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Hey everyone, its been a little while since I’ve thrown some words up here.  My return from Iraq has been…hectic.  Between trying to get a divorce finalized, finding a place to live, visiting a foreign country where they don’t shoot at me, and just remembering what its like to have a little more freedom, its been a full plate.

I think things are slowing down now, and I can put more time into what I really enjoy doing…writing scripts for this fine little point in cyberspace.  Amy and I love the feedback we get from you guys, and knowing your out there somewhere, tuning in every week, to see what sort of trouble our cast and crew has gotten themselves into, or our many one shots of life in the Aviation community.

So thanks for reading!

Justin

Someone sent me this in an email:
Get Your War On

Justin gets a year older and wiser today.

Justin just called me, so he has arrived safely back in the United States.  It didn’t sound like he was missing any limbs or anything, though he’s still getting settled so it may be a week or so before he has regular internet service again.

“I disagree with what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.“

-Voltaire

Independence Day means different things to different people.  For some, its a day to barbecue, watch some fireworks, drink some beer, and enjoy time with friends.  For some its the name of a old Will Smith movie about aliens.

For others, its a day to remember why we wake up in foreign lands, put on a dusty uniform, and go out to keep doing what we do, to remember those who have come before us, and fought the first fight.

When those men took the field of battle, they had no guarantee of payment for their tolls and bravery, or even if the country they were trying to create would come to pass, or be snuffed out overnight.  But they fought just the same, and won, helping to forge this country into something they could be proud of, and call their own.

And sadly, someone has me fired up enough…to rant.

The United States, its not perfect.  But for those out there who believe we are not independent, and the government is evil and out to get you…please remember, you have the right to leave, and go live somewhere else.  No one is going to stop you.  Seriously.  Hell, I’ll help you pack.

I don’t think anyone who has ever really seen how people live in other parts of the world, places where freedom is only a word, and and you live your life with a gun to your head, where the wrong word, gesture, or look could end with a bullet in your head, could say we are not independent.

I welcome anyone to debate me on this, and prove me wrong if you can.

It’s the Fourth of July, Independence Day, our nation’s birthday. I don’t know if Justin still has internet access in Iraq or not; I know he’s busy getting ready to come home, so I don’t know when he’ll be posting.

Anyway, I thought this would be an appropriate time to bust out with this quote from the late Isaac Asimov regarding the meaning behind The Star Spangled Banner.

I have a weakness–I am crazy, absolutely nuts, about our national anthem.

The words are difficult and the tune is almost impossible, but frequently when I’m taking a shower I sing it with as much power and emotion as I can. It shakes me up every time.

I was once asked to speak at a luncheon. Taking my life in my hands, I announced I was going to sing our national anthem–all four stanzas.

This was greeted with loud groans. One man closed the door to the kitchen, where the noise of dishes and cutlery was loud and distracting. “Thanks, Herb,” I said.

“That’s all right,” he said. “It was at the request of the kitchen staff.”

I explained the background of the anthem and then sang all four stanzas.

Let me tell you, those people had never heard it before–or had never really listened. I got a standing ovation. But it was not me; it was the anthem.

More recently, while conducting a seminar, I told my students the story of the anthem and sang all four stanzas. Again there was a wild ovation and prolonged applause. And again, it was the anthem and not me.

So now let me tell you how it came to be written.

In 1812, the United States went to war with Great Britain, primarily over freedom of the seas. We were in the right. For two years, we held off the British, even though we were still a rather weak country. Great Britain was in a life and death struggle with Napoleon. In fact, just as the United States declared war, Napoleon marched off to invade Russia. If he won, as everyone expected, he would control Europe, and Great Britain would be isolated. It was no time for her to be involved in an American war.

At first, our seamen proved better than the British. After we won a battle on Lake Erie in 1813, the American commander, Oliver Hazard Perry, sent the message “We have met the enemy and they are ours.” However, the weight of the British navy beat down our ships eventually. New England, hard-hit by a tightening blockade, threatened secession.

Meanwhile, Napoleon was beaten in Russia and in 1814 was forced to abdicate. Great Britain now turned its attention to the United States, launching a three-pronged attack. The northern prong was to come down Lake Champlain toward New York and seize parts of New England. The southern prong was to go up the Mississippi, take New Orleans and paralyze the west. The central prong was to head for the mid-Atlantic states and then attack Baltimore, the greatest port south of New York. If Baltimore was taken, the nation, which still hugged the Atlantic coast, could be split in two. The fate of the United States, then, rested to a large extent on the success or failure of the central prong.

The British reached the American coast, and on August 24, 1814, took Washington, D. C. Then they moved up the Chesapeake Bay toward Baltimore. On September 12, they arrived and found 1000 men in Fort McHenry, whose guns controlled the harbor. If the British wished to take Baltimore, they would have to take the fort.

On one of the British ships was an aged physician, William Beanes, who had been arrested in Maryland and brought along as a prisoner. Francis Scott Key, a lawyer and friend of the physician, had come to the ship to negotiate his release. The British captain was willing, but the two Americans would have to wait. It was now the night of September 13, and the bombardment of Fort McHenry was about to start.

As twilight deepened, Key and Beanes saw the American flag flying over Fort McHenry. Through the night, they heard bombs bursting and saw the red glare of rockets. They knew the fort was resisting and the American flag was still flying. But toward morning the bombardment ceased, and a dread silence fell. Either Fort McHenry had surrendered and the British flag flew above it, or the bombardment had failed and the American flag still flew.

As dawn began to brighten the eastern sky, Key and Beanes stared out at the fort, trying to see which flag flew over it. He and the physician must have asked each other over and over, “Can you see the flag?”

After it was all finished, Key wrote a four stanza poem telling the events of the night. Called “The Defence of Fort M’Henry,” it was published in newspapers and swept the nation. Someone noted that the words fit an old English tune called “To Anacreon in Heaven” –a difficult melody with an uncomfortably large vocal range. For obvious reasons, Key’s work became known as “The Star Spangled Banner,” and in 1931 Congress declared it the official anthem of the United States.

Now that you know the story, here are the words. Presumably, the old doctor is speaking. This is what he asks Key

Oh! say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
W hat so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?

And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro’ the night that our flag was still there.
Oh! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

“Ramparts,” in case you don’t know, are the protective walls or other elevations that surround a fort. The first stanza asks a question. The second gives an answer

On the shore, dimly seen thro’ the mist of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep.
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?

Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream
‘Tis the star-spangled banner. Oh! long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

“The towering steep” is again, the ramparts. The bombardment has failed, and the British can do nothing more but sail away, their mission a failure.

In the third stanza, I feel Key allows himself to gloat over the American triumph. In the aftermath of the bombardment, Key probably was in no mood to act otherwise.

During World War II, when the British were our staunchest allies, this third stanza was not sung. However, I know it, so here it is

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footstep’s pollution.

No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

The fourth stanza, a pious hope for the future, should be sung more slowly than the other three and with even deeper feeling.

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation,
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n - rescued land
Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserved us a nation.

Then conquer we must, for our cause is just,
And this be our motto–”In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

I hope you will look at the national anthem with new eyes. Listen to it, the next time you have a chance, with new ears.

And don’t let them ever take it away.

–Isaac Asimov, March 1991

The Star Spangled Banner, like you’ve never heard it

So, the heat has finally been turned up to “high” over here. Nothing says loving life like strapping on some armor, a flight vest, and a full helmet, then flying around for 8 hours. That must be why I keep coming back here time and again.

Everyone please remember to check out the LD forum, stop in and say hello!

Justin

So, I’ve been slacking, and by slacking, I mean working, and by working, I mean…well, never mind.

But anyhow, I haven’t posted anything up here in awhile, and as the Writer, its probably in my contract that I need to actually write once in awhile.

Who would have thought.

The problem, dear readers, has been as of late, I haven’t had anything to rant about.  Oh, I could go the obvious route, and do a rant on how Brigade CSM’s are out of touch with their battalions and companies, and that the prejudice they display toward the National Guard components only further displays how ignorant and blind they really are to the war around them.

Or I could go into how silly many of the “safety” rules are in country, and that perhaps we’d all be a little bit better off, if maybe we just let “natural selection” take the place of these regulations.  I mean, really now…if your stupid enough to get hit by a 5 ton doing 5 mph in a large gravel parking lot, obviously your sense of self preservation isn’t quite as high as it should be for serving in Iraq.  Maybe its just me.

Well will you look at that…I found a rant after all!

-Justin

Yes, very exciting, I’m sure.  I put up vote buttons so you guys have something to click.  Unfortunately at the moment all you get is the pleasure of clicking… but you’ve gotta start somewhere.  It’s a slow moving train at the moment.