Tag: history

An Honest Answer

January 8th, 2026

““We live in a world in which, you can talk about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.” -Stephen Miller

There is almost nothing I like about Stephen Miller. However, the above quote sadly rings true. There is much handwringing about the collapse of the rule-based international order. There are those who contend that President Trump is demolishing it. Maybe. It’s far more likely that the order has been on the verge of collapse for decades, and he is just giving it one last nudge.

Miller’s quote specifically concerns Trump’s recent attack on Venezuela. That was not the first time that a great power has used force against a smaller country, nor will it be the last. Just since WWII, both the United States and Russia/Soviet Union have had their way with a number of weaker nations. On Russia’s scorecard we have the attack on Hungary in 1956, the assault on Czechoslovakia in 1968, the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, and of course the current slaughter in Ukraine. As for America, we have the attack on Grenada in 1983, the intervention in Panama in 1989, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in the 2000’s. This list does not even count the U.S. covert operations to overthrow governments in Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, and Chile in 1973. I’m sure that I am forgetting some of the acts of aggression, but you get the idea.

Both I and my eldest son served in the U.S. military. I was an Army aviator in West Germany during the 1980’s in the Cold War. The reason for me being there was to keep the Red hordes from invading western Europe. I guess that was at least somewhat true. Many years after I served in Germany, long after the Berlin Wall fell, I met a couple people who had served in the Soviet Army. Oddly enough, their perspective was radically different from my own. They thought they were protecting Mother Russia from the Yankee imperialists. Maybe we were both right.

After I was deployed to Germany, I spent my remaining time in the Army stationed at Fort Ord with the 7th Infantry Division. Our mission was to be a rapid deployment force if things went bad in Central America. We were training to go to Honduras as a staging point for an invasion of Nicaragua. This was back when Reagan really wanted to get rid of the Sandinistas. Fortunately, we never went to Honduras, but that was the plan.

My oldest son was deployed to Iraq in 2011. He was not as lucky as I was. He killed people and he got wounded over there. He told me once that when he was in Iraq his goal, and those of his comrades, had nothing to do with democracy or oil. They just wanted to get out of there alive, and they did.

Over the years, the United States and other countries have tried to justify their acts of aggression. We have always been claiming to be defending America and/or democracy. It was both shocking and refreshing when Trump said that we were going after Venezuela’s oil. That at least was an honest answer.

When it comes right down to it, the real reason why the United States or Russia or anyone else invades another country is:

“Because we can.”

Illegal Orders

August 19th, 2025

I recently read an article in Military.com titled “4 Out of 5 US Troops Surveyed Understand the Duty to Disobey Illegal Orders”. In the essay, the authors state,

“Our poll, fielded between June 13 and June 30, 2025, shows that service members understand these rules. Of the 818 active-duty troops we surveyed, just 9% stated that they would ‘obey any order.’ Only 9% ‘didn’t know,’ and only 2% had ‘no comment.’ “

I have to mention here that the article and possibly the poll itself have a partisan slant. The authors are not fans of Donald Trump. Even so, the essay and the results of the poll are interesting to me.

I would have preferred to read that 100% of active-duty troops understand how to recognize an illegal order and know when to disobey such an order. However, 80% sounds realistic. Actually, I find that number to be encouraging.

I entered West Point as a new cadet in July of 1976. That was a long time ago. I don’t remember much of my first day at USMA. Most of it is a blur. However, I can distinctly remember when I stood on the Plain to take the oath to defend the U.S. Constitution. Did I really understand at that time what I was promising to do? No, but I figured it out as time went on and I realize how life-changing that oath really was and still is.

I suspect that most veterans can remember when they officially became service members. It’s hard to overstate how important that moment was. The oath that we took stands in stark contrast to the oath that German soldiers took in WWII. Those men (which probably including my father-in-law) swore allegiance to the person of Adolf Hitler. We did not swear allegiance to a president. We did not swear allegiance to a political party. We did not swear to protect a religion or a particular ethnic group. An American service member swears allegiance to the core document of our republic. In effect, we took an oath to defend a noble idea.

What does it mean to defend the Constitution? That’s where it gets hard. We don’t always get into situations where the line between right and wrong is crystal clear. Sometimes, we are forced to choose the lesser evil. Even in peacetime, a soldier may face an order that is illegal and/or immoral. My oldest son fought in Iraq, and he often found himself in extremely violent circumstances where the decisions had to made immediately without time for thoughtful consideration of the consequences. I am pretty sure that at those times he seldom thought about the Constitution. He thought about survival.

Can we expect service members to always fulfill their oaths? Probably not. However, it makes me hopeful knowing that the vast majority of them understand what they promised to do.

Hiroshima

August 7th, 2025

Yesterday was the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan. That attack was the first use of an atomic weapon in human history, and it is an event that horrifies people to this very day. We try to ignore it. We ty to forget that it ever happened, but as Kenneth Clarke wrote about the atomic bomb in his book, Civilization,

“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.”

Almost every day I read something online about Putin threatening to use nukes. Trump blusters in a similar way. Despite our best efforts, we can’t disregard our unwanted companion. The movie, Oppenheimer, proves that fact. The angel is close at hand.

That dark angel has been following every one of us for eighty years. I am a bit too young to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, but I can recall signs in the lower level of my elementary school designating it as a fallout shelter. I can remember watching Stanley Kubrick’s film, “Dr. Strangelove” when I was student at West Point n the 1970’s.

The angel was closest to me when I was an Army officer stationed in what was then West Germany. I was deployed there in the early 1980’s, back when Reagan was raving about the “Evil Empire”. The Cold War was intense at the that time, and it seemed like any day it would turn hot. I woke every morning in Germany wondering if “the balloon would go up”. I was a helicopter pilot, maybe ninety miles from the East German border. U.S. policy at the time allowed for NATO to use nuclear weapons first in a war with the Soviet Union. There were plans (or so I heard) of using tactical nukes in the Fulda Gap to keep the Reds from striking deep into West Germany. I remember watching the movie “The Day After” while I was in my unit. I saw the film in the pilots’ break area on the Army airfield. Henry Kissinger spoke on a television program after the show was over. He stated the obvious: we have to prevent a “day after”.

Around the same time, young people in West Germany were protesting against nuclear weapons of any sort in their country. That made total sense. They had skin in the game. One of the most popular songs when I was there was 99 Luftballons (translation: 99 Air Balloons), by Nena. The lyrics of the German pop song were about the beginning of an unintentional nuclear war. The song is still relevant. Almost simultaneously, Pink Floyd released an album called The Final Cut. That too was about nuclear war. The angel was hovering above me during those years.

I have two friends, Senji and Gilberto. They are Buddhist monks. They have a temple on Bainbridge Island near Seattle. They live very close to a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine base. They work with a group called Ground Zero to protest against nuclear weapons. Senji is my age. He is part of Japan’s postwar generation. He is especially passionate about preventing nuclear war. It is personal commitment for him. Gilberto and Senji always commemorate the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is their calling to help others to remember those war crimes.

They are currently in the process of completing the construction of a peace pagoda on land that is right next to the Navy base. That is part of their effort to bear witness. I admire them for it.

Nearly completed peace pagoda

A Hero of War

August 3rd, 2025

He said “Son, have you seen the world?
Well, what would you say if I said that you could?
“Just carry this gun, you’ll even get paid”
I said “That sounds pretty good”

Black leather boots
Spit-shined so bright
They cut off my hair but it looked alright
We marched and we sang
We all became friends
As we learned how to fight

A hero of war
Yeah, that’s what I’ll be
And when I come home
They’ll be damn proud of me
I’ll carry this flag
To the grave if I must
‘Cause it’s a flag that I love
And a flag that I trust

I kicked in the door
I yelled my commands
The children, they cried
But I got my man
We took him away
A bag over his face
From his family and his friends

They took off his clothes
They pissed in his hands
I told them to stop
But then I joined in
We beat him with guns
And batons not just once
But again and again

A hero of war
Yeah that’s what I’ll be
And when I come home
They’ll be damn proud of me
I’ll carry this flag
To the grave if I must
‘Cause it’s a flag that I love
And a flag that I trust

She walked through bullets and haze
I asked her to stop
I begged her to stay
But she pressed on
So I lifted my gun
And I fired away

And the shells jumped through the smoke
And into the sand
That the blood now had soaked
She collapsed with a flag in her hand
A flag white as snow

A hero of war
Is that what they see
Just medals and scars
So damn proud of me
And I brought home that flag
Now it gathers dust
But it’s a flag that I love
It’s the only flag I trust

He said, “Son, have you seen the world?
Well what would you say, if I said that you could?”

Lyrics to Hero of War from the band, “Rise Against”. Released in 2008.

I just played that track again on the stereo after not listening to it for a long time. I don’t particularly like the song, even though it is well done. I guess it’s because it’s just too accurate and it cuts too close to the bone. Hearing it makes my heart hurt. It really does.

I can’t listen to the lyrics without thinking about my oldest son, Hans. Hans enlisted in the Army in 2009. He knew when he enlisted that he was going to be deployed either to Iraq or Afghanistan. That was guaranteed. My wife and I did not want him to go to war, even though I am a veteran myself, or especially because I am a veteran. He joined anyway. Hans went to Iraq in 2011.

Hans did lots of things in Iraq. He went on patrols. He cleared buildings. He kicked in doors. He got wounded. He killed people. He came back different.

Hans texted a few weeks ago about his war. He said, “I’m actually grateful for my army experience.” He told me that it made him grow up in a hurry and it taught him what was important in life. I’m sure that’s true, but at what cost?

I’ve written numerous essays on this blog about Hans and things that happened to him in the Army. A few of his stories are funny, but most of them are not. The accounts of his experiences in Iraq are harrowing, at least they are to me. There are things that a father probably does not need to hear, although I am grateful that Hans trusted me enough to tell me.

If you’re curious, you can look up my essays about his war. It’s all here in the blog.

Hans was a hero of war, whatever that means.

Clutter

July 22nd, 2025

The house is a mess.

Well, I guess it all depends on how you define the word “mess”. When I was in the Army, decades ago, I liked to have things organized, with everything in its place. That was so long ago and so much has changed.

Now, I live with my wife of forty years, and with our four-year-old grandson. Neither of them has much interest in tidiness. Our home is clean, but it is always teetering on edge of chaos. I’m not sure that it can be any other way.

My wife is from Germany, and in some ways, she maintains that Teutonic passion for order. However, she is also an artist, which means that she is a perfectionist with regards to her work, but is often indifferent to clutter that surrounds us. Karin is a fiber goddess. She has spent well over sixty years mastering the mysteries of knitting, weaving, crocheting, dyeing, spinning, sewing and felting fiber. She can do it all. When focused on a project, she is attuned to the smallest flaw or discrepancy in her work. She is endlessly creative. However, she also struggles to find her phone and car keys.

Our grandson, Asher, is a four-year-old who, like his Oma, is interested in all sorts of things, usually all at the same time. He dumps out his toys, plays with them enthusiastically, and then promptly forgets them. Eventually, the floors in the house acquire a thin covering of playthings, some of which I sometimes step on. I find that irritating.

I try to pick things up and put them away, but apparently, I am not supposed to do that. Our grandson protests loudly if I move a toy from the place where he has put it. He wants, or needs, things to be in a certain location. So, after experiencing his wrath, I just leave stuff where it lays. My wife has worked out a deal with the boy for him to stow away all of his stuff at the end of the day in exchange for some time to watch mindless YouTube videos. I go to bed early before all this happens, and when I get up it looks like the cleanup fairies have done their work while I was in bed.

My wife has a one room for a craft studio. Actually, most of the rooms in the house are also unofficial craft studios. Her projects cover most of the horizontal surfaces in our home. To an objective observer, her primary craft studio looks like a grenade exploded in it. I have sometimes made forays into her sacred space, but not often. I avoid moving anything. If I do, without fail, she will ask what happened to the object that I set in a different place. It is best for me, when I get annoyed by the apparent disorder in her studio, that I simply close the door to the room and move on.

My wife and grandson are selectively organized. Maybe all people are. Trying to keep everything in order would make a person crazy, or crazier. I have also become selective about how tidy my world needs to be. Some things matter. Most don’t.

Comrades

June 8th, 2025

My son, Hans, called me a couple days ago. He lives down in Texas close to Madisonville, which means he doesn’t live near much of anything. Anyway, he started telling me about how he went into Brookshire Brothers to buy some groceries, and a couple old boys from the VFW were sitting at the front entrance of the store, taking donations and handing out little American flags.

Hans told me, “Dad, I wasn’t wearing anything that said ‘Army’ on it, but this old vet, probably from WWII, hands me a flag and says, ‘Thank you for your service.’ How did this old boy know I was a vet?”

I replied, “You just look like a vet. A person can tell.”

Hans went on, “The old guy asked me where I was sent. I told him, ‘Iraq’.”

(Note: Hans always pronounces “Iraq” as “Eye-rak”).

Hans continued, “The old guy nodded, and said, ‘I figured that’. “

Hans kept talking. He’s been thinking about maybe joining the American Legion someday. He said that the local post has a bar. That does not surprise me at all. I think that in a place like that a bar would be the very first thing to get set up.

Hans said, “I don’t need to talk with the other vets. I don’t really want to. It would be nice just to sit around with them, listen to music, and have a couple beers.”

That makes to total sense to me. Hans doesn’t want group therapy. He wants to be with his tribe. The point of joining a group like the American Legion or the VFW is to be with other people who “get it”. Hans, or any other vet, could mingle with the other members of the post and not need to explain their military experiences. In fact, it might be less painful for Hans if he didn’t talk about what happened to him in Iraq. He could trust that the other veterans would understand his history without him saying a word. If Hans did want to talk, he could trust that somebody at the post would be willing to listen and not judge him. He would be with his comrades.

Hans was in Iraq back in 2011. He’s had some time for the wounds to heal. He’s had some time for the trauma to fade. Maybe now is the time for him to reengage with other vets. I don’t know. I think it might help.