4/8/2026

 Wednesday, March 8, 2026

1956 6 Marine recruits drowned during a night "marsh march" in Ribbon Creek at Parris Island, South Carolina; the drill instructor was court-martialed

1970 Senate rejected Nixon's choice of Judge G. Harrold Carswell to the Supreme Court

2000 Nineteen Marines were killed when a V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft crashed

2019 600 million birds die each year in the US after striking tall buildings, with Chicago being the worst city, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology

2020 Bernie Sanders dropped out of the Democratic race for US president

2024 New Vatican document rejected the concept of changing a person's biological sex despite Pope Francis's overtures to the Trans community

2025 U.S. district judge ordered the White House to restore the AP's full access to cover presidential events on First Amendment grounds, overruling the Trump administration's previous order to ban the news agency after it refused to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the "Gulf of America".

In bed at 8:40, awake and up at 4:40.  124/66/63 127 204.4  36/24/58/30  Rain early, then more wind all day.

Morning meds at 9:45a.m.  Ranolazine at 5:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m.

O frabjous day, callou callay!  We had a bluebird at our feeders today.

Trump's and his Tar Baby.  I suggested some time ago that I thought Donald Trump would find his "excursion" against Iran to be a tar baby, referring to the Uncle Remus fable of B'rer Rabbit and B'rer Fox.  In the fable, when B'rer Rabbit found himself hopelessly stuck to the tar baby and about to be eaten by B'rer Fox, he outwitted B'rer Fox by getting the fox to throw him in a briar patch, where the fox couldn't get him.  Donald Trump has been desperately, almost frantically, trying to free himself from his war against Iran which is eating him alive economically, logistically, diplomatically, strategically, and in domestic and world opinion polls.  After stupidly and disastrously threatening yesterday morning that ""A whole civilization will die tonight, never to ​be brought back ​again," Trump gave Americans and the world his briar patch, a two-week ceasefire agreement that leaves stronger economically and strategically than it was before the war began.

I agreed to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks.  This will be a double-sided CEASEFIRE!  The reason for doing so is we have already met and exceeded all Military objectives, and are very far along with a definitive Agreement concerning Longterm PEACE with Iran, and PEACE in the Middle East.  We received a 10 point proposal from Iran and believe it to be a workable basis on which to negotiate.  The United States will be helping with the traffic buildup in the Strait of Hormuz.  There will be lots of positive action!  Big money will be made. We'll be loading up with supplies of all kinds, and just "hangin' around" in order to make sure the everything goes well.

Here are Iran's 10 points that Trump said provide "a workable basis on which to negotiate:

1. The US must fundamentally commit to guaranteeing non-aggression.

2. Continuation of Iran's control of the Strait of Hormuz.

3. Accept that Iran can enrich uranium for its nuclear program.

4. Removal of all primary sanctions on Iran.

5. Removal of all secondary sanctions against foreign entities that do business with Iranian institutions.

6. End of all UN Security Council resolutions targeting Iran.

7. End of all international atomic energy agency resolutions on Iran's nuclear program.

8. Compensation payment to Iran for war damage.

9. Withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from the region.

10. Cease-fire on all fronts, including Israel's conflic with Hazbollah in Lebanon.

Quaere: how would any rational person characterize these 10 points "a workable basis on which to negotiate" when the US fundamentally rejects all of them?

Last night, Netanyahu issued a statement that the cease=fire does NOT include his war in Lebanon.

This morning, Trump posted the following:

The United States will work closely with Iran, which we have determined has gone through what will be a very productive Regime Change!  There will be no enrichment of Uranium, and the United States will, working with Iran, dig up and remove all of the deeply buried (B-2 Bombers) Nuclear "Dust."  It is now, and has been, under very exacting Satellite Surveillance (Space Force!).  Nothing has been touched from the date of attack.  We are, and will be, talking Tariff and Sanctins relief with Iran.  Many of the [I.S.] 15 points have already been been (sic) agreed to.  Thank you for your attention to this matter.  President DONALD J. TRUMP

What is most stunning about this cease-fire is the disagreement among the parties to it about the fundamental terms of it.  First, the US and Israel claim that it doesn't apply to Israel's war in Lebanon, while Iran and Pakistan, the mediator that forged it, say that it does.  Second, the US says it guarantees free and open passage through the Strait of Hormuz, while Iran claims that ships transiting it must "coordinate with Iran's military,' and that the agreement confirms Iran's control of the Strait.  Third, the US says that the Iranians have agreed to give up their highly-enriched uranium; the Iranians have not confirmed that in any public way.  Fourth, all three parries to the war are claimly a huge victory.  I'm reminded of the rabbi mediating a dispute between two parties.  He tells the first party, "You're right."  Then he tells the second party, "You're right."  The parties remonstrate, "We can't both be right," to which the rabbi says, "You're right." 

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.  It's Trump desperately trying to let go of his tar baby.

4/7/2026

 Tuesday, April 7, 2026

1541 Spanish missionary Francis Xavier left Lisbon for the Portuguese East Indies as the first Jesuit missionary

1943 Adolf Hitler & Benito Mussolini met for an Axis conference in Salzburg

1954 President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a news conference, was the first to voice fear of a "domino effect" of communism in the Indochina region

1968 Riots continued in over 100 US cities following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

1971 US President Richard Nixon ordered Lt. Calley (Mi Lai) free

2025. Trump announced plans to impose a 50% tariff on China, escalating to a total of 104% if China did not revoke its 34% reciprocal tariff on all American goods within a day. China rejectsed the ultimatum, and stated its intention to match any further escalation. 

In bed at 9:45, awake at 4:15, up at 4:45.  137/63/64 120 204.8. 26/14/35/26. Cold, sunny day.

Morning meds at 9:30 a.m.  Ranolazine at 7:30 a.m. and 6L20 p.m.

The Testament of Ann Lee.  I don't know what to make of this very strange historical movie which we watched last night, or what to make of the Shakers, or the Quakers, or the holy rollers, or the evangelicals, or the Roman Catholics, religious beliefs, religious practices, religious leaders and religious followers, Jesus of Nazareth, Peter and Paul, Augustine, the Desert Fathers and Desert Mothers, Mohammed, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Aimee Semple McPherson, Jimmy Swaggart, Jerry Falwell, the cardinals and bishops, or me.  What is a poor, wayfaring stranger to make of all this?

From the White House this morning:

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” he wrote. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?”  We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!

This wicked and almost unbelievably stupid utterance by Trump takes me back to 1979 when the Islamic Revolution in that country occured and 66 American hostages were seized in our embassy in Teheran.  Some people in the U.S. were talking about "nuking" Iran.  I had a close friend, Ara Cherchian, who was an immigrant from Iran.  We served together on the board of the Milwaukee Ballet Company.  His mother, father, brother, and other relatives still lived in Iran, but they were not native or ethnic Iranians; they were Armenians.  They were not Shia Muslims; they were Christians.  They did not support the Islamic Revolution, but they were among the people who would be presumably killed (in addition to the American hostages) if Jimmy Carter had "nuked 'em," or even ordered a conventional bombing campaign.  One of the professional librarians who worked in the MULS law library also had family in Iran.  They were followers of the Bahai religion, not Muslims.  The Bahais were a persecuted minority in Iran, because they were not considered merely infidels, like Christians and Jews, but "apostates," because their religion was a 'spin off' of Islam.  They too could be among the casualites of a nuclear attack or a saturation bombing campaign.   Not surprisingly, there are no reliable polling data from Iran revealing how many in the population oppose the reign of the clerics and the Revolutionary Guard, but most experts believe they are in the majority, at least 60%.   In modern warfare, it is usually the innocent who suffer the most.  Trump doesn't care, so long as he can thump his chest and pretend to be manly.

Lest we forget.  From The Fire in the West Bank Is Burning Hotter, Out of Sight, by Talia Sasson,  former senior official in Israel’s State Attorney’s Office and former president of the New Israel Fund, writing from Tel Aviv, in this morning's New York Times:

The Israeli parliament, the Knesset, last week passed a law allowing the hanging of Palestinians convicted of killings during militant attacks, using language that effectively exempts Jewish perpetrators of nationalistic violence. This legislation is both unconstitutional and discriminatory. Beyond its fundamental immorality, the law is part of a larger, accelerating effort to systematically end once and for all the possibility of a Palestinian state. That effort includes the uncontrolled surge in violence by settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, and a strategic restructuring of the West Bank’s administration intended to make it easier for settlers and the state to seize Palestinian land.

An alliance of settlers and far-right politicians is the primary engine behind this radical transformation. While polls show that most Israelis support it, the legislation was pushed through by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ensure the survival of his governing coalition by indulging the vengeance narrative that serves as the cornerstone of the political goals of the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, a key partner in the coalition.

Its passage comes on the heels of a sharp escalation in near-daily acts of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank over the past year. Settlers have raided Palestinian villages, setting fire to homes and vehicles, harming livestock and uprooting trees. In February and March alone, settlers reportedly killed eight Palestinians.

Settlers continue to establish illegal outposts within Area A — territory that under the Oslo peace accords of the 1990s is designated for full Palestinian civil and security control. According to data from the United Nations, 36,000 Palestinians were displaced from their homes in the West Bank last year, 3,500 of them forced out directly by settler violence. This trend intensified in the first three months of 2026, with 1,697 Palestinians already displaced.

Late afternoon;     TACO 

4/6/2026

 Monday, April 6, 2026

1830 Joseph Smith and others organized the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 

1934 418 Lutheran ministers were arrested in Germany

1994 The plane carrying the Rwandan President and Burundian President was shot down by surface-to-air missiles,  sparking the Rwandan Genocide. 

2016 US primary elections: Wisconsin was won by Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz

2021 Jeff Bezos, worth $177 billion, tops Forbes Billionaires list of 2,755 people, including new entry Kim Kardashian

2022 New Mexico's largest wildfire started as a supposedly controlled burn off by US Forest Service. It went on to displace 100 people, burn 341,000 acres, 62 million trees 

2022 Scientists in North Dakota claimed to have found dinosaur remains killed on the very day a giant asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago beginning their extinction 

In bed at 8:45, up at 2.  126/75/63. 98. 206.2.  38/32/43/29  More wind and rain later.

Morning meds at  a.m.  Ranolazine at 10 a.m. and 7 p.m.

Random thoughts at 3 a.m.:  (1). I seem to follow in the footsteps of my beloved sister Kitty, i.e., I'm developing insomnia.  When I would visit her in Phoenix, her husband Jim and I would smile at each other as we watched her doze off during the evening's television shows, long before we all retired for the night.  Then she would be up in the middle of the night, reading or watching Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell, and very probably praying for Jim, their children, me, and so many others.  In her last years, she probably also talked to Jesus about the Church in which we grew up and were formed, and about the men (always men, of course) who wielded authority within it - priests, bishops, cardinals, Rome. and her disappointment in them.  She probably reflected on her own sins, as well.   Perhaps she talked to Jesus's mother, called Mary, and to our own mother, our own Mary.  As day broke, she would shart doing her work, cleaning, cooking, getting ready to do the Good Works she did every day of her life.  When I wasn't in Phoenix visiting her, we texted each other every morning, long before sun-up for I was also an early-riser, though not nearly as early as she was.  We had long text-message conversations on our phones, preparing ourselves for the day ahead and reflecting on current events, our troubled childhood experiences, whatever.  She's been gone for more than 3 years now, and a light has gone out in my life.  I regularly light 'Catholic candles' early in the morning thinking of her, as we did in her last years.  Such a treasure.

(2) David French has an essay in yesterday's New York Times, which he or the copy editor, titled "The Light That Changed My Life."  It was about some of his personal religious history growing up in an evangelical Protestant home, and about how affected he was when he attended an Easter Vigil service.

It began in darkness — symbolizing the darkness of death during the days after Christ’s crucifixion — and then the pastor lit a candle. High church Christians — Roman Catholics and Episcopalians, for example — may recognize this as the paschal candle, the symbol of Christ’s resurrection.

For a time, only the paschal candle penetrated the gloom, but then — as we sang hymns of praise — we picked up our own candles and one by one lit them with the flame from the paschal candle. Christ’s light became our light. Christ’s life became our life. By the end of the service, the entire church was ablaze with light.

French is a believer, a Christian, and so, he wrote:

If we truly are created in the image of God, then his life becomes our life. We are not gods, of course, but we are eternal beings. The curse of Adam — “for dust you are and to dust you will return” — is broken by the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ.

Or, as C.S. Lewis wrote, Christ “has forced open a door that has been locked since the death of the first man. He has met, fought, and beaten the King of Death. Everything is different because He has done so.”

Before that service, I had always recognized this theological reality in personal terms: Christ’s sacrifice gave me the hope of eternal life. But there was something about that roomful of candles that touched my heart. It elevated the dignity and worth of every person in that room.

When you interact with a friend, with a neighbor, even an enemy, you are meeting a person who possesses an eternal soul. We are not meeting a talking animal, a person who is here today and gone tomorrow.

This is one reason I’m as stricken as I am when I see cruelty in the name of Christ. It’s one reason that, of all the sins I regret, I regret my own cruelty the most.

 I don't share French's faith - or do I?  How often I have said, or written, "You can take the boy out of the Church, but you can't take the Church out of the boy."  There's a lot of truth to the notion of "Once a Catholic, always a Catholic."  It may be especially true of those of us who grew up in the Irish American Catholic Church, pre-Vatican II, which was dominated by Irish Catholic prelates.  My maternal grandparents were both Irish immigrants, my mother a first generation Irish American, as was our parish pastor, Patrick J. Malloy, and our cardinal archbiship, Samuel Stritch.  I attended only Catholic schools, 19 years of them from grade school through law school.  Every year I was asked in grade school and high school, we were told to pray for "a vocation" to the priesthood.  My high school group consisted of four of us, all Irish: Johnny Flynn, Jack O'Keefe, Larry Stack, and me.  Johnny and Jack both joined the Irish Christian Brothers and I considered it.  I don't know whether Larry did.  He went off to DePaul University run by the Vincentian priests and I to Marquette University run by Jesuits.  Can it be a surprise that my interest in religion and theology has been lifelong?  I didn't mean to write about this, when I started writing, but rather about my memory of attending the Easter Vigil at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in 1998 or perhaps about contemporary evangelicalism and the Hegsethian view of Christianity, but I'm a bit loopy and incoherent after getting up at 2 a.m.

A startling event.  I took my early Ranolazine by 10 this morning, before leaving to drop off my Holton monitor at the VA.  At 11:30, on my way back, I coughed up the Ranolazine tablet.  It had lodged in my throat for about an hour and a half without my awareness. ` I hadn't swallowed the tablet with enough water.  My swallowing challenges are getting worse, creating greater risks of choking.

DJT and JDF.  I've been watching Trump's press conference, with him making of kinds of untrue statements, many of them simply gross exagerations.  It struck me that, when he gets talking, he says many things that are completely untrue, but he believes what he says.  He makes things up, reminding me of a colleague I had in the law practice who would relate what happened at a meeting or a deposition.  Even when talking to two of us who had been at the meeting or deposition with him, he would make up stuff that we knew to be untrue, pure fantasy, but he believed what he was saying.  He couldn't help it.  I think Trump is like that.  Once he gets talking, some strange part of his strange brain takes over and feeds him information which to him is true.  He can't help himself.  It's a form of delusion, hallucination, or fantasy.  Harry G. Frankfurt, who wrote the celebrated essay "On Bullshit" in 1986, might say it's just bullshit, rather than lying.  The liar cares about the truth and attempts to hide it; the bullshitter doesn't care whether what they say is true or false, only that it serves his purpose.  But for guys like DJT and JDF, it's not just that they don't care whether what they say is true or false, but rather that they believe, at least temporarily, what they say is true.  

 

  

4/5/2026

 Easter Sunday, April 5, 2026

1242 Battle on the Ice: Russian Prince of Novgorod Alexander Nevsky defeated the Teutonic Knights on the frozen Lake Peipus between Estonia and Russia

1792 George Washington exercised the first presidential veto to strike down a  bill to increase the number of seats for northern states in the House of Representatives

1948 WGN TV channel 9 in Chicago, IL (IND) began broadcasting

1969 Massive anti-Vietnam War demonstrations occur in many U.S. cities

1971 US Lt. William Calley was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering 22 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians in the My Lai Massacre

1992 Serbian troops began besieging Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, which would become the longest siege in modern warfare

2025  The first of two tariff rounds went into effect in the United States, containing a 10% blanket tariff on every import into the country.   Jaguar Land Rover suspended vehicle exports to the United States for a month to evaluate the impact of Trump's tariffs on the automotive industry. 

In bed at 8:40, awake around 2:40, and up at 3:15.  0325 121/72/66 107 205.2.  35/20/49/33. Windy, cloudy Easter with sunny conditions forecast around 4 p.m.  As usual, March and April  cling to winter conditions in Wisconsin, not a day for Easter bonnets, with all the frills upon it, . . . 

Morning meds at 10 a.m.  Ranolazine at 5:30 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Reasons for some joy this morning, to wake to find that the second airman was rescued in Iran.  The Special Ops folks who carried it out are real heroes.  

Trump's early morning Truth Social post was a new low for presidential conduct, and a new peak in demonstrating his dwindling intelligence and gross lack of judgment.

Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah". President DONALD J. TRUMP

He blasphemes the religion not only of most Iranians, but also of almost all of the Arab world and believers in Islam from Turkey to India, plus those in he U.S.  and 90% of Indonesians.  All in one tweet.

X

4/4/2026

 Saturday, April 4, 2026

1949 The North Atlantic Treaty was signed in Washington, D.C., establishing NATO

1968  Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by James Earl Ray in Memphis; riots broke out in over 100 cities in the United States

1984 Winston Smith in Orwell's novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four" began his secret diary in defiance of the totalitarian government of Oceania

1990 King Baudouin of Belgium, a devout Catholic, stepped down as monarch for 36 hours to avoid signing a bill legalizing abortion

2024 Joe Biden warned Benjamin Netanyahu that the US could shift its policy if Israel did not address humanitarian concerns in Gaza and work towards a ceasefire 

2025  China responded to Donald Trump's tariffs with a 34% reciprocal tariff on imports of American goods.   Over the past two days, the S&P 500 was down over 10%.

In bed at 9, awake at 3:30, up at 4:20.  148/84/32.115 205.6.  41/34/51/35 Rain, rain, rain.  0.4 in last 24 hrs., 0.2 expected in next 24

Morning meds at 8:15 a.m.  Ranolazine at 5:30 a.m. and 6:25 p.m.

I need frequent reminding

Facebook post this morning:

I'm thinkng of Trump and Hegseth seeking a "defense" budget of $1.5 trillion dollars next year, and our war-of-choice in Iran costing us  a couple billion dollars a day, and of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's "Chance for Peace" speech delivered on April 16, 1953, when I was 12 years old.  Eisenhower said: 

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.

It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.

It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.

We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.

We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This is the way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

How far our nation has fallen in my lifetime. 

I'm doing a lot of thinking about the downed F-15 airman in Iran, and thinking of my college and NROTC friend Jay Forrest Tremblay and my Vietnam friend Bill "Moon" Mullen.  Jay was a Navy pilot during the Vietnam war. operating off a carrier and flying a mission over North Vietnam when he strayed into China and was shot down.  He was listed as MIA for many years, until his remains were recovered from China and properly identified.  "Moon" was a Marine A-4 Skyhawk pilot serving as the G-2 othe Headquarters Squadron of the 1st Marine Air Wing in Danang when I served as a Senior Air Director in the Wing's Tactical Air Control Center, part of G-3.  We didn't work directly together during working hours, but we spent many evenings togeths in the Officers' Club.  Though his primary job was in the Wing's G-2 section, he continued to fly bombing and close support missions with one of the A-4 squadrons depoloyed  to Danang and ChuLai.  I learned that he had been had been shot down after I had been transferred from the TACC center to Marine Air Control Squadron 6 in northern Okinawa.  It was an infantry training base and a training way-station for Marine infantry units deploying from the U.S. to Vietnam.  I devoted a chapter of my memoir to my months on Okinawa, including this about "Moon" Mullen:

Camp Schwab was much like a boot camp with constant activity, intense training and physical conditioning and a lot of troop movement and shouting.  There was much less chickenshit than in boot camp but much more focus on life and death stuff: weapons training, tactical maneuvers and communications.  The grunts were too busy to pay any attention to us wing wipers who ran the base and we stayed as far away from them as we could.  They were a rough bunch.  Their intensity and focus and their gung ho attitude were a far remove from the cynicism and jadedness of those of us who had recently returned from Vietnam.  We were doing our best to forget what they were anticipating.

At the beginning of May, the war became more personal to those of us who had come to Camp Schwab from the wing headquarters in DaNang.  We received news that our friend Bill “Moon” Mullen had been shot down over Laos.  The American government refused to admit that we were conducting operations in Laos but we all knew it.  The Ho Chi Minh Trail ran through Laos and our aircraft regularly bombed it.  On April 29th, 1966, Moon flew an A4E to a bombing mission in the most heavily defended area of the trail, the area around the Mia Gia Pass.  His plane was the last in the formation.  It was hit by anti-aircraft fire as he pulled away from the target.  The plane went down, but the other pilots picked up radio beeper signals from the ground where his plane went down.  The circling pilots radioed instruction to him, which he complied with, indicating he had ejected safely.  Soon, the radio on the ground was still active, but instructions from the air were not being followed.  It appeared Moon had died or lost consciousness or had been captured or killed.  He was never found.  It was never learned whether he had been captured or killed or died from injuries from the anti-aircraft fire or the ejection.  The 1973 Paris treaty provided for return of POWs held by the VC and by North Vietnam, but not those held by Laotian communists.    In 1994, I ran my fingers over his name on the Vietnam Wall in Washington.  He is still listed as among the ‘missing.’

Moon Mullen was well liked and highly respected by all of us in the headquarters squadron in DaNang.  He regularly flew missions with his old A4 squadron based in Chu Lai though he was assigned to the Intelligence section of Wing headquarters.  Unlike some others, he never looked down his nose on those of us who were not aviators.  He was a captain and a few years older than most of us.  He had just turned 31 when he was shot down; most of us were first lieutenants in our mid 20s.  When we could talk him into it, ‘by popular demand,’ Moon would stand up next to the bar or his table at the officers’ club and sing, always the same song – 

Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling

     From glen to glen, and down the mountain side.

The summer’s gone, and all the roses falling,

     It’s you, it’s you must go and I must bide.

But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow,

     Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow,

It’s I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow,—

     Oh, Danny boy, O Danny boy, I love you so! 

But when ye come, and all the flowers are dying,

     If I am dead, as dead I well may be,

Ye’ll come and find the place where I am lying,

     And kneel and say an Avè there for me.

And I shall hear, though soft you tread above me,

      And all my grave will warmer, sweeter be,

For you will bend and tell me that you love me,

      And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me! 

When Moon sang Danny Boy, we all shut up.  The juke box would be turned down or unplugged and the Righteous Brothers, Simon and Garfunkle and the Mamas and Papas would give way to Moon Mullen, a capella.

I suspect most, perhaps all of us thought Moon was probably dead; I did.  We may have even hoped that he was dead rather than living as a captive in a cave in a mountain in Laos or sick and abused in a jungle prison.  I don’t know what we thought because we did not talk about it.  We didn’t talk about it, but we all thought about it, about him.  We thought of him as we drank each night at the officers’ club.  We thought of him as we watched the gung ho grunts go through their training before heading south, some to die, some to lose limbs, some perhaps to be among the missing, most to return alive but messed up in their heads and hearts to one degree or another.  I think of Moon every time I hear Danny Boy.  For many years, I hated to hear the song.  My eyes would start burning when I heard it, especially the lyrics If I am dead, as dead I well may be, Ye’ll come and find the place where I am lying . . .”  It would take me a while to ‘come back’ after hearing it and I never sang it, though it had been one of my favorites before May, 1966.

I think Moon Mullen was for us emblematic of the ambiguous character of the war itself.  He was neither alive nor dead, just ‘missing.’  He went down in a country (of sorts) where our government wouldn’t even admit we were fighting, though every Tom, Dick and Harry knew we were.   The terrain he was bombing was not land that we would ever in any sense ‘take’ or ‘capture’ or ‘seize’ or ‘hold.’  It would be used for years as a principal line of communication and logistics between North Vietnam and forces in the south and for years pilots would fly missions trying to slow the flow of men and materials southward and for years pilots would be shot down over that land.  Indeed, when Nixon’s so-called ‘peace with honor’ was negotiated in Paris in 1973, there was no written agreement for the identification and repatriation or return of the bodies of pilots shot down over Laos.  The treaty only bound “the parties hereof and the signatories hereto,” which did not include the government of Laos which was not ‘officially’ involved in the war.  What happened to Moon Mullen and his family,  the long, inconclusive waiting, the deceptions, the ultimate loss, was a microcosm of what was happening to American, and to Vietnam.  I believe we knew that as we poisoned ourselves at the club each night and as we looked on those infantry Marines so intensely preparing for what awaited them in Vietnam.  More Danny Boys, more Moons.

GOING AFTER CACCIATO

Tim O’Brien

They did not know even the simple things: a sense of victory, or satisfaction, or necessary sacrifice.  They did not know the feeling of taking a place and keeping it, securing a village and then raising the flag and calling it a victory.  No sense of order or momentum.  No front, no rear, no trenches laid out in neat parallels.  No Patton rushing for the Rhine, no beachheads to storm and win and hold for the duration.  They did not have targets.  They did not have a cause.  They did not know if it was a war of ideology or economics or hegemony or spite.  On a given day, they did not know where they were in Quang Ngai, or how being there might influence larger outcomes.  They did not know the names of most villages.  They did not know what villages were critical.  They did not know strategies.  They did not know the terms of the war, its architecture, the rules of fair play.  When they took prisoners, which was rare, they did not know the questions to ask, whether to release a suspect or beat on him.  They did not know how to feel.  Whether, when seeing a dead Vietnamese, to be happy or sad or relieved; whether, in times of quiet, to be apprehensive or content; whether to engage the enemy or elude him.  They did not know how to feel when they saw villages burning.  Revenge?  Loss?  Peace of mind or anguish?  They did not know.  They knew the old myths about Quang Ngai – tales passed down from old timer to newcomer – but they did not know which stories to believe.  Magic, mystery, ghosts and incense, whispers in the dark, strange tongues and strange smells, uncertainties never articulated in war stories, emotion squandered on ignorance.  They did not know good from evil.

Around the time I found out about Moon, I received orders back to the States, to I&I (Inspector-Instructor) duty with a reserve unit near Philadelphia.  I would leave Okinawa on June 10, 1966, a little less than a year after I had arrived at Iwakuni.  The normal Far East tour was 13 months; I was going home a month early because they needed me at my next duty station.  If Moon Mullen had had the same good fortune, he would not have been on his mission over Laos on April 29th.  He was shot down only two weeks before the date on which he was to return to the States.  I am reminded of John Kennedy’s wisdom:

There is always inequity in life.  Some men are killed in war and some men are wounded, and some men are stationed in the Antarctic and some are stationed in San Francisco.  It’s very hard in military or personal life to assure complete equality.  Life is unfair.

It's almost painful now to reread Tim O'Brien eloquent words about the profound ambiguity about the Vietnam war and how it was fought and why it was fought.  I think of course of our military men and women fighting the Iran War and wonder what they are feeling about its ambiguity.  To Pete Hegseth, it is a Holy War, a Crusade against "barbaric savages," using unusually harsh, absolutist, and often religiously charged language.  He has vowed to unleash “overwhelming and punishing violence" . . . against those "who deserve no mercy," whom our military forces will "hunt you down and kill you."  Although President Trump has said that the Iranian people are "great." he threatens  not merely to destroy their life- sustaining infrastructure, but "obliteration like you've never seen before" and "We're going to bomb them back to the Stone Ages where they belong."  Most recently, he posted on Truth Social: Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT.  Time is running out - 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. Glory be to GOD!"  All this while never presenting a clear and prioritized picture of what his main goal is or goals are.   What are our troops to make of this?  Not only the pilots and crews flying missions over Iran, but the Marines and paratroopers on their way there, to do what?  Is this the kind of action they volunteered for?  Is this the hill they are really willing to die on?  The cause worth sacrificing their lives for?  Do they have a greater belief in the rightness of this war than about 2/3rds of the American public, who do not believe in it?  

Because of my year as a Casualty Assistance Calls Officer in the Philadelphi area, I think especially of the families of all those servicemen and women, and most especially of the mothers and fathers, and of wives like Barbara Mullen.  Where have all the flowers gone?  Long time passing  . . .

From last year's journal on this date:

Republicans are busy blaming China, Mexico, Vietnam, Cambodia, and other countries for cheating the United States by producing goods for American consumers.  It wasn't these countries who were pounding on Congressional doors to pass NAFTA and other trade agreements so jobs could be shipped overseas; it was American capitalist corporations looking to lower the labor costs of their products.  It's been the same since the start of the Industrial Revolution, with management always trying to reduce labor costs and maximize profits.  The great Chinese manufacturing behemoth was created not only by the Chinese communists but also by American capitalists.  Ditto Vietnam's position as America's 7th largest                           "trading partner."  Ditto Mexico's maquiladoras.  They couldn't exist without Western (mainly American) corporate capitalists feeding them.  Now Trump and his Republican toadies and cronies accuse the creatures American capitalitst created and nourished of 'cheaing, robbing, looting, pillaging, raping, and plundering" us' poor Americans,   54% tariff on China.  The loss of Milwaukee's great manufacturing business shouldn't be blamed on foreign competition but on domestic corporations' eternal quest for cheap labor.

Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday 

 

4/3/2026

 Friday, April 3, 2026

1860 Start of the Pony Express; mail was delivered by horse and rider relay teams between St. Joseph, Missouri and Sacramento, California

1948 President Harry Truman signed the Marshall Plan to rebuild war-torn Western Europe after World War II, granting an initial $5 billion in aid to 16 European countries

1955 The American Civil Liberties Union announced it would defend Allen Ginsberg's book "Howl" against obscenity charges

1968 N Vietnam agreed to meet US reps to set up preliminary peace talks

1969 Vietnam War: Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird announced that the United States would start a policy of "Vietnamization", reducing American involvement

2025  Multinational car manufacturer Stellantis announces it will lay off 900 workers across five of its U.S. factories and will pause production at assembly plants in Canada and Mexico in response to the tariffs.

In bed at 9:30, up at 6ish, 0600 136/76/62 204.4

Morning meds at 11 a.m.  Ranolzaline at 6:39 a.m. and 6:05 p.m.  Trulicity injection at 7 p.m.

Symptoms.  Three days ago I wrote ""It's hard to believe how tired I am every day, how often I stretch out on a recliner to rest or nap."  Ditto today.  I had 2 appointments at the VA today, Kali Kisto and the Physical Therapy clinic.  I was like a zombie at both and as I write this at 2:30 in the afternoon, I'm 'coming to.'  Fatigue is not listed as a common side effect of the Ranolazine, so I'm wondering if this problem is just the congestive heart failure at work.  On the other hand, the lightheadedness remains significantly improved, ditto the SOB.  Go figure.  Good news: our new front stoop iron railings were installed the other day and I 'broke them in' this afternoon, i.e., I used them for the first time.  Thanks to the VA.  A big help!  It's more than a little distressing that the one, short step from our sidewalk to the stoop is a risk for me, but so it goes.

An F-15 was shot down over Iran today.  One crew member was rescued, the other is being sought. I'm thinking of Pete Hegseth's public statements about ignoring the Geneva Conventions, "We will keep advancing, no quarter, no mercy for our enemies,' and “no stupid rules of engagement,” “no politically correct wars.”  My greatest concern with his many comments like these is that he puts our own service people in combat zones in greater risk of being mistreated by those they are trying to kill or otherwise hurt.  If America will show "no quarter, no mercy" to the Iranians, why should they show mercy or quarter to our captured airmen? Or to observe the legal requirements of the Geneva Conventions??

4/2/2026

Thursday, April 2, 2026

1968 Senator Eugene McCarthy won the Democratic primary in Wisconsin

1975 Vietnam War: Thousands of civilian refugees fled from the Quang Ngai Province in front of advancing North Vietnamese troops.

2025  Donald Trump announced a universal 10% tariff,  a 20% tariff on goods from the European Union, and a 34% tariff on all imports from China, effective April 5.

In bed at 9:30, awake at 3:50, up at 4:30.  132/62//61 101 205.4.  35/18/60/33 Rain all day.

Morning meds at 8 a.m.  Ranolazine at 5:10 a.m. and 6:25 p.m.

Further to yesterday's Zeke Emanuel and me.  What's the big difference between Zeke's willing acceptance of voluntary, natural death after age 75 and suicide, a passive suicide?  Or is "passive suicide" an oxymoron, like "cruel kindness" or "kind cruelty"?  Euthanasia is illegal everywhere, whereas physician-assisted suicide is legal in a number of jurisdictions, and VSED (voluntarily stopping eating and drinking) is probably legal in all jurisdictions.  Unlike euthansia, physician-assisted suicide and VSED involve the voluntary hastening of death, but so does a DNR, or Do Not Resuscitate instruction in an advanced directive.  Might not Zeke's voluntary eschewing of all life-prolonging do the same thing?  I thought of this most recently yesterday when I declined a referral to General Surgery to correct an intrustion of my bladder into an abdominal hernia and was scheduled to have a cardiac monitor applied to my chest to provide more information on my bradycardia, premature ventricular contractions, and congestive heart failure.  I accepted the cardiac monitor and rejected the referral to surgery for the bladder/hernia problem.  Why not forego all medical attention except that addressing pain or discomfort?  Why have regular vaccinations for Covid-19, shingles, pneumonia, and influenza?  From Zeke's article:

I take guidance from what Sir William Osler wrote in his classic turn-of-the-century medical textbook, The Principles and Practice of Medicine: “Pneumonia may well be called the friend of the aged. Taken off by it in an acute, short, not often painful illness, the old man escapes those ‘cold gradations of decay’ so distressing to himself and to his friends.”

Why not let nature take its course and "escape those 'cold gradations of decay' that are so distressing to me?

A main reason is that I have a life partner, Geri, and choosing to die when death could be medically/surgically prevented is choosing to leave her alone in her old age.  I don't presume to think of myself as such a great life partner, certainly not in my senectitude and decrepitude.  I'm of tremendously less help to her around the house than I once was and I'm not great company in my current condition, but I am company, companionship, and at least some help around the house.  We don't do very much together during our daytime hours, but it's comforting, to me at least, just being near her, sharing her presence, sharing our home, helping each other out in small and not so small ways.  I have no doubt but that sharing life with a loving partner is infinitely better than living alone, perhaps not for all, but certainly for me, and I think, for her.  Thus, choosing to let nature take its course, when the course is death, in order to avoid the hardships and deteriorations of old age, seems pretty cruel and selfish when one is in a loving partnership.  The same considerations as apply to a loving and mutually supportive spousal relationship don't apply generally to parent-adult child and friend relationships.

This having been said, I wonder about the ease with which I told the VA medical and surgical staff before my last surgery and upon my admission as an inpatient in the hospital that I did not waive the DNR instruction in my Health Care POA.  Geri and I have discussed the matter pretty recently and are generally on the same page regarding not wanting our lives to be artifically extended or maintained.  I can't imagine a satisfactory life without her, but I think she will have a much better chance of a still-worthwhile life without me.  She is closer to her children and both their spouses, and she has a good many good friends, some of very long duration, with whom she has maintained good contact.  It comforts me that she is better equipped than I am to live as a widow(er), but I suspect that the next time (if there is one) that I am asked whether I waive my DNR, I will not be as cavalier in my response as I have been recently.  And I wonder whether and how Dr. Zeke would re-analize his "Why I Wish to Die at 75" article to deal with the complications of marriage.  The problem is complicated by the issue of how disabled and needing care the post-75 individual is.  There may come a time when I get so disabled by the 'complications' of old age (especially the cardiac ones) that I am a big care-giving burden for Geri, in which case my survival is more a burden on her than a blessing.  In those circumstances, the DNR issue becomes simpler, but what about the stopping all medical tests, vaccinations, interventions, etc.  In those circumstances, Dr. Zeke's proposals still are moe complicated for the married than for the unmarried.  I used to tell our law clerks at our law firm, "Nothing's simple, nothing's cheap."  Same here.