> Olin wrote:
>> My grandparents and mother lived all that stuff. My father even served as
>> the Navy's honor guard when Roosevelt's body was carried from the train
>> to the White House to lie in state.
>>
>> Never met my father, 'cause he died shortly before I was born, but the
>> rest were nominal republicans and would have shot anybody who said an
>> unkind word about FDR.
>
> Interesting, both of my parents, who were Navy personnel in WWII,
> detested FDR. And they were nominally democrats at the time.
>
It's always either or, and there's never much rhyme or reason.
As an aside, my mother called me over to her house in Austin several years
before she passed on to make me sit down and watch a film on Roosevelt's
life. She'd been with my father in DC, and pregnant with me at the time,
working as a mail clerk in a building that housed the Washington Bureau of
the Associated Press. She actually announced FDR's death to the reporters,
because she was fascinated with the wire machine. She didn't get to see it
again that day. ;^)
She was also in the crowd for the procession, but that film she wanted me to
see held film not only of the better known procession from the White House
to Arlington, but from the train to the White House when they brought his
body from Warm Springs, where he'd died.
Last guy on the left, representing the Navy, walked my father... easily
recognized because his hat was squarely on the back of his head, the way she
said he always wore it.
Kind of freaky, but also kind of special, seeing as how all I'd ever seen of
the man was a few old photographs.
>> Recently, while Admiral Fallon was taking apart the good General Petraeus
>> in a way that MoveOn could only have dreamed of, the point was raised
>> that you don't make it to the top in the military without ruffling some
>> feathers. While much of that feather-ruffling is surely political in
>> nature and entirely calculated, much of it is driven by deep-seated
>> prinicple, and it might well be because of that that things are not any
>> worse than they are.
>
> You will notice that most of the military personel at high levels
> either wait to make comments until they are retired, or are driven out
> after making comments contrary to the Bush doctrine. The list is long
> and Petraeus is more of a yes-man than a man with military experience.
> To me, he seems like some sort of glorified accountant with all his
> spreadsheets and generally detached manner.
>
Yeah, but in this case, Fallon is Petraeus' boss, and apparently this is not
the first time he's dressed him down.
Wouldn't surprise me to see Fallon's name on the retirement list fairly
soon. ;^)
>>
>> Seems that every time you've come through Nashvegas, life has intervened
>> and kept me from the gathering. Hopefully that will change by the next
>> time you get here.
>
> I don't know when that will be, but I sure do want to meet up with the
> Nashville folks again whenever that may happen. Perhaps I will get to
> take another woodworking course over in Dandridge sometime in 2008...it
> would make for a nice roadtrip.
>
It's always a nice road trip up here... 'cept this year when it's been as
dry as West Texas.
