The Ambivalence of World Opinion

I've just read an article from Associated Press that's been posted on Yahoo! News, Katrina Prompts Global Support for Victims. Despite that hopeful title, not everyone in the world is saddened by what happened or even wants to help.

The article quotes "Islamist extremists" as being extremely happy at "America's misfortune." Some have given Katrina the military rank of private, the lowest possible rank, and declared that "...Katrina had joined the global jihad, or holy war." Of course, these Islamist extremists are known for their humanitarian gestures (he remarks ironically).

A Vienna Internet newspaper, Der Standard, apparently has been having a rousing chat room discussion about "whether a rich country like the United States needed such aid." And the Dutch, who are experts at living below sea level, have chided the US and New Orleans for not having adopted a sea wall system similar to theirs for protecting the city.

The Dutch have a point. We Americans are much better at realizing what we should have done after the fact than we are at being proactive. And when we are proactive (see Iraq war) we have this unfortunate tendency to be wrong.

I suppose we should have blamed the tsunami victims for their plight, too. We Americans, though, were too busy rushing aid there. (Oh, we did get blamed for not warning them soon enough that the tsunami was coming.)

Folks, if you wonder why Americans are rude, crude, and arrogant, it seems to me that even when we've been humbled there are plenty of people waiting around to kick us when we're down.

That said, I should make equal note of the fact that the Queen of Great Britain, the President of France, the Chancellor of Germany, and the Pope have all expressed their sorrow and concern. That is decent of them. Even Venezuela, with whom we have strained relations at the moment, has offered not only its condolences but also food and fuel aid "if asked." (It would be good of us to ask, if only in the name of easing tensions between us.)

Happy Birthday to Me!

Yes, it's my birthday today. I'm 56. It hardly seems like anything special. My wife and I celebrated, such as it was, last night. I thought I would be playing golf this evening, but the remnants of Katrina gave us around 3 inches of rain between yesterday morning and this morning when the storm finally moved out to the Northeast.

I've really got nothing to complain about though. We have power and potable water and food. Our house is in good shape, and we're living there rather than in some shelter like those folks along the Gulf and from New Orleans. I have everything; they have nothing at the moment, and they have no idea when they'll have anything or what they'll have. In fact, they know nothing important at the moment, except that they're alive. We share that in common: we know nothing of the future but that we're alive at this moment, though my uncertainty is masked by the sense that I have all of my stuff and all of my friends and family. Some of them don't even have that.

Those poor people in the South occupy my thoughts today. It's hard for me to focus on anything else. The tasks they face are monumental; somehow they have to rebuild their lives. I have only to continue on as I am now. Of course, should disaster strike me, I would have to deal with it, too. But since I don't know my future, I go blithely on expecting it to be much like my present.

P. S. Thanks for the birthday wishes. I hadn't posted with that in mind, but it's nice to hear nonetheless...Tom

More Katrina

We the people of the United States of America may be in deep doo-doo. If you check out ABC News Online--that's the US television network--you'll learn that New Orleans, Louisiana (aka NOLA) may be the most important port in the US. It is our largest port. We depend on it not only for oil shipments and refining but also for imported steel and as the primary port from which we export grain and other foodstuffs from America's heartland.

NOLA itself is pretty well destroyed. All of the city is underwater now. A report I saw indicated that the US Army Corp of Engineers--the primary Civil Engineering agency in the US--says it will take at least a month to pump all of the water out of NOLA, and that's after they fix the breeches in the levies that are still pouring water into NOLA from the nearby freshwater lake.

In addition to rescuing those still trapped, officials are trying to evacuate the remaining people from the city. There is simply no place for these people to live, nothing to live on. The water supply is contaminated, power is gone, housing is either gone or going. Right now for all intents and purposes, New Orleans is no more. All that remains are its ruins.

But don't you worry. NOLA will rise from the flood waters. Its heritage is too rich, its roots are too deep. It will be rebuilt.

In the mean time, things may be tough for the American economy and we the people. Right now, we're all citizens of the Gulf Coast and New Orleans.

Katrina, Camille, Al, & Dad

Since we invaded Iraq, I have had this feeling that my life has gone into reruns. It feels like the things that happened 30 to 40 years ago are repeating themselves. In particular, Iraq has felt and continues to feel like Vietnam; the only difference I see is that we can mark with date certain when we got involved in Iraq (March 19, 2003) while we sort of slid into Vietnam piecemeal.

Now comes Katrina, hitting the same areas that Camille hit 36 years ago next week, and my sense of deja vu deepens.

God how I remember Camille. The rains starting out like any other rain storm and then building in intensity, and the wind coming in and building, and the whole thing just continuing to build and build in gradually increasing ferocity until a young man of twenty from Indiana thinks that it can't get any worse. But it does.

And the aftermath of such a storm is so incredible. Nothing is unaffected. You feel very lucky if any landmarks survive at all. Everywhere is destruction. Roads disappear. They're not just cut here and there; they completely disappear under tons of sand and debris. Trash is everywhere, only it wasn't trash before the storm, but the storm has left everything unrecognizable. And there are the dead either caught unawares by winds and waves they could not imagine or didn't expect or people foolish enough to think they can "ride it out" only to learn, too late, that they can't ride this one out.

It will be years restoring the Gulf Coast as it was years restoring it from Camille. Camille and Katrina: two ill-tempered ladies of the Gulf.

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We buried Al Fletcher at Arlington National Cemetery last Thursday, August 25th. Fifty family and friends turned out to see his earthly remains into their final resting place. The military handled things with appropriate pomp and dignity. Al had a procession through Arlington to the grave site, an honor guard to take him to the plot and fold the flag and give it to his family, a 21-gun salute, and a buglar playing Taps one last time.

Then we were off to a reception where we could all meet one another, many of us meeting for the first time. Al's family from South Carolina and the DC area mingled with people from Indianapolis, Rochester New York, Milwaukee, Columbus Ohio, and other points on the map. We shared stories and remembrances of Al. We shared food and fellowship. We gathered one final time to honor Al's life and love.

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Got some good news. My father is feeling much better. When he fell a couple of months ago, he apparently did some damage to his spine. Yesterday morning, he had a procedure to alleviate that pain, and as of last night it worked so well that he was talking on the phone (and making sense) and aware of the world around him.

Obviously, he was in a lot more pain than he would tell us. I suspect that his brain is sufficiently affected by his cancer that he couldn't adequately tell us about the pain. In the moment, he would say that his back was hurting, that is in the moment when he was being moved, and his back was hurting. Other than that, though, he wouldn't be able to tell that his back was hurting. I suspect he just couldn't make the connection.

So that's the news for now. He sounds like he could last for a few weeks or months yet. Or maybe this is the last flaring of the real man before the disease claims him finally. Whatever will be, will be.

BTK and Me

Have you ever wondered what the difference is between a serial killer and an ordinary person? As I look at this guy who has confessed to being the BTK killer, I can't help but wonder at his ordinariness. He held jobs. He went to church; in fact he was a lay leader at his church and was considered a pillar of his church community. He lived in an ordinary house in an ordinary middle-American neighborhood, and by all accounts he lived an ordinary American life; except he had this fetish about strangling young, pretty women.

So, why do I title this piece "BTK and Me?" Well, I look at him, and I have to ask myself how we are different? He was in the Air Force about the same time I was, though as far as I know our paths never crossed. The Air Force is a big operation. But in all other respects, we have a lot in common. We even share some tenuous similarities in sexual fantasies, though I must admit I never wanted to do anyone any harm, and I never wanted to strangle anyone, not really.

The only difference I can see, and it is quite significant, is that he didn't see these other people as human beings, and that is something I'm always conscious of. I can kill, of that I have no doubt. Yet I cannot imagine in my wildest moments doing the things he has done to men, women, and children. Especially children.

I have to take it further and say that I really don't understand jealous spouses killing their partners in a fit of rage. Nor do I understand plotting to kill someone, goading a lover into killing one's partner, or hiring someone to do it. I just don't get why people in those situations don't just walk away. Maybe I just haven't been goaded enough or felt betrayed enough or felt desperate enough.

Yet I see those crimes as somehow different from BTK's crimes. BTK's crimes are truly crimes against humanity in general; spousal violence, which is a terrible and growing problem in its own right, is more specific. The people involved don't want to kill just anybody or randomly. BTK picked his victims relatively randomly, and his killings had no greater purpose than to satisfy some sort of psycho-sexual hunger he felt and did not feel he could satisfy in any other way.

Maybe there's really no difference between a BTK and a wife-murderer or a husband-murderer. Both have lost sight of the humanity of the other. Neither has to kill to survive. (I put the battered spouse killing a partner in a different category; there I can argue that survival is at stake.)

Sometimes I think the only differences between me and someone like BTK is that I won't let myself imagine to the extent he did, so I won't let myself objectify others to the extent he did.

I just don't think that makes me somehow a better person than he is. I know there is a killing beast in me, and I believe there is a killing beast in all human beings. The only difference I see is that he let his out while most of us keep ours under tight control.

An Open Letter to Cindy Sheehan

Dear Mrs. Sheehan,

I am a Vietnam Veteran, and I feel the pain you feel at the loss of your son in Iraq. I feel the hurt and confusion. I feel the anger at a life that seems to have been senselessly wasted by an unfeeling government.

It's hard to understand how this could have happened to your son. It's hard to understand how our leaders were misled--either by bad intelligence or by their own preconceptions--into this mess that has become the war in Iraq. It's hard to understand what good can come out of this war now, as all of its pretenses are stripped away by facts on the ground.

Your son's war seems to me to be a lot like my own war in Vietnam. The population in country seems at best indifferent to our presence and aid and at worst hostile. In such a situation it is hard to separate friend from foe. And it's hard for us back here to make sense of it all. So we mourn, we cry, we rage, and we plead. And nothing seems to matter.

No, ma'am, I do not know the pain of losing a son to war, this one or any other. My son is safely here suffering only the hazards of normal life in America and so far navigating them safely. But I have seen pain like yours on dozens of faces over the years, and there truly are no words I can offer that will ease that pain. Nor should I, or anyone else, try. It is supposed to hurt when a loved one dies. It is supposed to hurt when a son or daughter dies. That is part of our living.

I pray to God for your comforting, strength, and spiritual healing at this time. And I pray that God does not allow the troops to come home from Iraq too soon. I fear that to do that will make your son's death as meaningless as the deaths of 58,000 or my brothers in Vietnam.

You see, Mrs. Sheehan, I believe that one of the reasons your son had to be in Iraq is that 30 years of US policy has emboldened others to believe that if they just hang in long enough they can defeat us, not with power but with persistence, not by delivering a knockout blow but by nibbling at our resolve until we leave in disgust, and leave a job half finished.

We bungled our way through Vietnam for a dozen or so years and then left with a black eye and a bloody nose but hardly defeated physically as much as we were defeated spiritually. And in Lebanon under President Reagan we took a hit to the solar plexus when over 200 Marines were killed by a suicide truck bomb, and we pulled out giving the terrorists a victory by default. We did it again in Somalia after the "Blackhawk Down" incident. And the "war" in Bosnia was viewed by our enemies as a joke.

They say now that America is to mentally weak to stay the course. They say we can stand to shed anybodies blood but our own, that we lack the national will to see a conflict to the end. And if we pull out of Iraq prematurely, we will have confirmed that belief once more in their eyes.

I did not fully support this war when we started it. I felt that at best our government acted with undue haste against a dubious threat for reasons they never fully made clear to us. Subsequent events and finding since March 19, 2003 have more than justified my early concern. Iraq had no WMD worthy of the name, no WMD program, and no realistic hopes of restarting the one we tore down after the first Gulf War. In my view, our current administration was at best incompetent and at worst criminally negligent.

Regrettably, when the 2004 election came around, my view was in the minority. And though now the polls indicate the majority of Americans are suffering from a kind of "buyer's remorse" at their choice of a President who cannot admit mistakes or fix the things he has broken, he will remain President, God willing, until his term ends. We're stuck with him just as we're stuck with this war, Mrs. Sheehan.

We must vow that your son's death not be in vain, ma'am. And the only way I see to do that is to stay the course until we have hunted down the last of the terrorists and their leaders. We must see an end to this in which not only we declare victory but we are seen by our enemies to have won. For your son's sake and for the sake of all the fallen sons and daughters in this war, we must see it to the end. Otherwise, we risk even more of our sons and daughters against a foe who doesn't care who he kills or maims in pursuit of his desire for power.

It is not easy for me to say all of this to you, and I accept that you may not care to listen. Your pain is great, as is your obvious love for your son. In his name and for his honor, accept that this war must proceed to a conclusion and that we must prevail. It is now our only hope.

Respectfully,
Tom Murrell
Vietnam Veteran, 1971-72

Reflections on Death

I started writing an entry a week ago Monday, but I never finished it. It was about the passing of Peter Jennings and how, now that he has died, he will be linked in my mind with the deaths of my father and Al Fletcher. I didn't finish it because I got busy with other things, much of it revolving around watching the ABC specials on Peter's life and death.

Al Fletcher died Thursday morning, and I've kept myself otherwise engaged so that I wouldn't have to write about it. I really don't know what else to say. I went with Al to a special Native American sweat lodge that lasted four days (and four very hot sweats). That's how much Al wanted to live. That's how much I wanted Al to live. The medicine man felt sure Al had gotten powerful healing and would live for several more years. It didn't happen that way. Al lived about two more months.

Why have I waited so long? Why do I feel so little at the death of Al Fletcher when I cried at the news of Peter Jennings' death? (I think that to answer the second part, never under estimate the power of television to manipulate our emotions.)

I seem to keep all death at some sort of remove from myself. The first close death I remember was of my paternal stepgrandfather, Grandpa Jim. He was, by all the accounts I've had, the best of my grandmother's husbands, and he was a good grandfather to me. He taught me things, he took me places, he helped me get a job one summer. His death came suddenly in 1969 while I was at Keesler AFB, Mississippi waiting to get into Radio Operations Tech. School. School had been delayed because of Hurricane Camille, and my First Sergeant thought I could get emergency leave. It turned out I could not because he was not "immediate family." Though I was disappointed at not getting the leave, I did not cry or much mourn his passing.

The next death was my paternal grandmother. She died while I was in Vietnam. She had been the grandmother I had seen the most in my life, as she was the one who lived in Indianapolis. I had spent a lot of time with her, and she had spent a lot of time with the family. The Army people at my little compound in Vietnam were sure I could get emergency leave and go home. I think they were a little stunned when I decided against it.

I hadn't been in country that long, and even under the best of circumstances, the trip there and back would be expensive. Finally, after writing my father and thinking and praying, I decided not to go. The biggest thing that decided me was that I wasn't really upset with her death. I didn't cry. I haven't yet. I should also say that the last time I saw her was when my then-wife and I took her four-month old grandson for her to see for the first, and what turned out to be the last, time. Grandma was living in a cheap motel with some man she had met in a bar and married. She was drinking again and was skinny as a rail. I realized then that I would not see her alive again.

I was more sad about that than her dying. Alcoholism runs in my family. Not only was she an alcoholic, so is my Dad, and I suspect a couple of my siblings are, too. Perhaps being the child of an alcoholic makes me less prone to emotional attachments. I don't know.

My mother died in March 2001 after a lengthy illness and nearly two weeks in a terminal coma. I didn't cry then, either. I didn't cry when I learned that one brother died, and I didn't cry when my sister died a year and eight months ago.

I'm more apt to cry over a stranger's death than I am over any of these. I feel that there is something wrong with me, or if not wrong, then at least something in me I don't understand well enough to not be troubled by how my reactions and emotions are different from what I see in others.

I can't help wondering if I'm not so wrapped up in myself that I have no room for anyone else.

On the other hand, I do not seem to fear death as so many in society fear it. Death, to me, is what happens at the end of a life. I don't know that there is a "good death" or a "bad death." There is death. My preference is that there be less of it, at least in its violent or painful forms, but as with most things I encounter, my preferences are never taken into account when they conflict with universal truths. People live and people die and live goes on.

I suppose I'm just a cold-hearted bastard.

Stuff & Nonsense

Played golf in my league last night. It was quite warm, though we have been blessed with lower humidity. Still, as always, I sweated through my shirt, my hat, and two sweat bands; this despite the fact that I was using a riding cart. I can sweat.

I shot 49 for nine holes, which is three strokes better than my average this year and only five strokes above my goal for nine holes, which is bogey golf--on this course 44. No, I'm not a great golfer, but I have been struggling the past couple of years, even by my own standards. To me that's one of the truly fascinating aspects of golf. In a real sense, no golfer, regardless of the at which they play, is ever truly happy with their game. There are always poor shots that can be improved on, consistency that can be improved, or decision-making that one regrets almost immediately after a shot has been attempted.

Heard from another friend of Al Fletcher. He's resting comfortably, but he isn't expected to survive the weekend. Go in peace, my friend and teacher. Go in peace.

Heard from my sister regarding Dad. She says there's no change. He's probably losing weight, but he continues to eat and drink. We're pretty much agreed that he doesn't so much want to die as he doesn't want to live a dependent life where he's confused easily and not in control of his destiny. From my perspective in talking with him, I see him as not wanting to deal with the 'process' of dying. If he's gonna die, he wants to get it over with. And he doesn't want to die in the sense that he is willing to take any positive action in that regard such as stopping eating or drinking.

I am not blaming him for any of these choices or dilemmas. They are his choices, and I honor them even as I keep in mind what choices I might make in similar circumstances.

I took a short break after I wrote the previous paragraph, and while I was refilling my coffee, it occurred to me that Dad's dilemma mirror my own. He's having trouble coming to terms with his end-of-life situation. He's having trouble making decisions as he is torn between conflicting wants: to live and to have this dying thing over with. I struggle, too, with conflicting wants. I like the personal and financial security I have from the work I do (barring, of course, the lapses in employment that come by occasionally). I also want to reconfigure my life so that I have more time for my own writing and more time for golf or other leisure pursuits.

I'm not handling my conflicting wants any better than Dad is. I recognize in myself that same desire to have things resolved, just sort of have things happen of their own volition in exactly the way I want them to happen. I've been telling Dad that life doesn't work that way; more gets done and done in the direction we want to go through our making choices and acting on those choices. Yet here I sit hoping something will happen to make my life into what I think I want it to be at this moment.

So, I'm no different than my Dad in yet another aspect of my life. Well ain't that just peachy.

Grieving

I'm sitting with a lot of sadness today, as I'm aware--painfully aware--of the impending deaths of arguably two of the most important men in my life: my Dad and Al Fletcher. Their deaths seem to be intertwining in my consciousness in ways their lives never did.

Al is 63. Dad is 76. Al served. As my father pointed out to me one day recently, he didn't have to serve in Korea in part because I was born in August 1949, thereby making him ineligible for the draft. (I wonder if I would have taken that out, if it had been offered to me. I didn't enlist in 1969 to fulfill any dreams. It was a practical decision based on my nearly certain belief that I would be drafted coupled with a pregnant wife and no job. Ah, the twists and turns of fortune.)

Both Al and Dad were alcoholics; Al also had a drug problem to overcome. Dad also battled a very challenging upbringing as the child of his alcoholic mother and an absent father. Only after I was born did Dad learn that his father hadn't abandoned him and his brother; rather his mother had taken them and run away. How did that change my father's view of life and himself?

He refused to confront his mother with this knowledge he gained from his own father when Dad finally tracked him down. I wonder why? He won't tell me.

I'm not really going anywhere with this entry. I'm just sitting here in sadness at these deaths. I tried to call Al's hospital room today, but they've apparently turned the telephone off. It probably doesn't matter. His friend told me in a voice mail message that Al is getting a lot of morphine for the pain. I'm guessing it's enough to keep him pretty oblivious. Al's friend also told me that when people go to this particular floor of this hospital, they go there to die.

Well Dad has gone to his own place to die. He's in the same nursing facility where Mom died. In fact, he's in the same room and the same bed as she was in. He knows. He's happy with it, and he just wants it to be over.

Al, on the other hand, doesn't want to die. He wants to keep doing Bridge and Vets Journey Home work. He wants to keep helping and counseling veterans, and maybe playing a little golf on the side.

It doesn't matter what we want, does it. When it's our time to die, it doesn't matter what we want.

Me? I want each man to have what he wants. If I could, I would assist my father in ending his life. And if I could, I would help Al live 20 more years (or whatever). But I can do neither. Each man's destiny is his own, and mine is my own.

So, anybody got any idea where I am in the grieving process? Denial? Anger? Bargaining? Acceptance? All of the above? Somewhere else?

I'm sitting here in my sadness waiting for two of the most important men in my life to die.

Al Fletcher

Al's in the hospital, I found out tonight (August 1st). He's been battling liver cancer. I went with Al and another man to a Native American healing sweat where the medicine man spent four days of energy and sweats in an attempt to heal Al. I know Al got a lot out of that, but apparently not enough to beat liver cancer.

Al Fletcher is an interesting man. He sent me a typed autobiography that he wrote several years ago. He was a mustang officer in the Army. For those who don't know, a mustang is an officer who came up through the ranks from Private to, in his case, Captain. He became an Army Ranger and company commander in Vietnam where he served with distinction, getting a Purple Heart and a Silver Star for gallantry in battle.

Al was also one of the leading promoters of the Bamboo Bridge, a healing weekend for combat zone veterans. On those weekends, I've seen Al give all of himself to help bring his fellow vets home from their war. He served for a time as National Coordinator of the Bridge, and he worked tirelessly for and on behalf of veterans, particularly his beloved Vietnam Veterans. He must have been one helluva commander, because I'd follow him to hell and back, knowing that if there was any way to get back, he'd find it and bring every last person with him back, too.

He is a man who is not afraid to cry, with you or for you; whatever he thought was needed. And he is a man strong enough to stand up to anyone for what he believes is right.

Come the next Bamboo Bridge or Vets Journey Home, I'm gonna miss him terribly, and I'm gonna cry for the vets who will be there that they won't have Al with them on their journeys. He is my example of a man of integrity and heart, and even though you never met him, your world is a little better off because of him, and a little worse off with his passing.

What A Weekend!

Before I get fairly into my work today, I need to review the weekend. It was an 'experience' and one I hope not to repeat anytime soon.

Thursday night/Friday morning I went to the East Side Sleep Clinic to have my pressure checked. I have sleep apnea, and I've been waking up nightly of late. So I thought I would get it checked and see if a pressure change was needed.

Because 'sleeping' in a sleep clinic is difficult, I arranged to work from home Friday so I could go back to sleep after I got home. Unfortunately, when I went to start up my computer I was met with Microsoft's infamous "blue screen of death." My hard drive had crashed, and it is only 7 months old! A telephone call to the support people confirmed that it is well and truly dead. They'll have a new one out today or tomorrow and installed. Then I get to rebuild the software. Oh, joy!

Also, my wife has been incapacitated for several days, the worst being Thursday through Sunday. She can barely walk. Some muscle in her hip or buttocks has been strained in some way, and she is in excruciating pain. So I had to fill in for her and care for her. I don't mind it; she's a wife I adore. Still, it kept the weekend busy.

Saturday the phone was out. Oh, we have cell phones, but our landlines were all out. Don't know why. Interestingly, we have DSL, and that was working fine throughout the outage. Still, there were calls I wanted to make, people I wanted to catch up with or touch base with, especially long distance, but that didn't happen.

One of my two dogs--Cora, the older one who is just ten--developed an aural hematoma; that's a swelling in her ear flap caused by a ruptured blood vessel and a filling of the area with blood. She doesn't seem to be in any pain. Still, I took her to the Vet on Saturday. He said she needs surgery; so I took her back this morning, and I'll pick her up tonight if all goes well.

Okay, it's not the most devastating weekend one could imagine. Still, it was quite hectic for me, and I have to admit that I'm glad to be back at work where things are calmer. We still need to get the hard drive fixed and do that work. We still don't know why the phone went out, though it came back to life yesterday, and I still have three or four calls to make to catch up with people and take care of some business.

So, those were the highlights of my weekend.

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On a general note, I want to say to anyone out there reading this blog that I intend to be much more faithful in posting, even if it's only a few lines, for awhile. Writing is a kind of therapy that I've gotten away from of late, and I need the therapy right now. So I'm gonna write whatever is up for me at the moment.

As always, your comments are welcome.