Sacrificing for the Nation in Time of War

It should not only be the troops who make the sacrifice in a time of war; the rest of us should sacrifice, too!
by Charlie Leck

I have been stunned by the number of people – common people in their letters to the editors and in their seldom read blogs – and major opinionators of all kinds – who are suggesting that all Americans should be making a sacrifice if the nation is going to be at war.

I am taken by the idea and I want to promote it. I also want to write to my Senators about it and to my Congressman. Perhaps you should do the same.

Our activities in Iraq, since George W. Bush made the decision to invade that nation in 2003, have cost us far more than 3 trillion dollars. Much of that money has disappeared into the pockets of corrupt, fraudulent people. Some it was used purposefully to bribe Iraqi officials to gain their cooperation. The point is that it takes a great deal of money to fund a war.

And now we move our military activities in Afghanistan up to a point equal to what we have done in Iraq. Can you imagine what it is going to cost us in the next two years, until we get to Obama’s “date-certain” when we will leave that nation?

The U.S. Congress should be told that we should pay for those military activities in real dollars from real people all across the nation. There should be, and there must be, a war tax. Yes, tell the Congress to tax us and tax us now! If we choose to war, let’s choose to pay for it! Make the tax fair! Make those with the big incomes pay more and tax those with little incomes little. Waive the tax for any immediate family of active service men and women – for parents if the service person lives at home or for wives/husbands and children of married servicemen.

Tax us so much that we actually pay for the war in totality. When we feel the pain, we will think more clearly about this war and whether it is we what we really want.

The point is no more wars on credit cards! Pay for them dollar by dollar in real dollars contributed by the American people.

Last evening, my wife was leaving a downtown parking ramp and the attendants at the exit gates were talking about the same thing. Hundreds of bloggers are saying it and so are many of the leading columnists in the country. It’s a simple message and it will bring the war home to each of us. Pay for it! Pay for it now! Pay for it with real money!

No more wars for which our children’s children will be required to pay.

Here's an editorial about it from the Pensicola News Journal

Here's Carl Levin on Huffington Post

Here's an ABC story about Wisconsin's David Obey's call for war tax!

Here's a column from The Economist in Britain about war tax!

Write or email your Senators and your Congressperson, suggesting we be taxed for war.

Copy from below and send a link to this blog site to your friends and suggest they read it and that they also ask their Washington representatives to vote for a war tax.

[http://chasblogs.blogspot.com/2009/12/sacrificing-for-nation-in-time-of-war.html]

I'm tired of watching our soldiers make the only sacrifice!

Thanksgiving Memories

Of all the photos I took, one stands out!
by Charlie Leck

Like a proud grandpa, I took many dozens of photographs over the Thanksgiving weekend. Every once in awhile, probably quite by accident, I get something extra special. This photograph, I think, is a good example of that. This is our 6 year old Anna, caught in this photograph while we were really just getting ready to take some photographs. It was, in other words, a practice shot. The more I looked at it, however, and saw the casual look on her face and the colors that splashed against the wall from a late morning sun, the more I thought that I had done something special.

Thus, I offer it to you, for your inspection.

Bill Moyers

My most important recommendation to you!
by Charlie Leck

Bill Moyers is d’man, you know! Reading his entries at Bill Moyers Journal is one of my absolute must-do items. I’m rather religious about it and I guess I’d send you there regularly if I had to limit my recommendations to you to just one habitual reading item. The posting on the day following Thanksgiving, about Doctor Jane Goodall, was nothing short of wondrous. [click here to read] Moyers presents his reader with an enormous amount of information about Doctor Goodall and links us to even more information about her and her life.

Jane Goodall is a hero to many. And, that’s good! If my children and grandchildren need to choose heroes in their lives, I’d rather they choose someone like Doctor Goodall than a sports figure or rock star. Her contributions to the planet are astonishing.

Obama's Afghanistan Announcement

Obama and the Coming Year
by Charlie Leck

At any moment, perhaps even before I finish writing this, a very busy President Obama will make a statement about the war in Afghanistan.

Our President is trapped and he will need to grant the request of the military that more troops are needed in this strangest of strange wars. So what has taken so long for the President to make such an announcement?

Here’s my guess!
It is the couching of the President’s announcement that has taken so much time. Though the President will grant the request for 40,000 more troops for the war in Afghanistan, he really had to figure out from where to get them. Too many of our soldiers have been redeployed 2, 3 or 4 times. It is taking a toll on many of them and medical care for those who have been worn down and worn out have risen to astronomical levels. What then?

The President will set the terms and time for an end to military activities in Afghanistan. He will not simply accede to the requests for troops without setting down an end-date and a strategy for leaving Afghanistan. This President wants to be completely out of Iraq by the end of 2011 and out of Afghanistan at a date we will hear when he announces his decision to send more troops.

Iraq is one of the sorriest wars in which American troops have ever fought. It has been a wasteful shame to lose so many young Americans in a war without real purpose and mission. In Afghanistan there was somewhat more clarity about our mission and purpose – bringing down Osama bin Laden – but it unraveled into too many other unclear goals and missions. The military is not to be blamed for this. The ultimate blame lies strictly in the lap of the George W. Bush administration. Bush entered Afghanistan to track down and kill bin Laden. He failed in that mission and he failed to keep the goals of his military focused and clear.

President Obama will attempt to correct that serious error. It will be a difficult goal to accomplish, but that, I predict, is where he’s going.

The Mad, Mad Race to Christmas

That crazy time of year!

by Charlie Leck

The loveliest weekend of the year is gone again. The quiet calmness of Thanksgiving is a wondrous gift that human beings give each other. I found it a restful, pleasant time again. It would have only been improved if my friend, Fred, had been here to prepare and carve the turkey. As good as our bird was, it was far short of the accomplished way Fred both roasts and presents a turkey feast. He is very much a gourmet in his tastes for food. The man knows good food well.

Crazy that Fred has such sensitive tastes for food but doesn't care what wine he guzzles down with it. He swears by the boxes of wine he can pick up at Walmart for 3 or 4 bucks. I played with the idea of making a photograph of a box of wine look alluring and tasty. It would take a genius, I guess. I present my humble results here for you. The photo originated in Fred's kitchen. The loaf of bread was made by his own hands. My improvements make the bread look exciting, but not the wine.

Now we move into that really crazy time of year. The time that I call "the race to Christmas." The gorgeous wife is frantic already, urging me to put lists together and to begin racing from store to store for this gift and that one. We've made out massive checklist of all the folks for whom we wish to buy. It is of the size of a major corporation's end-of-the-fiscal year spreadsheet.

"What about Christmas cards?" She asks with little hope in her voice.

"Too late," I say. "We can't possibly get cards and get them out now. Too much to do."

She's got her eye on a Christmas tree already. It's uncut and she's negotiating it's purchase with an innocent owner who did not intend it to become someone's Christmas tree; however, in this area, as in so many others, money talks.

Four of the six kids will be here and so will the mother of one of our sons-in-law. Maybe my sister-in-law, too. Stockings will be hung for everyone and Santa has been ordered (not requested) to fill them to the gills with lovely this and thats.

Thanksgiving and the days leading up to it seem to be lazy, lovely days of anticipation and all the focus is on the dinner spread -- the feast -- and the table on which it will be laid out. These days leading up to Christmas seem much more like a race -- a mad, mad, frantic race that one can only lose and never win. Yet, here I am entered once more in said race and wildly wrapping gifts and making checklists and preparing boxes to be shipped to various places in the country.

For Fred I'll purchase a couple of good bottles of a nice French wine and send them with some splendid lamb chops and and a small roast. Fred won't let the season get him all riled up. He's in a good mode these days, determined to live out the rest of his days peacefully and he's tuned into the good and important things around him (with the exception of the wine he drinks).

There are lessons to be learned from Fred; and I'm trying to learn to measure the really worthwhile against the completely unnecessary.

So, you think you know your town!

I’ve lived here a long time and I really pay attention, but I missed this one completely!
by Charlie Leck

We’ve got a real live saint living in our town. Her name is Purita and she’s sweet, lovely, attractive and she sings like an angel! Actually she doesn’t live here in our community; though she formerly did – up there on Pagenkopf Road. A few years ago, she and her husband moved to an adjoining village. We still count her as one of ours.

I had no idea what an extraordinary contribution Purita was making to our community until just a few weeks ago when someone quite inadvertently told me about it.

“You’re kidding?” I asked in amazement.

The fellow looked at me and cocked his head a bit as if he were a spaniel or labrador.

“Why would I kid? She’s been doing it for years.”

“How come I didn’t know about this?”

Well, again, the guy looked at me as if I were from outer-space, or something. How was he to know why I was so ignorant about this incredible woman and what she did every Thanksgiving Day?

“She’s a bit of a saint, you know,” he said in a gentle, off-hand manner, “and does her work quietly and she doesn’t want publicity.”

“But, there are plenty of us who’d like to help – to contribute.”

“Oh, she’s got plenty of people involved. Danny Dobozinski – you know, Dobo, from Dobo’s Café – he does all the cooking for her – sends over the turkeys and all the fixin’ and the pies. He even sends enough pies that every family can take one home. Along with all that, he sends cakes and other goodies. It’s a real Thanksgiving feast and the people who’ve been coming for years almost treat it like a family situation. They’re all glad to see each other again and to join together on such an important day.”

I was starting to get the picture, but I didn’t think my town had people in it who needed a place to dine on Thanksgiving.

“Oh, it extends beyond our town. People in surrounding communities are invited to come. It’s all absolutely free. If you’re on your own – lonely maybe – or not up to fixin’ your own dinner – or struggling financially – or just plain don’t want to go to all the trouble – they're all invited to come to the city hall to feast together. Some of the guests are local folks – well healed, but at the age where it’s difficult to do the whole Thanksgiving thing. There are Hispanics who don’t know all the traditions. There are some people who aren’t capable of putting together their own big dinner.”

“I want to help,” I said. “How can I help?”

“Don’t think you’re needed,” was the answer that bit pretty hard. “Purita’s got it all figured out. You don’t need to mess in everything you know. This might be one thing you just ought to keep your nose out of and let it run as it always has.”

That was pretty tough talk and it got me burned a little. There seemed to be all kinds of implications in that statement that I couldn't get hold of.

“Well, what if I just donated a little money to help Danny with the costs?”

“His whole family is involved. I think they can handle it okay.”

“Well, I want to talk to Purita, to tell her how pleased I am that she does this. What’s her phone number?”

“I don’t know. Let me call her first and ask her if it’s okay to give it to you.”

Well, I left the conversation feeling like I had some strange disease and had to be isolated away from this event. Was there some fear I’d mess it up?

A couple days later the fellow emailed me Purita’s phone number and said I could call her. So, I did. I told her how moved I was by what she does here in town. I asked if she needed help or whether I could donate some funds. Turns out she might have some need for drivers to get people to and from the dinner; and Danny might appreciate some help with the cost of the thing.

“It’s gotten pretty expensive for him,” she said. “Why don’t you check with him!”

Danny’s a great guy, too. He has a wonderful café in the town just on our northern border. Man, what fabulous home-made baked goods they serve and sell over the counter. His whole family – his parents and siblings – are all very good people who contribute lots to special projects in our town. They’re very involved in stocking our food shelves so people can get food in emergencies. Danny always has a smile on his face and always has time for a long hello even though the café might really be jumping. He welcomed a little bit of help.
A couple of days before Thanksgiving, Purita asked me to stop over at City Hall to peek in on the event and listen in on some of the singing and celebrating that would go on after dinner.

I was pretty overwhelmed by it all. The hall was big enough, but there was a good size crowd of diners there. The food looked splendid and the volunteers were efficient and good humored and having a ball.

Purita gave me permission to take a few photos. I chatted with lots of people and found every story amazingly different. One local, long time resident of our community lost her husband a few years ago. The dinner is perfect for her. She loves getting out and meeting new people and enjoying the time with them. Another lady lives in one of our up-scale communities, but is alone and doesn’t find it much fun to do a Turkey dinner by herself. There were new residents to the area who were struggling to find work and settle in. What a great opportunity to meet new people and “network” as we call it. Then, there were some folks who couldn’t manage to do a dinner on their own.

Purita reaches out to all of them and wraps her love around them and makes sure they are invited to join in the big Thanksgiving feast. She urges all the volunteers to look out for folks who need a place to dine on this big, wonderful holiday.

At the end of the feast, Purita leads them in song. Her voice is so sweetly strong and brilliant that it brings tears to my eyes thinking about it.

“Oh, I could listen to her all day,” one fellow leaned over and said to me. “She’s a saint, you know.”

“Yeh!” I got the idea that he was correct. We have a saint right here in our town, pouring her love out on so many people. She brings them happiness and love.

“Let’ sing this one,” Purita said into the microphone. “It’s a perfect song for today.”

Her voice sends chills through me and, when I close my eyes, it is as if an angel hovers overhead with her gentle, protective wings spread above and around us.

“I see trees of green, red roses too,
I see them bloom, for me and you.
And I think to myself... what a wonderful world.

“I see skies of blue, and clouds of white,
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night.
And I think to myself... what a wonderful world.

“The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky,
Also the faces of people going by.
I see friends shaking hands, say how do you do?
They're really saying, I love you.

“I hear babies crying, I watch them grow,
They'll learn much more than I'll ever know.
And I think to myself... what a wonderful world.

“Yes I think to myself... what a wonderful world.”

She loves Purita and loves her Thanksgiving Days with her!

Happy to be with friends and enjoying a fine dinner!


Happy to be surrounded by friends and an angel!


Happy, kind volunteers who make it a great day!

Lining up for left-overs to take home!

The community room at City Hall is nearly full -- and certainly filled
with happiness and good feelings.

The songs weren't real familiar, but they still sounded pretty!

There were volunteers who did all the work with smiles on their faces.

By word of mouth and with simple, little signs like this one, people find out
about the Happy Thanksgiving celebration at City Hall. All it requires is
making a reservation ahead of time.

Keeping Grandpa Busy

This is grandaughter, Caroline, who, except when she bathes, never
removes her beloved stocking cap and no one tries to force her to.

Sometimes the blog comes in in second place! Like now, for instance!
by Charlie Leck

The grandkids are here – two of them anyway – the Chicago contingent – and grandpa has been kept very busy trying to juggle the demands of two vibrant, energetic little girls and his dog and wife. We’re handling it all, however, and we’ll be back on the air on Sunday morning with some more comments about my town and an extraordinary Thanksgiving experience I had here.

Grandpa's traditional job on Thanksgiving is to prepare a
giant platter of wonderful fresh lox. Voila!

Lovely Lisa, Anne's delightful daugher, prepared the spectacular green
salad for our Thanksgiving feast.


Grandaughter Anna relaxed and had a good time watching
everyone work to prepare dinner.

Mark's beloved, Kelly, brought the Thanksgiving pies
and her wonderous smile.


A volunteer from my town helps to serve up a spectacular
free feast for people who come together to share in a
special event.