Washing DC and the East Wing

 

I was around 14 or 15 when my Boy Scout Troop went for a weekend trip to Washington DC. We had a couple of highlights, one was a tour of the White House and the other a fight on an Air Force DC-3. For those of you not familiar with aircraft the DC-3 was the cargo and paratrooper work horse of WWII. On D-Day the sky was filled with DC-3s dropping paratroopers into France. So flying on of those antique aircraft would have a lasting effect many years later as would the tour of the White House. So let’s fast forward first to 1966 when I graduated with a degree in engineering and wound up at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio in the Aerial Delivery and Air Cargo Branch designing equipment for the Air Force. On one of my first efforts I had to include the specs of the DC-3 in the development of a system to move US Mail to combat troops in Vietnam. Now let’s jump forward a number of years to President Reagan in the White House. By this time I was working on the staff of the Chief Engineer of the Air Force. He was to be awarded the one of the highest honors to a civil servant. I had written the documents for the award and he had planned to have his father and wife to go with him to the White House. His father was ills so he asked me if I would like to go. Why ask when you know the answer.

 

His wife and I were ushered into the East Wing for the ceremony. A few other high ranking civil servants were also to get the award. As the President started his speech, of all things he quoted my write-up on my boss in his opening line. It’s nice to be quoted by the President of the United States. It is not nice to see the hallowed halls of the East Wing being torn down now by a President who could care less about the foundations of our government. Who lied that his gold-plated ballroom would not result in any harm to the White House. Just like his remake of the oval office from one of dignity to a trashy gold plated dump.

 

So my two most favorable memories, one led me without realizing it into aviation where I served my nation for 30 years. The other was demolished by a dictator who wants to build a glory onto himself.

Trump and the Religious Right.

     I am back and will be posting my blog again. It has come time to voice things to positions that make no sense of hurt a lot of people. To try and stop the nonsense from the blind flowers of Trump. It seems we have a lot of them. 

The religious right is not about what god wanted, but what the right wants to control people. Once, a doctor was sued for doing an operation on a child when the parents were willing to leave the dying child in god's hand. The child was saved by the doctor. In court, the parents' lawyers demanded to know by what right the doctor had to do the operation, it was against their religious beliefs. His response was that God trained him to be a surgeon and god gave him the life-saving tools for all of mankind. It was god that guided him to save the child. The jury voted 12 to 0 in favor of the doctor. Maybe, just maybe, god is directing our scientists and engineers to save the planet in his name with solar panels and windmills. With efforts that the religious right sees as more of a threat to their control of people than anything else. 

 

But today it seems so many of the ultra right have placed their entire zeal in the hands  of Trump as if he is a god. Folks he is not a god nor was he sent here by god. He is a very good con man and has tricked many of you. Are you sure you want to follow this false profit and many of you current church leaders who want to control you instead of letting you think.

BTW - it's ok to disagree, but with real disagreement not just things out of the air.