detour

taking a detour from our

investiture remarks,

and before we start in again on our

never ending travels -

we think you should read this

it will give you chills.

The Weather is Here I Wish You Were Beautiful

LDL wrote a blog post earlier about our awesome trip back to the great Sunshine State. The whole thing was Planes, Trains and Automobiles and in typical D family travel fashion, very few things went smoothly. Thankfully, one thing that did was P sitting quietly in his seat entertaining me and the people behind us with his love of waving on the plane. That was pretty phenomenal.

It's HOT in Florida and being life-long Gator fans, there is no real love for anything remotely related to Tallahassee (especially given the current governor but that's not worth mentioning). 102 degrees. Car A/C appears to stop working. LDL in backseat while P sleeps, watching sweat beads form on his head. FTD in front seat with giant plastic ball at her feet desperately moving air vents to get the flow starting again. LTD driving in quiet desperation, knowing that things are about to get, well, heated.

LDL - Can you guys send some air back this way? It's boiling back here.

FTD - I know! All the air vents are pointed back there but we're hot too.

LTD - Winces in silence, flashing back to days spent traveling in a station wagon.

5 minutes later. . .

LDL - Seriously, if we don't get some air here P is going wake up screaming hot.

LTD - We're doing the best we can. The car reads 102 degrees and no air is circulating.

LDL - FTD, why don't you look in the manual to see how to fix it.

FTD - reading manual on all climate control options and follows directions to reset AC. Put AC back on Auto. Wait for it to re-set itself, just like the manual says. Nothing happens.

2 minutes later. . .

LDL - Will you let me see the manual?

FTD - scowling

LDL - praying fervently

LDL - I KNOW you're going to be irritated but P can't regulate his body temperature like you can and he is on fire. I know you don't really care about anything but you're own comfort but I have to look out for both of us.

FTD - Yeah, because clearly I forgot how to READ in this heat and you're going to be able to figure out the climate controls from the backseat even though I've already followed the outlined instructions and you have to give it time to cool. The air is 102 degrees after all, its not going to happen in 2 seconds.

LDL - Whatever. Just give me the book.

FTD - throws book toward LDL without looking.

LTD - Maybe we should just pull over and head inside for a little while. . . .

1 minute later. . .

LDL - Great. P is awake and sweating and breathing hard already.

FTD - This giant plastic ball is melting my skin off.

LTD - Thinks to herself, please, dear Jesus, please let there be an exit soon. Look! Publix!

The whole clan practically jumps out of the car and races for the Publix and it's ice cold, air conditioned aisles of goodness. P laughs as I run through the store with him in the cart. LDL and LTD head straight for the freezers. We all load the cart with frozen goodies, extra water and I grab some frozen lemonade mix and put it on P's legs to cool him down. The boy is going to need anti-perspirant before he turns 5.

A few king sized ice cream sandwiches and a game of kick ball in parking lot later we braced ourselves for the rest of the ride. Thankfully, God was laughing at us because things started working again. P and I made up over Kung Fu Panda on the ipad and LDL put up with that plastic ball at her feet.

Road trips build character.

Relief

September 11^th, 2001 started as a good day. I was a Midshipman 1/C at Annapolis, and Tuesdays and Thursdays I had the first period-and-a-half free, which meant I could sleep in a little bit. I walked out of my room around 0845 to make my 0900 class and saw a large group of people in the wardroom watching television. Seeing the first tower billowing with smoke, I thought some terrible aviation accident had happened and continued to make my way to Rickover Hall where my Coastal Engineering lab was held. Shortly after my arrival the lounge televisions reported that a second plane had hit the South WTC tower and later that a third had struck the Pentagon. Soon after, all the midshipmen were sent back to Bancroft, non-essential personnel were told to go home, and the Yard was on lock down. There was an initial scare that Annapolis may be a target, possible retaliation for our missile strikes against Al-Qaeda’s training facilities. People traded phone calls with home, and the phone banks were left open for our friends with families in New York and Pennsylvania.

There were two common sentiments coursing through the Brigade - especially the Senior Class of 2002 whose class motto was “In Harm’s Way” – anger and excitement. We were going into the arena.

The excitement did not last long and the anger only grew. We strove valiantly but erred and came short again and again. Friends and classmates died in training, died at sea, died in the desert of Iraq and died in the mountains of Afghanistan. Friends and classmates came home from battle old before their time, physically and mentally scarred to a discourse more about the critic and a population further removed from the pains endured by the doer of deeds. Our faces were marred with dust and sweat and blood.

Those of us who made it back safe time and again and most of those who served in further rear echelon jobs were also worn out, but only worked harder to ensure our friend’s sacrifices were remembered and meant something, if not to the struggle as a whole, at least to us who knew them. Back-to-back-to-back sea duty, hard fill billets, hard ship duties and individual augmentations met mostly by volunteers who felt they needed to contribute more - all in the name of their friends and classmates. Some of us felt personal responsibility to spend ourselves in a worthy cause, that there was to be no quitting, no “easy” job until the wars were over, not while we had friends and classmates still enduring hardship.

May 1^st, 2011 is relief. Relief that it will not be in vain, that justice has been served and that America can still achieve its goals, no matter how sobering they may be. Relief that the end is in sight. Relief that it is not going to be regarded as a loss.

Our Global War on Terror has been wrought with missteps, miscalculations, poor planning, distractions, and missed opportunities. There is no effort without error or shortcoming. I am proud this opportunity was not missed, that nothing distracted our leaders from making the “green light” decision. I’m proud of the intel section, the surveillance, the pilots and crewman and the shooters, those who strive to actually do the deeds. Of course, I am extremely proud that some people I have supported in other missions and from my home service made this a reality and no longer a chase for a ghost – the strong men who did not stumble.

The struggle against extremism is far from over. One only has to read the newspaper to see that other regions are ripe for terrorist exploitation and we must always remain vigilant, hopefully more so than we as a country have been in the past. But just as the leader of Germany’s demise was the beginning of the end of the last global struggle, hopefully the Al Qaeda leader’s death will be a substantial step toward the end of sacrifice for those who know the great enthusiasms and the great devotions - our current military personnel and their families. Here’s to our daring knowing no failure and the future triumph of high achievement.