So….here we sit just a little over a year after the failed overthrow of America’s democratic nation with well over 100,000 thousand Russian troops spaced along Ukraine’s border awaiting the command to invade the democratic nation of Ukraine.
I wonder what thoughts are running through Mike Pence’s mind right now given his two sons are both Marine fighter pilots if memory serves me correct. I wonder if he in his mind questions whether America would be at this juncture today if simply… he, Mitch McConnell, and Lindsey Graham had collectively in unison done the right thing six weeks after the courts declared Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 presidential election.
This is why from a historical standpoint by real historians not named Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity those six-weeks leading up to the January 6th insurrection will be viewed as the darkest six weeks in American history bar none…. even darker than the Insurrection itself or even the Civil War.
Who amongst us who can read should be surprised by not only Putin’s new-found swagger, but that of China as well.
Did the Trump people not think the entire world was watching with rapt interest on January 6th, 2021? I mean… is this really a solving the DaVinci Code moment for the Trump zealots?
Of course…they wouldn’t know because their ‘man’ avoided military service because of bunions. They also wouldn’t understand because their ‘man’ openly referred to people in the military. as suckers and losers.
I can’t help but think of my late father-in-law this morning who was a Bird Colonel in the United States Air Force. A squadron commander who served this nation with a sense of patriotic pride during the Cold War and up until the fall of the Soviet Union.
A Bird Colonel means he was one promotion away from becoming a Brigadier One-Star General. An impressive guy who graduated from the University of Indiana with an engineering degree and a love of Bob Knight’s Hoosiers.
The first time he opened his mouth about Bobby Knight he had me at the third word after, “Hello, Michael.”
A relatively quiet person, but a man with a razor-sharp wit when he felt the need to use it.
That’s how my wife came to fall in love with Auburn because Richard was assigned to attend the War College in Montgomery.
His very premature death occurred just into retirement when the single engine hobby plane he was flying went down near the Iowa-Nebraska border. My wife’s folks had retired in Bellevue, Nebraska because during the Cold War that’s where the Air Force head-quartered its Strategic Air Command or SAC as it was then called. They wanted to be near all of their close friends from the Air Force.
I’ll never forget his Memorial service at a church in Omaha. It was held on a dark, gloomy rainy day. His entire former squadron attended in uniform just like in the final scene in White Christmas.
Service, duty, honor…country.
In the sports vernacular…he was a players’ coach. His men loved him.
I loved him and to this day respect what he stood for as a man. I never told him, but in his own quiet way he helped me come to understand what it means to be an American…. and quite frankly a man. To this day…I have no idea what Richard thought about certain political issues, but I know this…. he loved his family, his country, and the Air Force.
If Richard were here with us today, I’d ask him, “What do you think is going to happen?”
He’d take a deep draw from his pipe and say, “I’m not sure. Our country has changed so much in the past six years. I really don’t know. But we should be praying for the brave young men and women who are over there trying to do the right thing.”
Perhaps, this week-end…Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell, and Lindsey Graham will start doing the same.