My uncles and aunts, my grandfather and grandmother are buried in Nat Cemetaries. Dad has a Bronze Star. Grandpa was gassed during WWI. My Uncle Chuck is buried at a National Cementary somewhere up in upstate Oregon along with Aunt Maureen. Dad was in WWII, Korea and VN. Our family went all over the States and the world as he was a USAF officer. Was it fun? Sometimes. But I remember to troopsupporter: My father and mother are in the Riverside National Cemetary, along with my Uncle Cal and Aunt Clare, and when his only sister sent a telegram to Mom while Dad was in VN and Mom's first thought was he'd been killed. My Uncle Dick will also go to a National Cemetary when he goes. My old "vaudville jokes" might seem stupid to you, but when I was 10 in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1965, that's the already 20 some year old radio shows we got on Airmed Forces Networks. Stars and Stripes was our only newspaper. We had no real clue as young pre-teens/teenagers of what was happening in the U.S. in the mid-60s. We were already worrying about our dads having to go to VN, but we didn't know why. I do remember reading the Stars and Stripes and the long, damn discussion about the "shape of the table" that the North VN argued about.. My partner's father was a flame thrower on Tarawa. Her uncle was a prisoner in Germany. We had a family friend that would never leave his house without a couple of pieces of bread in his pocket, in case. A girl in high school lost her dad, as a pilot, over VN in 1965. They've never found him. Yes, my family also fought in the Rev War and the Civ War. I don't think my patriotism needs to be questioned anymore. I wear my dad's USAAF Bombiader ring every day. I drive back to SoCal and stop at the Riverside National Cemetary every time. But, I believe we had no business in Iraq. They had nothing to do with 9/11. Were they an awful government? Of course. But, I don't see us invading N Korea or Cuba, 90 miles off our coast. We should have put the 150+ troops in Afganistan and gotten that rat bastard Bin Laden. I suspect, however, he's dead. P.S. I used to work for an insurance company that services the military community. Some younger coworkers have been redeployed for their second and third times. My jokes are old-fashioned, because I didn't hear "new"stuff in the 60s. I listened to Armed Forces Radio shows that were from the 30s and 40s. Still, pull my finger makes me giggle and I do like Beavis and Butthead and "Two and a Half Men." But my male relatives and our families have sacrificed. I went to a junior high in Frankfurt on Anne Frank Strasse that had a bomb scare, evacuating all of us, in 1967. The interesting part was watching and listening to the black classmates, girls, that were sitting in a circle listening and singing along with a little record player to The Supremes. "Stop, In the Name of Love . . ." I wouldn't trade those 40 year old memories.
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Senator Clinton's rule—don't compromise goals for the sake of emotion—has served her well in her presidential campaign. So far. But Clinton may still need her feelings yet. Near the end of her time in the White House, the First Lady watched as Rudy Giuliani, her expected opponent in the New York Senate race, dissolved amid personal scandal. "Now I know why he likes opera," Clinton told confidant Sidney Blumenthal. But the opera lover would redeem himself with a passionate performance on 9/11 and now may end up as Clinton's opponent in the general election. In that scenario, the Clinton campaign would work hard to move beyond the "unthinking emotion" that burnished Giuliani's 9/11 image, focusing instead on the mayor's real record. It will not be a simple task. Emotions aren't rational, but they do count.
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