Size Does Matter

I spent last weekend camping out with my son's Boy Scout Troop aboard the USS New Jersey. This masterpiece of naval architecture is the , fastest, strongest, longest and most decorated battleship in the world. She was born during WWII and was taken out of and put back into service a record 5 times. After serving off of Beirut in the 80's she was finally mothballed and then retired in Camden, NJ where she now patiently entertains thousands of fans and former colleaugues.

We learned how the big 16" 50 caliber guns (6 forward and 3 aft) accurately placed rounds the weight of a VW bug on target 26 miles away. We saw the batteries of dual 5" guns that only throw projectiles 10 miles away or 36,000 feet skyward (anti-aircraft), the Phalanx anti-missile / anti-aircraft systems and the quad batteries of Tomohawk Cruise Missiles.

Unfortunately, we weren't on board long enough to properly tend to the 6 on board museums, but I am sure we'll allocate time when we return; and we certainly will return.

The Battleship New Jersey accepts families, scout groups and other organizations for overnight encampments. They provide dinner, breakfast, a guilded tour and time in a flight simulator. Th docents were knowledgeable and pleasant and bunking in the Navy racks gave the kids something that they won't experience at Disneyland. I highly recommend it.

http://battleshipnewjersey.org 1-866-877-6262 extension 203 

Lucky Dog

I'm a lucky dog. Came out of that one clean.

No need to worry, I'm fully recovered now.

Please don't make a fuss. The surgery was a complete success.

Yes, it was a serious infection.

Yes, many people have died from it.

Yes, it could have been fatal.

But I'm fine. Really!

What did I have?

A Periapical infection and a root canal.

You see it is only by virtue of the fact that I was born in the US in 1958 that I'm alive. Had I been born 150 years ago or 150 miles south of the the border, it's quite possible that the infection would have gone untreated and I would quite possible have died.

Althouth the pain of the infection was excruciating (the root canal was a piece of cake by comparison), I never feared for my life. I knew that once I made the decision, I would have my pick of hundreds of trained medical practitioners who would operate on me and within a couple of days I would be back to normal.

How different the fate for so many people in so many far away places and times.

As I was recuperating I began to list the number of times that I was saved by the fortune of my birth place and time.

Well there's the fact that I was a 3.5 pound baby born 6 weeks premature. That's almost certainly curtains for most of the history and geography of the world.

Then there's the childhood bleeding disease that the doctors at first thought was hemophelia but later successfully treated with cortizone therapy.

Then there's the time I had infected tonsils and the time I fell off the cliff and the time in college when I had meningitis. Oh yeah and don't forget last year's dance with thyroid cancer.

Let's see, that's six times in my life where in other times and places I most certainly would have been that many feet under.

Perhaps I'm not a lucky dog. Perhaps I'm of the feline persuasion and I've got three more lives left to burn. 

Gone But Not Forgotten

On a recent trip to Budapest, our family stopped at the Communist Statue Park (graveyard). My children were raised on a steady diet of anti-communism, so it was interesting for them at an intellectual level.

But standing before these icons of an oppressive era thankfully gone by, I was struck by a tremendous sense of what I could only identify as nostalgia mixed with de ja vu.

Nostalgia:
Growing up in the 60's we learned to duck under our desks during the mock air raid drills. We cheered on the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo spacemen as they sought to best the Cosmonauts. We heard the body counts on the radio as young men came back from Vietnam in bags in the fight against Communist North Vietnam. We saw Communism spread across the globe from Peru to Nicaragua in our hemisphere to places like Ethiopia and Burma half a world away.

De Ja Vu:
I remember that there was a sense of invincibility about Communism in general and about the Soviet Union in particular. Nobody really thought you could beat the Soviet Union - they were too big, too committed AND they were everywhere. The Communists were pressing us everywhere. The only continent that seemed safe was Antarctica. The best we could hope to do is to appease and contain them.

Amazingly enough, we hear the same things today about Radical Islam.

They're too big.

Too committed.

And besides, they're everywhere. Muslims in Africa. Muslims in Asia. Muslims taking over Europe.

The best we can do is appease and contain them.

One day, my children will take my grandchildren to the new World Trade Center. They'll tell them how when they were growing up nobody thought that we'd be able to defeat Radical Islam. How they bombed us and killed our innocents. How we fought great wars to free enslaved peoples in their countries.

I'm sure at an intellectual level, my grandchildren will be interested.

But the sight won't stir their souls like it will for my children.

Just like it did for me when I saw this statue.

They Never Get It

A few weeks ago a terrorist was arrested in Germany. The police and intelligence agencies there found out that he was planning to blow up two commuter trains. I had just returned from Germany and read the reaction in the press. Everyone was shocked and amazed.

The terrorists are targeting Germany! But we're not the bad guys like America! We're good like France!

USA Today reported:

"Germany's refusal to take part in the U.S.-led war in Iraq once had Germans thinking Islamic terrorists would focus elsewhere, said Lesch's wife, Marita, 52, a teacher. "We didn't fight in Iraq, and until now we assumed that if we behaved well in the world, nothing would happen to us," she said.

Michael Lüders, a Middle East expert and government policy consultant, said, "Germany is reorienting its (foreign) policy. It did not call for an immediate cease-fire (during Israeli attacks) in Lebanon, and that was disappointing in the Arab world. Some radical forces now think Germany should be punished," he said."

This is an incredible rationalization of terrorism. In short, if Germany or the West doesn't toe the radical Muslim line, it will become a target. Neutrality is now not enough, activism on behalf of radical Muslism is the only way to avoid being an enemy.

The truth is that no matter what Germany or any of the other EU countries do, terrorism is now an unfortunate fact of life. Neutrality is not an option. Only vigilance and activism will serve to safeguard the West.

In 1972 Germany became the bed where the seeds of terrorism were planted. The German people thought that it was Israel's problem and have by and large sat idly by as the US, the UK and Israel have faced Radical Islam. Now these seeds have grown into weeds that are threatening to choke Germany. After 34 years, they still don't get it.