Tag Archives: o j simpson murder case

February 22, 2013 · 23:59

Six Degrees of Separation: The Kevin Bacon Effect, Padre Steve and the O.J. Simpson Trial

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The Kevin Bacon effect is an understanding of the Six Degrees of Separation which posit that based on the “six degrees of separation” concept, which posits that “any two people on Earth are, on average, about six acquaintance links apart.”

I had heard of this before but really hadn’t given it any real thought, until yesterday. It was then that I realized just how close our lives are connected with others.

Late Wednesday night CNN host Anderson Cooper sent out a Twitter “tweet” regarding the murder accusations against South African Olympic and Paralympic sprinter Oscar the “Blade Runner” Pistorius.

Cooper’s tweet and the following comments which are show here can be found on my Twitter feed to the left of this article on the page.

Cooper sent this out: Anderson Cooper 360° @AC360

What do you want to ask @thatmarciaclark and @MarkGeragos about the Oscar #Pistorius case? Tweet your questions @AC360

Of course Mark Geragos and Marcia Clark were important attorneys involved in the O.J. Simpson trial. Geragos was the initial defense attorney for O.J. and Clark the led prosecuting attorney for the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office.

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Now anyone that knows me well knows that I am a natural smart ass with a somewhat twisted sense of humor. My wife Judy can attest to this, and some people appreciate it while others do not find it as amusing. So I do try to be judicious about what I say and who I say it to. For me Twitter is fun, I do not take my comments on it seriously  nor for that matter the comments of most other people. Most of my comments are actually retweets of comics strips that I read on a daily basis. So I can sympathize with Babe Ruth who in 1922 was suspended by American League President Ban Johnson for using vulgar language to an umpire. Johnson wrote Ruth:

“Your conduct was reprehensible to a great degree, shocking to every American mother who permits her boy to go to a game. A man of your stamp bodes no good in the profession. It seems the period has arrived when you should allow some intelligence to creep into a mind that has plainly been warped.”

I admit my warpness and to me Cooper’s tweet was a target of opportunity. Without any malice towards the prosecutors of the Simpson trial, I tweeted out a comment more designed to mock the seemingly incompetent police and prosecutors dealing with the Pistorius case.

Steven Dundas @padresteve

@AC360 @thatmarciaclark @markgeragos “do you think SA prosecutors will make OJ prosecution team look like the dream team?”

I follow a lot of people and organizations on Twitter. I have tweeted to famous people before. Most of the time there is no response but when there is it is usually polite and often appreciative of my humor or observations. I don’t think that I have ever received a hostile comment on Twitter, as opposed to Facebook where I have had plenty. Thus I didn’t expect the reply I got from Marcia Clark.

marcia_pyramid

marcia clark @thatmarciaclark

MT:“@padresteve: do you think SA prosecutors will make OJ prosecution team look like the dream team?” No DDA wants to look that sleazy. Fool

The comment amused me and of course being a smart ass I had to reply.

Steven Dundas @padresteve

@thatmarciaclark Still testy after all these years and still can’t handle a joke. Call me a fool? Stay classy Marcia…

Later in the day after work I checked my Twitter feed and saw this comment.

marcia clark @thatmarciaclark

@padresteve Dish it out but can’t take it, huh Steven? I call ’em like I see ’em. Class is wasted on you – pearls before swine, baby

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Now I was even more amused because I realized that Ms. Clark was taking this far more seriously than me. Hell, during the trial I wanted her team to win because I thought that O.J. was guilty as hell. I also thought that she was kind of attractive in a very aggressive sort of way, though I was disappointed in the way that she handed the trial. I began to feel like I was James Spader’s character in the TV Series Boston Legal Alan Shore, tweaking a high strung opponent without being really nasty.

So I finished the exchange with two tweets:

Steven Dundas @padresteve

@padresteve @thatmarciaclark LOL Marsha. You’re fun, obviously bitter & angry but fun. Dream team was sleazy but made you look bad.

and

Steven Dundas @padresteve

@padresteve @thatmarciaclark BTW no hard feelings, you gave me the most fun twitter exchange in a long time and I wanted you to win.

So now because Marcia Clark took the time to call me names because I was a smart as I have just one degree of separation between me and the O.J. trial and just two from O.J. himself. Thinking about this tonight as I gave my dog Molly a ride to Petco to get her treats I realized that I was connected to other famous people. I met Madeline Albright in 2005 which means that I am one degree separated from former President Bill Clinton who appointed her to her offices, and to Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W Bush through Colin Powell who I met in 1985. The Defense Meritorious Service Medal that I was awarded in Iraq was signed and approved by General Ray Odinero who President Obama appointed to be Chief of Staff of the Army. Following the Bacon Effect I am connected to some of the most powerful people on the planet. How cool is that?

So anyway, for new readers please don’t take some of what I say too seriously. However, if you are a high strung former Los Angeles prosecuting attorney who has thin skin and not gotten over blowing one of the biggest criminal trials of the last century don’t take it personally. I wanted you to win and you were not helped by numbskull criminal investigators, a racist detective, incompetent coroners and the DA office that allowed the change of venue. It was a perfect storm of incompetence and reasonable doubt that led to O.J. getting off.  Besides Karma caught up with O.J. even though the glove didn’t fit and you still get asked to talk about other criminal cases on CNN and write books. Life isn’t that bad, so learn to take a joke, otherwise you will be one.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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December 17, 2011 · 01:36

Musings at the end of Busy Week, the Penn State Scandal and Barry Bonds Sentence…Padre Steve has a “Gracie Jane” Moment

It has been a very busy and tiring week.  However I am in good spirits and though tired am feeling more in the Christmas spirit.  Ho.  I’m not up to more than that yet but it is a start. When we get back to North Carolina from our next excursion to home in Virginia on Monday it is time for some housecleaning and decorating for Christmas. We have been so busy with Judy’s surgery, recovery, travel and work around the Virginia house the month has gone by fast than I could imagine. I mentioned to a coworker that it hadn’t even felt like theChristmas season  because we were so busy.  Thankfully I have gotten a bit better sleep and have a couple of evening where I could actually stop and rest my brain by doing some reading and writing.  I still have to do the mid-month bills but that will be my arithmetic for the week. However all week I have felt like doing a Gracie Jane type article, finally

Anyway a few “Gracie Jane” thoughts…

What is up with Jerry Sandusky, his lawyers and the knuckleheads that ran the Penn State Football program and Athletic department?  I could never have imagined what is continuing the be revealed and the banality with which such evil was tolerated and covered up for years.  Nor can I imagine a more loathsome defense team and their arrogant yet inept handing of the case. I can understand trying to defend your guy but these guys are second rate yokels.  This is no O.J. Dream Team and they are rapidly securing their place in legal and moral infamy with their defense strategy.  Johnny Cochran would never had let Sandusky continue to hang himself and speaking of hanging himself I was aghast at the comments of former Penn State Senior Vice President Gary Schultz to the Grand Jury that after allegedly being told about the sexual contact between Jerry Sandusky and a young boy in a shower in 2002 that “I had the impression that Sandusky wrestled the boy in the shower and grabbed his genitals.”

He went on to say that “Not all inappropriate conduct is criminal” and that “I don’t know if it’s criminal.” I don’t know about you but if anyone even hinted to me that they were reporting such an act my next call would be to the appropriate police authorities and child protective services offices.  The only thing Schultz and the University did was to tell Sandusky to not bring the kids on campus.  The fact that he knew about a 1998 incident where the police were involved and had a copy of their 95 page report Schultz refused to report the incident to police saying that “The allegations came across as not that serious. We had no indication that a crime occurred.”  However he was were told by both Paterno and the witness former Penn State assistant coach Mike McQueary and Paterno even contacted Schultz on a Sunday. Not exactly SOP for something “not serious.”

Schultz and former Athletic Director Tim Curley are being charged by prosecutors with lying to the Grand Jury. Their lawyers maintain their innocence but the more that we learn the worse the situation looks. Yes they are innocent until proven guilty and a jury will decide that when they and Sandusky go to trial.

I know that I’m starting to sound like Boston Legal’s parody of Nancy Grace “Gracie Jane” but all of these guys look guiltier every day and their sleazy lawyers look like lowbrow hacks.  You can be sure that Jerry Seinfeld and Kosmo Kramer’s lawyer Jackie Chiles would run these guys out of his office.

Enough said about those guys but what about Barry Bonds. The prosecution threw everything that they could imagine at the former Giants slugger and only got a “guilty” count on a single charge of “obstruction of justice” for misleading Grand Jurors in 2003.  Today Bonds was sentenced to 30 days home confinement, a $4000 fine, 250 hours community service and 2 years probation. Now many believe that Bonds used steroids and he may have. That being said I cannot imagine spending millions of dollars to investigate and prosecute Bonds and only come out with this verdict and sentence.

The prosecutors could have given up this case at several points when their charges were thrown out and evidence deemed inadmissible.  But they continued and got their verdict but at what cost? The lead prosecutor called the sentence “a slap on the wrist” and the fine “laughable.” But really why would any of us want to spend even more taxpayer money keeping Bonds in prison when our country is in so much debt? I think that Judge Susan Illston got the sentence right and if it prosecutors believe that it was a “slap on the wrist” they have nobody but themselves to blame.

When I took a Military Law course back in college our instructor made a comment told us that he felt that if we didn’t feel that evidence would support a guilty verdict at a General Courts Martial that we should probably resist preferring charges in an Article 15 Non-Judicial Punishment proceeding. This is basically a misdemeanor proceeding handled by the unit commander that is  is not considered a criminal conviction at which a defendant can request trial by Court Martial instead of accepting the commander’s judgement.  As a company commander and Brigade Personnel Officer I worked with some excellent prosecutors.  The prosecutors in the Bonds case got embarrassed and deserved this.  They wasted millions of dollars of our tax money to try to convict a man of cheating in baseball by using steroids.

Bonds supporters will support him and his detractors will continue to criticize him for “cheating.”  People will make up their minds and Baseball will have to come to terms with how it will handle the records and legacies all of those that played during the Steroid Era.

Anyway my Gracie Jane moment is over for the night.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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July 5, 2011 · 23:18

Thoughts on Smoke, Suicides, Gracie Jane, the Media Legal System and I guess I’m not Patriotic

Gracie Jane…the Boston Legal Nancy Grace

Today was one of those weird days. I got up relatively early for a day off only to have my morning interrupted by a page from the Emergency Room to deal with a suicide. I showered and drove in to work knowing what the outcome was going to be even though our staff was trying heroically to save the patient.  On the way in I was reminded of Iraq once again as I drove through the dense smoke which has enshrouded our region from one of several wild fires.

Last night I had been out watching the Independence Day fireworks with Judy and our little dog Molly on the beach about a quarter of a mile from the Island Hermitage and I did pretty wel`l, though Molly did better. While I was occasionally flashing back to watching artillery and illumination rounds and hearing that infernal 122 rocket flying over me in Baghdad as well as being nervous in the large crowds that surrounded me I didn’t melt down despite some very close blasts from individuals firing some pretty large firework charges above our heads. Maybe it was the unflappable attitude of Molly. Molly isn’t afraid of anything and maybe her looking up and occasionally barking at the infernal things both comforted and amused me. However I digress….

I got to the ER sustained by a large cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee and found that our staff could not save the life of the individual. I have dealt with far too many suicides in the military where it seems to be epidemic now days as well as in my time as an ER and Trauma department Chaplain in major civilian medical centers. There are people that condemn those that commit suicide to hell and call it an “unpardonable sin.” I can’t do that. Suicide is a tragedy no matter when it happens and it is happening far too often among the ranks of our Active Duty, Reserve and National Guard forces and to those retired or discharged from the military.  I spent some time and with our staff as well as some of his senior enlisted leaders who were obviously affected by this and quietly said a prayer of commendation at the bedside.  This is a tragedy one that will unfortunately keep occurring even as Congress contemplates cuts to the force that include the Mental Health Professionals and Chaplains that are the last line of defense for these young men and women.  But then what value are the lives of the men and women that fight our wars compared to not raising the taxes for the incredible wealthy that profit off of our wars and the sacrifices of the troops.

When I got home Judy and I took a drive up to Beaufort North Carolina where we had lunch at Finz, a bar and grill. As always we sat in the bar and while eating lunch noticed a commotion. A waitress from the restaurant side rushed in and changed the channel from the peaceful natural disasters reported by the Weather Channel to Headline News where Gracie Jane (Nancy Grace, Gracie Jane is the caricature Nancy created by the writers of Boston Legal played with gusto by Jill Brennan) was having a conniption fit that Casey Anthony was found not guilty of killing her daughter in one of the most sensational trials since the O. J. Simpson trial.

Now I didn’t watch the trial my faith in the Media Legal system having been crushed with the failure of the O. J. jury to find him guilty and order him crushed to death with heavy stones. But evidently some jury in Florida where convicting someone of murder and having them put to death is a spectator sport failed to convict, something about reasonable doubt. It sounds to me that in such and environment that the prosecutors must have pulled a Marcia Clarke and botched the prosecution.  They should have petitioned to have the trial moved to Texas where they could have gotten the conviction and the death penalty. Even President Bush who never pardoned anyone as Governor couldn’t save the lady convicted of drowning her kids when she said she had repented when a jury convicted her of capital murder.

However, my friends as terrible as the verdict sounds as it seems justice has been denied, someone probably killed that little girl and will get away with it, the reaction of Gracie Jane was priceless as she was nearly apoplectic even saying that Satan must be having a “party in Hell” and that proving “reasonable doubt” an unfair burden to prosecutors.   But that is the way the Media Legal system works, Greta, Geraldo, Court TV and Gracie Jane, they thrive on trying these cases in the media and while our justice system is certainly imperfect and sometimes even insane ever person is due their day in court and it is the responsibility of prosecutors to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt. These prosecutors had no direct evidence of the lady killing her daughter.  They had lots of circumstantial evidence even some pretty damning stuff from what Gracie Jane tells me but they couldn’t get a conviction. When I took a class in Military Law we were advised that if we didn’t believe that we could make the charges stick at a General Courts Martial in from of a judge and jury that it was inadvisable to charge soldiers with a crime, even if we were trying the case as a “non-judicial” case under Article 15 of the UCMJ. As a company commander I never lost because I made sure that if I charged someone that the evidence would prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.  These guys didn’t. They lost to better defense attorneys and someone got away with murder, manslaughter or child abuse. But the Media Legal system will never admit that they could be wrong in convicting people before a jury even gets the case. It’s a pity that Lincoln Meyer (a peeping Tom murderer played in a most creepy manner by David Dean Bottrell) couldn’t come up and clunk her on the head with a shovel like in Boston Legal).

Finally I ran afoul of a Tea Party partisan yesterday when I mentioned in his extended quote from the Declaration of Independence about removing despots and the right of people to revolt he cut off the quote where the Declaration says “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.” For this I was called everything but a Democrat, you’d think that I had spurned God and man for mentioning this. Instead the man and one of his friends set out to mock me as some kind of Constitution stomping, CNN and MSNBC watching infidel for my cautious and even distrustful views views in regard to the Tea Party movement and some of its leaders.  Of course when picked their arguments apart I got called more names was told that they were “Constitutionalists” and kept trying to shut me up. I had too much fun finally getting one to end his insulting comments aimed at me with “God Bless the USA!” Unfortunately when the phase is used to end an argument, insult the honor, integrity and intellectual honesty and question the patriotism of a fellow American it resonates about as well with me as much as “Heil Hitler!” did to Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Evidently even though I have served the country in the military in peace and war the past 30 years including in combat I am less of a patriot than him or anyone else in the Tea Party.  Despite my personal victory today I fear for the worst when this man and others like him come to power. Dissent will be crushed as they use laws that they currently decry to punish their opponents or critics. Those that joined the movement out of legitimate frustration at the mess that Republicans and Democrats alike as well as most powerful supporters have made of this country will be sorely disappointed when they find that they are considered expendable to those that they put their trust in to deliver the country.

I personally find the often violent language and imagery used so flippantly by many the leaders of the Tea Party to be frightening. The use of such terms as evil, satanic, communist, Marxist or Fascist to characterize those that disagree with you is dangerous for it dehumanizes the other and appeals to the basest forms of human behavior.  The fact that some senior state organizers have links intellectual and economic to white supremacist groups and anti-government “militia” groups makes me even more nervous as do the unstated motivations of some of the principal financial backers the Koch brothers and Rupert Murdoch.  Contrary to what some believe this movement is not a movement of uneducated bumpkins to be trifled with. The Tea Party has money, media and power at its disposal it is not to be taken lightly even when its leaders make mistake after mistake concerning American history and the Constitution.

But it seems that none of them really studies history and that we have failed in teaching our people to learn from history, not the mythology that makes us feel good and warms our patriotic hearts. But according to the gentleman I must not have one of those. Oh well… God Bless the USA!

Well that’s all for tonight.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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August 25, 2010 · 15:40

29 Years in the Military and still Going Strong

“It’s a mere moment in a man’s life between the All-Star Game and an old timer’s game.” Vin Scully

Padre Steve in 1982

They say that “time flies when you’re having fun” and I cannot believe that I have been in the military now for 29 years. On August 25th 1981 a 21 year old college kid with long Southern California “surfer” hair walked into the California Army National Guard Armory on Van Nuys Boulevard to enlist in the National Guard after having just sworn into the Army ROTC program at UCLA.   Back then I enlisted in what was or is called the Simultaneous Membership Program or SMP program.  My initial military training came through the ROTC program as well as on the job training in the National Guard as a Field Artillery Forward Observer and Intelligence Specialist.

Like Cal Ripken Jr commenting about his career “So many good things have happened to me in the game of baseball. When I do allow myself a chance to think about it, it’s almost like a storybook career. You feel so blessed to have been able to compete this long.” I can say the same thing just substituting the words “military career” for “the game of baseball.”

On the day that I enlisted I met with Major Charles Armagost the S-1 of 3rd Battalion 144th Field Artillery and full time advisor for the battalion filled out my enlistment papers and raised my right hand. I still remember the day when I enlisted. It was a hot smoggy Los Angeles day where you could see the air.  I walked down the hall after I swore in to see the supply Sergeant who outfitted me with four sets of Olive Green fatigues and ordered me two sets of the brand new BDUs.  I was issued my TA-50 gear and taken to the motor pool where I was given cursory training on the M151A1 “Jeep” and issued a military drivers license.  The three weeks later I was driving one of those venerable machines to Fort Irwin on a Friday through Sunday drill with the advanced party. It was the beginning of a 29 year career spanning two services, the active and reserve components and now multiple trips to combat zones.

Army Captain 1987

It has to quote Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead “a long strange trip” spanning the Army and the Navy, active and reserve components as well as two tours with the Marine Corps while serving in the Navy and the beat goes on with my selection for promotion to Commander and my Senate nomination to that grade on August 21st.  I have served on the Fulda Gap in the Cold War, been to what was then East Berlin driving the Helmstedt-Berlin corridor sharing the road with Soviet armored columns.  I supported the Bosnia Operation in 1996-97 and the Korean DMZ with the Marines in 2001. I served in Operation Enduring Freedom and Southern Watch in 2002 where I was on a boarding team, boarding 75 Iraqi and other country smuggling ships while serving aboard the USS Hue City.  That was followed by multiple trips in and out of theater with the Marine Security Forces from 2003-2006 as well as time on the Cuban fence line at Guantanamo Bay before serving in Iraq with our Marine and Army advisors and their Iraqi Army and Security forces.  I’ve served with Infantry, Armor, Combat Engineer, Artillery, Medical and Ordnance units, Security forces, support elements, bases and training centers, hospitals and ships.

Berlin Wall November 1986

When I enlisted I thought that once I was commissioned that I would serve my entire career in the Army and retire as a Lieutenant Colonel. I did not anticipate becoming a Chaplain nor leaving the Army for the Navy. When I am officially promoted to Commander it will be the first rank since I was an Army First Lieutenant that I have not held twice.  When I first enlisted and had no ribbons I used to look at wonderment at the Korea and Vietnam veterans who had tons of ribbons and tell Judy that I wish I had what they had. Now that I am working on 9 rows of the things I cringe every time I have to remount ribbons and ribbons and my wallet screams in agony.  Judy is quick to remind me of my whininess back then and tell me that I asked for it.

She didn’t know what she was getting into

As an Army and Navy Officer I have served or done some kind of military duty in Germany, France, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Croatia and Turkey, Spain, Malta, Korea, Japan, Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait and Iraq.  I’ve done what I call the “Commie Trifecta” the Berlin Wall, Korean DMZ and the Cuban Fence Line. At the same time I have spent 16 of 27 wedding anniversaries away from home and lost count of birthdays and other important occasions that I missed while serving the country.

Guantanamo Bay Cuba 2004

I have served 5 different Presidents. In that time I have seen changes in the political, social and economic conditions of the country and the world that I could not have imagined at the time of my enlistment.  The Soviet Union had just invaded Afghanistan and the Iranian hostage crisis had just ended but within the Soviet Union had been defeated the Berlin Wall taken down and collapse of the Soviet Union.  Twenty years after I enlisted the people that defeated the Soviets were attacking us on our own soil.

Boarding Party Arabian Gulf May 2002

I lived in Europe and went through the Chernobyl radiation cloud which is obviously the cause of my glowing personality.  While in Europe I ate enough beef to be labeled by the Red Cross as a potential carrier of Mad Cow disease. I worked on military personnel policies at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic and saw the beginning of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy.  I saw the Reagan build up and the post Cold War drawdown.  When I was a Company XO and Company Commander we had landlines and typewriters with carbon paper and did not get internet in my office until 1997.  It is hard to believe the changes even in the quantum leaps in computer and communication technology in the past few years where I can check e-mail on my Blackberry and work from almost anywhere with my laptop.

With Advisors and Bedouin on Iraqi-Syrian Border December 2007

Looking back here are some of the things that I have seen since I entered the military:

October 23rd 1983: Beirut Bombing: BLT 1/8 barracks and French 1st Parachute Regiment destroyed by suicide bombers 241 Americans and 58 French Paras killed.  I was at the Junior Officer Maintenance Course at Fort Knox watching CNN late at night when they broke the news.

December 12th 1985:  Arrow Air Charter Boeing 707 crashed in Gander Newfoundland killing 248 American Soldiers returning from Peacekeeping duty in Sinai Peninsula. Among the dead was Sergeant Charles Broncato who had been one of my Squad Leaders in 2nd Platoon 557th Medical Company Ambulance. I was then serving as the Company Commander.

January 28th 1986: The Space Shuttle Challenger blows up 73 seconds into flight killing 7 Astronauts.  I was in my office at the close of the day getting ready to adjudicate an Article 15 when my Charge-of Quarters SPC Lisa Dailey ran into my office and said “Lieutenant Dundas, the Space Shuttle just blew up!” My response was “Come on, Space Shuttles don’t blow up.”

February 15th 1988: The Soviet Union withdraws from Afghanistan. I was a National Guard Officer in Texas attending Seminary and thought this was a good thing.  Now I wish that they had done better and at least killed Osama Bin Laden, then a relatively minor commander.

December 21st 1988: Pan Am 103 downed by Libyan operatives over Lockerbie Scotland killing all 270 passengers and crew. The aircraft a Boeing 747 named the Maid of the Seas was the same aircraft that we had flown home from Germany on December 28th 1986.

October 17th 1989: the Loma Prieta Earthquake causes massive damage in San Francisco and Oakland. I was watching pregame activities of game 3 of the World Series between the A’s and Giants on television when it happened.

November 9th 1989: The Berlin Wall Fell. In November of 1986 we had been to East Berlin and like most Americans never thought that we would see this day.

August 2nd 1990: Iraq Invades Kuwait: At time few people believe it well end in war. I was deputy course leader for Army Chaplain Officer Basic Course, tell my classmates to get ready to go to war.

December 31st 1991: The Soviet Union is dissolved.

April 19th 1993: FBI and other Federal Law Enforcement personnel using Combat Engineering Vehicles from the 111th Engineer Battalion, the unit that I serve as a Chaplain assault the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco Texas. Davidian leader David Koresh and dozens of followers die in fire and shoot out.

June 17th 1994:  Police arrest O. J. Simpson after nationally televised low speed chase charging him with murder in the death of his wife Nicole and Ronald Goldman. NBC splits screen between NBA championship series game between Houston Rockets and New York Knicks and the chase. I watch in back of M577 Command Vehicle on 9 inch television in the field at Fort Hood.

August 12th 1994: Baseball strike cancels season, playoffs and Worlds Series.

April 19th 1995: Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols blow up Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building

January 26th 1998: Bill Clinton states that “I want you to listen to me. I’m going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.”

December 31st 1999: The world awaits the end of life as we know it due to the Y2K flaw sthat supposedly causes computers to malfunction and bring calamity to the earth.

January 1st 2000:  People including me wake up from hangovers to find that computers still work.

September 11th 2001: Al Qaeda terrorists hijack four commercial airliners crashing two into the World Trade Center Towers in New York collapsing them and one into the Pentagon. A fourth is brought down by passengers before it can reach Washington DC and its target, the US Capital killing 2976 people and injuring another 6000+. I am at Camp LeJeune North Carolina and remained locked down on base the next 4 days.

March 19th 2003: US and Allies launch attack on Iraq known as Operation Iraqi Freedom to remove Saddam Hussein from power and disarm his stocks of weapons of mass destruction. I am assigned to USS Hue City and the ship is in dry dock. The rest is history.

I also saw a lot of baseball mostly from afar, Pete Rose’s epic hit, Cal Ripken’s consecutive games record, Nolan Ryan’s 5000th strike out and 7th no-hitter as well as all of the now steroid tainted home run records including Barry Bond’s 756th home run which I saw live in a chow hall in Baghdad.

Somehow it is all worth it. Judy has not divorced me although I have probably given her reason on more than one occasion to do so and I love what I do and the people that I get to serve. It really is amazing to look back and think about all the events that I have either witnessed or been a part of in the military as well as all of the great people that I have been associated with. Those friendships and relationships mean more than about anything to me and I am grateful to God and to Judy, my family and all of my friends who have helped me, sometimes in very dark times to go as far and as long as I have in both the Army and Navy.

I was selected for promotion to Commander in June and confirmed by the Senate on August 23rd. I now am about to enter a new phase of life, military service and ministry as the supervisory Chaplain at Naval Hospital Camp LeJeune North Carolina.  Lord knows what the future hold, but whatever happens I feel that things will be fine.

I hope that whatever you do that you will experience good things and be able to look back in life and say “wow that was something else.” So here is to all of us and the long strange trips that we embark upon in life.  In the words of Lou Gehrig, “I am the luckiest man alive.”

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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