The (Local) Ties That Bind
04/09/03
This column is about my observations and take on local events. Though EDH news is plentiful, I confess it has been very difficult lately for me to focus on matters of local import. Indeed, I have passed much of the week in search of a topic.
As some of you know, I am a historian and attorney by schooling, a political junky by avocation, and an ardent observer of international affairs. These areas have now coalesced, and my country is at war. It is difficult for me to think of much else.
A very close 21-year-old relative named Markos is with the 1st Marine Division (3/4/K). We just received word his company was involved in inner city fighting in Kut, Iraq. The close combat saw grenades lobbed back and forth--through windows, holes in the walls, and across boot-trampled gardens. The news conjured up mental images eerily reminiscent of Saving Private Ryan. There were Marines casualties. As of this writing, Marcos's fate his unknown. His father and I talk on the phone regularly. His burden is a heavy one.
As they do around the country, people here in the foothills express their support (or lack thereof) for the war and those waging it in a variety of ways. I was driving through Folsom this Friday past (April 4) pondering what to write about this week when I spotted several dozen people at the intersection of Bidwell and Blue Ravine. As I eventually discovered, many EDH residents populated the throng. It was a pro-war, pro-troops rally. Signs asked motorists to honk. It was a noisy intersection.
That same evening my wife and I attended a play put on by our daughter's school. The WWII skit was entitled "Kilroy Was Here," a comedic spy tale featuring USO dancing and singing, and a hilarious sideshow script written by the two students who played Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. Pre-show conversation turned to the drama unfolding overseas. Personal connections abounded. One man has a cousin in the Army's "fighting" 3rd Division; another has a brother on board an aircraft carrier; yet a third has a relative somewhere in northern Iraq--maybe. They really don't know where he is.
The students ended the performance by asking veterans to stand by branch of service and be acknowledged for their service to our country. And proudly stand they did, the young, middle aged, and the old. Applause was the only reward we could offer them.
If he had been there that evening, my neighbor George Ruddell would have stood when navy veterans were honored. A quiet man, stooped with age but blessed with a ready smile, George makes his feelings known by simply flying his flag in front of his home. In another time and in a different body, he served as a Chief Petty Officer aboard the repair ship USS Vestal. She was moored next to the doomed USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the day the Japanese lost the war by attacking America. (I have a sneaking suspicion 9/11 will one day be looked upon the same way for world terrorism.) Vestal took a pair of direct hits that snuffed out a half-dozen young lives Her commander won the Medal of Honor for saving his ship and crew.
George knows what it was like to be in the enemy's gun sights. "I feel sorry for the troops in Iraq," said the veteran of WWII, the Korea War, and the early stages of Vietnam. "I have a real deep feeling for those young people. We were scared to death when we heard we were being attacked. They're scared, too. They won't even realize what they are going through until later, when they have time to think about it." When asked about why he flies his flag, he answered without hesitation: "It is my way of supporting them. It helps them know we care."
Other locals offered morale sustenance by painting a flag and "We support our troops" on the dual rock sign posts planted above El Dorado Hills Boulevard. To date, no one has dared paint over them.
I guess I worried for nothing. The war in Iraq is indeed a story with local ties.
