Last night the band (Stranger Creek) played at the American Legion. There was a good crowed (inspite of the Cotton Bowl Game) with lots of dancing and a good time was had by all. Before the festivities started they had a moment of silence for all the troops who were in harms way. I started thinking about how many times we’ve had to send young men out to fight for freedom during just my life time. How many times old men stood in silence for young men in harms way. I never had to serve and I consider that just dumb luck. I had two kids and a wife when the Veitnam war broke out so I guess I didn’t make the cut and I’m not sad about that. I’ve seen news footage of war and it looked bad but you don’t see the reality of war on TV they can’t show that. What we see is the cleaned up version. But you can read about it; there are books that try to tell it for what it is, but unless you’ve been there I susect you can’t know. I got a book at Christmas called Fly Boys by James Bradley. It’s about eight Navy and Marine pilots that were shot down and held prisoner on a small island called Chichi Jima not far from Iwo Jima in the Pacific in WW II. The mental state of the Japanese soldier at that time was that they had a divine right to treat the enemy any way they saw fit to advance their cause. I always wandered how humans could act the way they did (and i’m shure there were attrocaties on both sides) and I guess I understand it better now, but I think first place would have to go to the Japanese soldiers of WWII, and these young Fly Boys were right in the middle of them with no way out but death by torture. But after all this time after all the wars and all the people that think they have the divine right to do as they see fit……..well you know the rest of the story.