Monday : 20 March 2006
The work day… was. Not that it was bad, but I’m having a problem bending MySQL to my will. I’m sure that it’s something that I’ll be able to figure out, but it’s still a bit annoying. Oh, well, I will persevere and fight my way through it.
Post-work, I had dinner with at Cafè Med. Lynne, our waitress, was great… and rather funny. She had that nurturing mother/grandmother feel and she was definitely on top of her game.
Then, it was time for D&D night at ‘. Our group traveled back to a site of a previous adventure to see if we could put a cork on a problem that a previous adversary had opened. We had two possible responses: A diplomatic one and a show of force. We wound up taking the diplomatic path, which was good. Very good, in fact. Why? Because the last… “person”… that we faced would have mopped the floor with our characters. All of our characters. And he wouldn’t have broken a sweat (mostly because he was already dead). So, we were able to enter, leave and head back home without much ado.
Random Access
And if the music stops
There’s only the sound of the rain
All the hope and glory
All the sacrifice in vain
If love remains
Though everything is lost
We will pay the price,
But we will not count the cost
  -“Bravado,” by Rush, from “Roll the Bones”
There are thousands of men and women in the Armed Forces who have pledged to protect and defend our freedoms, both at home and abroad. They know that at any time, they could be called up to honor that pledge. And they do so. Day in. Day out. Yes, many would say that it’s just their job. I would say that it’s more than that… or even more than “an adventure,” as the 80s and 90s Navy commercials claimed. I’m not sure if I would designate it as “a calling,” but that seems to best fit what I’m thinking of.
Today, I was looking at an issue of Newsweek when I came across an article about USMC Corporal Jacob Knospler, who was injured in Fallujah, Iraq. To simply say that he was “injured” does not adequately convey a sense of what happened to him: He lost most of his jaw due to a grenade. The following is the lead paragraph of his story.
Cpl. Jacob Knospler, his jaw mostly blown away by a grenade, did not wake up for a month. His first clear memory is of President George W.Bush standing over his bed at Bethesda Naval Hospital. “How the hell you doin’?” asked the president. Knospler couldn’t really answer, but he liked Bush. “I felt bad for him ‘cuz he comes down to the hospital,sees all the wounded people there and knows he put them there,” he said.
What amazed me about this story was: Despite what had happened to him, Corporal Knospler’s concern wasn’t for himself. It was for the president. “I felt bad for him…” Empathy. He suffered massive trauma and had been unconscious for a month, but his thoughts were for the man who had sent him overseas to fight. I don’t know – nor could I possibly guess – what level of remorse President Bush feels when he walks into Bethesda Naval Hospital or Walter Reed Army Hospital and sees the faces of soldiers who have returned home, battered and bruised…or even broken, but I hope that it is commensurate with the level of hope and trust that they have placed in him and the mission that he laid before them.
I have family and friends who have heard – and answered – the call of serving in the military. It wasn’t a path that I chose to follow, but I am grateful for the freedoms that I enjoy thanks to their service.
Just like I am thankful for people like Corporal Knospler.
He feels a jumble of emotions about his wound, including bitterness,though never regret. “I’m a Marine,” he says. “Marines were going down and I had to go in and help them.”
Stray Toasters
Quote of the Day
While sitting at the restaurant, a couple walked in and the guy squeezed his date’s butt before she sat down. I’m not the biggest fan of a lot of PDA (call me “old-fashioned”), but this was apparently their thing, so more power to them.
The first “problem,” however, was that saw the the grab and thought that it was “cute,” which prompted her to say:
“Your butt is my plaything!”
The second problem was that I was eating a spoonful of saffron ice cream… which I almost spit out because it made me laugh in surprise (and maybe a little bit of fear). A lot. Hard enough to start crying. A lot. I don’t know whether the ice cream would have made it into the bowl or onto the table, but I’m glad that I didn’t find out. I think that we both laughed for almost two minutes before we managed to compose ourselves. I’m sure that it must have been rather entertaining for the restaurant’s other patrons.
Namaste.
