Kids!

Grandson, age three, sees my profile picture on Facebook.  It's a photo of my wife and me on our 25th anniversary.

"Is that you and Gramma?" he asks.

"Yes."

"Are you was getting married?" he follows up, employing the peculiar syntax of a three-year-old.

"No, we've been married for a long time."

"What?  Aren't you getting married?"  he still wonders.  Understandably, he's a little confused about how marriage works.  I mean, he's only three.

"Yes," I say, thinking this would end the line of questioning.

But he comes back with that time tested retort of all kids under the age of six, "Why?"

"Because," I say, thinking that now I've got him, he'll have to move on to a different subject, "she's my girl friend."

"Nuh-uh," he says, "she's mine."

Kids!

Apollo 11 and a Ten Year Old Boy

Mission Insignia for Apollo 11

Today is the 41st anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's landing on the moon.  I remember watching it on television.  It was after 10:30 p.m. when the astronauts exited the lunar module, the Eagle.  It wasn't a school night, because we were then on summer vacation.  Still, we weren't accustomed to staying up that late.  So, for me, that made the historic event even more special.  I remember Armstrong's words, when his left foot touched the moon's surface, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."  I was ten years old then.  I was in the fifth grade at Nations Ford Elementary School.  We lived in an apartment on Old Pineville Road in Charlotte, NC.

Those were heady days.  Nixon had just replaced Johnson as president.  Seemed like there was an Apollo flight every few days.  At some point during all those flights, but very near to the Apollo 11 flight, I experienced my first solar eclipse.  Space was about the most interesting thing there was.  (That, the North Carolina Tar Heels, the Green Bay Packers, and Arnold Palmer).  I recall telling my fifth grade teacher that I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up.  She replied that I'd have to be very good in math.  Hence, I think that was also the end of my aspirations for space. 

But I was always interested.  In second or third grade, I remember us watching the landing of one of the Mercury mission flights (maybe we watched more than one).  It was just what was done back in those days.  We stopped our work, the teacher wheeled the old Zenith black and white (perched atop a five-foot tall stand with rollers) to the front of the class, and we watched.  Gus Grissom, John Glenn, Alan Shepard, Armstrong, and Aldrin were names as familiar to me as Bart Starr and Johnny Unitas.

I vividly remember when Apollo 8 was orbiting the moon.  It was Christmas Eve, 1968.  I got a telescope for Christmas that year.  We were at Grandma Huffman's and I remember going out in the yard with my Uncle Ernest and trying to spot the spaceship.  I was able to view the moon through the lens, but I think I merely imagined seeing the spacecraft, if memory serves.  Besides, it was cold out.  Telescopes were cool, but watching the spaceflight inside, on TV, seemed to make more sense.

But, you know, I've never watched a Shuttle mission.  And I can't explain what happened to my interest in space.

Why?

Harvard University

Patrick Buchanan, whom I sometimes like and sometimes don't, writing for World Net Daily, laments the fact that the nation's elite colleges and universities discriminate against white conservative and Christians (the media's term for Catholics).  "Bias And Bigotry In Academia" blares the headline.  And, of course, all the latest research and studies are cited to substantiate these assertions as factual.

I don't disagree with Mr. Buchanan's facts; I simply ask why?  Why would conservatives, if they really are conservatives, and Christians, if they really are such, want to subject themselves and their money to four years in one of these, so called, elite institutions?  What's so conservative about that?  What's Christian about it?

Are these conservatives and Christians, so called, envious of a (name the institution) eduation?  Do they covet acceptance by the ruling class?  (I invite you to Angelo M. Codevilla's excellent piece on that subject, published in the July 2010 issues of The American Spectator).    If so, by what rights do they lay claim to the appellations of Christian and conservative?

The Little Man's Visit, Part I

Reading a Search and Find Book with Gramma

As an unplanned consequence of the birth of his little sister, Haydin is spending part of the summer with his Papa. Here's a recap of the first day of his visit.

The Little Man arrived in our dominions at about four AM, Wednesday and Gramma chose not to wake me. Instead, they went straight to bed and I didn't see the Little Man until supper time next day.  When I got home from work, I learned that he had sprayed gramma with the hose when they were at Minerva's watering her flowers. That was late afternoon. When I arrived, the two of them were in the kitchen, at the table, and it took me a minute to realize that something was wrong with Gramma's appearance. Her hair was all unkempt and sort of matted down, very much unlike her. It looked like she'd been in the shower with her clothes on. She told me to ask the Little Man what happened. But when I did, he just looked down and said, "I don't know." But, gradually, he owned up to what he'd done. Evidently, the two of them sprayed each other. They actually had a blast! Haydin thought it was way cool. And I would pay the price for this, later.

Do You Have a Weed Eater?

H/t to the editors.

Two Texas farmers, Jim and Bob, are sitting at their favorite bar, drinking beer. Jim turns to Bob and says, "You know, I'm tired of going through life without an education Tomorrow I think I'll go to the community college and sign up for some classes." Bob thinks it's a good idea, and the two leave.

The next day, Jim goes down to the college and meets the Dean of Admissions, who signs him up for the four basic classes: math, English, history, and Logic.

"Logic?" Jim says. "What's that?"

The dean says, "I'll give you an example. Do you own a weed eater?"

CNN: Pioneer in the Dumbing Down of News in America

In Websters forthcoming video dictionary of the English language, the following snippet will appear beside the word, idiot.

Postcards

My postcard box

For some reason today I went through this old shoebox I've kept for years full of postcards from my travels.  Once I got started, it was impossible to stop.  I went through them all, even reading those that had been through the mail.

Ruedesheim am Rhein

I haven't traveled much since retiring from the Army, but I've been to a lot of places.  The cards sort of document my travels.  In Germany, I visited places like Ruedesheim on the Rhine.  That was a place accessible on the Rhein cruises.  But I think we drove there more often.  The quintessential Rheinland-Pfalz town.  Just made for postcards.

The bridge house in Bad Kreuznach

Bad Kreuznach was the first German town I ever experienced.  I was stationed there in the early '80s, employed by the 232nd Signal Company (headquartered in Worms), 102nd Signal Battalion (headquartered in Frankfurt). My barracks were on the old hospital kaserne which, I understand, no longer exists.  I worked shifts in a Defense Information Systems Agency (back when it was called the Defense Communications Agency) communications station--a microwave/technical control facility--on the top of Cow Hill (Kuberg).  I remember climbing the antenna tower one New Years' Eve (highly unauthorized) to view the town's fireworks display.  Nearby locals were also shooting their own, and they seemed to be aiming for my antenna tower!  So I didn't stay up for as long as I would have liked.

About a year and a half after leaving BK, I returned to Germany, this time to Helmstedt, in Niedersachsen, and this time with a family.  We had one daughter when we got there and two when we left.  In Helmstedt, I worked at the Helmstedt Support Detachment, a unit of the 6/40th Armor Battalion, Berlin Brigade.  We traveled to so many places from Helmstedt--to Berlin, of course, and to nearby small towns, to Schoeningen, to Koenigslutter, to Celle and Wolfsburg, to Braunschweig and Hannover, and to the Harz Mountains.  We were at Helmstedt when, on the night of November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell and all the travel restrictions between East and West Germany were overcome by events.  Out town was flooded, absolutely flooded with East German cars, little light-blue Trabants, or "Trabbies" as they were called.  We traveled to Dusseldorf, to Frankfurt am Main, and to Heilbronn, down in Bavaria.  We rode the duty train from Helmstedt to Frankfurt and back.  From Frankfurt, I connected to Heilbronn to visit friends there.  We also visited Switzerland once, and Liechtenstein, and I made a trip or two to Rotterdam, in Holland.

Taukkunnen Kaserne in Worms

Within six months of the Berlin Wall falling, we learned that our little detachment would deactivate.  I was sent a few months later to Worms, about a six hour drive to the south.  I worked at the headquarters of the 5th Signal Command on the old Taukkunnen Kaserne.  We spent three years in Worms and did quite a bit of traveling.  Our longest trips were to Berchesgaden, deep in southern Bavaria, and to Austria, and to Holland. The German towns we visited included Karlsruhe, Mannheim, Speyer, all the little villages along the Rhein and the Deutche Weinstrasse, Kaiserslautern (or K-town, as the Americans called it), and Ramstein, and many others.

Dennis Prager's Thoughts on America and the Elections this November

Came across this on Facebook this morning.  Don't believe I've ever heard of this man. I have no idea what all he's said or done in the past, but this video is eight or nine minutes of crystal clear clarity on the issues of the day.

Brad Thor on Islam

Brad Thor's latest thriller

From the pages of his latest thriller, the following words captured my attention ...

".... To paraphrase Churchill, individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but Islam's fanatical frenzy is as dangerous in man as hydrophobia is in a dog. It's been over a hundred years since he spoke those words and yet there is still no more dangerous retrograde force in the world.


"And before you give me that tired argument that the fundamentalists have perverted the faith, let me be perfectly clear on something.  A religion must stand or fall on its own writings and holy books.  The fundamentalists haven't perverted anything.  In fact, Osama bin Laden is the best practicing Muslim out there.  He is practicing Islam exactly the way that violent nutcase Mohammed wanted it practiced.


"It's the world's peaceful Muslims, the majority of the followers of Islam, who have perverted the faith.  They have strayed.  If Mohammed came back today you can bet there'd be hell to pay.  He'd be lopping off heads left and right.  And he'd have a lot of help too because in case you haven't noticed, the largest killer of Muslims in the world isn't us filthy infidels, it's other Muslims.  Fundamentalist Islam is booming, if you'll pardon the pun."

This is a bit of a conversation between two of the book's characters, a Catholic priest who goes by the name of Padre Peio, and another they call "the troll," an underworld merchant known simply as Nicholas.  These are Nicholas' words.  I found them interesting because they run exactly 180 degrees counter to conventional wisdom.  They run counter to descriptions of Islam in Vince Flynn novels, too, which I find extremely interesting, being an avid reader of those.  Who to believe!

So, whom do you believe?

Krauthammer Bashes Obama's Infantile NASA Muslim Outreach Program

I love how Dr. K can cut to the essence of a matter in so few words.

Signal Center Change of Command

Brigadier General Jeffrey W. Foley
Commanding General,
US Army Signal Center and Fort Gordon
The Army's Chief of Signal

Brigadier General Alan R. Lynn
Commanding General
311th Signal Command (Theater)

Brigadier General Jeffrey W. Foley, the Army's Chief of Signal, will relinquish command of the US Army Signal Center and Fort Gordon later this month.  The official date of the change of command ceremony has not yet been announced.  A Farewell dinner for General Foley and his wife is planned for July 15th at the Gordon Club on Fort Gordon.  The dinner is a public event.  Tickets are $20 each and may be obtained from the Protocol Office in Signal Towers on Fort Gordon.

Foley's replacement will be Brigadier General Alan R. Lynn, currently the commander of the 311th Signal Command (Theater) headquartered at Fort Shafter, Hawaii.

Joint Publication 6-0: The Revision

Joint Publication (JP) 6-0 was released under Admiral Mullen's signature on 10 June 2010.  We doctrine insiders at Fort Gordon were able to access it via the Joint Staff's website today.  Its full title is, Joint Communications System.  The manual was last revised on 20 March 2006.  The big things about this version are that--

• It updates the roled of the US Strategic Command in operating and defending the Global Information Grid (GIG).
• It updates information on Cyberspace and the role of the US Cyber Command.
• It updates Network Operations (NETOPS).
• It updates GIG characteristics (and notes that the GIG is rapidly evolving).
• It discusses the "aerial layer."  (as opposed to the terrestrial and space domains).
• Corrects factual errors due to procedural and organizational changes.

RLM Communications, Inc.

This is the sign posted outside my cubicle
in Moran Hall on Fort Gordon

RLM Communications, Inc., is the company I've worked for since the 29th of September 2009. Founded in 2004, RLM is a Service-Disabled, Veteran-Owned business, certified by the Small Business Administration as an 8(a) small disadvantaged business. Headquartered in Spring Lake, NC, RLM employs a staff of more than 150 in ten states, Washington, DC, and in two foreign countries.

Near our headquarters, we serve clients in the Spring Lake vicinity and at Fort Bragg, like the 1st Theater Sustainment Command, the 18th Airborne Corps Mobilization/Deployment Cell (G-5 Mobile Support Element), and the US Army Special Operations Command.  Within the Military District of Washington, our clients include the Treasury Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and customers at Fort Detrick, MD and at Fort Belvoir, VA.  We also have a number of clients at the US Army Signal Center and Fort Gordon, GA and at the Charleston, SC branch of the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center.

Gabriel's Oboe

On James 1:19

Some years back, in a little church we were attending at the time, I learned something.  It was a Sunday evening service, typical of so many, and we came at length to the point in the service where it was time for the preaching.  A text was taken--Hebrews 5:8, if my notes are to be believed, "Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the tings which he suffered:"  But no sermon followed.  My, what an occasion it would have been to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ using that text as an opening.  But instead, it what had become a sad pattern over a stretch of weeks, the pastor asked each member of the congregation to give his or her own comments upon the verse.  And so we went around the room and heard this silly notion and that, this half opinion, and that educated guess.  We went home unedified.  We almost always went home that way.

Yes, I Question Their Patriotism!

The Birth of Old Glory by Edward Percy Moran (c. 1917),
depicting the presentation by Betsy Ross of the first
American flag to George Washington

If this were Bill O-Reilly's blog, Charles Skidmore, the principal of Arlington High School in Massachussetts, and most of the teachers on his staff, would be labelled pin heads. 

You see, Mr. Skidmore presides over a school that had, until recently, abolished US flags from its classrooms, and still--over the protests of some of its students--will not allow the Pledge of Allegiance to be recited within its confines.

Fox News has a story on this.  One of the students (who apparently has more understanding than all his teachers) has been fighting to overcome the extreme radical leftism that has not only banned the recitation of the Pledge, but has also banished US flags from classrooms.  Seems he won the battle over flags in the classrooms was defeated on the other front.

The Fox News article says--

The Arlington, Mass., school committee has rejected the 17-year-old's request to allow students to voluntarily recite the Pledge of Allegiance, because some educators are concerned that it would be hard to find teachers willing to recite it, according to a report in the Arlington Patch.  (Emphasis mine).

Interestingly, one notes that students of Arlington High School are obligated to perform 40 hours of community service before receiving their diplomas.  Well, they could all do double that and it still would not overcome the collossal disservice that Mr. Skidmore and associates have wrought in that little corner of the northeast and in the hearts and minds of those pupils.

Pin heads, indeed.

Should Supreme Court Nominees be Waterboarded?

It is, of course, a facetious suggestion.  But waterboarding gets results and everyone knows it.  In times of great peril, when the suspect is not cooperating, this enhanced interrogation technique has been proven to get 'em talking. 

Sotomayor and Kagan are just the latest in a long line of suspects (nominees to the nation's highest court) insulting the nation's intelligence by stonewalling, obfuscating, heming and hawing, and otherwise being less than forthright.  Senators should ask themselves, which is the greater risk:  embarrassing the nominee, perhaps hurting his/her pride, with 15 seconds under the spigot, or confirming the appointment of a leftist ideologue who could potentially afflict the nation for the next 25 years?

Of course, to most senators, the greatest risk of all would be having to actually make a hard decision.