Frank is Emptiness

January 14th, 2025

“Stop! Stop yelling! You’ll wake up Asher!”

That’s what I heard as Karin wrenched me out of the night terror. This is not the first time that she has had to do that, and I am certain that it won’t be the last. It’s extremely disorienting when Karin has to drag me back into the material world. She only does that when she is worried that I will hurt myself or somebody else during a night terror. I tend to thrash about and scream. That bothers her.

Asher sleeps with me. He has never slept alone, and he insists that I hold him in my arms when he is ready for bed. Often, we both fall asleep simultaneously, and I will wake up hours later only to realize that my left arm has gone completely numb from the weight of his head on my bicep. At that point, I generally try to free my arm from underneath his noggin without waking the boy. I can usually find a way to slide it out.

My night terrors like to arrive early in the evening. They don’t appear often, but when they do, they mean business. I don’t know why they come. Their emotional content is overwhelming, and the dream events are vague and illogical. Like any good horror story, the scary parts are half-hidden and obscure. If Karin does not wake me soon enough, my heart rate goes sky high, and I wind up with a sore throat from yelling. These are not pleasant episodes.

Last night, I dreamed that Asher was lying in bed with me, which in reality he was. At the foot of our bed stood two mysterious figures. One looked like a massive white wolf and the other reminded me of a vampire, jet black with glowing red eyes. The two of them exuded menace. I knew intuitively that they were demons. I wanted to protect Asher, so I started praying at an incredibly high volume. I got through one Hail Mary and one Our Father. The two demons quivered and flickered like candle flames in a drafty room.

Then Karin burst into the bedroom. It was just as well. If she had left me alone, I would have recited the whole rosary like the lead singer from Five Finger Death Punch, and I would have awakened the little guy.

Once Karin was certain that I was up, she quickly left. I glanced to my left and saw Asher fast asleep. His cherubic face was illuminated by the moonbeam that was pouring into the room from the skylight. He dead to the world. He hadn’t heard me at all. Good.

I did not go back to sleep for quite a while. The images in my mind were still vivid and raw. Are there really demons? I pondered that. Carl Jung was convinced that dreams are meaningful. I have to agree. But what do they mean? What did this one mean?

I’m up now, obviously. Asher is still sleeping, and he is likely enjoying innocent dreams. He tends to giggle in his sleep. I’m happy for him.

January 13th, 2025

I know a young person who is currently in a hospital. She does not have access to her own phone, but she can call out from the hospital phone once or twice a day for brief periods of time. I’ve come to expect her daily calls. I am not surprised to hear from her.

A few days ago, I got a call from the hospital. I picked up the phone and heard the cheery voice of a nurse announcing to me that I had a call from So-and-so. That struck me as a bit odd since the person who usually calls me does not go through anyone else. She calls straight through to our house. The nurse made the connection and I said,

“Hello.”

There were a few seconds of silence on the other end of the line. Then I heard a quiet voice ask,

“Who are you?”

I told the person who I was. There was another pause and then the individual said,

“Oh, yeah, well, hey, so when do you think I will get out of here.”

I said, “I don’t know.” I was confused. If this was the young woman I knew, she was on some heavy-duty meds. I wasn’t sure. 

The young lady replied, “Well, maybe soon. You know, yesterday I got funny looks from a couple people here, both male and female. Maybe it’s because I can’t poop. I have to take a stool softener. Who is going to pick me up?”

This was feeling creepy. The voice was wrong. Once again, I said, “I don’t know.”

She went on in a sedated monotone, “Yeah, will it be Grandma Lynn?”

Now I was certain. This was not the person I knew. Maybe there was some kind of a mix up at the hospital. I was talking with a total stranger who appeared to be feeling no pain.

Then she said, “Hey, I’m homeless and poor, but those aren’t the same things. They are just two aspects of the same reality. I think I will skip lunch. I don’t want people looking at me funny. I have to take a stool softener.”

I hung up. 

Now, days later, that call still freaks me out. Who was this woman? Who did she think she was talking to? Did she even care who I was? Did she just want to talk somebody, anybody, and she convinced the nurse to put in a call to my number? Should I have kept listening?

What would you do?

January 4th, 2025

The news media have spent a great deal of time reporting on the recent acts of deadly violence in New Orleans and Las Vegas. In particular, there has a been lot of speculation as to the motives of the two perpetrators. Since both men are dead, it is unlikely that we will ever really know why they did what they did. Speculation is ultimately pointless. What is of interest to me is that both individuals were veterans. I am wondering how significant that fact is.

At this point, the military background of Shamsud-Din Jabbar and Matthew Livelsberger would seem to be the only common denominator between the two men. In most other aspects, they led very different lives. It makes me wonder.

I have a son, Hans, who is a combat vet. He was deployed with the Army to Iraq. He’s been back for well over a decade, but his experiences in Iraq have had a long-lasting effect on him. The two veterans who committed terrorist acts a few days ago may have also been permanently scarred by what they saw or did in Afghanistan. This is clearly a gross generalization, but some vets never really come home. They return to America as warriors who are still fighting.

There is a series of ancient legends about Cú Chulainn, a fierce Irish warrior from the Celtic times. The stories speak at length about how Cú Chulainn would go into a violent frenzy while in combat, and how difficult it was to calm him down afterward. In Wikipedia there is part of a tale that explains what other warriors (in this case his enemies) had to do bring him out of this berserker mode:

“He returns to Emain Macha in his battle frenzy, and the Ulstermen are afraid he will slaughter them all. Conchobar’s wife Mugain leads out the women of Emain, and they bare their breasts to him. He averts his eyes, and the Ulstermen wrestle him into a barrel of cold water, which explodes from the heat of his body. They put him in a second barrel, which boils, and a third, which warms to a pleasant temperature.”

The story is not to be taken literally, but it effectively describes what measures are required to return a soldier from a war. I had a conversation several years ago with Native American rancher whose daughter had fought in Iraq and had been wounded there, at about the same time my son was deployed. The rancher’s culture, like the traditional Celtic culture, has rituals and time-tested methods of healing a warrior. The rancher told me about “horse medicine”, a way to establish a bond between a returning vet and a horse to help dissipate the warrior’s rage and fear. The rancher told me that the horse would absorb the negative energy from the veteran, sometimes to the extent that the horse would die. The process of healing took a long time for his daughter, but she was able to finally leave Iraq. I’m not sure that my son has ever been able to do that.

What does all this have to do with Jabbar and Livelsberger? Maybe nothing or maybe everything. Our American culture does not have traditions or rituals to heal a veteran and bring the warrior back home. We somehow just expect that the soldier will adapt and recover on their own. That is often not the case. Many vets never leave Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan.

They continue to fight their wars to their own detriment, and sometimes to detriment of those around them. Then these old wars may find a new home in New Orleans or Vegas.

January 6th, 2025

We had just finished eating supper. I was getting ready to clean up.

Suddenly, a four-year-old shouted, “The floor is lava!”

I looked at Asher and asked, “What?”

He repeated, “The floor is lava! You have to get your feet off the floor. Hurry!”

“Why?”

“BECAUSE THE FLOOR IS LAVA!”

I sat on a chair and lifted my feet off the floor.

Asher told me, “I need to throw my stuffed animals on the floor, so I can walk on them, and not step into the lava.”

“Let’s not do that. Asher, I need to wash the dishes.”

“Can we play hide and seek first?”

“On lava?”

“The floor is…floor now.”

“Oh.”

Asher asked again, “Can we play hid and seek?”

“Well, for a while.”

“Okay! I need that little flashlight.”

“Why?”

He looked at me incredulously, “To find you!”

“So, I’m hiding first?”

“Yeah.”

I replied, “Okay. I’ll find a place.”

Asher said, “No. You’re doing it wrong. Go into the bedroom and turn off the light. Then I will come and find you.”

“You can’t tell me where to hide.”

He ignored my comment and said, “Here. Just go into your bedroom and turn off the light.”

I went in there and hid behind the bed. I heard Asher yelling,

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, ten, twelve! Here I come!”

I squatted down in the dark, and I heard him run down the hallway. He opened the bedroom door and flashed the light here and there. He got confused, and said, “Grandpa?”

“BOO!”

I jumped up and he jumped back. He was laughing hysterically.

He said, “You can’t do that!”

We played for a short time. I got tired of it. I told him,

“I have to wash the dishes now.”

Asher slumped over a bit and said,

“Okaaaaaaay…”

I walked over to the kitchen sink and turned on the faucet.

Behind me I heard, “THE FLOOR IS LAVA!”

January 2nd, 2025

A few days ago, I attended the last morning Shabbat service (Shacharit) to be held at my synagogue. The shul will no longer offer religious services, which means that for all practical purposes the synagogue is inactive. The Jewish community at that site may reconstitute itself in some fashion, but the synagogue itself is done. It is part of the past.

The number of people in attendance at the shul yesterday was small. This was no surprise. The number of participants in the synagogue’s religious services has been dwindling for quite some time. This trend has been driven primarily by demographics. There have been very few young people coming to the shul. Most of the population is old, in many cases too old. Being that it is an Orthodox congregation, most members do not drive on the sabbath. People walk to the services. At some point, a person cannot make that walk anymore, and therefore they can’t participate at the synagogue. A number of long-time congregants have passed away in recent years. I can think of at least three funerals that I have attended during the last couple years. If the members of a group are dying, then so is the organization. It’s that simple.

The gabbai at the synagogue (the group leader) kept counting heads to see if there would be enough for a minyan. A minyan, a group of ten Jewish males, is required for there to be a reading of the Torah. The Torah reading is the focal point of the service. It’s a big deal. It’s the big deal. The rest of the service is beautiful but somehow lacking without the Torah reading.

Alas, we were short one Jewish adult male. Nine guys just don’t make the cut. As the gabbai remarked, “Yes, we have ten men here, but one of them is Catholic (me), and we have our rules.” The gabbai gave a brief talk to the group. It just happened to be about minyans and where the rule for them came from. He had done some research on Wikipedia to help him plumb the depths of the Talmud. The origins of the “rule of ten” are buried deep in the Torah and have been debated by the rabbis for centuries. The Talmud makes note of the decisions that came from these discussions, and it also records the dissenting opinions. Some of the dissents assert that to read the Torah, you need ten Jews, but not necessarily ten male Jews. However, tradition goes along with the majority viewpoint, so there has to be ten men.

As a Catholic, the whole affair reminds me of the Church liturgies. Catholics don’t worry about minyans, but we are very concerned with having a priest. Without a priest, a Mass cannot be celebrated, and the congregation cannot share the Eucharist. The Eucharist, like the Torah reading, is the focal point for the service. Everything in the Mass revolves around the sharing of communion. Oddly enough, the priest has to be a man (echoes of the minyan rule), and centuries of tradition based on selective interpretation of Scripture have enforced that regulation.

Are the rules concerning the minyan and the rules concerning priests and the Mass fair? Are they logical? Probably not. However, life in general is neither fair nor logical, so I guess these rules are normal in the human experience. In any case, both Jews and Catholics are burdened with traditions that seem to be set in stone, and we just deal with them.

The thing with a minyan is that, if a synagogue cannot scrounge together ten men once a week, it is a death knell for that community. Likewise, a Catholic parish without a priest might as well close up shop. Jews will go somewhere that has a Torah reading and Catholics will find a church where they can go to Mass. That’s the reality of it.

So, where will we all go? I don’t know. There are other Jewish groups within walking distance of the synagogue: WITS (Wisconsin Institute for Torah Study, Chabad, and Hillel. The remnants of our community will likely disperse to those locations. They will ease into another Jewish congregation.

For myself, the future is less clear. I have spent fifteen years with this particular Jewish community, and it took years for me to be fully accepted. Do I really want to start all over with a new congregation? Jewish communities, especially in the current political environment, are very leery of new people (in particular non-Jews) wandering into their midst. I can try to find a new home, but it will be hard to sell myself.

I grieve for this synagogue. Honestly, I can’t say why I feel this way, but it has been my home. It is one of the few places where I have truly felt like I belonged.

Even if I don’t count for a minyan.

December 29th, 2024

Have you ever noticed that no one of the male gender can talk about monster trucks in a normal tone of voice? Guys automatically speak in a deep baritone and start yelling about “MONSTER TRUCKS!”. It’s weird. It reminds me a lot like pro wrestling. Monster trucks bring out an inner macho and a sudden burst of testosterone.

Asher is a monster truck fanatic. Of course, he’s four years old, so that sort of thing is age appropriate. He is in love with huge trucks with loud, powerful engines, especially when these vehicles are doing stunts that are objectively crazy. Asher will watch endless numbers of YouTube videos of monster truck shows. He has acquired probably two dozen toy monster trucks. They are all different models, and he knows all of their names. He is appalled and amazed that I don’t know them too. When I display my ignorance, he expresses disbelief,

“How can you not know that this is El Toro Loco?”

I obviously disappoint him. Not so his uncle. Asher’s uncle is planning to take Asher and another boy to a monster truck show in downtown Milwaukee. Asher is counting the days until the event. Asher’s uncle loves him.

A couple days ago, Asher was playing with his Christmas loot, most of which had to do with monster trucks. His uncle bought him a launch pad for his toy trucks. With enough oomph Asher can toss one of those vehicles halfway across the living room. I am waiting for him to hit a window.

While Asher was racing and launching his trucks, I was trying to play some music. I have a phonograph turntable. It’s old. I bought it in Germany forty years ago, but it still works. I have been reluctant to play any records while Asher is around. The turntable just begs to have a little boy fool around with it. I explained to Asher that I was going to spin some records, but he needed to keep away from the phonograph. His eyes widened and promised to keep his distance.

Yeah, whatever.

I dug out a dusty copy of “Tommy” from The Who. I found the track with “Pinball Wizard”, set the disc in motion, and turned up the volume. Asher was suitably impressed. He asked,

“How does it work?”

“The needle on the arm picks up the vibrations from the grooves in the record.”

I might as well have said, “It’s all magic.”

I walked away to grab a soda. When my back was turned, I heard the sound of the music slowing perceptibly. Without turning around, I yelled,

“Asher, leave it alone!”

He replied, “I’m not doing anything.”

I walked over to the turntable and readjusted the speed of rotation.

“Leave it alone. If you break something, I don’t know if I can get it fixed.”

He looked at me and said, “I didn’t do anything, and I won’t do it again.”

Good enough.

While the boy sped “Boneshaker” across the kitchen floor, I found an album from Pat Benatar and played “Heartbreaker” at a high volume. Asher found his boogie and danced to the song. He told me,

“That’s a monster truck song!”

It figures.

Then I located the double album from Derek and the Dominos. I found the track for “Layla”. I cranked that up. Asher perked up when he heard Eric Clapton and Duane Allman tear through dueling guitar solos. Asher said to me,

“This is a monster truck song too!”

Cool. I won’t be going to the show with Asher, but it’s comforting to know he will be listening to the classics.

December 23rd, 2024

It happened almost twenty years ago. It was on a day like today: cold outside and just prior to Christmas. I haven’t thought about the incident for quite a while, but somehow, it’s back in my mind.

Back then, my wife, Karin, was a teacher’s assistant at the Tamarack Waldorf School on the east side of Milwaukee. Karin helped teach handwork to the students. Waldorf schools put an emphasis on having the children learn to how to make things with their hands. It is an essential part of the school curriculum. Karin taught kids from each class how knit, crochet, and sew. She has always been creative with fiber arts, and she loves to show other people how to do what she can do.

When I had days off from my job, I would visit Karin at the school. We would go out for lunch, and then I would wander around the downtown area while she taught her class. When she was finished at the end of the day, we would go home together. I generally had a couple hours to just explore the city or walk down to the lakefront. I enjoyed doing that.

One of the places I liked to visit was the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, which is only maybe half a mile from the Waldorf School. The Catholic cathedral is a massive building with two sets of heavy doors at the entrance. Once inside of the church, the noises of the city traffic are almost completely blocked out, and the interior of the church is dark and silent. It’s an excellent place to think or meditate or just sit.

I liked to go there to meditate for a while. I had started going to a Zen group, and I wanted to spend more time sitting quietly. Some environments are conducive to meditation. The cathedral had a stillness that made meditation relatively easy. There were minimal distractions. During the week, the church was nearly empty, although on very cold days the pews in the back were occupied by homeless people looking for shelter. They sat bundled up in their clothes, often dozing off. The cathedral was one of the few places downtown where these folks could sit and rest. It was then, and probably still is, a refuge for poor and forgotten people.

On this particular day, I walked into the cathedral and found a seat in a row near the altar. I picked a place where I would be alone. I settled down and closed my eyes. I started to concentrate on my breathing. Then I heard noises. They got closer and closer to me. Then the sounds and the person making the sounds were right next to me.

I opened my eyes and looked to my right. Sitting next to me was a middle-aged Black lady. She had numerous plastic bags with her. She appeared to be a nomadic person who was carrying all of her belongings with her. The woman was missing teeth, and I could hardly understand her when she spoke. She talked to me, and I got the impression that she wanted something. I didn’t know what that something was.

During my visits to the cathedral, I was sometimes hit up for money. It didn’t happen often, but occasionally a person would ask me for help. I decided that this woman wanted some cash. I reached for my wallet and dug through it. I only had two singles on me. That seemed rather pathetic. I pulled out the two bills and handed it to the lady. She nodded and thanked me.

I closed my eyes again and tried to relax. It was pointless. The woman was scrounging around in one of her plastic bags. I heard her muttering and digging deep in the sack. I found it annoying, but I just tried to ignore her.

Then she tapped me on the arm. I looked at her and she handed me an envelope.

She said, “This is for you.”

Then she gathered her possessions and shuffled off. I sat in the pew and stared at the envelope. I opened it. Inside the envelope was a used Christmas card. I opened the card.

Inside of the card were my two dollars.

December 17th, 2024

A week ago, our friend, Rob, hosted a Christmas party at his home. We’ve known him for at least twenty years, and he has a get together every holiday season. My wife and I are comfortable with Rob. We know each other’s idiosyncrasies. However, we don’t know hardly any of his other party guests. Since we became Asher’s legal guardians and fulltime caregivers, Karin and I don’t get out much, and when we do, Asher is with us. It’s hard to socialize while watching over a four-year-old with unlimited energy. When we actually go to some kind of gathering, it usually feels awkward. It did last night.

I have a number of interests, but very few of them qualify as festive. So, it’s difficult for me to find appropriate topics of conversation for a Christmas party. My mind tends to settle into well-worn grooves, and even when I start by discussing relatively innocuous subjects, I wind up speaking about heavier things, like veteran’s issues. That doesn’t always play well.

The party guests made up a diverse group with the common denominator being that every one of them had some kind of connection with Germany. Rob has a deep interest in German history and culture, and the other people in his home also had that to some degree. My wife is from Germany, and I lived there for three years courtesy of the U.S. Army. The intensity of our feelings toward Deutschland have diminished over the years. We aren’t passionate about it. The German heritage is mostly background noise in lives at this point.

For a while, I sat at a table with a couple I did not know. Even now, after talking with them, I still don’t know them. They were the kind of people who are reserved and willing to absorb information from others, but don’t reveal much about themselves. By default, I talked about myself, perhaps too much. They asked me what I do, besides caring for Asher. I told them that I write for a veteran’s publication (this one), and that I tell stories (like I am doing now).

I talked a lot about our oldest son, Hans, who was deployed to Iraq with his Army unit back in 2011. I mentioned how hard it has been, even after all these years, for him to assimilate into the general population. I made the comment that Hans despises it when some random person shakes his hand and thanks him for his service. His attitude is basically, “Fuck you. You don’t know what I did, and you don’t know what you’re talking about.” He doesn’t mind if the greeting comes from somebody with a clue, but most people don’t have one when it comes to veterans.

The female member of the couple told me that Americans are treating veterans better now than they did during Vietnam. I disagreed. The public might not be calling the vets baby killers, but they still don’t give a damn about them. Helping a vet requires more than slapping a bumper sticker on your car that says, “Support the troops!” Giving a veteran a job would be more meaningful.

The male partner lost it at this point. He said,

“You’re telling us that everything we are doing is wrong. What if we can’t give them a job? What are we supposed to do? I’ve worked with these guys. They are angry at everybody. I don’t need that.”

Then he raised his voice and said, “It’s your trauma! You have to handle it! It’s not my problem!”

I couldn’t tell if he was directing his words at me, or at another angry bastard who exists in his memory.

Visibly upset, he asked me, “So, is there an answer?”

I was silent for a while. I replied quietly, “No. There isn’t an answer.”

Asher demanded my attention at that point. I went over to him. He was getting tired and wanted to go back home. My head swirled with thoughts, none of which I could verbalize at the time.

I remembered Dave, a guy I worked with for a long time. He was a Vietnam vet. He’d been in combat. He was a big man, often loud and obnoxious. He was easily offended. I had a short fuse. He and I butt heads frequently. It was like that for over twenty years. Then Hans got deployed to Iraq.

Overnight, our relationship changed. Every morning, when he came into work, Dave would yell to me,

“Frank, how is your boy doing?!”

We would talk about Hans. I would tell Dave what I knew. Dave would admonish me to be proud of Hans. I was proud of him. I still am.

Dave and I got along okay. We never became close friends, but we had mutual respect. Suddenly, we understood each other.

I remembered how, before Covid, I used to go to the local VA hospital once a week to hang out with the patients in the psych ward. I would listen to their stories. They would listen to mine. We understood each other and felt like comrades.

The guy at the party asked me if there was an answer. After thinking about it, I believe there is, but it’s not an easy answer. We live in a society where a person can look at a veteran and simultaneously consider that individual to be both a hero and a damn nuisance. It’s extremely difficult for a member of the general population to see a vet simply as another human being with all the struggles that everyone else has. The vet has to be able to trust a non-veteran enough to tell his or her story. That’s hard. The civilian has to be willing to put up the veteran’s anger and pain long enough to listen to the soldier. That’s hard too.

I can’t think of another way.

Just before we left the party, I went over to the guy whom I had upset. I told him, “I apologize for offending you.”

He made no response.

December 15th, 2024

Last night was rough. Our four-year-old grandson, Asher, wasn’t feeling well after drinking some warm oat milk. He was tired and his tummy hurt. I laid down next to him in bed and held him. He was close to falling asleep. Then he sat up and burped, but it was much more than just a burp.

Asher threw up on everything: on the bed, on the carpet, on himself, and on me. Within seconds the room was covered in vomit, and Asher was screaming his lungs out. There was a pungent odor of stomach acid and General Tso chicken. It was like a scene from “The Exorcist”.

My wife, Karin, quickly rushed in to help with the cleanup. She pulled our freaked-out preschooler into the bathroom and peeled his slimy clothing off his body. The boy sobbed loudly as she did that. I had the water running in the tub already. I stripped all the bed linen off and dumped it into the washer, along with Asher’s clothes. I had been wearing a pair of ratty jeans. I took my wallet and keys out of the pockets and just threw pants in the trash. I scrubbed the carpet next to bed and tried remove all the debris. After Karin got Asher into clean pajamas, she put on a new bed liner and fitted sheet. Asher calmed down.

Asher and I laid down again. He said that he felt okay. Then suddenly he didn’t feel okay. He vomited in the bed again. Karin and I repeated the cleaning cycle. This time we covered the bed with bath towels before we put Asher down to sleep. That was a good move because the boy still had a little more in him. The third puke fest was easily managed. I just had to replace one of the towels.

The third time was a charm. Asher curled up in my arms. As Asher relaxed, I thought about the evening’s chaos. Actually, what I thought about was how Karin and I would have managed all this if we were living in Gaza or Ukraine or Sudan. If Asher had become violently sick in place where there was no clean water available, how would we have washed him up? What if he had no clothes other than the ones he soiled? What if he needed a doctor? What if there was no place for him to rest, and no time for me to comfort him? I found that caring for a sick little boy was utterly exhausting. Could I have helped him if I was already worn out?

The fact is that Karin and I have all the resources we need to be Asher’s fulltime caregivers. Even when things are difficult, we can manage. Other people, probably millions of other people, cannot. I tried to imagine how it would feel to watch Asher suffer and have no way to ease that suffering. It hurt to even think about that.

Sometimes, like last night, caring for Asher feels overwhelming. I ask myself what I can do for some other caregiver somewhere else who has it worse. I don’t know. Pray for them? Give money to a charity? Probably the best thing I do is to love Asher as much as I can. My primary duty is to that child. God needs me to raise him. That might be all I can really do.

Before Asher finally dozed off last night, he said to me,

“Grandpa, I hear the rain.”

“Yeah, the drops are hitting the skylight. It’s good we are in here where it’s dry.”

Asher replied, “Yeah”.

Then he held me close and fell asleep.

December 5th, 2024

The following letter was written by me and published by the Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin, on December 1st, 2024.

Dear Editor: Donald Trump plans to start mass deportations of illegal immigrants as soon as humanly possible.

I considered writing about the humanitarian issues associated with this project, but then nobody would read this letter. Instead, I will concentrate on the economic problems that come with expelling an estimated 11 million people from the United States. People seldom care about morality, but they always care about their money.

I worked as a volunteer at Voces de la Frontera in Milwaukee for several years helping immigrants, some here legally, some not. The people I met were consistently hardworking. There are those who say that immigrants take away jobs from U.S. citizens. This assertion is manifestly false.

Immigrants take the jobs that Americans don’t want. Deporting undocumented immigrants from the U.S. will disrupt the operations of industries that depend on them (e.g., hospitality, agriculture, construction). Employers, if they can even find native-born Americans to do the jobs, will have to pay them higher wages to do the same work.

When the mass deportations begin, expect supply chain problems and higher prices in the stores. These expulsions are guaranteed to increase inflation. If you don’t care about human suffering, then think about your pocketbook.