimately it was my dad's suggestion that moved me to work as a custodian.  It had good pay and benefits and he suggested there was room to move up in the world of education.  

Back to the present, and to my story though.  I smiled to the little girl and said, "No, hon.  I didn't.  But you know what.  I dreamed of many things, like being a writer, and I still do writing in my day job when I am not here."   She seemed satisfied with this answer and went out to go eat and play with her friends.   After she was gone though I got to thinking.

When I was a kid, I and the other students always looked up to Paul Reinhardt, the custodian at our school.  We liked Paul and he liked us.  He always treated us with respect and we did the same.   Strangely, never once did I or anyone else ask him the question that was asked to me.  We had a hard enough time believing it when we saw our teachers at a grocery store.  So far as we were concerned I guess, we thought teachers lived and worked at the school without lives of their own.  (This is probably more true a case sadly given the state of education today.)

I wonder if this little girl will grow up and look back on the conversation with me when she grows up and has a job.  I wonder if her daughter or son, or any child she works around will ask her if she dreamed of being in her current job when she was their age.  I suppose that is the audacity of youth, to wonder and ask things no adult would dare ask.  That is the grace of being a child, the freedom that they have that is so quickly cut short by life's responsibilities.  Whenever I see them at play or in school I quietly remind myself that it wasn't so long ago I was in their place.  I envy them, but I also am glad that I had the opportunity while I did.

Giving Back to our Troops

I wanted to follow up on my blog about Osama Bin Laden.  So often it seems that my generation doesn't really think about war or the true cost.  We are a generation that does not live in the days of a draft.  If we did, I am certain more people my age, including me, would know the true cost of war.  I cannot speak to the rightness or wrongness of war.  War is a part of the human condition.  But I think more people my age need to give thought to those of us who are brave and stalwart enough to give their lives in service to our country.

My good friend, Sergio Del Veccio is one of these people.  I knew Sergio in junior high and high school, though we have grown apart over the years.  Sergio came into the country with his parents illegally, but they forged a life here and are some of the hardest working people I ever knew. Sergio wanted to become  veterinarian, but he couldn't afford the expense for such a schooling as a vet requires. After high school, Sergio could not remain at home, so he planned to join the military to get medical training.  Then, 9/11 happened.  I know this weighed heavily on his decision.  Ultimately, Sergio joined.  He's served in Afganistan and Iraq for the extent of the war as a medic.  In his own words he has seen things "no one should see."  This, above all, speaks to the horror of war.

After last night, I got to thinking of Sergio.  I wonder where he is, what he is doing.  The last I heard, he gained US citizenship and was based out of the East Coast.  He has a wife and a beautiful baby and I am sure he thinks of them every day.

I wasn't sure how I could give back to Sergio, or to other members of the military.  As a citizen, there's only so much I could do.  Then I hears about http://okbox.org/page-2.html and Andrew Gary on the radio.  Andrew sends care packages to our soldiers overseas.  Contrary to popular belief, our military doesn't give our soldiers everything they need.  Listening to him, and reading about him, I plan to donate to his cause to send care packages overseas.  I will hope that my friends or those who read this will read through his website and donate themselves.

Osama Bin Laden killed

I have just watched the announcement and President Obama's confirmation of Osama Bin Laden's death.  All I can say is thank God.  It's been almost ten years since the tragic events of 9/11.  I remember that day vividly.  I was still in college and I got up that morning to go to class.  I sat down next to a girl who turned to me and said, "Hey did you hear that a plane slammed into the World Trade Center?"  I turned to her, confused and said, "No I didn't hear that.  When was this?"  She shrugged. "Just this morning, it sounds pretty bad."

I wasn't sure what to make of this.  I had no idea the scope or immensity of the attacks until our teacher took us to a nearby dorm and we turned on the TV.  I remember watching in horror as the first plane slammed into the building then the second.  The teacher dismissed us and I went back to my dorm and sat with my dormmates in the common room and we watched the rest of that day.  I remember thinking to myself, "This is the Pearl Harbor  of my generation."

As information about Bin Laden and the attacks came out and as the World Trade Center and three thousand people sat in a pile of smoldering ash thought then that I would see the beginnings of a new world war.  I saw that my generation would probably be called to do something as our grandparents had done.  I was more or less right on that, though the call was not as large as I had thought, nor was it compulsory.  I didn't volunteer, though I did think about it.  In some ways I suppose I am glad I did not, considering.

In the end though, as the years dragged on I kept wondering, "when are we going to get that sucker?"  It seemed like every opportunity was missed.  I heard the conspiracy theories, and I immediately dismissed them.  I am never one who is so weak minded as to believe such things as gospel, which is why so much of what I listen to on the way to work makes me go crazy.  But that is a topic for another time.

It is here, finally tonight, that I feel a sense of resolution.  I certainly don't think anything is over.  The terrorist network set up by Osama Bin Laden is much larger than ever before, and I don't doubt they will attack out of vengeance and to prove they are still relevant.  I do fear another large attack to accentuate this point, and I pray we can prevent it.    We have been at war for the extent of this ten years, and no matter where anyone stands on the politics and decisions that caused things, I think we can all agree that we want the destruction to end.

I cant speak for Islam.  I know no Muslims in my life.  I would hope that they all wish for peace as much as we do.  Certainly most of the conflict of the past century or so has centered around the desire for oil in their countries.  But there is such a rich history, a diversity, a unique culture.  I only wish we could find more common ground, prove that we are friends, not enemies.  So often I hear people say "well just bomb them all, kill them all."  That scares me, because that is the mindset of the very people who carried out the 9/11 attacks.  If we resort to such tactics and thinking, we are no better than those who attacked us to begin with.  In the end, the cycle will only continue until the end of time.

As Gandhi once said, an eye for an eye makes the world blind.  What more can anyone say when it comes to terror, war, and Osama Bin Laden?