The sun remains an hour below the eastern horizon, and I should be sound asleep, but I’m not. I’m wide awake, and in front of this lousy keyboard.
That’s quite a statement from me, for one of the better traits that the good Lord has bestowed upon this body is (was) the ability to sleep soundly in almost any time zone. Unfortunately, that seems to have changed recently, and it’s less than ideal. So the question becomes why? Why the insomnia of the last few months? Truly, it’s been a puzzle as troubling as it was annoying; however, a few hours ago (while lying in the dark), the answer finally came. You see, I, my soul, my heart, my “humanity,” am in mourning. It’s a feeling of being in the long, dark hallway that we’ve all seen in our childhood nightmares, but worse than that, I know that I’ve been here before, and I know not where it will end.
The following piece I penned shortly after the horrific attacks of September 11, 2001. It was in the form of a letter to my most trusted advisor, my mentor, and a dear departed friend. I’m speaking, of course, of my father (hence the title “Dear Dad”). When I penned it, like most of the world, I was still in a state of shock from the recent events. I needed to talk to someone I could trust, and I felt it had to be him. I felt like I had to get the words out or I would burst. During our life together, he and I shared a love and joy with many things. Sports (golf and the Dallas Cowboys in particular), the military, but most of all our love of flying machines. The monsters on that fateful day had used their graceful power and beauty to kill and maim innocent people on a scale previously unheard of, and it was something I could barely imagine.
I now find myself at that same place. My soul and the very essence of what it is to be a human being are greatly troubled…sickened really. Not for me, but for my children, their children, and what lies ahead for my wonderful country (and the world). Birds must fly, fish must swim, and writers must write. Hence my insomnia coupled to a keyboard.
The world has seen Islamic terror for years, but recently on a scale of horror that’s almost unimaginable. A few weeks ago, it spread death on the streets of Paris, and less than forty-eight hours ago, it once again came to the shores of America, and it came hard. In Paris, it left several hundred dead and maimed, and in California, a dozen innocent people dead, almost two dozen wounded, and, truth be told, we were lucky. The demons (in this case, a radicalized man and his equally demented wife) were of the “sleeper cell” category, and only their ineptitude with explosive devices kept the carnage from being much worse.
At the risk of being labeled a political piece, I offer you the following thought. These innocent Americans were killed as much by the current culture in my homeland as they were by Islamic jihadists. There exists a faction of the population of my country that simply cannot (WILL NOT is more accurate) acknowledge that true evil exists. This segment of our citizenry shares a view of the world that is so out of touch with reality, so “childlike” in their view of the world, that they live in a bubble that is not only foolish, but also very dangerous. The true evil that I speak of is, of course, evil done in the form of terror, and in this case, an evil that is fanned by a particular religious doctrine…belief actually. They strive (and teach to their children… another layer of true evil) to subjugate, and for those that resist there is but one result; they must be killed. Part of America simply refuses to see this, and pools of blood run cold because of it.
The simple fact is that days after the attack here, with EVERY shred of evidence pointing to Islamic terror, many in our government (and media) simply refuse to call this heinous act by its true name. This fact is shameful beyond words, for it cheapens the bravery and heroism of the men and women who (throughout history) have stepped up and killed this brand of evil. It’s akin to watching Edward R. Murrow sheltering in a London subway during the Blitz of 1940, and listening to him broadcast on the BBC, “Well, we can see and feel the bombs falling, and Herr Hitler has indeed declared war on England, but since it’s dark, we can’t FOR CERTAIN tell if it’s the Luftwaffe doing the bombing.” To ask “What has become of journalistic integrity?” is a fool’s errand. Has truth and honor given way to agenda and politics? Sadly, we all know the answer.
Wake up America! The wolf is at the door, and it’s OK to call it a wolf, just as it was OK to call them Nazis and Fascists.
Well, BBall, what makes YOU so smart? How do YOU have all the answers? Simply put, I don’t. I will offer, however, that even though six decades of heartbeats have taken their toll on this body, it has also given me (and many of my age) one thing in return…and that is clarity. Clarity in thought and deed. That we may no longer be young is offset by the fact that we are blessed with the knowing of certain things. We know that the majority of the world wants peace, prosperity, and to be simply left alone to live and love our children as God intended us to. But we know something else. We know that, beyond any shadow of a doubt, real evil lives and walks among us. We know that there exists an evil so horrible that we shudder at its thought…and it takes many forms. The form it took a few days ago cannot be ignored, cannot be wished away, and no form of “political correctness” will stop it from coming back.
Just as important as this knowledge is this difficult truth: we know that we must face it, that we must fight it, and that we must prevail. This simple thought is the ideological crossroads where the aforementioned segment of my culture and I diverge. They are simply wrong, and the consequences of their folly are dire. Their most erroneous (read dangerous) construct is the following: since they refuse to face TRUE evil, they manufacture their own version of a boogeyman… a “straw man of evil,” if you will. This begs the question…why do they do this? In my opinion, it’s actually very simple, and it’s where history will paint them with a cruel brush. If they acknowledge evil, then by their own human sense of morality, they are obliged to fight against it.
But this cannot be for them, for they believe that any type of fighting or war is worse than a war to vanquish evil. They believe that global warming (or “climate change”…or whatever the “nom du jour” currently might be) is THE BIGGEST THREAT to humanity. I have offered to those of this ilk the following question. What do you think our climate would look like if these demons detonate a nuclear device over New York, London, or Tel Aviv? In my opinion, that monumental change in the atmospherics of this planet would do far more harm than the carbon footprint of my F-150. Strangely, they never seem to have an answer to this query.
They also believe that second-hand smoke is evil, that income and gender “inequality” is evil, and that legally owning a firearm is worse than wrong. But most damaging of all, they believe that I, myself, must somehow be horrible, bad, even evil, because I don’t believe that these things are. Remember the word “clarity”? The collective consciousness of the free world had it 70-plus years ago on the beaches of Normandy, the jungles of New Guinea, in the skies over European cities and vast Oceans of the Pacific. And on the streets of America; in spades. Unfortunately, many of us seem to have lost it. I fear that Islamic terror will force us to pay for our lack of this clarity…and that scares the hell out of me.
A certain leader of this country had it in abundance a few years ago, but I was in my 20s/30s and mostly ignored him (and politics in general), to my shame. He once spoke these insightful words:
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
His name was Reagan, and he was beyond correct. Every generation is tested. My parents’ generation was tested in the snow-covered fields of Europe, and on the seas (and islands) of the Pacific. Mine in the jungles of Vietnam and the sands of the Middle East. My children now find themselves in the midst of their test, and it will be in the cities and towns of America (and Paris, and London, and Sydney), and on every street corner where freedom and liberty call home.
A certain group of people has been fighting this evil monster for years…long before they were an actual country. The people that surround them, that hate them, and wish their demise have slogans such as, “We love death more than the Jews love life.” They live with this horror daily, and have for generations. So now we must do the same. My heart weeps for them; it weeps for us, and it weeps for the world.
In a few days, my wonderful wife (my dearest friend and confidant) and I will take that next step in this war against actual evil. We will engage in weapons training (I’ve had many hours of formal weapons training; this will be her first time), and enter the world of the “sheepdog”. After becoming licensed, we will be legally armed while in public (truth be told, at home, I’m never more than just a few feet from a weapon). The circumstances that now have us thinking, acting, and LIVING tactically sadden me, but the thought that evil Islamic terror lives in my beloved (free) America angers me past that sadness. America is at war…in the streets, the workplaces, the malls, the playgrounds, and yes, even our houses of worship. Even though the leaders of this country (and a certain segment of the population) can’t see it does not change the truth. I once had a person in my cockpit from the “other side” of the political aisle speak these troubling words, “the truth is relative”. I recoiled at the comment, but he believed it to his soul. The blood of history has left this gory message; the truth is most certainly NOT relative. The unsettling truth is that we are in a fight for our very lives.
Several years ago, while in training to carry a firearm in the cockpit, my training class and I were subjected to a talk from a gentleman who lived his life amongst this evil. His former job was in the service of the IDF (Israeli Defense Force), and he was currently acting as an advisor to our group. He told us that America must suffer two more 9-11s “before you will wake up to the kind of evil you are facing”. We all were a bit shocked, but his words ring true. Was the most recent attack by Islamic radical monsters our “second 9-11”? I honestly don’t know. Do we need to “wake up” as a country, look this monster squarely in its bloodshot eyes, and send it back to the hell it most surely came from? The answer is obvious…at least to me. Maybe a few days ago, on a bright sunny day in California stained with the blood of innocent people, was the day everyone in America became an IDF fighter.
Do I love life (and liberty) more than the Islamic terrorists love death? Ask that question to the Jewish nation, then ask me again. I fear the next few decades will test America and the free world. I only hope and pray we have the clarity, courage, and faith of our brothers and sisters across the globe from us. God bless them, and God bless the free people of the world.
With that, I give you…
“Dear Dad”
(originally penned in October, 2011)
Dear Dad,
I know it’s been several years since I’ve written, but surely you know that I think about you every day. How are you doing? I have many, many questions to ask you. Someday I hope that we can meander some distant golf course together under sunny skies, and just chat like we used to. How are Mom and Teresa? Please tell them that I am doing O.K., and that I love and miss them very much.
You must be wondering why I’m writing. I know that you received word about my health experiences of the last couple of years. Yeah, at times it was pretty rough. I was subjected to some rather ugly stuff, but through it all, I somehow knew that I would be strong enough to weather it. I watched you very closely as a young man, and when times got tough in your life, you did just what I hoped I could do. You toughed it out, and you shifted the focus away from you and directed it toward others. Last winter, I lay awake for hours on many nights and “talked” to you (and prayed to God) while times were at their worst, and it helped immensely. Just the thought that you might be listening really eased my mind…you were right, there are truly no atheists in a foxhole.
The reason that I’m writing is to open my heart to you. You see, a cancer has returned, and I need your help. Please don’t be shocked, for you’ve seen it before, and you showed me how to handle it then, as I’m sure you will now. There is but one cure for this type of disease, and I’m not sure that I won’t see the cure without many, many days of pain and suffering.
Right now my heart is heavy, and I get by with thinking of the wonderful things in my life. I’ve been truly blessed with a loving wife and family. They are my pillars of strength, and my anchors in every storm. Plus, I’ve also been given the gift of many really wonderful people that I can call “friends”, and they too are what keeps me going. They’ve seen me through some truly bad times in my life, and I know they will be there for me again. And then, of course, I have my airplanes.
I’ll never forget the morning when I made that momentous decision (as momentous as any 17-year-old can make) that I wished to become a professional pilot like you. We were working on one of the many cars in our lives at the time, and when I broached the subject to you, your response was, “You better go talk to your Mom about that” (I’m pretty sure I could see you grin as I walked into the house). Her answer was a roll of the eyes, and something on the order of, “Oh great, another pilot.”
You and I began that wonderful journey together many years before that day, when you would take me with you out to the Army airfields. You were planting the seeds then, and now those seeds are towering oaks. I remember the time I asked you about taking the night freight job flying the Navajo out of Albuquerque. This was to be my first “real” flying job out of college, and I needed your expert guidance. Your response was, “It’ll be great experience if you live through it, and if you don’t, it won’t matter, will it?” (hehe, I loved the pragmatism) It was the perfect answer. Since that first “command”, I’ve had many wonderful experiences. The last 18 years with Northwest have given me so many wonderful aviating memories that sometimes I feel a bit guilty. The flying machine in my life now is truly an incredible combination of grace, beauty, and raw power. I wish you could feel her in your grasp just once… You would fall in love in an instant…just like I did.
But Dad, something terrible has happened. Something so incredibly bad that I can hardly understand it even now, many days later. I know you don’t get the news where you are, but you’d better sit down; this is truly a horrific story. It’s almost impossible for me to understand this, but unspeakable evil has seeped into our daily lives. Evil that almost none of us can comprehend. The mongers of this curse, just a few days ago, unleashed death and destruction on such an unspeakable scale that it tears my soul just to think about it…and Dad, they used our beautiful, peaceful flying machines to do it. I know you’ve seen death on the battlefield, honorable death. But that was not this. This was no Gettysburg, no Normandy, no A Shau Valley…it was in the skies and on the streets of America.
An armed group of Islamic terrorists hijacked four airliners (I can barely stomach using the word hijacked, for that speaks of commandeering an airplane to go to a different destination…what they did was murder the crews and take command of the jets), and then plunged three of them into prominent structures in New York and Washington D.C. In the process, they took THOUSANDS of innocent civilian lives. Apparently, on the fourth jet, the passengers knew their fate and fought back. They died in their attempt to recapture the machine, but they did what I know you (and I) would have done…they fought the bastards. They fought like their lives depended on it, as well they did. No matter what the outcome, they won…just merely by fighting back, they won.
I cringe when I imagine what happened on those jets…I simply can’t understand it. I will NEVER be able to look to the skies at one of those lovely machines again, and not think of those brave people. In a very real sense, something died in all of us on that fateful day. Was it our sense of security in our respective worlds? I don’t know, but I do know that humanity lost something; something very precious. I remember writing in my journal about how, after losing you and Mom, I now viewed the world as if through a veil of tears. Maybe we all do now.
This is my NEW CANCER, Dad, and it’s spread throughout the world. ALL of humanity has it, and ALL of us will have to find a way to fight it. It’s a disease of hate and death. We are in for a very long fight, one that I’m afraid will take some of the best of us from this world, but I know what you would say to that. You would say, “Anything in life that’s worth having is worth fighting for”, and you would be right. Our peace, freedom, and liberties most certainly fit into that category, right?
I know that you would tell me that this kind of scum has risen its ugly head before, and decent, peace-loving people of the world have fought it back to the hell it surely comes from. They fought it from the shelters of London, the streets of Stalingrad, and the caves of Okinawa, and they won. They won at the cost of much blood, pain, and heartache…but in the end they prevailed. I know that you understand why we must do what will be done, and not just as Americans, but as a collective group of people sharing the same rock in space. We want only to live our lives and raise our families, in a world that doesn’t include in-discriminant killing of innocent men, women and children in the name of (religion, government, land, etc) ___________ (fill in the blank). The cancer of hate and vileness that these people spread simply can’t be stronger than our love for peace and freedom. It can’t be; it WON’T be.
I know you understand where my heart is now. The pain, the confusion, and the anguish I’m feeling…I’m sure you would be feeling it too. You are in a place that knows not of such things…and for this I am truly thankful. You live in a world where peace and love are the only things that prosper, where cancer under any name is unheard of. Someday, maybe we can have that here too.
Please take care of Mom, Teresa, yourself, and all of our loved ones with you in Heaven. Also, please know that we here are trying our best day in and day out to be what you (and the other wonderful parents) have taught us to be. When you feel the gentle wind blow, and feel the warm sun on your face, please send some of that peace our way.
Oh, and Dad, you’ve probably seen a lot of new faces around since a few days ago. Give them a huge hug, hold their hands, show them around, and realize that they’ve been through a very, very tough time.
Your loving son,
Bill
