RRN Online Volume 391

November 29 '03

Volume 391

Senior Trip The One Not Taken

In my high school Give Me Your... Seniors days, members of the Senior Class always took a senior trip near the end of the school year. I longed for the day when my classmates and I became seniors, not so much that we’d be graduating and joining a branch of the armed services, entering the workforce, or going off to college, but more for the anticipated senior trip.

Previous seniors had returned from touring Washington D.C. and/ or New York and their descriptions of historic and far away places stirred a longing within me to follow in their footsteps. I had heard them tell of touring the White House, seeing Congress at work, and visiting the Smithsonian, a place they said would have taken three days or more to see and how they simply saw what they could in the few hours allotted them. I didn’t keep records of such things in those days, but as far as I remember all the senior trips during my high school days had been trips to Washington and New York.

One might imagine my disappointment when, as a Senior, my class began to discuss breaking with tradition.

"Everybody’s been to Washington and New York, let’s go somewhere else," someone suggested.

At first only a few folks were fond of the idea of change, but like a snowball rolling down a hillside, the movement gathered more support and soon everybody was talking about our class going to Florida.

"Florida?" I thought. "Florida! Florida’s only a day’s drive from Pontotoc. Florida’s a place I could probably afford to go, if the notion to go there ever strikes me. But to see Washington and New York, well that would pose a greater challenge for someone as financially strapped as me. Who knows, a senor trip might be the only chance I’ll ever have to see Washington and New York?"

Over my protests, my classmates voted overwhelmingly in choosing Florida as our destination. They went to Florida, but I stayed home. They had a good time, I didn’t.

I’ve had some regrets since the spring of 1960, but not going to Florida with my classmates has not been one of them. Oh, I’ve been to Florida, several times since then, and, each time I go, I try not to leave anything important there that would cause me to have to go back and get. I saw all I wanted to see of Florida the first time I went there. I saw orange trees and the Atlantic Ocean. I’ve since seen the Gulf of Mexico at Destin, FL. I figure I’ve seen all of Florida that needs seeing.

I can’t say the same for Washington and New York. I still have not been to either. I did buy plane fare to New York for my mother and Rayanne more than twenty years ago. They visited my uncle, Lamar Carter and had a great time. I still hope to make the trek, someday.

My sister recently returned from a visit to Washington, and she’s been good to recount some of her impressions. I’ve asked her to contribute a series of articles to this newsletter of her Washington Trip. She has generously agreed to do so and earlier wrote of visiting the Washington Cathedral. This week she shares her impressions of the White House. Sarah’s not good in math so I may have to remind her that "a series" means three or more.

White House Tour By Sarah C. Brown

Lee Akins, son of former classmate Dr. Steve Akins, works in the office of Congressman Roger Wicker. Through contact between Roger’s office and Miriam Clark, Roger arranged a tour of the White House on Saturday of our visit to Washington. Upon arriving at the meeting point designated by Lee in his e-mail to Miriam, we learned that we could take nothing in the White House with us and that there were no longer lockers available at the visitors’ center for our purses, wallets, cameras, etc. Since Miriam had toured the White House when she received her Presidential award, she offered to watch our stash while we went through the tour.

Mina, Keith, and I walked through the same type of screening procedure that airports have, and after a quick extra wand-scan of Keith we began our tour. The main areas of attraction were the Large Room, where state dinners are held, the Blue Room, the Red Room, and the Green Room. All of the rooms seemed smaller than I had expected them to be, considering the size of the White House.

What really caught my eye was the state of the fabric covering the Green Room walls. Alas, almost every seam was buckled and in need of reattachment to the wall. It seems to me that such an undertaking should not be too difficult. A syringe filled with adhesive and a wallpaper brush should do the job quite nicely.

One would think that some organization—oh, I don’t know, maybe Friends of the White House or Preservation of Historic Places—would find the money and workers to fix it. One wonders how Laura Bush manages to squelch the temptation to run down after hours and work on it, especially with George W. away so much of the time lately.

Of course, Miriam chided me for my pettiness by reminding me of the much greater concerns, like the war with Iraq and the economy, that weigh on the minds of people in charge. Yet, I keep returning to the idea that the White House belongs to the American people and that if we hold "Open-House" every week for hundreds of sightseers, then we ought to fix the wall covering that is coming off the wall.

America’s Resolve Media Attacks Daily

I continue to grow weary of the detail (almost microscopic) in reporting of coalition forces deployed in Iraq. When a day does go by, in which no American or British soldier is injured or killed, my friends on National Public Radio find it necessary to rehash old news. I get the feeling most of the media is biased toward the war effort. I feel they are unhappy that major combat operations were over quickly with so few losses of American lives, which is pretty much as the Bush administration predicted. Perhaps, the media is of the same mindset as the insurgents in Iraq, that America’s resolve can be weakened if attacks continue.

Rather than give praise to our armed forces for their liberation efforts, the media chooses to suggest our troops are but occupation forces. More than one reporter has been quick to compare the daily harassment of coalition forces with "the quagmire" America faced in Vietnam. My guess is that such inept reporting comes from poorly informed reporters or reporters who had not come of age at the time of the Vietnam Conflict.

The following submission came our way via Rick Greene of Brandon. Rick has a friend in Iraq who recently shared his unique perspective, and who, in spite of being far from home this holiday season, finds reason enough to be thankful.

A Soldier’s Thanks By Bradley M. Shee 11/20/03

Hello everyone: I know I have not written in a while but I am sure you all understand that things are a bit busy around here. For everyone who sent birthday cards and packages thank you so much, it's hard to say just how much it means in an environment like this to receive so much love from back home. I am almost 4 months into this adventure and sometimes it seems like I just got here (most of the time it seems like forever), but I only have two months left.

I know that a lot of you want to know exactly what it is that I am doing on a daily basis. Well then, I have coordinated the assessment of 35 mass graves (although we have found over 250 so far) working with international forensic teams from the UK and Denmark.

My specific role in this adventure is serving as the operations and logistics officer (which is difficult since we have used the British, Polish, Bulgarians, Australians, Dominican republic, Norway and the Dutch Military for security support as well as the good old U.S.) as well as deciding what grave sites to assess based on intelligence reports (who would have thought such a thing? A Chief Dental Tech in the Navy). What we are trying to do as a team is identify certain sites that can be used in the international tribunals against the former regime for crimes against humanity.

My quality of life has been pretty good compared to the foot soldiers in country. I live in a "trailer" with one roommate. We share a bathroom with the other side of the trailer. It is only a couple of beds and two lockers so it's not like it is a mini house or anything.

When we go on our missions to the sites we have lived in tents, airports, and a variety of other interesting places. When we are in Baghdad I work at the Presidential Palace, which is about the size of a city block. I could write for an hour explaining how it looks in detail but at this point I am tired of seeing the place. I will send some pictures of it later. What is really obvious though is that even the palace shows the obsession with military weapons that Saddam had. Also, the palace is a pretty safe place to be during a mortar attack.

Well, I have to pack for another trip; I will be out for around ten days. I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I know I will, no matter where I am, because I know exactly how much to be thankful for.

Take care, and tell everyone I will be home soon!!

Bodock Beau Weather Prediction

If your faith in weather prognosticators is as weak as mine, perhaps, you’ll appreciate the following sent in by Ed Dandridge.

It was autumn, and the Indians on the remote reservation asked their new Chief if the winter was going to be cold or mild. Since he was an Indian Chief in a modern society, he had never been taught the old secrets and, when he looked at the sky, he couldn't tell what the weather was going to be. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he replied to his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village should collect wood to be prepared. But also, being a practical leader, he decided to seek advice from experts.

He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked, "Is the coming winter going to be cold?"

"It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold indeed," the meteorologist at the weather service responded. So the Chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more wood in order to be prepared.

A week later he called the National Weather Service again. "Is it still going to be a cold winter?" he asked.

"Yes," the man at the National Weather Service again replied, "it's going to be a very cold winter.

The Chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of wood they could find.

Two weeks later he called the National Weather Service again.

"Are you absolutely sure that this winter is going to be very cold?" he asked for a third time.

"Absolutely," the weatherman replied. "In fact, it's going to be one of the coldest winters ever!"

"How can you be so sure?" the Chief asked.

The weatherman replied, "The Indians are gathering wood like crazy."

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