Double-Edged Sword

As you may know, I write an article every Monday for our local newspaper, the Mansfield News Journal, profiling our area military veterans. It is an honor and privilege to sit down with one of our veterans for a couple of hours each week and listen to their stories, which I in turn recount in print. It is an effort I thoroughly enjoy and, based on feedback via emails and text messages, readers enjoy also.

It is, however, a double-edged sword.

I've read volumes and volumes of history books, from America's Civil War on through present day Afghanistan and the War on Terror; watched hundreds of hours' worth of documentaries concerning this country's armed conflicts. Though I didn't serve in the military, something I've come to regret over the last two decades, I feel a very strong sense of pride for this nation's military and its veterans. Books and films cannot adequately describe the horrors of war, the death and destruction that comes with it...nor the psychological and emotional trauma inflicted upon those who have seen combat and survived.

On more than one occasion, while interviewing a patriot-hero, they've had to pause, collect themselves after emotions momentarily got the best of them. The act of telling their story dredges up bad memories, ones that some have taken decades to bury, reliving in the mind once again terrible, tragic events that have scarred them, wounded the psyche. Wounds that will never heal.

When they hurt, suffer the angst that sometimes comes with reliving combat, it has an effect on me:

Guilt.

In that moment, when chests get tight and voices choke, I feel responsible. Responsible for unearthing the terror of combat, for their reliving of the moment when a buddy or close friend died in battle or they themselves suffered grievous wounds.

It's my fault.

And sometimes, when I'm writing their stories in the solitude of my home, those moments come to me and I see again their eyes welling with tears, hear them apologizing to me for the emotions they feel; me, a civilian who never served a day in the armed forces.

And I weep for them.

God bless all our veterans, especially those who have seen combat and have borne witness to man's brutality to man, for without them we wouldn't be the United States of America.

'Proud Uncle' Photos

Proud Uncle

I remember a little guy, skinny with folds of wavy blonde hair who, from his earliest years, wanted to be a policeman. He watched the old TV show 'CHiPS' religiously, though it was corny to the point I refused to watch, and wore the hand-sewn police uniform my first wife Lesa had made for him until he grew out of it. He patrolled the suburban/rural street he grew up on by riding his bike while in that uniform, noting unusual cars or people in the pocket notepad he carried. I still have a picture of that little boy and his younger brother standing beside the Ontario PD cruiser I drove back in 1981.

This evening, in a Cincinnati suburb, I will be pinning his sergeant's badge to his chest in front of his friends, family and co-workers.

That little boy with the blonde locks will become Sergeant Jeff Wolf, Goshen Township Police Department. Jeff, all six-foot-four of him, no longer looks up to this five-ten uncle, though he may disagree with that perception. He says I was the reason he wanted to become a police officer, that I set an example for him to follow. This man, in whom I still see that little boy, has set his own example, now trudging forward in the profession I left in 2013, leaving his own footprints for the next generation to follow.

I could not be prouder.

                                                         Sgt. Jeff Wolf

Another 'What Were They Thinking?'

John Braman thought he had a pretty good gig going: taking cash from drunks.

John Braman was a night-shift deputy for the Volusia County ( Fla ) Sheriff's Office and, as such, would often come in contact with inebriated individuals during the course of his shift. Now, persons under the influence of alcoholic beverages are often so to such a degree that they can't understand exactly what is happening, even when being arrested.

Enter Braman's extra-income scheme.

"He's a thieving idiot" said Sheriff Mike Chitwood, upon learning that State of Florida investigators uncovered enough evidence, including additional victims, to charge the 33-year-old road patrol deputy.

How was he caught? By his own body camera footage.

Apparently Deputy Braman, during one arrest, forgot to turn off the camera before going through the wallet of a man he'd just arrested for driving while intoxicated. In the video, Braman was filmed taking at least one $100 bill from the handucuffed offender's wallet, placing it in an evidence bag and then hiding the money in the trunk of his cruiser. During investigation of the incident, it was found that Braman had not turned the cash in as evidence. In at least four other instances in which arrested intoxicated persons complained of missing money, investigators allege that Braman is heard on his body cam video telling the suspects that he was turning the camera off for 'police tactics', a policy enacted by the previous Volusia County Sheriff. Chitwood has since changed that policy. "It appears that the police tactics were to steal money from the motorists", he said in a statement to media.

Braman, who was placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal investigation, eventually resigned his position with the department. Records show he had been paid in excess of $60,000 in wages the previous year.

                                                       "Thieviing idiot" John Braman

Is What You Want REALLY What You Want?

What is your goal, your main desire in life? What is it you want so badly that you can almost taste it, touch it, smell it? What is it that you're working towards?

Is it really what you want?

Will that goal quench an insatiable thirst once you reach and drink of it? Will attaining it mean you're done, you'll coast through the rest of your life without another goal being set?

Will you be satisfied?

When I consider these questions, examine my goals, I think about high school, the endless hours sitting in class, taking notes, tests, quizzes, thinking about what I was going to do once I graduated, what I wanted to do.

I couldn't wait to graduate and put an end to the monotonous days spent at Madison. I wanted to get out into the world, start the next chapter of life, see what it held. The first day of my freshman year, graduation seemed so far away; when that day in June came four years later, time had seemed to pass very quickly, drifting away like smoke from an extinguished candle.

Graduating had been a goal. I achieved it. Looking back now, nearly 42 years later, I realize how much better I could have been, the grades I could have attained if only I'd applied myself. In other words, I reached my goal without fully committing myself to it.

And I regret it now.

Today I wish I could be back there, sitting in Mr. Gillson's civics class, or Mrs. Fehr's journalism class, but I know I can't. I can't go back and work harder during baseball practice, can't become a better player. Can't go back and treat a few people a little better.

I reached my goal but it has become hollow over the passing years.

That's the thing about goals. They can feel amazingly good once you reach them but, as time passes, they can come to mean less to you, lose their value. The real satisfaction I got was high school and playing baseball. It wasn't graduation, it was the daily grind of getting homework done at an acceptable level, riding that bus every morning until I got my driver's license, struggling to make it through Mrs. Downs' French class and, yes, the musty, stale sweat-smell of the locker room while getting dressed for baseball practice.

It was the journey, not the destination. Enjoy the road you're traveling right now, every step of it; be the best that you can while getting there.

One day, you might reach your goal but what you'll remember most was the route that got you there.

Never Give Up !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsqo1H-up_g

The Dash In The Middle

We're born, we live and we die. The living, that's where we make our mark, where we decide what we leave behind. Each of us decides who we  will be, what we'll do to contribute, what legacy we will work towards and what we'll leave behind.

It's the dash in the middle. That's what counts.

That dash in the middle is found in the place we will all end up: the grave yard. That dash is on every headstone of every grave in every cemetery. The date to the left of that dash is the beginning, the birth, a starting point to the life we will live. It is the roaring, fiery launch of a rocket-life that begins with a newborn infant's first breath, whimper and cry. From that very moment until the last breath is drawn, that dash in the middle is who we are, who we become, how we shape our lives. That dash in the middle is what we do with the life we are given, what we say to the world, a statement that will last long after we are gone in the memories of those whose dashes ours intersects.

That dash in the middle is time, a commodity that cannot be bought but can easily be lost or, worse, wasted. We are given that dash in the middle by our Almighty Creator who, in His infinite wisdom, grants us a choice in what we do with that dash, the life we live and what we choose to do with it.

That dash in the middle needs to be nurtured, watered and grown into a life-tree that will bear fruit, sustaining the chain-reaction of all the dashes that will follow through the ages.

What are you doing with that dash in the middle, right now, this moment you've taken to read this entry? What does that dash in the middle look like, this instant, to those whose own dash yours crosses? No one else decides what your dash in the middle will look like, how bold or meaningful that dash is or may become, how deeply it will be etched into the headstone that is our time, our lives.

That dash in the middle, though small it may be in our final resting place, is the single, most important life-long symbol of what we did with our lives, how well we filled, or wasted, that dash. The dash in the middle seems unending in youth but very short when the date to the right of it is filled. Make that dash in the middle have meaning, both to yourself and all the others who are filling their own. Don't just say, wish or dream; DO. Take that first bold step, make that dash in the middle deeper, more meaningful, impactful. Fill that dash in the middle to overflowing, splash it positively over all the other dashes encompassed in your own.

Make that dash in the middle COUNT.