Memorial Day.

Memorial Day:

He's gone where the woodbine twineth. He's been called to higher service. He's paid the ultimate price. Given the ultimate sacrifice. Stopped a packet. Bought one. Bought a Farm. Mustered to Fiddler's Green. Sleeping with the angels. "Another Marine reporting in. They say they let 'em in, for they've already served their time in Hell. "
Euphamisms for killed in action. Died because there was a war on, and men (and increasingly women) must die in battle. This day used to be a day for somber reflection and for visiting the graves of your fallen family and friends, and for cleaning them up and polishing the brass. Now, it's mostly just Barbeques, Beer and Auto Racing. There's nothing wrong with those things, so long as we all remember those whose gruesome, horrible death made it possible. So tip one back for the boys of the Argonne, Tarawa, Mosul, Swat valley and other less familiar places. Take a moment to remember the guys who're On Eternal Patrol. Don't just remember why they went, and why they died, but How they died. Because it is only by remembering the horrors of war that we impell ourselves to limit the times we make war. Yes, war is sometimes necessary. But by the blood of those who won't ever be coming back, please only make war when you have to.

Okay. enough preaching. Go back to your sports and beer. You earned it.

The Passing of a Strategic Thinker.

I did not personally know Zbigniew Brzezinski, but I witnessed his work. 

 

 Brzezinski's name will always be tied in my mind with Henry Kissinger, who remains a public figure. In the early and mid seventies, those two names were on everyone's lips, like Damon and Pythias. I did not and do not agree with Kissinger's "Realpolitik" idea of dealing with whoever we needed to deal with in order to achieve some supposedly desirable end. However, this is not about my disagreements with Kissinger.This is about the man who was President Carter's national security advisor, and who along the way managed to have an illustrious academic career. Personally, I disagreed with many of Brzezinski's ideas, but he was a man of intellect and learning, who had grown up as a young boy seeing the rise of the Nazis. Brzezinski was a man of reason in a time where men of reason were rare. I offer my condolences to his family and friends.