Frank is Emptiness

March 27th, 2022

I don’t know our grandchildren. Well, I don’t really know two of the three. I haven’t seen Weston for a year and a half. I have never met Madeline in person. The only grandchild I know well is Asher, and that is because he lives with us.

Weston and Maddy live in Texas with their parents, Hans and Gabby. Hans is our son. He moved down to Texas about fifteen years ago. He has not moved back to Wisconsin, and it is unlikely that he ever will. Hans grew up in Wisconsin, but Texas is his natural habitat, and it’s the place he calls home.

Hans and Gabby do not have the time or the money to visit my wife and me. Since Karin and I became the primary caregivers for Asher, we haven’t had the time or the energy to go down south. 1159 miles lie between Hans’ home and our house, and that just too far for us to maintain a close relationship, both in terms of distance and in terms of understanding.

We communicate often. Gabby sends Karin photos and videos of Weston and Maddy almost every day. Karin reciprocates with messages about Asher. Hans calls us at least once a week. So, we keep in touch. But it’s not enough.

We know a man who is a missionary in Germany. He has been in Germany for at least a decade. He used to live in our local area. He comes back every autumn to reconnect with family and friends. He likes to tell us that, although he only sees his grandkids for a couple weeks a year, he has a very close bond with them. He will say things like,

“It’s great! I’m their ‘opa’ from Germany! We do FaceTime and Zoom!”

I don’t think that he has a close relationship with these children. I really don’t think he can. Or perhaps his definition of a close relationship is different than mine.

Zoom and FaceTime are good things, but they can’t replace physical contact. Electronic communication is a poor substitute for being together with another human being.

I interact with our toddler grandson, Asher, each and every day. I feed him, change him, play with him, put down for naps. It is only because I am with him so much that I notice certain things about Asher, like the fact that he has a dimple on his right cheek when he smiles. I watch Asher happily tug on the dog’s collar as our old border collie tries to ignore the little human. I notice that, when he sits on the floor to play, he holds his toys with his feet; it’s like he has an extra set of hands. I see that he wobbles uncertainly when he walks around the house, but he has the speed and agility of a mongoose when he reaches for something he wants. These are all little things, but added together they reveal the little boy’s personality. A person is an intricate mosaic of tiny details, many of which are not visible on a glowing screen.

I don’t know these sorts of things about Weston and Madeline. I can’t, because I am not with them. Even if I made the trip down to Texas once or twice a year to visit, I still wouldn’t know them like I know Asher. I will always be that friendly stranger who they call “Grandpa Frank”. I will always be peripheral to their lives, and that grieves me.

Hans called us a couple days ago. I haven’t seen Hans for eighteen months. I was missing him, so I told him,

“I wish I could come down to talk with you. We wouldn’t need to do anything special.”

Hans replied, “Well, we could go to that fancy movie theater…”

I interrupted him, “We don’t have to go anywhere. I just want to sit with you and talk. I don’t even need to do any talking. I just want to listen to you.”

I want Hans to tell me about his life. I want to know if he is healing from his wartime experiences in Iraq. I want to understand who he is now at the age of thirty-five years.

I just want to be there.

March 22nd, 2022

I dreamt of my father last night. He died three years ago. I dream of him often, and the dreams are all very similar, just variations on a theme. I never see my father in the dream. He is always in another room or someplace distant from me. However, I can hear his voice clearly. He is always complaining. Always.

What do the dreams mean? I don’t know. I am convinced that they mean something, but I can’t decipher the code. I’ve read a lot from Carl Jung, and one dream by itself may not mean much. A person has to follow a long series of dreams to understand the pattern. I haven’t had the motivation or energy to do that.

I have read some things about grieving. There is the Kübler-Ross model that says people go through five emotions during the grieving process: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I don’t remember going through that series of emotions when my dad died. If anything, I went directly to acceptance. I reacted to his death with a sigh and a shrug.

I have been to funerals where the children of the deceased stand up to say wonderful things about their father. Often, they get emotional as they speak, and choke up or perhaps weep. Nobody from our family gave any kind of eulogy for our father. Nobody said anything, except for the priest, who hardly knew the man. I have always envied those adult children who were able wax nostalgic about the father they had lost. I have never been able to do that.

Was my dad a good father? Was he a bad one?I have no idea. He’s the only one I ever had, so I cannot make any kind of comparison. He raised me and my six brothers. I think that he loved us. He was wounded somehow. He had a bitter spirit and that influenced everything he did. It was difficult to be with him.

The truth is that I don’t miss him. If there is anything that grieves me, it is that fact. I wish that I could miss him. He is not the only one who died. Something died inside of me too.

It hurts to say this, but I have often felt relief that I don’t have to listen to him bitch anymore.

At least not when I am awake.

March 15th, 2022

I’ve been thinking about the Russian soldiers in the Ukraine. I don’t mean the senior officers. I mean the regular soldiers, be they enlisted or conscripted. I am aware that they are causing enormous amounts of suffering, but somehow, I pity them. The Ukrainians are fighting for their homes and their families. They know exactly why they are at war. What motivates the Russian soldiers? Why do the Russian troops fight?

I read the news about the war in the Ukraine, and a lot of it is propaganda. I don’t see how it can be otherwise. We get bits and pieces of the truth, and I doubt that we will ever know the whole story. What little we do learn is disturbing enough.

I read one pundit expressing shock that the Russian troops were not told that they were going into Ukraine.

My reaction was, “Yeah, and so?”

I think back to when I was an operations officer in a Black Hawk company with the 7th Infantry Division (light), back in the mid-80’s. The 7th ID was often on alert. We were supposed to be deployable at a moment’s notice. Not once, when we got called on alert, did anybody ever tell us where we were going, or even if we were going someplace. The official rumor was that would be going to Honduras. This was back in the days when Ronald Reagan had a hard on for the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. The farthest we ever got was the airfield in Fresno, where we tried to stuff some helicopters into an Air Force C-5.

Why would the Russian top brass tell their grunts where they are going? We don’t even do that.

Another talking head on the news stated that morale among the Russian troops is low. It probably is, but I don’t see how anybody knows that for sure. It’s not like Putin is taking a poll.

I remember when I was a section leader in a helicopter platoon in West Germany. It had to be back in 1982 because we were still flying Hueys. I think it was during the annual Reforger exercise. We were told to fly a couple aircraft to an LZ near a wood line. Once we got there, our instructions were to “wait for further instructions”. So, we waited. And waited. And waited.

We got the unpleasant feeling that the people in charge had completely forgotten about us.

It got to be late in the afternoon, and one of the warrant officers asked the company executive officer if somebody at the company HQ was going to bring us a hot meal for supper. We had already eaten c-rations for lunch. The XO replied in an overconfident way,

“Don’t worry. They will take care of it.”

The warrant officer stared at the XO and asked,

“They? Who the hell are they?”

Then the pilot turned away from the captain and shouted into the woods,

“HEY THEY! THEY, CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

The pilot turned back to the XO and said,

“I didn’t hear a response, Sir. Did you?”

Our morale on Reforger was not the best, and that was in peace time.

I talked to my son, Hans, on the phone about the war in Ukraine. I mentioned the column of vehicles that seems to stretch back from Kyiv almost all the way to the Russian border. Hans was in the Armored Cav at Fort Hood, and I asked him about this stationary line of tanks and BRDMs. Hans said in his Texas drawl,

“Y’all want to know what I think? Those boys are gonna get lit up.”

I keep imagining what it must be like now for these Russian troops in the endless convoy. It’s probably cold as fuck, and they can’t run the engines on their tanks to keep warm because they need to conserve fuel. So, there is probably a tank crew standing in the snow next to their T-90 or T-72, freezing their asses off. I can see one of them smoking his last cigarette, holding it between his thumb and forefinger, and sucking on it until there are only ashes left. They stamp their feet to keep the blood flowing, and they swap rumors to pass the time. The next time these guys will get warm is when a Javelin fries them inside their tank.

I visualize some junior officer walking past them, and one of these soldiers calling out to him,

“Lieutenant Butterbarsky, when do we move? When do we get more fuel? You got any smokes?”

The LT ignores the questions and tells these guys to do some preventive maintenance on their vehicle.

The lieutenant probably doesn’t know any more than his troops. Maybe nobody knows what is going on, maybe not even Putin.

Yeah, I’m pretty sure their morale sucks.

Why should they fight?

After Hans got out of the Army, he worked in the Texas oil fields. He had been deployed to Iraq in 2011. His boss in the fracking outfit talked to him one time about Iraq. He asked Hans,

“So, do you think you’re a hero?”

Hans replied, “No, I was just doing a job.”

Hans told me once that, when he was in Iraq, they didn’t fight for democracy or for oil. They fought to make sure everybody in the unit got home alive. That was it, no more, no less.

These Russians in Ukraine are just doing a job. It’s a nasty, immoral job, but they think that they have to complete it. I suspect they are a bit like my son was in Iraq. I doubt that they are fighting for Mother Russia. I doubt that they have any noble purpose. At this point, they are fighting to keep each other alive.

March 13th, 2022

A couple months ago, Karin, Asher, and I went out for lunch with Janan. Janan is a good friend, and she treated us to an enormous meal at Taqwa, a Palestinian restaurant in Milwaukee. We worked our way through bowls of red lentil soup and plates of shish kabob and saffron rice. We tried to feed our little grandson, Asher, pita bread and stuffed grape leaves (he wasn’t liking the grape leaves). Even though Janan is a busy woman, we sat and ate at a leisurely pace. We had time to talk, and we had time to listen.

Janan is a leader in the local Muslim community, and she often interacts with immigrants. She had just recently organized a clothing drive/fundraiser for the Afghan refugees staying at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin. Our conversation turned to the topic of immigrants. I mentioned that people coming to America always seem to have one foot in the Old Country, while their children don’t have that connection.

Janan agreed and said,

“Of course, they all have one foot in the Old Country. They die believing that someday they will get to go back home.”

Janan may have exaggerated slightly, but she was pretty close to the truth. I think she described some refugees accurately. Her words made me think about a number of things.

My wife, Karin, is from Germany. Her family, on her father’s side, were all refugees at the end of World War II. They were originally from Silesia, which is now part of Poland. They fled to the west and settled in Baden-Württemberg. Karin’s aunt and uncle, Aga and Kurt, often spoke of their hometown. I believe it was called Neustadt (Germany has a plethora of towns with that name).

Tante Aga and Onkel Kurt dreamed of going back to their home, but the Iron Curtain held them back. Then communism suddenly collapsed in eastern Europe. Aga and Kurt made the trip to Poland, and after fifty years, finally visited Neustadt. They were deeply disappointed. I can remember Kurt bitterly complaining,

“Polnisch! Polnisch! Alles war polnisch!” (“Polish! Polish! Everything was Polish!”)

Aga and Kurt never went home. They went to the correct geographical location, but they arrived a half century too late. Almost all the things they remembered were gone, or at least changed beyond recognition. They tried to go home, but that particular time and place no longer existed.

Karin and I are friends with a Syrian refugee family. I used to tutor their kids. The parents and the older children still remember life in Syria, and they will always linger in those memories. The younger siblings don’t remember the Old Country. In fact, the youngest girl won’t speak Arabic, even though she understands the language. The little one has become an American, for good or for ill.

Immigrant families lose things over time. The first thing that goes is their native tongue. The members of the following generation, those who have been born here, often has no interest in the old language. Then maybe the religion goes, especially if the folks of the next generation intermarry with partners from different faith traditions. Oddly enough, the last thing to go is the food. The following generations may know very little about their immigrant ancestors, but they know what those people ate.

What is a “home”? It is more than just a physical place. It is more than just a certain time in history. It is a constellation of relationships. It is where a person belongs.

I just read that two million people have fled the war in Ukraine. They are all refugees. Can they ever go home? If the war ended today, this very minute, could they go back to something that they would recognize as “home”? If a person’s house is blown up, where is home? If a person’s friends and family are scattered to the winds, can a that individual find a home? The longer this war goes on, the harder it will be for any of these millions of people to return home. Many of these migrants will be forced to build new lives and create new “homes”. Even if Ukraine wins this war with Russia, what will there be left in the Old Country for these uprooted and traumatized people?

We know a young Afghan refugee family. They fled Kabul just before it fell. They went across the border to Pakistan and were stranded there for months. They finally got visas to go to a small European nation. A year ago, they may have not even heard of this country, but they are there now. They are strangers in a new land, with new customs and a new language to learn. They are safe now. That is the most important thing.

The parents have a baby boy, a few months younger than our Asher. That boy was born just before the fall of Kabul. His parents will always think about Afghanistan. Maybe they believe that they will be able to return one day. The boy will remember nothing of his parents’ homeland. He will hear their stories, but he won’t understand their experiences.

He will only know their love.

The little boy is home.

March 1st, 2022

“The whole thing is quite hopeless, so it’s no good worrying about tomorrow. It probably won’t come.” – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“(It) does tell one something about the nature of civilization. It shows that however complex and solid it seems, it is actually quite fragile. It can be destroyed. What are its enemies? Well, first of all fear-fear of war, fear of invasion, fear of plague and famine, that make it simply not worthwhile constructing things, or planting trees, or even planting next year’s crops.”

Kenneth Clark, Civilisation

I should stop reading the news. There is nothing helpful or hopeful there. It just causes me to have some sort of psychological paralysis. It is not so much the news about the war in Ukraine that bothers me, frightening as that is. It is more the speculation about a nuclear war that drags me down. It brings back memories from when I was stationed in West Germany back in the early 1980’s. It all seems painfully familiar.

When I was a helicopter platoon leader in Hanau back in the bad old days, we would occasionally receive intelligence briefings from the Battalion S-2. These talks were consistently depressing. We heard all about the Soviet armor units and motorized rifle regiments facing us on the other side of the intra-German border. The numerical odds were daunting: 3 to 1, maybe 5 to 1, in the favor of the Reds.

We heard that the Soviets would most likely use chemical weapons when they attacked. They would launch nerve agents against NATO airfields. That was disturbing to me as an aviator. Apparently, one the first effects of a nerve agent is to cause blurred vision. Nice. It is much more challenging to fly an aircraft when you can’t see anything. Of course, if we had advanced warning (which we wouldn’t have), we could fly while wearing MOPP gear. We trained at least once a year to fly while wearing a gas mask. Not a good deal at all.

So, what do we do if we are grossly outnumbered by the Soviets? It wasn’t often said out loud, but if the red horde crossed the border, then maybe the United States would fire a tactical nuclear weapon. The U.S. never said that it would not use nuclear weapons first. That was an option.

I used to listen to these briefings and think to myself,

“This is nuts, just fucking nuts.”

Of course, the whole scenario was nuts. We were deep into Dr. Strangelove territory. How could we even consider using a nuke? Launching nukes is like eating potato chips: nobody can stop at just one. Once we fired a round, it would be “game on”. Let’s welcome Armageddon.

It was really hard to plan for the future when I was staring at the prospect of total destruction. Why bother to do anything? What’s the point?

I wasn’t the only person unnerved by the possibility of a nuclear holocaust. That was in the back of everyone’s mind. It was part of the zeitgeist. How else can we explain the popularity of the song “Neun und Neunzig Luftballons”? from Nena. That tune was a hit on the pop charts in Europe and America, and it was about nuclear war (sung in German no less).

We got lucky. The apocalypse did not happen on our shift. The Berlin Wall fell, and the Soviet Union collapsed. Everybody breathed a sigh of relief, and we completely forgot about those thousands of missiles and bombs.

Until now.

After the Cold War ended, the nations of the world had a chance to get rid of its nuclear arsenals. No one did anything. Everybody kept their toys. Now things are scary again. An entire generation has grown up not having to feel that uneasiness and dread. Now they are going to taste that fear.

I don’t worry too much about what will happen to me in a nuclear war. I’m old. However, I spend a lot of time with my toddler grandson, Asher. I am concerned about his future. More to the point, I am concerned whether he will even have a future.

Kenneth Clark spoke about nuclear weapons. To quote him once again,

“Add to this the memory of that shadowy companion who is always with us, like an inverted guardian angel, silent, invisible, almost incredible-and yet unquestionably there and ready to assert itself at the touch of a button; and one must concede that the future of civilization does not look very bright.”

February 27th, 2022

We’re tired.

Asher has been having some rough nights. He’s teething and his gums hurt him. So, he wakes up frequently, and Karin usually wakes up with him. Sometimes I do too. The end result is that all three of us are lacking sleep, and we are all a little grumpy.

Asher is fifteen months old. He’s mobile now, officially a toddler. He careens around the house at breakneck speed, usually yelling something. He tends to get ahead of himself. That often results in Asher tumbling over his own feet. Then there is a moment of tears followed immediately by another attempt to run before he can competently walk. My sister-in-law, Gabi, once described toddlers as “little drunk people”. That is pretty accurate.

It seems likely that Karin and I will become Asher’s legal guardians. This change in status is not a surprise, and it really doesn’t make much difference in our day-to-day activities. Childrens Court wants “permanency” for our grandson, and that would require that somebody take full responsibility for the boy. That “somebody” is us. Karin and I really don’t want to be Asher’s guardians. We would much prefer to revert back to our original role as parttime grandparents. However, in order to keep Asher in the family, we need to take on this open-ended commitment. Asher is a blessing to us. He is also a lot of work.

I spent Friday afternoon with a friend of mine from work. We are both retired now, and we meet up once in a while to share our experiences. As usual, our conversation drifted toward memories of events at our old workplace. Danny and I shared stories about coworkers that we knew. It struck me that at least half of the people we mentioned are dead. We spoke of them in the past tense, and that was a bit disturbing to me. It reminded me of the fact that at some point, perhaps soon, Danny and I will also be just memories for someone else.

I mention this discussion with Danny because Karin and I are acutely aware of our mortality. The prospect of becoming Asher’s guardians is daunting simply because if one or both of us die, there is currently nobody to care for Asher. Even if one of us is temporarily incapacitated, our ability to raise the lad becomes a struggle. We have outside support, but not enough to handle the situation if Karin and/or I are gone.

Our goal is to live to see Asher become an adult. When Asher turns eighteen, Karin will be 83 and I will be 80. That’s an iffy proposition.

People pooh pooh my concerns, and say, “Lots of people live to be eighty!”

That’s true. Many people do live that long. Some don’t. Danny and I talked about the folks that don’t while we sat at his kitchen table and sipped beer. We are at any age where anything can happen. Our overall health is also a concern to Karin and me. We may in fact survive until Asher grows up, but will we be functioning well enough to help him along the way? We are healthy now. Tomorrow we might not be.

Generally, we don’t worry too much about the future. This is because we are too damn busy dealing with the present. Asher keeps us very active. I don’t see us ever being bored. As the boy grows and develops, he will make sure that we are alert and aware of the world around us. That is a good thing.

I get up before dawn almost every day. I want to be prepared when Asher rouses himself. He wakes up ready for action. I have to be ready too.

Our patio door faces to the southeast. When the skies are clear, I can see Venus shining brightly above the horizon. It glows like a jewel suspended in space. The morning star enchants and inspires me. I thank God for that diamond in the sky, and I thank God for giving me a new day.

I might not have a tomorrow, but I have a today, and I can spend it with Asher.

February 24th, 2022

“There are some (places) you go into-in this line of work-that you know will be heavy. The details don’t matter. All you know, for sure, is that your brain starts humming with brutal vibes as you approach the front door. Something wild and evil is about to happen, and it’s going to involve you.”

from “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” but Hunter S. Thompson

“Nobody panics when things go “according to plan”. Even if the plan is horrifying!”
― The Joker – Heath Ledger

When I was a senior at West Point, I took a two-semester course called “The History of the Military Art”. The class offered a panoramic view of the evolution of warfare from the ancient Greeks until the Vietnam War. I enjoyed the class. I was fascinated by the characters involved in these conflicts between peoples. I learned about various battles, most of which are now forgotten (anybody remember Cannae?). Some of the campaigns were swift and glorious, like Napoleon at Austerlitz. Others were hideous slugfests, like the Battle of Verdun in the First World War. One thing that struck me during the course was how often things did not turn out as planned.

Once I became an Army officer, I got practical lessons concerning how quickly and thoroughly things could screw up. I learned that planning was essential to any military operation, but it was also somehow superfluous. I remember doing extensive planning and organizing, but when it came time to execute the OPORD, there was always at least one “what the fuck” moment. The potential for chaos was always there. Even during peace time (I’m a Cold Warrior), events can turn really scary really quick. My understanding is that in an actual war the craziness is exponentially greater.

In the months prior to our country’s most recent conflict in Iraq, I spent many evenings demonstrating against the imminent start of the war. My motivation for demonstrating against the invasion was primarily selfish. I did not want my son, Hans, to go to war. Hans was sixteen at the time. Everybody seemed to think at the time that a fight with Saddam would be a slam dunk for the U.S. Later, George W. Bush stood smiling in front of a banner that said, “Mission Accomplished”. I guess not. In 2011 Hans was in Iraq fighting and killing people there. The war did not quite go as planned.

More recently, the United States left Afghanistan rather hastily after having been in the country for twenty years. When we invaded Afghanistan shortly after 9/11, did we ever imagine that we would handing the country back to the Taliban? That war did not go as planned either.

Now it’s Putin’s turn. He has just invaded Ukraine, and I’m sure he has a plan. It might be a good one. It is certainly a horrifying plan.

I hope he has a high tolerance for chaos.

February 13th, 2022

Our son, Stefan, is an Ironworker. What is an Ironworker?

Per Wikipedia, an “ironworker” is as follows:

“An ironworker is a tradesman who works in the iron-working industry. Ironworkers assemble the structural framework in accordance with engineered drawings and install the metal support pieces for new buildings. They also repair and renovate old structures using reinforced concrete and steel.”

As a definition of the term, it is sufficient in a generic sort of way, but it doesn’t fully explain what Stefan does for a living. It certainly does not address the ironworker culture. Yes, they have one.

I capitalize the word “ironworker” for Stefan, because he is a member of the Ironworker Union. Being part of the union gives a totally different dimension to the term. Stefan is not simply an employee of a company, to be used and discarded at the whim of management. Stefan is a member of an organization with a certain amount of economic power. That clout gives Stefan and the other Ironworkers some basic rights with regards to their working conditions and benefits. In short, Stefan is part of a brotherhood in a very real sense.

Jacob Bronowski, the mathematician, wrote about the medieval masons in his book, “The Ascent of Man”. These were the men who built the cathedrals that still reach for the heavens throughout northern Europe. In describing the masons he said,

“The masons carried in their heads a stock, not so much of patterns as of ideas, that grew by experience as they went from one site to the next. They also carried with them a kit of light tools.”

Stefan and his coworkers follow in the tradition of these masons. Stefan learns a bit more at each construction site. He carries with him his own kit of tools for the job, although they could not be described as “light”. Ironworkers generally have a tool in box in their pickup truck that weighs several hundred pounds.

Bronowski goes on to say, “The wandering builders were an intellectual aristocracy (like the watchmakers five hundred years later) and could move all over Europe, sure of a job and a welcome; they called themselves freemasons as early as the fourteenth century. The skill they carried in their hands and their heads seemed to be as much a mystery as a tradition, a secret fund of knowledge stood outside the dreary formalism of pulpit learning that the universities taught.”

Stefan has told me that his training over the past three and a half years is the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree. Certainly, in monetary terms that is true. Once Stefan becomes a journeyman in the next few weeks, he will be earning $40 an hour straight time. How many college graduates will start working at that pay scale?

Stefan is an expert welder. He earns good money because his skills are worth it. It is probably an exaggeration to say that Stefan is part of an “intellectual aristocracy” like the freemasons of old, but he can do things that hardly anyone else can do. Most of his fellow Ironworkers are like that too. They are valuable because they have the knowledge, and the courage, to build skyscrapers.

Stefan, once he is a journeyman, can move all over the country, and he can expect to be “sure of a job and a welcome.” Most Ironworkers settle down somewhere, but others wander the country just like those masons did hundreds of years ago. A skilled tradesman is not tied to a particular corporation. He or she is mobile.

Stefan has never built a cathedral. He probably never will. However, he has built banks, like the BMO Tower in downtown Milwaukee. It a country like ours, where the Almighty Dollar is worshipped, that tower is the spiritual equivalent of a medieval cathedral.

The Ironworkers are a rough crowd, often rude and crude. They walk on top of steel beams one hundred feet above the ground and laugh about it. They enjoy the adrenalin rush that comes with doing dangerous and difficult work. They love to point to a tall building or a graceful bridge and say, “I built that.” I guess they have to be that way. Other, more reasonable, people would never do that kind of work.

I feel certain that the freemasons (the original version) were also like that. They were independent thinkers and just a little crazy.

They left us a glorious legacy.

Stefan will too.

February 7th, 2022

“We share the same biology
Regardless of ideology
Believe me when I say to you
I hope the Russians love their children too”

from the song “Russians” by Sting (1985)

Every day I read something about the Russians and their “imminent” invasion of the Ukraine. The news stories remind me of the Cold War days when I was an Army captain in West Germany. Back then, it felt like the hated Reds would blast through the Fulda Gap at any moment. Our unit was always on alert, which actually meant we were never really on alert. It was impossible to maintain a constant state of readiness. Eventually, most people slid into an “eat, drink, and merry, for tomorrow we die” attitude. I certainly did. It was kind of schizophrenic. We knew that we could be at war on any given day, but somehow, we never believed it would happen.

I was deployed in West Germany in the early 1980’s. Many years after I left the Army, I met a man at a party who was from the Ukraine. Vladimir was with me at a gathering of Zen Buddhists. No good reason for both of us to be there, other than some very weird karma. Vladimir and I struck up a conversation, and I found out that he had served in the Soviet Army in the late 1980’s. He had been stationed with an Air Defense Artillery unit in East Germany. We had a long talk about the bad old days. I told him about how I flew helicopters, and he told me about how he was trained to shoot them down. We had never faced each other across the Iron Curtain, but we had been on opposing teams.

That was the first and only time that I ever spoke with one of the “enemy”. When I was in the Army, we never thought of the Soviets as “people”. They were always the OPFOR, or the Reds, or Ivan. It did not occur to any of us that the guys on the other side of the fence were, well, just guys. After I met Vladimir, it dawned on me that he was a lot like me. If the balloon had gone up back in the 80’s, we would never have had our discussion. One or both of us would have been dead.

It might be worthwhile to consider the fact the Russian soldiers are, in many ways, just like the Ukrainians, or just like us. They have spouses and parents and siblings. They have hopes and fears similar to our own.

The Russians love their children too.

February 4th, 2022

My wife and I have been the primary caregivers for our 14-month-old grandson, Asher, for an entire year. February 2nd was the anniversary date. I’m not sure that this is a reason for celebration. It is simply a fact.

It has been an exciting year. Becoming Asher’s kinship caregivers, and later his foster parents, has changed our lives significantly. Karin and I used to look for things to do. That is no longer the case. We always have something to do.

In think that we have learned a lot during the last twelve months. I know that I have. Raising a small child at our age is an exercise of both discovery and of recollection. With Asher some things are strange and new. Other things feel very familiar. It is rare that a person gets to be a “new parent” twice in life, however Karin and I having that experience.

So, what have we learned?

First, we have learned that Asher is not our child. We are not his father and mother, although in many ways we act in the role of parents. We are only Asher’s caregivers. The goal is for Asher to one day be completely reunited with his mother. Asher and his mother have a strong bond, and the boy definitely knows who his mama is. Asher does not know his father, and I doubt that he ever will. Karin and I are not Asher’s parents. We do not have that kind of relationship, and we don’t want it. We are only his grandparents, although in a much closer way than is common in most families. We will be deeply involved with Asher’s life until we die. That is for certain.

We have learned that Asher is constantly growing and developing. Every morning when he wakes up, he is a slightly different child. Asher is a moving target. Karin and I have to constantly change with him. Every day his capabilities improve. Every day his needs are altered. He is teething now. He is starting to walk on his own. He can play with the dogs. He wants a variety of foods. Each day I meet a new little boy is named Asher.

We have learned how intrusive the government can be. For better or worse, the state of Wisconsin has taken an active interest in Asher’s welfare. That is probably a good thing. However, this has made our lives more complicated. Karin and I have to follow specific guidelines for raising Asher, and we have people checking up on us. There is a bureaucracy involved, and it inhibits some of our choices. For instance, Karin and I cannot travel wherever we want to go, unless we get permission from Asher’s case manager. Currently, it is nearly impossible for us to visit our other grandchildren in Texas. If a person wants to keep their personal freedoms and maintain their privacy, they should never become a foster parent.

Karin and I have learned to work as a team, more than we have ever done before in our thirty-seven years of marriage. We have been forced to work together more closely in order to properly care for the little guy. We have become less selfish out of pure necessity. This is a good development. Love does not have much to do with feelings. It has everything to do with actions. In our love for Asher, we have learned to love each other more.

We have learned that Asher is a pure blessing in our lives. Sure, the little boy is a lot of work, but he has brought an enormous amount of joy into our lives. Asher has given us purpose. Sometimes, retirees flounder about in their new state of life. They wonder what to make of all their time. We never wonder what to do. We don’t even think about it. We just do.

Thank God for Asher.