Home again.....!

Well if you like dining at the White House, riding around Washington in limos with police escorts, sirens wailing, being delivered to the door of the White House and the Pentagon, having two army sergeants at your beck and call, dining with the Secretary of the army it's commanding general and Hollywood actors and staying on the "presidential" floor of the Marriott Crystal City then this trip was for you! Personally, I enjoyed the hell out of it! It's a tough adjustment coming home and having to drive your own car. Bummer!

Honestly I have never been so humbled and honored in all my life to be around such men as my friends of the 1st Cav who fought in the Ia Drang and especially honored to be considered such a friend to the Medal of Honor recipient Bruce Crandall and his wife Arlene that I was invited to be one of their honored guests. So honored that I had an adjoining room to their family suite. A once in a life time experience puts it only mildly.

I took over 500 pictures of the events from the ceremony to the pentagon "Hall of Heroes" induction, to our private reception at Arlington National Cemetary. I'm putting together a CD for the Crandall's, Ia Drang Vets and other guests. Also I'll have a slideshow of the highlights on the web soon.

Coming home was made a little easier seeing D. Daphne Dog wagging her tail furiously when she saw I was home......!

Pullin' Pitch......

Pullin' pitch is a helicopter pilots term for flyin' out. That's what I'll have done by the time you read this. Zero early thirty flight through Houston and thence on to Reagan International in Washington. All ready to go tonight.

-Boarding passes printed: Check
-Clothes Packed: Check
-$28 in spending money on hand: Check
-Daphne in capable and glamorous hands: Check
-Johnny's Bar-B-Que sandwich for the President: Check
-Camera, lenses and video cam powered and loaded: Check
-Books, mats and photos for autographs packed: Check

Guess I'm ready to go. I'll be away for awhile unless the President wants me to help with the Mid-East situation or empty his trash in which case I'll stay longer. Should be fun with many friends and even two folks from Midland who live around the corner being in attendance. I have 3 Gb. of photo memory, which in medium format on my camera should be about 1500 photos. I'll post a few upon my return, or perhaps Dubya will let us use the computer in the Oval Office to add a few to Eclectic Photography. See ya....

Salute the Troops....

Mark Saturday, April 21st down on your calendar for what we anticipate will be an extraordinary event. I am involved with a small group of local citizens who wish to show that we do more than "support" the troops, we appreciate them!

On April 21st, in conjunction with the Rockhounds baseball team we will salute our troops and veterans. We have lined up a stellar group of speakers including Joe Galloway, author of the piece noted in the last post. Also, saying he is planning on it, is the Commanding General of one of the service branches [Sepmer Fi] and I am in contact with two other major military commanders who have personally led operations in Iraq, as in the whole show.

Through one of our members who is in the music business we are talking to two major recording artists, both showing great interest if they can arrange their schedules. Three high school bands, so far, have signed on, Jimmy Patterson will "live stream" the event to the world and I'm working on getting video interviews with area troops stationed in the Mid-East to say hell-o to the home folks via the "JumboTron" at the ballpark. Since Joe Galloway and I will spend three days next week with many of the notables featured in "We Were Soldiers", we have a good chance of snagging their participation including two Medal of Honor awardees.

Of course, the main focus of our salute will be on veterans and active duty troops involved in defending America and probably most importantly to recognize the area families whose sons and daughters have paid the ultimate price for our freedom. We are working on contacting them.

We met today with the general manager of the Rockhounds and not only did he give us the green light to proceed, he was more than enthusiastic in offering their support. Our event should start around or 5 p.m. with the baseball game starting at 6:30, although our events and tributes will also be running between innings. All this for maybe a buck or two more than the price of a regular baseball ticket. Oh yeah, did I mention Vietnam era helicopters landing in the outfield. I snagged permission to do that today too!

Shameful....

By Joseph L. Galloway
McClatchy Newspapers

There’s a great deal more to supporting our troops than sticking a $2 yellow ribbon magnet made in China on your SUV. There’s a great deal more to it than making "Support Our Troops" a phrase that every politician feels obliged to utter in every speech, no matter how banal the topic or craven the purpose.This week, we were treated to a new expose of just how fraudulent and shallow and meaningless "Support Our Troops" is on the lips of those in charge of spending the half a trillion dollars of taxpayer's money that the Pentagon eats every year.

The Washington Post published an expose, complete with photographs, revealing that for every in-patient who's getting the best medical treatment that money can buy at the main hospital at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, there are 17 out-patients warehoused in quarters unfit for human habitation.Some of the military outpatients are stuck on the Walter Reed campus, a couple of miles from the White House and the Capitol, for as long as 12 months. They've been living in rat and roach-infested rooms, some of which are coated in black mold.There was outrage and disgust and raw anger at this callous, cruel treatment of those who have the greatest claim not only on our sympathies, but also on the public purse. Who among the smiling politicians who regularly troop over to the main hospital at Walter Reed for photo-op visits with those who've come home grievously wounded from the wars the politicians started have bothered to go the extra quarter-mile to see the unseen majority with their rats and roaches? Not one, it would seem, since none among them have admitted to knowing that there was a problem, much less doing something about it before the reporters blew the whistle.

Within 24 hours, construction crews were working overtime, slapping paint over the moldy drywall, patching the sagging ceilings and putting out traps and poison for the critters that infest the place. Within 48 hours, the Department of Defense announced that it was appointing an independent commission to investigate. Doubtless the commission will provide a detailed report finding that no one was guilty-certainly none of the politicians of the ruling party whose hands were on the levers of power for five long years of war. They will find that it all came about because the Army medical establishment was overwhelmed by the case load flowing out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, brave soldiers who were wheelchair-bound with missing legs or paralysis, have been left to make their own way a quarter-mile to appointments with the shrinks and a half-mile to pick up the drugs that dim their minds and eyes and pain, and make the rats and roaches recede into a fuzzy distance.

All this came on the heels of my McClatchy Newspapers colleague Chris Adams's Feb. 9 report that even by its own measures, the Veterans Administration isn't prepared to give returning veterans the care they need to help them overcome destructive, and sometimes fatal, mental health ailments. Nearly 100 VA clinics provided virtually no mental health care in 2005, Adams found, and the average veteran with psychiatric troubles gets about a third fewer visits with specialists today than he would have received a decade ago.The same politicians, from a macho president to the bureaucrats to the people who chair the congressional committees that are supposed to oversee such matters, have utterly failed to protect our wounded warriors. They’ve talked the talk but few, if any, have ever walked the walk. No. This happened while all of them were busy as bees, taking billions out of the VA budget and planning to shut down Walter Reed by 2011 in the name of cost-efficiency. Among those politicians are the people who sent too few troops to Afghanistan or Iraq, who failed to provide enough body armor and weapons and armored vehicles and who, to protect their own political hides, refused to admit that the mission was not accomplished and change course.

But it's they who are charged with the highest duty of all, in the words of President Abraham Lincoln in his Second Inaugural in 1865: "to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan." How can they look at themselves in the mirror every morning? How dare they ever utter the words: Support Our Troops? How dare they pretend to give a damn about those they order to war? They've hidden the flag-draped coffins of the fallen from the public and the press. They've averted their eyes from the suffering that their orders have visited upon an Army that they've ground down by misuse and over-use and just plain incompetence.This shabby, sorry episode of political and institutional cruelty to those who deserve the best their nation can provide is the last straw. How can they spin this one to blame the generals or the media or the Democrats? How can you do that, Karl? If the American people are not sickened and disgusted by this then, by God, we don’t deserve to be defended from the wolves of this world.

I'm deeply honored to be invited to such a once in a lifetime event. For someone who has served in the armed forces it doesn't get much better than this. It's a humbling experience. I also had to chuckle; the last time the Secretary of the Army requested the pleasure of my company, I spent five and a half years in uniform.

Treasures from the past...

Sometimes amazing things just simply arrive. My Dad was raised in St. Louis. His mom was divorced when he was young and much of his childhood was spent with his mom's sister and her husband who lived in the same neighborhood. His Uncle Louis Roth was as much a dad to him as an uncle. His first cousin Patsy was like another sister and

in fact my mom was Patsy's best friend, which is how they met. He spent as much time with the Roths as he did at home.

A remembrance from all those years ago arrived in the mail Saturday. A DVD of all the Roth family movies from the years 1934 to 1962! The Roths, being good Germans, had been technically minded and apparently owned a very good movie camera. I must have inherited my love of photography from those German genes, for these are not what you think of when you think of "home movies". Especially from the 1930's! Most are similar to documentary film quality I've seen from the era. There are even color films which must have been state of the art at the time.

Being a family of photographers, my dad included, we do have many old photos from the years in the films, some of which I have, but there is nothing like seeing your dad moving about when he was 12, 13 or 14 years old. And seeing all the relatives you've always known as "old people" magically in their prime again is an amazing if not emotional experience. I had never seen even still photos of my grandmother when she was in her 30's, so seeing her as a young woman was transfixing. She was quite a babe! Many of the movies were taken in my dad's old neighborhood so I got to experience what his life must have been like, even seeing him with his friend's pet monkey; something I had heard about many times.

Here are a few shots of my dad that I pulled from the hours of movies. I watched for 2 hours last night and am only half the way through. A truly amazing gift.

The Intrepid Ones....

I finished making my plans today for my trip to Washington to witness my friend Bruce Crandall receive the Medal of Honor. It should be a great trip seeing many friends I've met through Bruce and Joe Galloway, including Gen. Hal Moore. Some people from the movie too, and some old army friends of mine.

But I'm reminded in the following slide show who the real heroes are....please take a look and remember too.

The Intrepid Center

Yeah right....!

If ever I did believe in Valentines Day and true love......well that idea has been knocked right out of my head.

Medal of Honor.....

Though friends have known for some months, our good pal and frequent visitor to the estate, Bruce Crandall will receive the Medal of Honor this month for heroic actions in Vietnam over 40 years ago. The official announcement has just been made by the President's office. As regular readers know Bruce's story was portrayed in the Mel Gibson film, We Were Soldiers. Bruce was played by Greg Kinnear in the film. The award and recognition is long overdue, but appreciated by Bruce and his wife Arlene. It's been in process a long time, too long.

It's been an honor in the last week to help get ready for the ceremony; working with the PI office of the Secretary of the Army I've provided photos of mine and of Joe Galloway for use on the website and at the event. After some years in the Army as a lowly peon officer it's been a little disconcerting getting telephone calls from the office of the Secretary of the Army.....from Colonels addressing me as Sir. Here's the initial copy of the "official website".

It's a great honor to be able to call Bruce a good friend, the next time he's in town we'll have a big shindig and as you can imagine, I'll have pictures galore when I get back from the ceremony!

Sad, Part II.......

As I retrieved the newspaper this morning I saw the headline, that a man had been killed yesterday on the railroad tracks downtown. Not a totally unusual occurence in Midland; but as always I wondered, "who cannot see or hear a train coming while crossing the tracks".

Then I read the name of the victim, Martin Chapman, resident of the Salvation Army. I knew Martin. Not well, but I had talked with him enough to know his story along with some of the demons that bedeviled him.

How strange I thought, when coupled with yesterdays post; here is a woman who came from nothing to be a media darling and is now dead and in Midland we have a man who was once somebody, who died on the tracks while a resident of the Salvation Army. Both gone for, most likely, the same reason.

Sad...

I've been out of touch, I've been busy; I'm the real father of Anna Nicole Smith's child and I had to go testify.

That having been said, what a sad affair. A zoo, circus and clusterfark all rolled into one. To have the media fauning over the story like this is aggregious....but what did we expect, the only reason Anna Nicole is media worthy is that the media told us she was.

That having been said too, I feel sorry for Ms. Smith; really. To have ended up being nothing more than a media event is sad. But as I've learned, the way we live our lives does matter; I don't know what caused her demise, but I can guess and it proves that how we live can actually end up killing us. A life of self centerdness and self absorption is a dangerous thing. Or as they say, "what goes around comes around". We usually reap what we sow.

Down memory lane, slowly...

I try and go by to see my Mom every day now that my Dad has left us, I'm not perfect about it, but I try. I usually stay for a half hour or so to make sure she's doing ok and to see if anything needs to be done around the house. She's doing ok and since she has lots of help, things are usually running smoothly now. Many times we just talk and let Daphne run wild in the backyard, but recently we've been looking

around my Dad's room for things that need to be tended to; perhaps some paperwork on his bureau that was overlooked or for some keepsake we've missed seeing. I must have learned it from him, keeping lot's of valuble "junk" in the top draw of my bureau, for there was a treasure trove of memories in his.

There were things he had carried, like old credit cards, old wallets, old coins and pocket knives; lots of pocket knives, many almost antiques. I took several to remind me of him. There were things he had saved from long ago; a Shell Company ceramic ashtray from the 1950's, a box of $2 bills and old coins with the appraised values written down, from what year I haven't a clue. There were things he had worn; old boy scout patches from his days as a leader in the 1960's, old skinny bowties, the kind I remember men wearing with short sleeved shirts in the early '60s and tuxedo accessories. I don't think I ever saw him in a tux, but I know he had one. There were written notes, letters and memories; the date that his sister died written on a scrap of paper, old letters from our attorney in St. Louis concerning our farm, a letter from his favorite cousin, a fairly recent birthday card from me addressed to "The World's Greatest Dad"....and a NY Time Sports section front page from October of 1939. I showed this to my Mom. She had no idea of the significance of this, nor do I. I'll wonder about this for a long time.

There were tributes to him I had never seen; a bronzed medallion given in honor of his boy scout service, a letter from Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez of San Antonio personally thanking him for his diligence while working for the FDIC later in his life....and there was the certificate shown above.

My Dad, like many of his generation, talked little of his WWII service for most of his life. Only in the last 7 or 8 years did he let us know in some detail of his experiences. He had been a sergeant, but as an almost college graduate he had been offered the chance to be an officer, but turned it down. He hated the army, he hated the war, and he hated the three years that he'd been gone. His best buddy in the army had been killed the very first day that they landed in Italy, but late in life as he talked I knew that he was very, very proud to have been a part of it all. He even went to one reunion of his old division, the famed 45th, from which he came back with a new sense of his contribution...and had an excellent time. The certificate is from the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans, signifying that he had made a contribution to it's construction and that a brick with his name lies there. If you're ever there, look for Sgt. Wally Craig. He earned his brick.

My Mom and I have also been looking through my Dad's wardrobe closet. I have to laugh everytime we do; Carol keeps saying, "try this on, maybe it will fit you". My Dad ended up being a size "Small", I'm a Large or X-Large. I have, however, taken some things including the last pair of shoes my Dad ever bought. Strangely, very modern style loafers in size 10½. He wore size 10, I wear 10½. They fit me perfectly and are the most comfortable shoes I now own. I wear them all the time and it is not lost on me that now I can truly say that I'm able to walk in my Dad's shoes. I think of him every time I put them on.....they're big shoes to fill.

The Stupor Bowl...

I've come to realize that the Super Bowl© is not the highest of national celebrations, it's just a big game to see who wins the NFL Championship....and to make a hell of a lot of money for people rich enough already. If you aren't wild over the two teams playing it becomes less of a big deal. I have a lot of friends in Chicago and I'm still pissed that the Colts left Baltimore so I hoped that the Bears would win. They didn't, no big thing to me.

If they hoped to hook me into watching the halftime "spectacle" they did a poor job. I went to use the bathroom. Having the guy formerly known as "Prince" and apparently now known again as "Prince" as the star is a mystery to me. By most accounts he never was much of a star in the first place and now he's a mostly forgotten has been second rate star. After I returned from the privy I did see that his makeup was running though. I guess it was the weather. I'm sure the Florida tourism board loves having these big sporting events in their state as an advertisement to showcase perfect weather and lure me down there. It seems like every big sporting event I've seen in Florida lately involves a lot of rain. In between rain there are hurricanes and tornados. I don't want to go to Florida even more now.

I caught enough of the game to get the drift, including the fumble by local "sensation" Cedric Benson. His big moment was a fumble which as far as I could tell was his first, last and only play in the Super Bowl©. I could be wrong, I just didn't hear his name mentioned again. So much for a week of hype for Cedric in the local papers.

Anyway, I would have watched every second dutifully like a real man, but We'd rented the "Heidi" DVD and it was due back at Blockbuster tonight, so not wanting to miss that, We preempted the game.

Reference for younger or ignorant readers: The Heidi Game

Expectations.......

Sometimes when our expectations are in line with God's plan for us we are pleasantly surprised; and with the bonus of getting to take some of the best photographs I've done in awhile.

Here's your new dog......

People know I love dogs. Therefore I frequently get messages passed on like the one below. If you would like to adopt this German Shepard please call the number included or pass it on to someone who could give this dog a good home.

I got a call from the Odessa Animal Shelter yesterday. They have a sable German Shepard female (12 mos) who is now up for adoption. Her time is up on Monday morning - Feb. 5. Jackie says she is beautiful and has lovely manners. Loves people and is good with other dogs. She was adopted and returned once already - she didn't get along with the cat in that home. Please pass this information on if you can. The last dog I e-mailed you about was saved because the message traveled - lets hope this one can be saved as well.

Contact the Odessa Animal Shelter - Jackie. 432.368.3528. As always, here's hoping for a happy ending. If I find out that she has been adopted, I'll let you know asap. If you find out before I do, let me know!