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Security So Tight at the G20 Even a Gnat Couldn’t Get In … Oh, Wait
So yesterday, the heads of the Group of 20 leading world economies arrived in the resort city of Antalya, in Turkey, for a two-day summit. The hotels housing the attendees were separated from the rest of the neighborhood by thousands of barricades. Only accredited visitors were given access to the area. The governor of Antalya, Muammer Türker, proudly announced they’d installed more than 350 new security cameras, and had also inaugurated license plate and facial recognition systems to prevent unauthorized access. The Coast Guard was deployed off the coast of Antalya to interdict threats from sea. Officials were considering establishing a no-fly zone over the area. Some 12,000 police and soldiers were deployed, and the Turkish military promised ’round-the-clock air defences. Presidential spokesperson İbrahim Kalın, who is coordinating the summit, affirmed that security was at its highest level:
“As some 35 or 36 delegations, including the world’s 20 most prominent countries, as well as heads of state, will be at the summit, we don’t see any security weakness.”
My father, who died in his seventies back in 1996, served during most of the Second World War aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Taney, now one of the half dozen ships preserved as floating museums in Baltimore Harbor. I only asked him about the War a few times. He just didn’t like to talk about it. He told a few funny stories readily enough — once when the Taney was in port in San Diego, he and a shipmate hopped from the deck onto the dock, then strolled off to spend the day enjoying themselves, but when they returned that evening they found that the tide had come in, lifting the deck far above their heads, and the only way they could get back aboard was by hauling themselves up the ratlines. But talk about combat? The warfare part of the War? All I ever got out of him was a story about Okinawa.
One story, and that was about it.
There’s no shortage of great war movies, but great films about veterans are a rarer breed. About three or four years ago, I was listening to the Ricochet podcast when Rob recommended The Best Years of Our Lives. I knew of it — “That’s the one with the guy who lost his hands, right?” — but had never seen it. I threw it on my Netflix queue and forgot about it for a few weeks before I decided to give it a whirl.
In 2009, my wife was invited to a function in Washington, DC. Our local library had won a prestigious national award and, as treasurer of one of the library’s most popular community programs, she was asked to attend. When she arrived, she found herself seated at a table with an elderly gentleman in his mid-80’s. Raised on a dairy farm in West Virginia, he had lived quite a life. He had worked odd jobs and drove both trucks and a taxi for a living before he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps. He was working on a project through them in Montana on December 7, 1941.
A few more thoughts on the 
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of Ricochet! I thought I’d take you on a whirlwind tour of the international news to get your day off to an invigorating start.
Yesterday, Hillary Clinton 
Osama Bin Laden said, “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, they will naturally want to side with the strong horse.” Understanding that fact of human nature and geopolitics, Vladimir Putin galloped into Syria to show the Middle East that Russia rides high while the US flees from the world stage.