Today is my birthday…. | 70 years old and 39 years young!

3 days ago

I am amazed at my life and feel so blessed. Even in one generation we have made huge progress in medicine, technology, and in our ability to connect with people around the world. One week ago I was at a wedding where people from many nations came together...

I love my wife

Today I have received blessings from hundreds of people from all over the world, something my parents could not have experienced. I was born in 1955, 10 years after WW2. Without the sacrifice and struggle of that war I would not be here, and probably many of you would not be either, I know. Yesterday I was thinking about it, my mind went back to my dad. He died far from home, at the age of 54, working for his family. During WW2 he was in the merchant marines. In those days, they sailed everything that would float… carrying supplies to the fronts. He sailed on the Star of Scotland. In this picture it has 4 masts, but in 1942 it was re-rigged to
add two more before being put into service during the war.

On the 13th of November, 1942 the ship was captured by a German Submarine, the crew set free in a life boat, and the ship was sunk. The crew was given 4 cans of black bread, some cigarettes, and with those meager supplies was put afloat, finally landing in Angola on the African coast on December 1st. My father never spoke of those days. I can only imagine what it was like on that life boat, 19 days…. 4 cans of bread.

I share that story with profound thanks and respect for the men and women that served during that war, and all others, to make sure that this nation has the chance to work to be a better place. While I was thinking about my dad, I realized THAT is why I stand in respect for the National Anthem. When I see people being disrespectful to our flag and our anthem, I am saddened. I believe they don’t have an understanding that if it weren’t for those men and women, they, the protesters, probably would not be alive today. If Germany had won that war, almost certainly, there would have been no Martin Luther King; many of our parents would have suffered the same fate of the Jews, Romani, and Slavs… and if allowed to live they would probably have been sterilized, as was the case with many people of non Aryan backgrounds in Nazi Germany.

We do not stand because we think this nation is perfect, we stand in respect because our fellow Americans (and others to be sure), died so that these protesters even had the chance to live and continue to work to make this world/nation a better place. Being disrespectful is NOT constructive in making progress, it is just another example of immaturity and self-indulgence. I hardly think Martin Luther King would be participating in this kind of behavior, he would have found some more appropriate and productive way to move forward in progress.