Neanderpundit

I spent a large portion of Monday in Iowa, and am much the worse for wear.

Now, most of the fine Iowagians were, I’m sure, at work when I was on the road. The ones troubling me were the ones who had no more to do but piss in my cornflakes.

So for your edification, here are a few “new” rules of the road for those who might be driving in Iowa and not be familiar with the Way Things Work.
Continue Reading »

Wife’s grandmother died friday night. She just left to attend the funeral, 1200 + mile round trip for her, two days without a wife and mother here.

Daughter has a bit of a cold, and it’s hard on her not having Mommy for two days. Hard on me because it hurts me to see the daughter missing mommy and me being a poor imitation of a mommy.

The wife has the toughest job, though. She lost both her parents, one when she was quite young, the second only seven years ago. Still, her father got to see our daughter, got to hold her tiny body against his big chest. A pugilist from the early days, the wife’s dad had the ears and the mitts of a boxer. You knew he was scrappy when you met him. The car accident that took his knees took his wife from him, and everytime my wife makes the trip home all those memories weigh on her. He died on Thanksgiving day.

This time, it’s two trips in one month. One to watch a beloved sister-in-law falter and die, now to bury her grandmother. Grandma lived past 100, celebrated that birthday just a few months ago. All the way up, rain and weather echoing the mood I know she’s in. 16 hours in the car alone with her thoughts.

Godspeed, love of my life. Come home safe and whole in body and mind.

By now everyone knows about Pat Tillman.

I don’t know anything about football, but supposedly he was a good player. I’ll take everyone’s word for it.

He WAS a Ranger. He humped his butt through one of the tougher courses of the military, and took those skills to war.

He is my hero.

He and a lot of other men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What he did stands on it’s merits, and need nothing else to glorify it. Same as the moms and dads, same as the 18 year olds away from mom and dad for the first time, same as the thousands of others there also doing that most difficult of jobs. They’re all my heroes.

When I was 18, there was nothing going on which roused me to enlist, and I never did. I look back on my lack of service with some disdain; had I a life to live again, that is perhaps all I would change. It makes me respect the men and women who have all the more. If I didn’t have a wife and child now who relied on me, and if I wasn’t a beat up old guy too fat to enlist, I would have signed up on 9/12.

What I do, what pitiful thing I can contribute, is my unfailing pride in those who serve, my unwavering support for their actions, my constant prayer for their safe return.

What Pat Tillman did was die in a noble cause, die trying to fight back a menace whch the world has dramatically underestimated. I owe him, and all those soldiers living and dead, my allegiance.

I will not die with the debt unpaid. Don’t you either.