Target Centermass

Category: Gunner’s Favorites

  • Blogging From My First Hometown

    With my father in the highly-regarded Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, I have taken this opportunity of my visit to get a hotel room in St. Charles, just across the Missouri River and about fifteen minutes from the hospital. Why did I do this instead of getting a hotel closer to Dad? Well, in a way, I’Â’m closer to Dad here.

    I lived in St. Charles from the age of six months to seventh grade, when I finally moved to Texas. I played little league baseball and BoysÂ’’ Club football here. I learned to ride a bike and make a paper airplane here. I read The Lord of the Rings and watched Star Wars here. I attended elementary school, back when we still played bombardment (dodgeball) in P.E., and suffered through wearing a blazer and tie in the stupid sixth-grade choir here. I watched Reagan get elected President here, moving to Texas the very next day.

    And my father, of course, had a role in all of these memories, especially the baseball and learning to ride a bike. Dad took the time to manage my first four baseball teams, and I am just loaded with memories of those years.

    I sat at my father’Â’s bedside today (well, technically yesterday as itÂ’s now past midnight). He’Â’s been moved from the ICU, and I think he’Â’ll live through this visit. That’Â’s the good part; the bad part is that it wasn’Â’t really my dad there today. Just a drugged, beaten, tired shell of a man. There were flashes of his old self, but not much. I hope there’Â’s more of that old self before I leave here. If not, I don’Â’t think he has the fight to hold on ‘‘til my next visit. His muscles have melted away, he struggled to adjust his pillow an inch, he stumbled on remembering words, he rarely breathed easily.

    I treasure these moments with Dad, but I doubt these will be the memories that IÂ’’ll later look back on and smile. Those will be the times much like my little league baseball days. After my visit today, instead of driving straight to the hotel, I wandered over to Blanchette Park. I looked at the hill where Dad used to take me sledding in the winter and the pool where he took me for swimming lessons. Then I watched a couple of innings of kids playing baseball. Moments in games I’Â’d played on those very same fields flashed from the old movie projector in my mind. Dad was there, at least in my heart.

    Field of Dreams said it best: “Hey, Dad, you want to have a catch?”

  • The Cowards’ Approach to War

    For over a year now, the media and the leftists have demanded for the Bush administration to voice an exit strategy from Iraq and Afghanistan. Many on the right, sans media, have wondered about the exit strategy from Bosnia for years.

    What is our exit strategy from the Korean conflict? Did Truman ever voice one?

    What is our exit strategy from our bout with the Axis powers of Germany and Japan? Surely FDR announced an exit strategy to the American public in World War Part Deux.

    Well, yes, he did. Speaking almost a year before Pearl Harbor, FDR spoke of “no end save victory” in the defense of liberty and freedom. This is how he led the American and Allied efforts in WWII, demanding the unconditional surrender of the Axis countries of Germany, Italy and Japan. He did not fight for a stalemate. He did not settle for a return to pre-war boundaries. He fought to win.

    It is my belief that the very concept of exit strategy is a self-defeating idea. To have any strategy other than victory as the objective is a mistake. A stated and accomplished list of milestones may insure a “peace with honor,” but it in no way guarantees a desired outcome in the long term. War is not the end-all be-all solution to the world’s problems; however, when war must be waged, it must be waged to win. American lives should not be tossed aside for the sake of a tie or, worse yet, an honorable defeat when victory could have been attained had we, as a people, had the stomach for it.

    I have been unable to find any military or political usage of the phrase “exit strategy” prior to the Viet Nam War. Certainly, this is the conflict that popularized the term.

    Stated bluntly, exit strategy is a planned way of disengaging short of victory. Contingency planning in the event of defeat is needed and understandable; planning a withdrawal, based on milestones and dates decided by political needs and not long-term requirements, without defeat but before victory is achieved is indefensible. And yet, this is just what has been demanded by the media during practically every American military involvement of the last thirty years.

    Yes, in the short term, this does have the effect of reducing casualties within a given conflict. Unfortunately, it serves to set the stage for greater loss of life in the next conflict. It is the cowards’ way of waging war, deferring the losses to those fighting later.

  • I Wasn’t Always a Republican…

    …just mostly.

    Probably my biggest personal political regret was being too young to ever vote for Ronald Reagan, missing the voting age in 1984 by less than a year and a half.

    I first heard of the Libertarian Party during the 1980 campaign. It is the only time offhand that I can recall seeing any television spots for the party and, probably not coincidentally, it was the party’s high mark in Presidential voting. Edward Clark received 921,128 votes that year, almost doubling the party’s second best showing of 485,798 in ’96. To be honest, at the time I knew very little of what the party stood for and was quite happy in the bliss of my Republican roots.

    In the years between the ’84 Reagan landslide and the first Presidential election I would be eligible to vote in (1988), I began looking more closely into the Libertarian Party. Through my investigations and re-examinations of my own beliefs, I gradually decided that I’m about 75% Republican and 75% Libertarian. I know that’s 150%, but only if you think the stances of the two parties never overlap.

    In ’88, I supported Alexander Haig for the Republican nomination, but he was out of the contest long before the Texas primary rolled around. My allegiance and my primary vote switched to Jack Kemp. Then-Vice-President Bush was my third choice, and I was at peace with his nomination and was supporting him against Dukakis. My general election vote, however, went to Dr. Ron Paul, who was a Libertarian from Texas at the time and is now a Republican Congressman.

    The pattern continued in subsequent Presidential elections, supporting the Republican and voting for the Libertarian. Hey, this was post-1980 Texas and the electoral votes have been a lock for the GOP. I always envisioned my Libertarian vote as an idealistic but harmless statement. I say idealistic statement because there is one part about the Libertarian Party’s membership process that has always bothered me:

    YES, sign me up as a member of the Libertarian Party. I certify that I do not believe in or advocate the initiation of force as a means of achieving political or social goals.

    In fact, the party platform is almost entirely devoid of the concept of national defense.

    I did, in 1999, accept a membership card from the Libertarian Party and gave them a small donation, but I did so without signing this portion of the card. They didn’t seem to mind. I have since let this membership slip by the wayside. I love several of the Libertarians’ ideals but, as a Reagan Revolutionary and a devout believer in the proven concept of Peace Through Strength, I can not agree with this statement regarding initiation of action. I especially see it as out of step with reality in the post-9/11 world.

    Besides, I have another reason for supporting Bush and not voting Libertarian this year, even though my vote won’t have an effect on the Texas electoral votes. That reason is simply this: it’s one vote closer to not having to hear the liberals whine about winning the popular vote, as if that ever mattered.