somebody should do
something … somebody? well …
why isn’t that you?

Reading the story, “A Black Civil War soldier’s unmarked grave Up North finally gets a headstone” by John Carlisle in the Detroit Free Press (May 27, 2023), I came across this quote:

“I saw this and I said ‘Jeez, that’s not right that a soldier doesn’t have a headstone. Somebody should do something,‘ ” Kolehmainen said. “And actually, a friend said, ‘Well, why isn’t that somebody you? Do something.’”

For me, that kind of summed the basis of the American Citizen Soldier.

For ages, this tired old world has seen, as is says in the Bible, “… the time when kings go off to war, soldiers march off for King and County, SPQR, for the Fatherland, for the Motherland or the Homeland.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori!

I use the line Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori or It is sweet and proper to die for one’s country on Memorial day without mentioning that in the WW1 poem, Dulce et Decorum est, Wilfred Owen wrote:

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

The old lie.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori!

Then there is the American Citizen Soldier.

What was their motivation?

I have read a lot of history.

I have read a lot of military history.

I have read a lot of the military history of the United States.

And a certain feeling, a certain suspect animus or bias or maybe just a feeling is present in this history.

A feeling that was expressed by Mr. Kolehmainen in the mentioned Freep story.

I saw this and I said ‘Jeez, that’s not right.’

‘Somebody should do something!’

And actually, a friend said, ‘Well, why isn’t that somebody you?’

‘Do something.‘

Stephen Ambrose (and yes, I quote him reluctantly but there it is) wrote in his book, Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944 – May 7, 1945, New York: Simon & Schuster (1997):

The Great War changed the language.

It made patriotic words sound hollow, unacceptable, ridiculous, especially for the next set of young Americans sent to Europe to fight over the same battlefields their fathers had fought over.

Nevertheless, as much as the Civil War soldiers, the Gls believed in their cause.

They knew they were fighting for decency and democracy and they were proud of it and motivated by it.

They just didn’t talk or write about it.

I saw this and I said ‘Jeez, that’s not right.’

‘Somebody should do something!’

And actually, a friend said, ‘Well, why isn’t that somebody you?’

‘Do something.‘

somebody should do
something … somebody? well …
why isn’t that you?

the smile on your face
lets me know … this IS the best
country in the world

Yes, I ripped off Alison Krauss and the lyrics to her song, The Smile on Your Face.

See, I was watching the NBC Nightly News last night and their report from the Texas/Mexico border.

The reporter was interviewing a family from Venezuela.

A young man with his wife and two little daughters.

A group you would see in Walmart or McDonalds or at the beach and never notice.

Just a family.

They had made across the border into the United States.

How they got to the border from Venezuela is left to the imagination but I bet the story with make any Indiana Jones type narrative seem pretty tame.

But they had made it across.

The family had made it through the border security.

The family had made it through US Immigration screening.

They had a court date to plead their case for asylum.

Their court date was for an appearance in Federal Court in New York City.

The father explained they had no where to live.

The father explained they had no way to get to New York City from the border.

The father explained they had no money left, what they had was spent getting to the border.

The reporter then asked, simply, “Was it worth it?”

The father smiled.

I don’t mean the half grin, half reluctant, somewhat questioning, shrug smile that said, boy oh boy I don’t know, if I had only known, but what they heck, here we are, kind of smile.

But a ‘Hey! I just won the lottery’ kind of smile.

But a “Hey! Michigan just beat Ohio State’ kind of smile.

From the heart.

Without hesitation.

No coaching.

Without thinking.

Without planning.

A smile on his face, that for me, let me know that throughout the rest of the world, this IS the best place on earth.

No matter what the politicians do to it.

No matter what the interest groups do to it.

No matter we what do to ourselves.

As Mr. Lincoln put it:

 “… we assure freedom to the free — honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve.

We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.

Other means may succeed; this could not fail.

The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just

… a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.“*

Read this out loud.

We assure freedom to the free.

The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just.

A way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.

I hope it made you think about the border.

It should make us proud.

It makes us all free.

That should be something to smile about.

*Concluding Remarks Annual Message to Congress — December 1, 1862 — Washington, D.C.

rid assets of names
symbols displays monuments
paraphernalia

Congress finally parted company with the myth of the noble Confederate in 2021. It overrode a presidential veto to order the Defense Department to rid its assets of “names, symbols, displays, monuments and paraphernalia” that commemorate the Confederate States of America. The legislation established a commission that brought forward new names for nine Army installations in the South.

The main event of the renaming project unfolds on Thursday in Virginia, when Fort Lee is rechristened Fort Gregg-Adams. This change derives its emotional power from the fact that the saint of the lavishly racist Lost Cause is being replaced by two African Americans who served in the Army during the Jim Crow era.

From the Confederate Tributes Are Losing Their Patron Saint By Brent Staples in the New York Times, 4/27/2023.

I have long wondered why the losers got forts.

Fort Knox was a Revolutionary War General.

Fort Jackson is named after General Andrew Jackson of the War of 1812, NOT that Stonewall feller.

Bragg, Hood, Benning were all the loser side.

I was told, as a kid, that this happened during World War 1 for the sake of unity.

The story as recounted in this article relates a story that is sadder than I ever imagined.

When I sent off to the National Archives for my Great Great Grandfather’s Civil War records, the first document in the pile was his Casualty Sheet listing him as Killed In Action.

Which surprised me as he was NOT killed in the Civil War but was badly wounded and captured after the Battle of Gaines Mill.

It benefited me greatly that he was not dead as he didn’t get married and have offspring, that led to me being born, until he returned home.

When someone gets around to apologizing for shooting Great Great Grampa, I’ll consider listening to it.

gotta do what you
gotta because you gotta
there are days like this

There are days like this.

There are weeks like this.

There are months like this.

There are years like this.

There are lifetimes like this.

Because you gotta.

struggle for rights is …
now a point of pride for all …
must never go back!

There is sin and evil in the world, and we’re enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might.

Our nation, too, has a legacy of evil with which it must deal.

The glory of this land has been its capacity for transcending the moral evils of our past.

For example, the long struggle of minority citizens … for equal rights, once a source of disunity and civil war is now a point of pride for all Americans.

We must never go back.

There is no room for racism, anti-Semitism, or other forms of ethnic and racial hatred in this country.

Ronald Reagan, March 8, 1983.

This speech became famous as President Reagan called out the USSR as the ‘Evil Empire’.

As Edmund Morris wrote in the book, “Dutch”, Reagan used the speech to note that the United States had PURGED ITSELF of racism and class prejudice.

President Reagan, I think, really thought that.

So did I.

President Reagan warned, “We must never go back.”

I would have agreed.

Not it seems, we never really left those things behind.

Someone had to come along and rip off the band aid and tear off the scab to show it was all still there.

God does indeed have a purpose for everyone in his great plan.

The President would go on and quote CS Lewis saying:

It was C.S. Lewis who, in his unforgettable “Screwtape Letters,” wrote: “The greatest evil is not done now…in those sordid ‘dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint.

It is…not even done in concentration camps and labor camps.

In those we see its final result, but it is conceived and ordered; moved, seconded, carried and minuted in clear, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.”

Evil is but it is conceived and ordered;

moved,

seconded,

carried

and minuted

in clear,

carpeted,

warmed,

and well-lighted offices,

by quiet men with white collars

and cut fingernails

and smooth-shaven cheeks

who do not need to raise their voice.

Don’t know about you but that Lewis quote hit me hard.

How in the world did we get here?

people of the world
still share that hope dignity
having some control

The people of the world still share that hope . . .

They want the dignity of having some control over their individual destiny.

They want to work at the craft or trade of their own choosing and to be fairly rewarded.

They want to raise their families in peace without harming anyone or suffering harm themselves.

Ronald Reagan in a letter to Leonid Brezhnev, April 22, 1981.

Hope.

Dignity.

Control over their individual destiny.

Peace.

Without harming anyone.

Not suffering harm themselves.

Growing up with Reagan as President in the 1980’s I cannot say I am a big fan … but he sure looks good in the rear view mirror.

imagine having a
city full of things that no
other city had

That’s the way of the world, of course.

Possessions get discarded.

Life moves on.

But I often think what a shame it is that we didn’t keep the things that made us different and special and attractive in the fifties.

Imagine those palatial downtown movie theaters with their vast screens and Egyptian decor, but thrillingly enlivened with Dolby sound and slick computer graphics.

Now that would be magic.

Imagine having all of public life — offices, stores, restaurants, entertainments — conveniently clustered in the heart of the city and experiencing fresh air and daylight each time you moved from one to another.

Imagine having a cafeteria with atomic toilets, a celebrated tea room that gave away gifts to young customers, a clothing store with a grand staircase and a mezzanine, a Kiddie Corral where you could read comics to your heart’s content.

Imagine having a city full of things that no other city had.

From The life and times of the thunderbolt kid : a Memoir by Bill Bryson, New York, Broadway Books (2006).

To punch away once more at Mr. Bryson’s words, that’s the way of the world, of course.

Possessions get discarded.

Life moves on.

But I often think what a shame it is that we didn’t keep the things that made us different and special and attractive.

piling on problems
persistence of poverty
in life should shame us

Poverty is measured at different income levels, but it is experienced as an exhausting piling on of problems.

Poverty is chronic pain, on top of tooth rot, on top of debt collector harassment, on top of the nauseating fear of eviction. It is the suffocation of your talents and your dreams.

It is death come early and often.

From 2001 to 2014, the richest women in America gained almost three years of life while the poorest gained just 15 days.

Far from a line, poverty is a tight knot of humiliations and agonies, and its persistence in American life should shame us.

All the more so because we clearly have the resources and know-how to effectively end it.

From the Guest Opinion piece, America Is in a Disgraced Class of Its Own by Matthew Desmond, a sociologist at Princeton, where he is the director of the Eviction Lab.

Mr. Desmond continues:

Most Americans — liberals and conservatives alike — now believe people are poor because “they have faced more obstacles in life,” not because of a moral failing.

Long overdue, however, is a reckoning with the fact that many of us help to create and uphold those obstacles through the collective moral failing of enriching ourselves by impoverishing others.

Poverty isn’t just a failure of public policy.

It’s a failure of public virtue.

I am not so sure that most Americans don’t think that the poor are poor because they deserve to be poor due to some moral failing.

And I don’t care why poor people are poor.

The fact that they are are poor should be enough.

Truly I think we cannot do anything about the poor in the long run, as the poor will always be with us, but what do we do, what did we do in the short run?

Jesus himself said that “The poor you will always have with you.“

Myself, I think if that as being a bit of test for us.

And Jesus also said, “For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink.

I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ “

They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

Is there another way to express that last line?

The line that says, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me?

A failure of public virtue seems to fit nicely.

Tts persistence, both poverty and the failure in public virtue in American life should shame us.

But those words, virtue and shame.

Lets just say when the State of Florida gets around to releasing their approved dictionary, I doubt either word will be in there.