Category Archives: Loose thoughts and musings

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,
Another day of doing more reading and getting ideas than writing this weekend. Again, since the anniversary of the Battle of Midway is coming up this week, here is another of my older articles about it. Have a great week.
Peace
Padre Steve+

Friends of Padre Steve’s World
As we near the 72nd anniversary of the Battle of Midway I am reposted in some older articles about that battle. I do have to admit that while I would like to do some more new writing on the subject I am a bit tired and my research time has been consumed with other work as of late. So anyway… until tomorrow…
Peace
Padre Steve+

Friends of Padre Steve’s World
I am working on some new Gettysburg articles but I have always been drawn to the tragedy that is the hunt for and sinking of the German Battleship Bismarck by the Royal Navy in 1941. It is an epic tragedy. In the span of a few days the two largest and most powerful battleships ever built were sunk. Not only was the Bismarck lost, but the HMS Hood, which I have also written about. As a sailor who has served aboard a cruiser in a combat zone I have a profound admiration and sympathy for the crews of these two gallant ships. While this may seem like ancient history to some it is a story that always is all too real and contemporary for me.
Peace
Padre Steve+

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,
I have written much about Memorial Day the past few days. As you can tell it is a day that causes me to do a great deal of reflecting, on what is for some a subject that they do not know from personal experience. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. noted in his 1884 Decoration Day speech to fellow veterans of the Civil War:
“Comrades, some of the associations of this day are not only triumphant, but joyful. Not all of those with whom we once stood shoulder to shoulder–not all of those whom we once loved and revered–are gone. On this day we still meet our companions in the freezing winter bivouacs and in those dreadful summer marches where every faculty of the soul seemed to depart one after another, leaving only a dumb animal power to set the teeth and to persist– a blind belief that somewhere and at last there was bread and water. On this day, at least, we still meet and rejoice in the closest tie which is possible between men– a tie which suffering has made indissoluble for better, for worse.

When we meet thus, when we do honor to the dead in terms that must sometimes embrace the living, we do not deceive ourselves. We attribute no special merit to a man for having served when all were serving. We know that, if the armies of our war did anything worth remembering, the credit belongs not mainly to the individuals who did it, but to average human nature. We also know very well that we cannot live in associations with the past alone, and we admit that, if we would be worthy of the past, we must find new fields for action or thought, and make for ourselves new careers.

But, nevertheless, the generation that carried on the war has been set apart by its experience. Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire.”
In a time where so few of us have served in war his words sound strange, and for me there is a melancholy that enfolds this day. I did not sleep well last night, lots of weird dreams, some associated with my time in Iraq, others dealing with surreal aspects of my other service, people events, some real, some drawn from the depths of my imagination, places that I must be too consciously afraid of to go.
So today I am going to take in a baseball game. Our local AAA minor league affiliate for the Baltimore Orioles, the Norfolk Tides, are playing at noon. After that Judy and I will go and meet a friend at our local watering hole. Baseball for me is a safe harbor from my fears and my melancholy, so I wish you a good Memorial Day, please do not forget in all the fun why we set this day aside.
Peace
Padre Steve+

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,
As Memorial Day approaches another article from last year about an important part of its history and meaning and my own thoughts.
Peace
Padre Steve+

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,
Memorial Day weekend is approaching and as usual I am becoming more reflective as I think about all who have given the “last full measure of devotion” to duty and this country. For most this holiday is not much more than the kickoff to summer and fun in the sun. But for me it is all too melancholy. In addition to my usual articles I will be re-posting a number of articles about Memorial Day from previous years. I hope that you will share them to increase the awareness of what this holiday means for all of us.
Peace,
Padre Steve+

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,
I didn’t sleep well last night and today I have been doing some more reading, research and writing on Gettysburg. That being said part of why I have not been sleeping well is related to PTSD and Iraq, the nightmare that keeps on giving. This is an article that I wrote about a year ago. Those that know me that in addition to baseball that God also speaks to me through Star Trek in its various forms. The upcoming weekend will be Memorial Day and I am always a bit melancholily over that weekend. That being said I find a lot of connections between Star Trek and life in the real world. Despite the fact that I wrote this a year ago it seems for me that little has changed. More people die, often far to young in wars that were or are of little benefit to our national security. The fact is that all of those that have died in the wars we have waged since 2001 are not just numbers, or not just names. They are real people with families, friends and colleagues that both cared about them, loved them and valued them. That even applies to the people that we have been fighting. So, since I am tired I wish you a good night.
Peace
Padre Steve+

Friends of Padre Steve’s World. Nothing really new today, but a re-run from a couple of years ago. I am working on another Gettysburg article which I will publish in the next day or two. Today something else that was interesting occurred. Jeb Magruder died. For those who do not remember the Watergate burglary and cover-up which brought down the Nixon administration Magruder was a Nixon staffer who testified that he heard Nixon order the Watergate break-ins. I wrote this article on Max Holland’s book “Leak: Why Mark Felt Became Deep Throat” the story of the Deputy FBI Director who supplied Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein the information that they needed to help bring down that administration. This article was a review that I did for Max Holland’s account of that event. Holland wrote me and said: “Thank you, Stephen, for that compelling review and excellent summary. It made the book sound so interesting that I wanted to read it–and I wrote it!” It is an excellent read and for those willing to defend or excuse the actions of any Presidential administration to other elected official because of their political leanings…Have a great night. Rest easy.
Peace
Padresteve+

Friends of Padre Steve’s World
Another re-run. As I was thinking about today I could not get the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu 60 years ago today off my mind. It marked the beginning of the end of the French colonial empire in the Far East.
On the 7th of May 1954 the Viet Minh forces overran the headquarters of the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu. A young Viet Minh soldier captured the French commander Christian-Marie de la Croix de Castries. It was a humiliating defeat and something that any army fighting a capable insurgency and revolutionary movement needs to learn from. With American and NATO forces drawing down in Afghanistan I worry about smaller isolated outposts and groups of advisors that could be in danger should the Taliban mount a coordinated attack on an isolated outpost.
I also have strong feelings of empathy for the French soldiers who fought in Indochina and later Algeria. Most were professionals whose efforts were wasted and their country mostly ungrateful for their sacrifice. I wrote this three years ago and it still expresses much the way I feel.
Peace, Padre Steve+

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,
It has been a busy couple of days as I get ready for another trip to Gettysburg for the Staff Ride and finished up teaching my Ethics elective. So tonight since I am still receiving from my trip to Houston last week and getting ready to travel again this weekend you get a re-run. This is something I wrote almost five years ago as part of my Masters Program in Military History dealing with the Battle of Okinawa which was being fought this time of year 69 years ago. It was an amazing and brutal battle.
Peace
Padre Steve+