According to the link at the top of this blog post, my Commander-In-Chief said the terrorist prison at Guantánamo was going to be closed 3 weeks ago, at the latest. ... According to an Executive Order by the President.

Guess what?

It's still open.

AND, the person who crafted this Executive Order has been fired by the White House.

You know what else, all the wiretaps on international calls to terrorists, the so-called "domestic spying" efforts of the government are, still, in place, too.

Let's all recite from the President's acceptance speech: "Yes, We Can." ... do all the same political crap over and over again.

"Hope and Change"

Let's all "Hope" that my Commander-in-Chief, finally, understands that "Change" does not refer to what your kid has in a piggy bank.

A Republican won the "Kennedy" Senate seat. After all these years, it makes you think.

I thought about the three guns I own, the various firearms I have used in over 20 years in the military, and, in that regards, my year in Iraq, with an M-16 within arm's reach, most of the time. ... the ratio of deaths those firearms and I have caused vs. Ted Kennedy and his car.

After lots of thought and research, I decided that the only thing appropriate to share with you all is the following:

"Mary Jo Kopechene was not available for comment."

Before anyone gets up in arms, I am NOT going to Korea, again.

It's the unifying idea for this post.

Just bear with me. I am going to do things the way I like. Lay out all the "puzzle pieces", and, then, put them together.

I have three people in my life, that I care about, deeply, that are facing some serious health issues.

One has brain cancer. ... Don't know how severe, yet.

One has stage IVb cervical cancer, that has migrated elsewhere. The doctors have given her a year to live.

The other ... well, I am concerned for her well being, emotionally, and physically, but, it appears, she is doing okay, for the moment.

On one hand, I am scared for all three of my friends.

On the other ... well, let me tell you my first story of this post.

In the middle of the 80's, my mother's only sibling, my Aunt Melba, developed bone cancer. The prognosis was not good. In fact, it was awful. She was given about a year to live. She fought it for 4 years. The doctor's only explanation for why she died at that moment was that she had fought as long as she could, and there was no more fight left in her. It was only when she was too tired, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, that she died ... on an operating table, during an operation she had asked for. When she made the decision to have the operation, she still had a "fight" left in her. It was just too much, given everything else.

So, I am not giving up on any of my three friends. I believe that all of them will be here with us as long as they choose to be. When the fight to be here with us becomes too much for them, then ...

Well, that leads me to the next story.

It was April of 2002, I forget the exact day.

I was in the standard Army gathering of all the personnel in my unit that starts each work day (the "morning formation", for you Army people).

My First Sergeant tells the unit that he has just gotten off the phone with the person responsible for assigning personnel to the various Army Bands around the world, takes a breath, and then says: "Sergeant Robertson, I need to talk to you, in my office, after this formation."

I turn to the person next to me, and say: "I'm going to Korea." She looks at me like I am crazy.

So, after formation is over, I walk up to the First Sergeant's office. I knock on the door. He tells me to come in and shut the door. I shut the door behind me, and ask: "So, when am I going to Korea?"

He does a double-take ... thinks for a second, and says: "June." He and I discuss my assignment after Korea, and I leave. I tell the person that I had stood next to in formation that I was going to Korea, and she was amazed. It was like I was "The Amazing Kreskin" to her.

I go home, and tell Amy. (At this point, we did not have cell phones.)

Fast forward to near the end of May of that year. (About 30 days out from me going to Korea, without Amy, for a 12 month tour.)

Everything that happened that night was, according to her, "The Last Time We Would": have dinner together, pet the dogs, watch TV, or a DVD together ... or ... whatever. And each of those things brought on tears.

This was about the fifth night, in a row, that this was going on, and I was not going to leave for another 30 days.

So, being the reasonable person I am, I blew up.

My yelling, stomping fit ended with: "I am not leaving for Korea for 30 days! Can we not act like EVERY night we have left together is the LAST night we have together? ... I can't live this way for another month! ... Don't send me to Korea, before I get sent there."

Amy, being her, thought about that for a bit, and said, basically, "Yeah, okay."

So, (to bring the puzzle pieces together), until there is an obituary in the paper, a funeral notice from a funeral home, or whatever, my friends are fighting the good fight ... and I am going to be a "cheerleader" for them.

It's appropriate to mourn for the dead.

It's kind of sick to mourn for the living.

To complete the metaphor, they haven't "gone to Korea", yet. So, don't push them out the door, before their assigned report date.

Labels: cancer, death, Korea, mourning

The year is 1984.

I am back at Abilene Christian University (ACU).

I had spent the summer of 1983 there, between my Junior and Senior years of High School, as a college freshman. ACU had a "Junior Scholar" program, where someone takes summer classes as a new freshman, between their last two years of High School. I had racked up 15 semester hours between that summer, and advanced academic credits from test scores.

I lived in Edwards dorm. Yes, I lived in "The Zoo". I had a roommate that drove me nuts. On a good day, I could have a coherent single thought in my room. On a bad day, the noise was enough to drive me up a wall.

For instance, one Sunday morning, I had been up until 5 studying. I was trying to sleep at 8 AM. (The floor had communal bathrooms, with single shower stalls. Two per floor, on that wing.) At 8:30, the guy in the room next to the door to the bathroom started blasting Bon Jovi's "Little Runaway" as loud as his 5 watt stereo could play. It woke me up, and I was not happy about it.

I had a 20 watt stereo, with speakers that had a 50 watt limit, meaning, I could crank my stereo to "11" with no distortion.

So, after 3 and a half hours of sleep on a Sunday, I was awake, and not happy about it. I "returned fire". I put Judas Priest's "Screaming for Vengeance" in the stereo, and cranked it up to 9. I had never turned it above 7 before, and that was DEAFENING, in my room. I walked to the bathroom, the room next to the Bon Jovi fan, and got in the shower. I could make out the lyrics and the guitar solos over the shower.

I finished my shower, walked back to my room, and shut down my stereo. It was quiet on the hall for the rest of the morning. It was nice.

So, I had to get away from where I lived, on a regular basis.

I went to the Student Center, just like I had the summer of '83. Hung out on those weird kind of couch things near the post office ... in front of that bulletin board.

It was one of "those" days, early in the fall of 1984.

I had checked my mail, and read everything of interest on the bulletin board. So, I laid back on one of those semi-couch things.

I wasn't there to get away from people. I was in the "Student Center"! I was there to get away from the insanity. Interaction was great, but sane interaction was what I was looking for.

So, there I am.

Most of the friends I had made the year before were either graduates, or they lived off campus, and I didn't know where. It was 1984, there was no Internet, and no cell phones.

So, there I am.

A person plops down on the couch-thing a few feet away, and starts talking to me. It's a girl.

I have a high school cheerleader girl-friend, 800 miles away. The girl talking to me is not "my type", at all, but she is sweet, and she is fun. Like me, she is a long way away from home, she is not from Texas. She is fun to talk to. It's the kind of interaction that I am looking for.

Over the next few months, serendipitiously, we did this again, and again. We talked about nothing, and everything. We helped maintain each other's sanity.

Her name was Cara.

At a time where I had no family around, Cara became the sister I always wanted.

A lot happened to deepen this relationship over the next few years, but that is the foundation.

Labels: Abilene Christian University