Things are getting interesting.
Congress actually seems to have grown a pair of balls.  I'm sure
they haven't, they're just afraid of having the small ones they have
cut off during the next election.  Even the republicans are (kind
of) standing up to Bush's non-plan in Iraq.
The press (except probably Fox, but then I don't watch that channel so
I really couldn't say) has turned from being Bush lap dogs into
something that's beginning to look like a pit bull.
Wow, the congress and the press are showing signs of emerging from their coma and doing their job.
If Bush didn't live in a bubble that no news or reality can penetrate,
he'd probably choose to stay in China.  Now, about removing balls
. . .

The last of a two-parter:

The buildup to the ground war took about 7 months, and large
jets taking off and landing at the Charleston Air Force Base constantly filled
the sky. The buildup took so much time in fact, that some of the doctors
initially deployed were brought back to the hospital, knowing they would return
before the ground war started.  Those of
us not yet deployed visited the JAG office and got our wills in order.

Our hospital got tagged twice more for deployment.  My name wasn’t called either time.  Each time, I felt relief, but also
guilt.  I told myself that no radiologist
from Charleston had been ordered to Iraq, so it’s
not like one of the others went and I didn’t. 
Still, the guilt remained.

The air war started early and was so successful that it
appeared that there might not be a need for a ground war at all.  But that was wishful thinking.  In January, as I recall, the doctors that had
been allowed to return to Charleston
were relocated back to their deployment areas.

At the hospital, all leave was cancelled and each department
made plans to deal with potential mass casualties.  I shopped for a comfortable cot for my
office.  If Saddam used chemical or
biological weapons there would be little time to go home.  The wounded would need care no matter when
they arrived.

And we were ready to go; balls to the wall. 
And I was never more proud to be in uniform.

On February 24^th, 1991 the ground war
started.  On February 27^th,
the ground war ended.

The military suffered 147 battle deaths and 467 wounded.  Not a single one came through Charleston Naval Hospital.  I can relate to the Marine sniper that was
the author of Jarhead that never even got to fire his rifle in the war.  But I’m not complaining, and I think if you
have to have a war, four days is about right as far as length goes.

All of the doctors, nurses, and corpsmen deployed from Charleston came home
safely.  I was very thankful for that.

I was eligible to add a small silver star to the center of
my National Defense Ribbon since I already had been awarded that ribbon for serving in the
army at the ass-end of Vietnam.  I don’t think I ever got around to putting it
on though.  As soon as taking leave was
possible I interviewed in Columbus
Indiana and left the military for
good in 1992.

The current Gulf War has gone way beyond a reasonable four
day war.  I’m glad I’m no longer in
uniform.  I still believe in, and strongly
support the men and women that serve, but I believe in this war even less than
the first, and I have no faith whatsoever in the people that took us there.

This is a multi-parter:  lots of thoughts, but don't want to make it too long.

Today I saw the movie “Jarhead”.  I really liked the movie.  It got me thinking about my service during
that war.

While I did serve during that war, I never set foot in Iraq.  I was never in harms way.   I was a lieutenant commander (the equivalent
of a major in the other branches of the armed forces) in the Naval Medical
Corps at the time, serving at the Charleston
Naval Hospital.

I must admit that after Iraq
invaded Kuwait
and the nation began to talk about going to war, that I had my doubts about
doing so.  As far as I knew, we didn’t
have a treaty with Kuwait
that obliged us to defend them.  As we
geared up for war, I had a real problem with seeing young Kuwaiti men driving
through the streets of Egypt chanting that with their lives and souls they
would defend Kuwait.  Yeah, right.  Why were we the ones preparing for battle
while they hid in Egypt?  Why was American blood about to be spilled in
their godforsaken land?

I had trouble getting my brain around the impending
war.  But I had no problem getting my
brain around the fact that men and women that wore the same uniform as me were
going into harms way and nothing else really mattered.  For them, whatever it took.

Just like the call to the marine company in Jarhead, the
call came to the Charleston
Naval Hospital.  In one weekend every male nurse, most of the
orthopedic surgeons, many of the general surgeons and anesthesiologists, and a
great number of corpsmen, disappeared from the hospital, gone to Norfolk
Virginia for deployment with the Marines, to field hospitals or hospital
ships.  I remember running into an
ophthalmologist in Sears on that Sunday and we both looked at each other and
said, “We made it.”  But Monday morning
he was gone.  They’d just forgotten to
tell him.

The Charleston
Naval Hospital
was pretty sparsely staffed for awhile. 
But then we started to get back-filled by reservists being called up and
it wasn’t long before we were pretty fat with staff.  Because of the Charleston Air Force base and
their ability to transport wounded, our hospital was to be a major recipient of
casualties of the war.

The reserve doctors weren’t too excited about being called
up.  I saw several lose their practices,
their houses and even their wives because of the call up and pay cut.  I didn’t have a lot of sympathy for them.  In fact there was a joke at the hospital: “What’s
the difference between a new puppy and a reserve doctor that’s been called
up?  The puppy stops whining after a
couple of days.”  I looked at these
people and wondered “What the fuck were you thinking?  Why would you put yourself at this risk just
to earn another $500 or so a month?”  Key
lesson in life:  Don’t sign your name and
raise your hand and swear to serve the US in the military unless you’re
really willing to do it.  And if you do,  don’t whine when Uncle Sam demands his pound
of flesh.  When I left the Navy a couple
of years later after serving a total of 7 years of active duty (three of those in
the army) and many more in the reserves, I severed all ties, including
resigning my commission because I was no longer willing to do it.

I'm pretty proud of my fellow Hoosiers and how they responded to the
tornado.  Just hours after it hit, the National Guard, heavy
equipment, more rescuers and volunteers than you could shake a stick
at, and the governor was there.  Feds take note.  The yahoo
slide show is heart-wrenching though.

I'm happy to be able to say that all of my relatives in Evansville
Indiana are safe and did not suffer from the tornado that struck there
last night.  I wonder what sins the religious fringe will say the
city was being punished for.
I've read this is the most devasting tornado to hit Indiana since the
one in April of 1974.  I remember seeing the results of that
tornado as I rode a Greyhound bus from Evansville to Louisville
Kentucky for my army induction physical.  I'll see the results of
the current one when I head to Evansville tomorrow to visit Mom. 
Hope I never see any more.

I swore off writing letters to the editor.  I swore off drinking
too.   Neither one is working out.  I've worked on this
letter to the editor, but not sent it yet.  Thoughts would be
appreciated.

Dear Editor,

Dude, where’s my party?

As soon as I was eligible to register to vote, I did so as a
republican.  The Republican Party seemed
to stand for the things I believed in; small government, non-intrusive
government, fiscal responsibility for both the government and the
individual.  I think it really did stand
for those principles back then.

I don’t recognize the party I joined anymore.

The current administration, controlled by the Republican
Party, believes in BIG government.  The
number of federal employees has increased by 8 percent since 2001.   As far as I know, not a single federal
position has been eliminated.  It’s
telling that when Lewis Libby resigned after being indicted for leaking the
name of a CIA operative that his job was filled by not one, but two people.

The Republican Party is no longer a party of fiscal
responsibility.  Our massive and historic
national debt and budget deficits attest to that.  The “borrow and spend” republicans make the
“tax and spend” democrats look like penny pinchers.  I hate that my grandchildren will be paying
for our lack of fiscal responsibility.

The Republican Party is no longer non-intrusive.  They want to micro-manage our lives. Need I
say more than Terri Schiavo?

In recent years I’ve always felt much more comfortable when
congress is in recess because at least then they can’t do something that will
harm the nation.  But they’ve proven that
they are willing to return to Washington
to do just that.  Need I say more than
Terri Schiavo?

I’m not sure the democrats have the answers either.  While the Republican Party is full of bad
ideas, the Democratic Party seems to have no ideas; though I suspect that no
ideas beat bad ideas hands-down.

Actually, I think it’s time we completely flush this
foul-smelling toilet that our federal government has become.  We need to get rid of all incumbents and
seriously study and carefully elect people that want America to progress, and secure a
future for many generations to come.  I
don’t care what the party, the heck with the party.  I want elected officials that care about the
country.  I don’t think we have them now.

Dude, find me a party.

Politics:

Lewis Libby being indicted on Friday was a mini-high.  It felt good, but it also felt like a really
long run for a short slide.  I’m feeling
a bit pessimistic about the whole thing now. 
I don’t think much will become of it as far as meaningful change in the
administration or their Machiavellian tactics. 
Bush’s promise to” return dignity to the Oval Office” apparently simply
meant he wouldn’t get blow jobs there. 
Though it’s clear that Carl Rove played a part in leaking a CIA officer’s
identity, it’s also clear that unless he’s indicted, Bush is not going to fire
him.  No, Rove’s not been charged with
any crime, but then O.J. didn’t kill his wife either.

The Harriet Miers thing actually worked out to Bush’s
advantage.  He book ended the Libby
indictment with her resignation and Alito’s appointment to take a lot of the
news coverage away from Libby.  Now he’s
off and running with the potential bird flu thing and will begin to look quite
presidential shortly.

I O.D.’d on the talking head shows over the weekend and got
so tired of the religious right talking like the Supreme Court nomination was
theirs to make.  Apparently it was.

Alito is described as another Antonin Scalia.  Great.

This is what happens when the majority of American’s don’t
pay attention.

Kids These Days:

Last night my 16 year old came home after a party at about
10 p.m. with a friend and her friend’s boyfriend.  She said the three were going to sit in the
hot tub for awhile.

Having lots of plans for Sunday, including working out at 7
a.m., I went to bed at 10:30.  I woke
briefly at midnight and checked to make sure they had locked up the house.  I could still hear voices in the hot tub so I
went back to bed.  I woke again shortly
after 2 a.m. to voices in the living room. 
“This needs to end” I thought.  So
I walked to the kitchen to “get a drink of water” and said “good morning” to
the kids.  That ended the evening.  I wasn’t mad; I just thought it was time for
the evening to end.

This morning I talked to Jessie and she said they had spent
the entire evening in the hot tub, counting shooting stars, (they saw eight)
and talking about the meaning of life and how their lives fit in the overall
scheme of things.  She said they
considered waking me and asking me to join them because I tend to do that very
thing a lot.

I was flattered they considered it.  I probably would have, but I did sleep pretty
well and I did get that workout in at 7.

Three stone-cold sober 16 year olds, sitting and counting
shooting stars and talking about life and where they fit into the scheme of it.

There just might be reason for hope.

I, like many, anxiously await the results of Patrick Fitzgerald's
investigation into the Valerie Plame case.  I really hope that
Libby and Rove (especially) are indicted. Add  Cheney and it would
be a wet dream come true.

On one of the weekend talk shows Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of (where
else?) Texas said that if the special prosecutor indicted them on
obstruction of justice rather than for the actual crime it would just
be a technicality.  I couldn't stand that, so I sent her the
following email.

Dear Senator Hutchison,
You believe that charges brought against Carl Rove or Lewis Libby for perjury would just be a "technicality"?
Bill Clinton was impeached for just that, and it wasn't about anything as serious as outing a CIA operative.
Has the republican party lost all ethical bearing?  Is there any
crime short of murder that the party wouldn't excuse if committed by
one of their own? Mind you, we are republican's asking these questions.
You should be ashamed.
Sincerely,
Robert and Deborah DeWeese

I hope others will call her on this hypocrisy.  In fact, I urge all to e mail her.  As one person suggested on another site, make up a really cool city in Texas to say you're from.

I think that maybe it’s good to have someone in the family
that’s well versed in medicine when a loved one goes through a medical crisis.  I think it’s a hard thing to be that person.
When Mom, still under the effect of conscience sedation, was
told by her endoscopist that he thought she had a cancer arising from her
ampula of vater, it for the most part didn’t register.  Only the word cancer registered and as she
wept she said “call my son”.
In unadulterated, clinical, doctor terminology, he told me
that she appeared to have a cancer arising from this location.  My response was “Oh, my God”.  I understood completely what this meant, not
just from a pathologic standpoint, but from the point of view of someone that
has assisted in operations for this and someone that has sat through tumor
boards talking about the prognosis of this, and someone that has seen the pain
and suffering and prolonged death of people with this.   And then, there was the son too.  He didn’t get too much time in this scenario.
I tried to explain to my siblings, my Mom, and other
relatives what this meant.  I tried to do
it in frank, up-beat terms.  The glass is
half full. Things sometimes turn out better than you think.  But dark clouds of remembrance and knowledge
settled over me.  But I just sucked those
clouds in.  I ate it all and hoped for
the best, after all, I’m a son, not a doctor. 
Yeah, whatever.  I’ve cried with
patients that weren’t related with better prognoses.

I think that doctors delivering care for these patients are
actually relieved when there’s a doctor on the other end.  It’s hard to explain complicated surgical and
anatomic pathology to grieving relatives. 
It’s easier to explain it in medical terms to a relative and have them
release it to the rest on a titrated basis, with just a touch of optimism.  I had actually drawn out the anatomy of what
was happening for my Mom and other relatives. 
A day later the surgeon came in and drew the same picture, but he didn’t
draw in the head and butt like I did to try and generate some laughs.   Whatever, the glass is half full, plus he
probably sucks as an artist.
When the surgeon came to the waiting room and told us how
the operation went, he talked to the group, but primarily to me.  My sister needed a family leave form filled
out to explain why she required this day off. 
 After she explained that if he
just signed it, I could fill out the rest of the form, he seemed relieved.  I don’t blame him.  I would have been relieved too.

And the doctor filled out the form . . . but the son
wrestled with his thoughts.Things have not gone so well since the initial surgery,
but there are lots of reasons for hope. 
I understand this on a medical basis, but I long to divorce myself from
this doctor point of view and just be a son. 
I just want to look in my Mom’s eyes and be her son, nothing more,
nothing less.