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January 1, 2021 · 01:21

A New Year’s End of a Career and a Resolve to Speak the Truth and Fight the Enemies of America’s yet Unfulfilled Ideal of a New Birth of Freedom



Friends of Padre Steve’s World

Marcus Aurelius wrote, “If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.”

But before I say anything else I just want to thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to read, comment and even share what I write. That matters to me and a good number of you have followed my writings for years. So I truly thank you from the bottom of my heart, and if you like what you see please comment and share with others.

As I get older I realize how valuable time is. There are few commodities that truly cannot be replaced or conserved, time is one that is always fleeting. As Dr. Suess said:

“How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”

That being said I am not a fan of New Year’s resolutions, in fact I generally don’t make any because frankly I think that most are a waste of time. However, I do not think that the pursuit of truth is a waste, and as Benjamin Disraeli noted so wisely; “Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time.”

This New Year has driven that home as I experienced and am still experience various medical and dental situations that disrupted my retirement preparation. At 11:59 and 59 seconds my 39 year, 4 month and 6 day military career comes to a close. Judy and I will toast in the new year with a French Rose sparkling wine rather than a Champagne. Likewise I will follow that up with a dram of 18 year old Glenfiddich Scotch Single Malt. Retirement after a career such as mine should be savored and what better way with a dram of than beautiful nectar of the Scottish Highlands, but I digress…

But before I go on I have to say that I count my blessings even in the midst of one of the most disastrous years in recent world history. While I completely expected soon to be ex-President Trump and his Cult to try to destroy the country and Constitution to attempt to keep him in power. That being said, I think that I might have underestimated their continued attempts to overthrow the humiliating election loss that Trump experienced. However, he and they are pathological in their underhanded, unconstitutional, disingenuous, and treasonous attempts to overthrow our system of government and replace it with an authoritarian and theocratic dictatorship as the country goes through its greatest crisis since the Great Depression and the 1918 Great Influenza Pandemic.

These damned people are sociopaths. During the Coronavirus-19 Pandemic have done all they can to increase the infections and death count, and they don’t care. As of tonight a minimum of over 350,000 Americans have died from this virus. Over TWENTY-MILION Americans have been infected. Many of those no longer infected still are afflicted with the conditions that COVID-19 brought on. Likewise there are nearly Eight Million open cases with a new mutation that spreads significantly faster than the original now spreading in the United States, which ensures that more deaths will occur because even if it is not more deadly, more people get infected and thus more people die.

To that end, being retired from the Navy and military gives one a certain amount of latitude than being on active duty. So this year the batteries are unleashed and I will be able to speak the truth without fear of retribution. I get to be a whistleblower, activist, and spokesperson for those under attack because of their race, ethnicity, gender, religion, lack thereof or anything else. I get to be an unabashed defender of civil rights and speaking openly for the truth. Damn, I am happy to have that freedom.

So as I did last year and in previous years I am going to endeavor this year to commit myself to continue to seek truth and to speak truth, wherever that takes me. Truth matters to me. In my life I have seen so many lies, especially by political and religious leaders that I trusted that I now devote myself to the pursuit of truth. As Captain Jean Luc Picard told the young Cadet Wesley Crusher in Star Trek the Next Generation episode The First Duty: “the first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth, whether it’s scientific truth, historical truth or personnel truth…” 

So, I will continue to write, especially about historical subjects that have an impact today: civil rights and social justice, faith, military issues, PTSD and military health issues, the Middle East conflicts and a number of other topics. Of course I will write about baseball, which is often my refuge when things are too much for me and music. I will write about Bayern München Fußball. The German Bundesliga, the European Champions League and International Football including the World Cup and Olympics. 

I will continue to be as transparent as I can about my own struggles with PTSD, Moral Injury and faith in the hopes that my journey will help others who struggle like me. In fact this was a major reason that I started this site back in February of 2009.

Expect me to continue writing about the Battle of Gettysburg and the Civil War. Likewise expect me to deal with  I have a feeling that that is going to become a life work. The American Civil War is so pertinent to who and what we are as a nation and the more I study it, the people, the issues and the ideologies involved I see many parallels with today; some of which are positively frightening. So expect a lot more about these subjects. In fact the Civil War is one in which debunked myths still hold sway over many, especially among the defenders of the Lost Cause who predominate the Christian Right.

I really do look forward to the publication of my book “Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory!” Racism, Religion, Ideology and Politics in the Civil War Era and their Continued Importance” by Potomac Books, a division of University of Nebraska Press.

In addition to that I expect to be going back to some of my older research and writing about the social, religious, political, and ideological dynamics of Weimar and Nazi Germany and how similar that are to some things going on now in our own country. I have the outline of a draft book “Walk, Remember, Bear Witness:” Ensuring the Holocaust is Remembered as the Surviving Witnesses Pass Away.”

I will also speak out against racial and religious discrimination, for the rights of African Americans, Hispanics, immigrants, the LGBTQ community and others who have been persecuted and marginalized by White Supremacists and theocratic Christians during the reign of the Donald Trump and his criminal cabal. These sons of itches want to twist the Constitution’s guarantees of religious liberty for all to support their discrimination in civil law against those who do not agree with them. I will fight them with wholehearted vigor without the restraints I had on active duty. Even this week I had one of these theocratic Trump cultists attack me in my comments section. After his second attack I put him on notice because I know who he is, where he lives, what he tweets and much more. These SOBs are so damned arrogant and stupid. Frankly they are lucky that God has much more forgiveness and grace than I do, otherwise I would gather my own band of paramilitary basterds and start taking scalps and carving Swastikas on their foreheads. 

Many of the theocrats and White Nationalists use the mantra of “cancel culture” to define their grievance. But that is a lie. What they want to perpetuate is a While lies are dangerous the myths can be more so, and the proliferation of lies, half-truths and myth have shriveled the brain cells of those who enjoy the comfort of opinion without the benefit of thought. President John F. Kennedy spoke of this in 1962, and his words are timely, especially when hordes of preachers, pundits and politicians, the Trinity of Evil, do this with abandon:

“The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie–deliberate, contrived and dishonest–but the myth–persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” 

To do this I have to constantly challenge my own thoughts, beliefs, and opinions. So with that resolution I wish you a good day and a Happy New Year. Thank you for reading, sharing, commenting, and encouraging me.

I wish you all a happy and blessed New Year. I pray that you will remain safe and take all protections against COVID-19 for your sake and that of your families and loved ones.

That being said there can be no time off, there can be no stop to the fight because  our opponents will not stop their attacks on our Republic, Constitution, or the ideals that prompted our founders to write these words in our Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

In November of 1863 Abraham Lincoln appealed to the Preamble of the United States Constitution in his Gettysburg Address:

“But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Can I hear those New Year’s Amens? I hope so.

Until tomorrow.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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September 16, 2018 · 23:08

Preparing for Another Trip to Germany

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Later this week we will be flying to Germany for what has seemingly become an annual pilgrimage. While there we will be seeing friends as well as enjoying the Oktoberfest in Munich, seeing historical places, and exploring towns where Judy’s ancestors came from in the Rheinland-Pfalz, Baden-Württemberg, and the Alsace in France.

While in Munich I plan to again visit Dachau and the Sophie Scholl museum at Munich University and hopefully a number of other sites. I have a ticket for a soccer match between Bayern-München and Augsburg at Allianz area.

Outside of Munich it looks like we will visit the Flossenbürg and Buchenwald Concentration Camps Southwest of Berlin. We will stay in Wittenberg where Martin Luther began the Protestant Reformation, and the Wartburg Castle in Eisenach where Luther was hidden after his defense and excommunication before the Imperial Diet at Worms. In his ten months of hiding he translated the New Testament from Greek into German.

We will visit friends in Berlin. It will be our first visit to the city since November of 1986, before the fall of the Berlin Wall. It will be interesting to see the redone Reichstag, walk under the Brandenburger Tor, as well as see the the Berlin Monument to the Holocaust, the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, the Bendlerstrasse Museum to the German anti-Nazi resistance, the Berlin Holocaust Memorial, and the Wannsee House.

From Berlin we will stay with friends near Karlsruhe one the Rhein River near the French Border for a few days before returning to Munich for our flight home.

I’ll be writing and posting about those things and more in the coming weeks, but for now I will wish you a good night.

Until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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February 5, 2018 · 00:05

Super Bowl LII: A Championship Game for a Dying Sport

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Sunday was the Super Bowl which I watched with friends at Gordon Biersch. Truthfully watching football for me is more a reason to hang out with friends as the game of American Football lost its magic for me years ago. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a well played, competitive, and exciting game; but truthfully I find most NFL games including many Super Bowls to be less than exciting. The hype about the games, the entertainment build up to them even in the regular season, the unending year road coverage and replays of games played the previous season, not to mention the faux patriotic military displays often paid for by our tax dollars make me tired. I agree with conservative columnist George Will, a Baseball man like me that “Football combines two of the worst things in American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings.”

I have always been a Baseball fan. While American football is simply a game to me, Baseball is a religion.

For me NFL football, with the except of the glory years of the San Francisco 49ers with Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Ronnie Lott, and coach Bill Walsh is not that special. Tonight’s game was a great game in which the underdog led by an unheralded backup quarterback complete a Cinderella Story, but for the most part the magic is gone.

My lack of real interest in the NFL has nothing to do with the abilities of today’s players; they are outstanding and player for player probably superior to the men who played before them. Nor does my disinterest have anything to do with the kneeling controversy which who I support because ultimately it has to do with the First Amendment. I think that as long as players are forced to be in the field that if they take a knee to protest injustice rather than standing while being even more disrespectful by scratching their ass or balls while acting completely disinterested during the playing of the National Anthem. I find the latter much more disrespectful and offensive than players that take a knee to protest real injustice, but I digress, I chased a rabbit there.

For me the fact is that despite the speed and violence of individual plays the pace of game is incredibly slow and the officiating seems to get worse every year and this is compounded by rules, such as what constitutes a completed pass, that are so subjective as to be a joke. I could go into other criticism of the NFL, it’s culture of violence, and of profit over the welfare of its players; especially over how it has treated its veteran players and their medical issues, particularly CTE and other brain injuries which are cutting short the lives of so many players. While the President of the United States mocks rules designed to protect players, this does matter; this is a game for God’s sake people shouldn’t die or have their lives shortened because they played it and played it well.

When I look at football and its future I see a dying sport. It won’t die tomorrow or even in the next decade but the game itself has to change or die. Tonight’s one that took a player off the field was a concussion injury to New England receiver Brandin Cooks.

The Patriots were denied their 6th Super Bowl title when Tom Brady fumbled with just over two minutes left in the game. They lost to time against a very tough yet under appreciated Philadelphia Eagles team led Nick Foles, by a quarterback who had been written off by most football commentators. Foles not only had a great post season, but a very good Super Bowl, even catching a touchdown pass.

For a Super Bowl, so many of which are disappointing this was a very good one, the underdog won. Philadelphia finally got a Super Bowl title. Their offense pounded the Patriots and in the end their defense sealed the deal breaking up Tom Brady’s Hail Mary pass to Rob Gronkowski with not time left on the clock. While for me it will never have the magic of “The Drive” of the 49ers but it was a great game, especially because New England and the Belichick-Brady cult lost, not that there is anything wrong with that.

I watched it wearing my full Bayern Munchen kit, Thomas Mueller jersey, with matching sweats. Honestly I enjoy watching European, particularly German Bundesliga football to American football. Let’s face it, American football is much close to up-armored Rugby than it is real football because the only people allowed to use their feet on the ball are kickers, punters, and players acting as a kicker or punter; if a regular player kicks the ball during the game it can be a penalty. Really, if players can’t kick the ball how can it be football? That’s no criticism of the players or this Super Bowl, it’s just my opinion. Maybe for truth in advertising the NFL should call the game Gridiron Ball or Up-Armored Slow Paced Rugby. Admittedly that may not help ticket sales or even more television and advertising revenue but it would be more truthful, and who but the President doesn’t like the truth.

Congratulations to Nick Foles and the Eagles. They deserved this win.

Until tomorrow and reality,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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January 22, 2018 · 00:18

Shutdowns, Lotteries, Nightmares, and Soccer: “Life is Far too Important to Talk about Seriously”

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

My goodness it has been a weekend hasn’t it? We have a government shutdown going and God only knows what it going to happen next but if I was a betting man I would dare say that I do not think that is not going to end well. By the way I did buy a $1 scratch off lottery ticket at 7-11 when I bought my coffee on the way to work Thursday morning and won $8, you might think that I would be more optimistic after the shutdown, but I’m not, and sadly I digress…

That being said the fact is that the situation is going to get worse before it gets better because even if the senators find a compromise to keep the government open, the President based on  the advice of Stephen Miller and probably John Kelly will reject it unless the Democrats completely cave to their profoundly White Supremacist demands. I doubt that will happen because it seems that after decades of being bullied that the Democrats have finally grown a spine, I really do think that they now realize that the promises of Donald Trump, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell mean nothing and that their political survival cannot be assured by rolling over to Republican demands.

This is like nothing we have seen in this country since before the Civil Rights movement and is very much like racism, and religious-political persecution in Czarist Russian that Miller’s Yiddish speaking Jewish grandparents fled. Since Eastern European Jews were treated with contempt, discriminated against, and hated by many Americans because they were different the irony, considering the fact that Miller is a fan of neo-Nazis and White Supremacists like Richard Spencer and Peter Brimelow is all too rich.

I thin that the uncertainty and instability brought about by the shutdown about makes the country very vulnerable any number of national security crises, and of which could lead to disaster for our political system. When that disaster comes it will be a crisis that the administration and maybe even a majority in Congress will deem so great that civil liberties, and maybe even the Constitution itself will need to be suspended. The fact is that we are only a Reichstag Fire event away from dictatorship.

Historian Timothy Snyder very wisely noted:

“Modern tyranny is terror management. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such events in order to consolidate power. The sudden disaster that requires the end of checks and balances, the dissolution of opposition parties, the suspension of freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Do not fall for it.” 

Please my friends as you watch this drama play out be aware of the threat that it is to our political system.

But really that is such a downer, so on the positive side traffic going into base tomorrow should be much lighter.  Likewise after another wild PTSD dream night in which I threw myself off the bed in response to a situation in my dream where I threw myself over a sand berm, landing on my back beside the bed, my Sunday was far better. I spent Sunday morning drinking coffee, eating what the Germans call Brotchen (small fresh hard rolls) with European butter and German jam while watching Bayern Munchen, my favorite football team in the Bundesliga defeat Werder Bremen by a score of 4-2 and then watching Schalke play Hanover 96 to a 1-1 draw with my Papillon Izzy on my lap. It was a glorious morning.

I so wish that there were more like it and despite the seriousness of the times I have to agree with Raymond Reddington who said:  “Life is far too important to talk about seriously.”

So I will go to bed after drinking a small glass of Kilbeggan Irish Whisky and until the next time I wish you a good night.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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June 17, 2009 · 23:16

A Weird Day, a Great Team and Some Fractured History

Today was one of those weird days for me, very busy, pretty good work and good intellectual stimulation n an ethics committee meeting.  I’m also still pretty tired from the past few weeks, not feeling bad but I know that I need to pace myself while we are short staffed in our department this summer.  It is a good thing that I have the boss that I have as he is making sure that I am okay on a pretty regular basis.  He knows that I will push myself hard until I hit the wall, which I did about a week and a half ago.  The thing is it is not just me that is feeling the strain. All of us on our staff have been pushed hard caring for folks during the recent deaths of two military staff members, regular work on our wards, administrative tasks as well as the extra load imposed by being short staffed.  But this is what we do as chaplains.  The good thing is that we are doing our best not just to look after our flock, but to look after each other.  We have a great team which I am proud to be a part.

Thus today my mind was a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.  In fact it was awash in so much that I should have written them down.  The mind is like a sieve sometimes.  Since it is late I am going to stick with a few observations from this day in history which seems to still have significance today June 17th.

On this day in 1579 Sir Francis Drake sailed his ship the Golden Hind into San Francisco Bay.  Immediately he was picketed by anti-imperialist and environmentalist protesters who had come down from Haight Ashbury in their Birkenstocks.  Ignoring them Drake’s crew hit on women and some men in Golden Gate Park, had lunch at Fisherman’s Wharf and took in a Giants game.  At least that’s what they wanted to do, but they were 400 years or so too early.  Instead they sat around wondering why it was so cold in the middle of summer as they repaired their ships, had the chaplain celebrate Eucharist and then claimed everything in sight for England calling it New Albion.  The Spanish realtors in the area took umbrage to this and never recognized the claim.

On this day in 1775 was fought the battle of Bunker Hill or more appropriately Breed’s Hill.  The American soldiers defending the hill gave a good account of themselves against the British who were trying to drive them off of the hill.  An American commander on the front line uttered the cry which did not become in military history “Don’t fire until you can smell the Redcoat bastards.”  The insensitivity of the comment regarding the Colonial’s British Cousins body odor, which wafted over the battlefield, offended some of in the snior commanders who had a hard time smelling the gunpowder over their own body odor.  When the Pentagon heard about it the offending officer was sent to Ft Polk Louisiana and the utterance was officially changed to “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.”  After the clash the surviving unwounded opponents gathered at Sam Adams pub where they consumed vast amounts of his original Boston Lager beer as they played darts and argued the merits of English versus American Football.  Some went to the Yankees Red Sox game at Fenway later in the evening.

On this day in 1815 Commodore Stephen Decatur commanding a Task force from the 6th Feet conquered the Algerian frigate Mashouda in an action that finally helped bring an end to the Barbary Wars and drove the Barbary Pirates from the Mediterranean.  Within 48 hours of defeating the Mashouda he was in Algiers harbor exacting peace on the Dey of Algiers.  This ended the period of where  Barabry Pirates excercised domain over the Mediterranean. Getting with British sailors on liberty in town with which they had recently been at war, the Americans and Brits spent the evenings at Murphy’s Irish pub drinking Guinness and Kilkenney with Irish and other expats while watching Arsenal play Bayern München on pay per view.

On this day in 1856 Republican Party opened its 1st national convention in Philadelphia.  Immediately Randall Terry demanded equal time to speakers demanding the end of slavery while Ron Paul was ignored.  Others lobbied for the Flat Tax until they discovered that there was not yet an income tax.  Up and coming Illinois legislator Abraham Lincoln gave the keynote address recommending a bigger Federal role in solving disputes between states while Newt Gingrich presented a “Contract with the Union” to deal with the various tensions.  Fox News covered the event

On this day in 1916 US troops under General John Pershing marched into Mexico to bring Pancho Villa and others into custody.  The expedition was not successful as many troops were inflicted with Montazuma’s revenge while KBR failed to get the porta-poties in place in a timely manner.  The Easern European sub-contractor walked out and KBR replaced them with men from the Indian Subcontinent area who had each paid $4000 to an agent for the job and recived $300 a month working 16 hour days 6 days a week.  However the campaign  did give US troops experience operating in harsh climates which would serve them well when stationed in Texas over the next century.  General Phil Sheridan had once said of Texas that “If I owned Hell and Texas I would live in Hell and rent out Texas.”

On this day in 1938 after conducting military operations against the Chinese for over 5 years the Japanese declared war on China.  Chinese leaders Chaing Kai Shek and Mao Tse Tung issued a joint statement agreeing to work together and declaring “It’s about damned time they admitted that they are at war with us.”

On this day in 1940 the French after having their asses handed to them by the Germans yet again asked for surrender terms.  General Charles DeGaulle immediately departed for England to continue the war against both the Germans and his fellow Frenchmen.   Upon his arrival DeGaulle immediately complained about the bad food, plain women and miserable weather.  He was embraced by Winston Churchill who got him drunk, left him passed out in a brothel and blamed the Vichy government for it. Churchill wrote afterward, “that man is a pain in the ass.”  DeGaulle always doubted Churchill’s version of events every time he looked at the tatoo of a German tank on his ass.

On this day in 1944 Iceland declared independence from Denmark.  No one noticed until 1953.

Most importantly on this day in 1960 Ted Williams hit his 500th home run. and today the Nationals beat the Yankees and the Orioles beat the Mets.

Peace, Steve+

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