Slam Dunk

ABC reports a judge found prosecutors showed “sufficient” evidence Trump “intentionally concealed” existence of classified documents from his lawyer, putting him in an unwitting position to deceive the gov’t—more evidence supporting obstruction charges.

That’s how Mueller team convicted Paul Manafort, lying through his lawyer to the government.

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“Shock and Awe” It has been twenty years

Last Sunday was the twenty year anniversary of our invasion into Iraq. Yesterday I read an essay by Iraqi war veteran Will Selber, a lieutenant colonel in the United States Air Force, It is an honest, hard to read story of his time in Bagdad 2006 as they were trying to keep the lid the erupting civil war.

As I said it is a hard read but it is honest and he cuts himself no slack. I hope you will pay him some respect by going and reading it. It couldn’t have been easy for him to put his story on paper. I’m not going to excerpt it as it needs to be read as a whole. here is the link

The story I linked to also made me remember a couple of friends, so this morning I put a few thoughts on paper.

My late Father in Law fought in the pacific in WWII. He was part of a chemical battalion, he was the man who had the “flame thrower” When a group of Japanese would be in a cave or bunker and they refused to surrender he went up and burned them to death.. He carried the scars from that to his grave. I know about it only because his PTSD psychiatrist ask him to write down his memories of that time and he never threw anything away.

We ask young men and women to do things in our names that are at times horrific, things that will scar them for their life. It doesn’t matter if it is a just war or an unjust war, a smart war or a stupid war. The scars are there

Another story:

Back when Bush senior was running against Clinton, Bush decide to gather all of the Medal of Honor recipients together for a political event. At the time I was working at Smithville lake and there was this old man who was around. He would park his car, take a case of beer, fish until he was too drunk then crawl into the back seat and go to sleep. I got acquainted with him and shared a few beers and talked. One morning, I came across him setting in a parking lot, setting drinking his breakfast. I stopped and talked. He showed me a letter he had received from Bush inviting him to come to the event. I don’t remember the whole conversation but the part that sticks with me was this. He waved the letter at me and said” They call me a Hero” With a strong emphasis on the first syllable. “Do you want to know what I did? I shot a bunch of chinks setting around with their bowls of rice, eating. What kind of a hero does that?”

I didn’t have an answer then, I don’t have an answer now.

Except the very inadequate, “Its war”

Mentally war is hard and though this sounds like a veterans day post we need to keep it in mind every day. Like it or not we are the worlds superpower, we are not really good at it, we aren’t evil either. But as a super power with obligations worldwide we will always be in some conflict, so it is our responsibility to be informed citizens and maybe just once in a while pay attention to what is going on in the world rather than Donald Trumps latest tweet. We owe it to those we send into harms way in our name.

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