2019: Have a Happy New Year

Need I say more?

Remembering, Veterans Day, November 11, 2018

Don Madden, Da Nang, Vietnam, 1969

Open Wide

Me: "I have a toothache that's really bad and it's not going away."
Dental appointment not available for 3 days but dentist prescribes antibiotic, which alleviates some pain.

Next day's dermatology appointment for suspicious leg spot whacking (initial basal cell carcinoma, final report = all clear):  Dermatologist: "It took a little longer because you needed 12 stitches."
(WTF? The spot was the size of a pea!)
"Here's the antibiotic to take."
Susan: "That's different than the one the dentist has him taking."
Dermatologist: "My prescription outranks the dentist's."

2 days later, dentist says tooth is bad, doesn't think a 3rd root canal will solve anything, extraction scheduled with oral surgeon.  Extraction done painlessly, thanks to paying $750 out-of-pocket for IV anesthesia ("Your insurance covers it only if you have 2 teeth removed. Is there another tooth you'd like to have removed?")
Oral surgeon: "This is the antibiotic you need to take."
Susan: "That's different than the one the dermatologist has him taking for that hole now in his leg."
Oral Surgeon: "My prescription outranks the dermatologist's."

Oh boy.
When two MDs conflict, Susan consults the appropriate authority, The Pharmacist: "One prescription is for oral germs, one is for skin germs. Take both and take PeptoBismal with them."
Problem solved.

We Swim

You've met Esther Williams before. Here she is with her new friends, Katie Ledecky and Missy Franklin.

I Couldn't Make This Up If I Tried

News from a Weird World, compliments of the Austin American-Statesman.

Remembering, D-Day, June 6, 1944

Robert Capa, photographer, Normandy Beach , June 6, 1944

 "The move to the ships and craft took place the 3rd of June and we started loading up the night of June 5 but waited twenty-four hours. ... June 6 ... eating a quick breakfast at about 2:00 a.m., climbing over the side on a cargo net at about 3:30 a.m. into a wildly pitching LCM, bouncing on board while the craft joined a rendezvous circle and waited for the last of our wave to join.  We were afloat and sailed out with barrage balloons to prevent bomb attack.  Training and planning had ended and D-Day had started for the 54 occupants of LCM 1098.  Finally, we ceased circling and started the straight run to the beach, still in the dark.

While we travelled the 12 miles to the shore line, the dawn came up... Everyone soon was experiencing the pangs of seasickness, wanting to get off that pitching and rolling boat no matter what might come next. You couldn't stick your head over the side, so everyone was vomiting in the boat.  I positioned myself right at the front as I believed it was essential that the members of the command be first on the beach...

In our craft we could feel the bottom scrub some sand and jar to a grounded halt. Obviously the boat had struck a sand bar.  I plunged forward, jumped into the dark water, feet first, and was surprised to find I was in eight-foot deep water. My lifebelt brought me back to the surface, already swimming.  Soon my feet touched bottom and I was able to begin splashing and running out of the water.  Winded, I paused to kneel in the shelter of a steel hedgehog, then lunged ahead and dove into a depression filled with water.  Suddenly, my ankle felt as if hit by a baseball bat. I was afraid to stand up for fear of being shot and I was afraid to stay where I was for fear I'd be drowned.  Eventually I decided I had to move, and I'd try running and if I could run OK then my leg must not be broken.  I hobbled the remaining 50 yards to the shoreline and lay down against the stony rubble. .. There was no one in front of me, beside me, nor behind me that I could see or hear."



Being interviewed, Normandy, June 6, 1994

Susan's step-father's account of June 6, 1944. That day he was shot in the ankle but went on with the 121st Engineers Combat Battalion, 29th Division, to St. Lo, Brest and on to Paris. He continued to serve in the army in France and later in Okinawa and in Viet Nam, where there was, to his immense pride, a $2,000 price on his head.

Pops, we miss you.

Remembering, Memorial Day 2018

Memorial Day is a Federal holiday, observed the last Monday in May, to honor the U.S. soldiers who died while in military service.  The son of a U.S. soldier killed in Afghanistan put it this way:

His life was not taken: It was given, to his country.

I served in DaNang, Vietnam, from February 1969 to February 1970 and then I came home. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the mall in Washington DC has etched on its black surface the 58,318 names of Americans who died during the war there. They came home draped in an American flag.  It includes these two names:  

Barry Lynn Brown, Killed in Action, Vietnam, 1968.

James Clifford McKittrick, Missing in Action, Vietnam, 1967.

The Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency refers to Maj. McKittrick as "Status: Unaccounted For."

Why are these two men so significant to me? Go here and I'll tell you.

Enjoy your long holiday weekend with family and friends.  And the next time you step into a voting booth think carefully about your choice.