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Thoughts from a Veteran
I’m a veteran. I was in the U.S. Army artillery, stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C. in 1962 during the period of the so-called Cuban Missile Crisis. My 155 mm howitzer battalion personnel and equipment were boarded and loaded onto aircraft several times during that period of alert in anticipation of flying to and landing in Cuba, if required. The 82nd Airborne and Special Forces would have secured a landing field for that to happen. That is the closest I came to any combat situation.
I salute all U.S. veterans today, and a special acknowledgement to those who gave their lives.
We have something of a political and governing crisis today in the United States. The last Presidential election campaign was a bleak period in my mind. I have never been a supporter of big government and I was especially not happy with the Obama presidency and his push to merge the United States into one with the global community. I see the United States under the U.S. Constitution and it’s close connection to the Declaration of Independence as the sole country on the earth that recognizes and has provisions to protect the rights of individuals. I saw the impending likely election of Hillary Clinton as possibly foreclosing any chance to restore our federal republic as it was meant to be.
Then, Donald Trump won the election. During the campaign, I was initially supporting another candidate. I became what I called a reluctant supporter of Donald Trump when it became clear he was going to be the Republican nominee. This was forced on me because I viewed a Hillary Clinton Presidency as being the end of our republic as given to us by the Founders.
Now, after two years of Trump’s Presidency, I am pleased with his actions as POTUS, if not always with his words and personal behaviors. He stands in my mind as perhaps our last opportunity to begin a restoration of our republic to its proper state. The mid-term elections have certainly stirred the pot and emboldened the Left with many ideas for acts that they see as making the country more socialist with bigger and more influential federal government. Some of those efforts will include attempts to undermine Trump’s Presidency. Until I can see conclusive proof that Trump has committed acts that merit impeachment, I will support him as POTUS.
Even if nothing happens to disrupt Trump’s Presidency, the issue of which direction our republic is going is still in the throes of a major dispute between those who want our republic to be sustained as intended by the Founders and those who want to join the socialist world community.
I am thankful that we have this opportunity, through the Trump Presidency, to try to restore our republic.
Published in Politics
Amen to that.
Thanks for your post and your service. My Dad knew a man who was on one of the helicopters verifying that the Soviet ships were removing the missiles from Cuba. They sent down gifts (it may have been watches) by rope to the Soviet sailors and received back gifts from them. While the diplomats were dealing with world peace, the grunts were bartering with the other side.
It’s like the unofficial Christmas cease-fire in WWI.
Thank you for your service and describing the circumstances back then. I was a little and trained to duck and cover under my desk. I now live in FL – Cuba is 90 miles off our coast. If it weren’t for the courage of certain presidents, like Kennedy, and our troops like you, can you imagine the possible outcome?
You describe my sentiments about Trump to the tee. I was a Cruz supporter. Trump was a no vote to Hillary. I was sure she had it in the bag, and again, can you imagine where we’d be today? His boldness and courage is like Kennedy back then, both look evil in the eye and don’t blink first. He is the right person for these times. History won’t remember one tweet, but they’ll remember the good over evil (and I believe a lot of evil was allowed to get a foothold during the last administration) by the we’ve seen so far.
I remember the Duck and Cover drills, and the cartoon turtle who’d go inside his shell when the sirens sounded. But even though I was 9 years old, I knew that in a nuclear blast, ducking and covering would do me about as much good as an umbrella in a hurricane.
Yes, this is the time for the work of restoring the republic. But that work is a generational project & will therefore depend on a willingness to do long-term things, to live with the lack of quick results, & to put some faith in future generations, to build institutions that will deal with them. Elections are, unfortunately, short-term. They are, of course, necessary, irreplaceable. But they are simply insufficient. We need a persuasive long-term vision–without it, people will give up morally & think that every election is a “can’t lose” event, so that nothing else will matter. Even elections need to be understood in terms of the past over which they organize a contest & the future they make possible–they belong properly to the long history & drama of America. People need to be part of that to understand themselves.
You remind me of something else. I was the Chief Disbursing Officer at the Treasury Department from 1983-1989. This was under President Reagan and his policy was that we had to win in a nuclear confrontation so we had classified government drills to practice reinstituting essential government operations following a nuclear attack. I was responsible for directing operations that would restore government payments capability. There were many doubts about this whole idea and many thoughts about how we could leave our families in those circumstances.
It’s a sobering thing to face. Being in fifth grade during the Cuban Missile Crisis and understanding what might happen was very scary.
Titus – this could be a post – too much wisdom for your young years!
And I’m not sure very much can be accomplished without some significant change in our approach to public and higher education. That’s where we need to push right away.
Yeah, starting new institutions & defending the ones already in place is important. There’s lots of good stuff done in charter schools. That could be helped. I was pretty pleased–when I was in Phoenix, I saw one of the Great Hearts schools. They seem to be doing the kind of work educating kids that conservatives like. Arizona seems to be doing especially well when it comes to the quality of charters… Hillsdale, I think, is involved with Great Hearts, too–or maybe with other schools. They do help people start schools, at any rate.
Higher education is much harder to do–conservatives tend to avoid institution building on such a scale.
But public-spirited people could help reform some community colleges & make them more serious academically & more serious about helping kids get vocational training at once. That would be a great good…
Beyond that, there’s the culture, much of which seems to have been abandoned by conservatives. Lots to say there–but I prefer trying to do what I can by way of curatorial work. With luck & help, I’ll be able to offer something worthwhile.
The 82nd Airborne Division was always on some level of alert status in the Cold War. That is, there was always a brigade poised to jump into whatever emergency the President dialed 911 on.
I guess I was in the fifth or sixth grade during the crisis, but what Mrs. Russell thought of my homework was way more important to me than some far off missile crisis.
My sisters and I were terrified all the time. That’s what I get for watching the news.
I grew up 40 miles from Manhattan. At the time I was in 5th grade and we had a field trip planned to the United Nations that week. The day before the trip our teacher (whom we loved) called us together and said something along the lines of, “some of your parents are concerned about us going to New York, but I told them if anything bad happens it won’t matter where we are, so we are going!” And we did. Not sure she could get away with that today.
I can remember trying to comfort my younger (3rd grade) sister after school one day when the teacher had been talking about The Bomb and mushroom clouds etc. We lived every day knowing that the Russians might be here any day. These Democrats of today and their “Russia! Russia!” stuff, they make me laugh.