Even though the breakthrough imaginary crew of Gene Roddenberry did not include a Jewish character.
Indulge me here… especially one blogger who indulges in green smoothies… but this sets the stage:
Chekov is miraculously cured though the repair of a ruptured brain artery – without drills, scalpels or stitches.
The surgery is performed by a miracle device placed on his forehead.
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Well, Star Trek’s vision is coming to fruition.
An Israeli engineering company has developed a prototype “knifeless” surgical instrument using ultrasound. It utilizes 3D imaging to control the precision targeting of the ultrasounds to eradicate a growth. You ladies will find it interesting – one potential application is removal of uterine fibroids. Another use depicted is the treatment of Parkinson’s.
Please watch. As Spock would have said, “Fascinating”.
As you Trekkies may know, Dr. “Bones” McCoy is noted for his famous “doctor” quotes. In “Mirror, Mirror,” Dr. McCoy says determinedly to Capt. Kirk, “I’m a doctor! Not an engineer!”
We had a special guest come over and VOILA! A baklava baking party!
My Jordanian lady friend “A” and I made plans for her to stop by and teach us how to make baklava – the authentic Jordanian way. Can’t get more genuine than that, can you?
All the kids were eager to help out, including Jack and Brooke’s good Syrian classmates. It was really great to hear their classmates talk in Arabic with “A”!
Brooke and her friend were responsible for the delicious syrup made out of cinnamon sticks, lime zest, cloves, water and sugar…oh, and honey too. It really turned out fabulous! You know – the girlie touch.
The girlie touch!
Constructing it was quite simple. “A” had brought chopped almonds and walnuts which served as the main yummy part (with the syrup!). She layered sheet after sheet of phyllo dough with unsalted butter brushed in between. Then came the yummy nut filling topped with more phyllo dough.
It was baked in two stages at 350F – 30 minutes at the lowest rack setting then finished off with 30 minutes with the rack raised to the second tier from the top.
Man, it was really starting to smell great while baking… When it was done, “A” carefully cut the baklava into squares, then into the triangles you saw in the first photo. She then slowly drizzled the sweet syrup all over the pastry through a strainer.
A few of you know I’ve been in a little bit of “funk” the past month or so…
No real reason… just things.
But I had a GREAT Father’s Day! So a belated and short post.
It started out with seeing my “second” dad – Old Man Jack. I last visited Jack on Memorial Day… but it was a bit saddening to see that his only daughter hadn’t been by.
It’s always good to see him – although I didn’t stop by in my LOUD supercharged Mustang he loved so much.
Of course, you can only have one dad… and mine’s 94. We had a Father’s Day Brunch at his assisted living center and his luckily, his appetite was back. We enjoyed a special Father’s Day brunch. Meat and potatoes! His fave!
He then finished off his lunch with…sweets! Man, he’s got a sweet tooth! These were Japanese candies sent to him from my cousin Masako (and Izumi) in Hiroshima. (He had four. lol)
Does he look content? LOL
And someone “special” had called… and wanted to give me a Father’s Day hug! Ou-la-la! She is a gal with one of the sweetest souls around…and she shall remain nameless. 🙂
She’s had a positive impact on me. 🙂
And then… the grand finale…
I headed up from Fashion Island in Newport Beach to Pomona…My oldest son, Takeshi……graduated from Cal Poly Pomona! He’s even got a straight A streak going! And he BEAT his brilliant sister in Organic Chemistry by getting an A! She will never hear the end of that one… 🙂
Congratulations, son! And a BIG thanks to my ex and his step-dad. I couldn’t ask for a better guy.
I don’t think an old man can ask for anything greater than that superific day!
Marge and I at Riverside National Cemetery, Memorial Day Weekend 2013
A LETTER…
[Please also see “Mr. Johnson, USMC” if you wish to learn the background of this couple from the Greatest Generation by clicking on the link.]
Dear Marge,
Well, Marge, you made it indeed… To see your beloved husband Johnnie for Memorial Day.
A heroic US Marine who fought on-board the USS Enterprise in World War II.
Decorated.
And he was but 17 years old when he set sail for the Battle of Midway.
Seventeen. You said he was still in high school when he signed up for the Marines. Unbelievable.
We were met by thousands of American flags being planted by hundreds of Boy Scouts and volunteers. You were so happy to see the red, white and blue saturating the cemetery, bit by bit.
While the Boy Scouts hadn’t made it to your husband’s resting place yet, we had our own little flag… and your beautiful bouquet we were able to pick up along the way. You were so pleased with them but we made it a promise the next bouquet will be the colors of the USMC – scarlett and gold. You knew he would like that. Yes you did.
It was only the Saturday before Memorial Day but you were so elated to see how many people were there already…and we arrived at 10:00 AM! You were worried we wouldn’t be able to find a place to park when someone upstairs opened one up for us.
You were so anxious to visit him that you made it out of my car in record time and walked as quickly as you could!
While you used your stroller to get to the general area of his grave site, we had to leave the stroller and walk the last twenty yards on very saturated ground. You were holding onto my arm so tightly as the muddy earth gave way as we walked. Remember? My shoe sunk into the soil and inch or more.
And when we got there, we couldn’t find any water decanters… They were all being used by the hundreds of other mourners…but by some lucky grace, we ran into Vicky… She had bought 1,000 beautiful flags on her own and her niece was placing them neatly all along the columbine. She went out of her way to find one for you!
Vicki and her niece holding another bunch of the 1,000 flags she had bought to place along the columbine.Some of the 1,000 flags purchased by Vicki and placed by her niece for our fallen.
Your bouquet was so beautiful, Marge. You said quietly Johnnie – your husband of 66-1/2 years – would like them so much. You miss him dearly, don’t you Marge? I miss him…
And like the last time, on Easter Sunday, you talked with him…
She is talking to Johnnie… True love and devotion…
You shared with me again of how he left your life…and you were there for him til the very end… and how alone you felt because you are the last one alive from amongst your friends. There is no one else. You said you still look for Johnnie at your assisted senior care center to ask him a question but he doesn’t answer…
Thriving love…
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We promised to go back in two months, yes?
I will be calling you because he means so much to you… and it means so much to me.
I wish people would understand your love and devotion.
Marge and Mr. Johnson on their wedding day in June 1945.
Nothing serious. Something wrong with her growth plate in her knee plus “osteochondroma of the medial tibia”.
So she’s been on crutches for a couple weeks plus a knee brace…and for the MRI, I reassured her there was nothing to worry about. It would be just some noise and “a shot”.
But after the MRI yesterday, she was a tad upset with me. Well, a mild rant, really…lasting over three hours.
She basically implied that I withheld valuable information from her…regarding the “shot”.
Well, she was right.
It was really an IV…and she said there were TWO injections of dye.
And that the IV needle was in her arm for TWENTY minutes (she exaggerated – of course)…unlike the flu shot three months ago ” that I tried to kill her with and (she) still got sick”.
And that the dye injections made her mouth taste like ocean water and it smelled like garbage.
Oh well.
But she survived.
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Well, she got back at me this morning…because she claims I withheld valuable information from her.
I had to muscle her out of bed and whoo-ee… Was she grumpy or what. But she immediately reminded me while flailing her good arm in no particular pattern “her arm hurt (because of the shot)”. She stopped flailing her good arm just to point to the injection point.
We were running late (on account of she wouldn’t get out of bed, of course). I told her to get in the car while I changed my slacks. (They were too tight. It must be how Halle Berry felt in her Catwoman outfit.)
Hurried to the car and about a half-mile down the street, I looked at her and noticed something. So I asked.
“Buru (my nickname for Brooke), where’s your OTHER crutch?”
She then said with her “give me sympathy” tone of voice, “But Papaa-aaa…” You know. When the voice drags on and goes up and down.
“But Papaa-aaa (she said it twice)… I was too tired this morning so I didn’t want to go look for it…”
So I said, “So you were gonna walk around all day at school today with just one crutch?” to which she just makes a small giggling sound while smiling so innocently back at me.
Had to turn around to get the dang crutch; found it at 6:44 AM.
She got back me all right, that sneaky little thing.
In the 2012 limited release movie, “Memorial Day”, children are playing at their grandparent’s home in a rural setting. It is Memorial Day weekend. A 13 year old boy stumbles across a dusty box in a barn.
The box is his grandfather’s WWII Army footlocker, emblazoned with the unit insignia of his famed unit, the 82nd Airborne. It is filled with “souvenirs” he had brought home from war.
The young grandson probingly asks the grandfather for the stories behind the souvenirs to which he curtly answers no – and bitterly orders the boy to take the footlocker back to where he found it.
“It’s Memorial Day…” says the grandson.
“Damn straight it is,” barks back the grandfather.
The young lad digs in, not wanting to fall short in his quest for answers, and pushes the footlocker even closer to his grandfather.
The grandson then doggedly asks, “What is it I’m supposed to remember?”
Checkmate.
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Memorial Day.
In essence, a day to remember, honor and pray for those nameless souls who were KIA (Killed in Action).
To remember those that didn’t return from war. Young boys. Young men.
But as the young boy in the movie asked, “What is it I’m supposed to remember?”
Do YOU have an answer to that boy’s question?
I didn’t…and perhaps still don’t as I was not shot at, bombed or strafed…nor killed.
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My photo of WWII vets at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. July 2010
The only thing I do know is that WWII combat veterans do NOT want to talk about “it”.
And that’s our problem, I feel. Because these combat vets are unable to share with us the horror they lived through 70 years ago, it helps diffuse the essence of Memorial Day.
They are unable to share for their own sanity’s sake.
As WWII combat survivors (a.k.a., now collectively known as “vets”) would bravely crack open their bottled abominations to talk about “it” with me, I will venture to blurt that possibly – just possibly – they feel unbearable guilt and shame for what they saw…or did…or did NOT do… but that they survived to talk about “it”.
But their buddies didn’t.
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(Note: World War II is the focus of this story. WWII was a cataclysm of never to be matched magnitude again. There was wanton destruction of entire cities and civilians. Inflicting casualties on the enemy was expected and accepted by the majority. This is not to downplay Korea, Viet Nam or our current war on terrorism. There are different rules of engagement now with much different social expectations by the “good guys”.)
Perhaps you will let me take a chance with trying to bring to light some of the “it” things you may or may not know… If you can at least read about the combat experience, perhaps it will help YOU appreciate Memorial Day even more… and of those that are not with us today.
I’ve collected these personal observations, comments and facts from talking with several bona fide WWII combat vets and just plain reading. Nothing scientific, of course.
So here goes:
Nearing death, as grievously wounded young men take their last gasps, the most often said word was, “Mama”.
Under fire, many would curl up into a fetal position shaking uncontrollably while their buddies would somehow raise their weapons to shoot back… only to get showered with their blood and brains as a enemy round obliterated his buddy’s head. It is not about cowardice. It is FEAR.
About 25% of them peed in their pants. About 10% shit in their pants. (Old Man Jack did both…and he was not ashamed to say so. Ergo, his quote from Two Old Men and a Father’s Day Anguish: “If you got killed with shit in your pants, you got buried with shit in your pants.”)
Another 25% of these brave young boys and men were so scared or were so repulsed at the gore, e.g., at seeing liquified brains spewing from a shattered skull, they vomited.
One Marine told me he was to silently kill a Japanese sentry using a makeshift garotte only to find the sentry had fallen asleep face up. He couldn’t use the garotte as the enemy’s helmet was in the sand and the enemy could let out a scream if he used his Kabar. At the appointed minute, my friend had no choice but to jump on the sleeping soldier and grip his Adam’s apple with all his might… to keep him from yelling, too. He knew the enemy died when his body went limp and urinated. My friend did, too. He said he thinks he gripped the enemy’s throat for over two minutes. His hands couldn’t stop shaking. It was his first hand-to-hand kill.
After hearing sounds at night, frightened soldiers or Marines would unleash a violent and impenetrable barrage of carbine and machine gun fire. When they reconnoitered at day break, they discovered they had mistakenly slaughtered unarmed men, women and children. They would vomit then, too. (I can’t imagine what went on in their souls for the rest of their lives.)
Sometime in 1943, Army psychiatrists took a survey of “frontline” troops. Less than 1% said they wanted to go back into battle (I understand this was exclusive of the more higher trained units like the Rangers or Airborne). Almost NONE of the Silver Star recipients wanted to go back. But they did.
Army psychiatrists found that 60 days was the limit for being on the front lines…before a soldier would crack. Old Man Jack was out on the front for just about a year for his first deployment on “those stinkin’ islands”.
A Nisei 442nd vet told me just the sound of the Nazi MG42 machine gun would make them shit in their pants. It could fire up to 1,500 rounds a minute and chew through tree trunks behind which they were seeking cover. Sometimes, a buddy’s top half would be separated from the bottom half by the MG42…and they saw it happen.
Another Nisei vet told me they were on patrol when they came under a barrage. As he and a buddy dove into a shell hole for cover, his buddy’s arm went into a rotting, foul mass of a decomposing German’s remains.
Human souvenir hunting was rampant – and most extreme in the Pacific Theater. Correspondents documented in their reports that a number of Allied military “boiled” Japanese skulls or left them out for the ants to eat away most of the flesh, then kept them. Sailors would leave a skull in a net trawling behind their ship to cleanse them of flesh. For some, the skulls were too large or awkward so they would keep ears or noses. (In fact, Customs had issues with these skulls when a military man would bring them back to the US after discharge.) And as Old Man Jack witnessed in “Old Man Jack-isms #4“, some would collect gold teeth.
A souvenir skull. Someone had etched “1945 Jap skull Okinawa” onto it.
In a battle report, several very young Marines cut off the heads from Japanese corpses, impaled them onto stakes and pointed the faces at the enemy across the way to taunt them. When their commanding officer ordered them to take the severed heads down, they replied something to the effect of if we eat like animals, fight like animals and look like animals, we are going to act like animals.
Old Man Jack mentioned something he called “squeakers”. He didn’t elaborate on it too much but it’s when fear becomes so overpowering, men would get dry mouth or start gagging… a problem if you were an officer trying to give orders under fire to keep men alive. They would “squeak”.
“Take a very, very ripe tomato. Throw it with all your might against a weathered cedar plank fence. Listen to the sound of the impact. That’s what it sounds like when a bullet hits your buddy.” A Nisei vet told me that.
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These next images, to be politically correct in today’s world, will be very upsetting to some so a warning to you… But these must be seen to help comprehend why many combat veterans don’t want to talk about “it” and therefore, the difficulty in helping us answer, “What am I supposed to remember?”:
A dead and frozen Nazi is propped up like a road sign.The booted feet of a dead Japanese soldier, foreground, and his hand protrude from beneath a mound of earth on Iwo Jima during the American invasion of the Japanese Volcano Island stronghold in 1945 in World War II. U.S. Marines can be seen nearby in foxholes. (AP Photo/Joe Rosenthal)Perhaps this is similar to what Mr. Johnson saw during the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands and Guadalcanal where he was gravely wounded. Note the position of this dead sailor’s feet relative to his upper body. National Archives.A US Army soldier lays as he died on Okinawa while the fighting continues around him. National Archives.Dismembered Japanese soldier on Luzon, 1945. US Army photo archives.British military removing burned German corpse from knocked out Panzer IV tank. National Archives.Dead Japanese soldier in decomposition. Perhaps this is an example of what Old Man Jack tried to suppress in his recollection of his morbid experience in “ID patrol“. US Marine Corps archives.Two from the US Army 3rd Armored killed in action in France. National Archives.Dead Kamikaze pilot. Notice the rubber glove on the US sailor’s right hand. US Navy.Dated March 3, 1944
Perhaps some of the other “it” they saw involved civilians.
Records related to this photograph of a slain young Russian female indicate the photo was taken from a dead German’s wallet.A description that was attached to this photo state a young girl is led away from her sister who was just killed. Notice the camera in the old man’s hand. He also sports some kind of arm band.
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So why these gruesome photos of carnage and violent death?
Are they REALLY necessary for you to see?
I believe so… and the preceding photos were relatively tame to be quite honest. There are much more gruesome ones in private collections. Old Man Jack had a collection but I only got a glimpse of ONE picture early in our relationship and it was of a severed Japanese head. He never brought the photos out again.
But it’s important that Americans today understand “it” went to the hundreds of thousands of now silent US military graves… and “it” also remains tightly bottled up in the few surviving combat vets from WWII.
They have a right to keep “it” bottled up. Vacuum sealed. To keep their sanity although they relive and suffer horribly through “it” each night.
Field grave for an unknown US Marine. Some souls will never be identified.
Thousands of graves on a “stinkin’ island”… all killed in action.
Iwo Jima. US Marine Corps.Saipan burial of a Marine killed in action.French civilians erected this silent tribute to an unknown American solider who has fallen in the crusade to liberate France. Carentan, France., 06/17/1944Some souls will never be found.Somewhere in northern Europe.Like this torn photograph of an Iwo Jima battlefield cemetery, memories of young boys who lost their lives so violently are fading away.
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Memorial Day.
To remember those killed.
But without seeing, understanding or accepting the horrible demise these young fighting men encountered ending their short lives, the true meaning of Memorial Day is lost.
It is not truly about the combat vets alive today or who passed away since war’s end… but they sure the hell are part of it. Those alive mightily grip a key to their secrets – preventing your entry into their private internal hell.
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I will remember this when I visit the graves of Old Man Jack and Mr. Johnson this Memorial Day and will think of their fallen comrades.
And I will thank them and their unnamed buddies when I enjoy my barbequed hamburger this Memorial Day weekend and a cigar.
They died for me.
So I could enjoy my hamburger and cigar.
And I shall
A final, short tribute to those resting in graves today:
I’ll give him that but that’s maybe why we were close.
He didn’t care who was there when he spoke. His thinking was it was their fault for listening in to something they had no business in. Lot of truth in that, I guess.
But it was if his departed wife came down from above and washed his mouth out with soap when my kids were in earshot. He spoke like an angel.
Well, not quite…but almost.
Some of his more oft-used phrases (light-heartedly said) were:
“You dumb shit. Shut up and listen,” or,
“They thought they knew everything but found out the hard way,” or,
“Them Marines thought they owned the beach but they forget who brought them there.”
When he would say these phrases, it would likely be when he was story-telling on some of the more memorable moments on those “stinkin’ islands”.
But one of Old Man Jack’s phrases keeps popping back into my head with fondness:
“They didn’t know shit from Shinola.”
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For some of you, no explanation is necessary.
But for you younger folks, Shinola was known for shoe and boot polish.
And for Old Man Jack’s phrase, the dark brown Shinola boot polish would be implied…which has a strikingly similar coloration to cow poop.
Hence, “…doesn’t know shit from Shinola”.
Pardon the French.
And yes, the phrase arose from the ranks of World War II military personnel.
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And while Old Man Jack DID get the local newspaper delivered to him, he never really read them.
He’d look through them for some restaurant coupons. That was about it. I asked him why and he said he doesn’t believe half the s*it in it.
(Odd why there’s an asterik there when I quoted him earlier.)
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Which brings me to one thing that depresses me immensely: the lack of legitimate oversight on our media.
They use their own medium without restraint. To suit their pocketbooks.
How they deem fit…and pay no mind to us.
Doctors get controlled.
CPA’s get controlled by the government now.
Everyone else does… Oops. Not the lawyers. They’re as bad as the media. Did I say that before?
But certain media “stations” or “newspapers” love to castrate law enforcement personnel…or shame soldiers or Marines doing their best to protect us after one incident.
It is like they were the judge and jury before the case could come to court…or actual facts disclosed…or the brutal environment in which our young men and women trying to protect us is truly displayed.
THEY deem it wrong. That’s similar to discrimination.
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But to close this story – and as I blogged once before – please compare these two webpage screen prints taken within minutes of each other.
First CNN. Notice nothing is highlighted about gun control (when that was all they could write about at that time) or the murder of four Americans in Benghazi…but they deem news of a woman who shows up after 11 years to be crucial to Americans. Certainly nothing embarrassing to President Obama.
And here’s the webpage from Fox News. It does highlight the murder of four Americans and brings up guns…and makes only small mention of the mysterious woman that CNN deemed important. But certainly, the first two items could embarrass President Obama.
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“If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re mis-informed.”
― Mark Twain
Old Man Jack was right…again.
So what are we to read?
After all, we need facts and truth so that we’d be able to tell the difference between shit and Shinola.
Just thought that was a catchy title…albeit a bit misleading like our media. Just a tad misleading…’cuz the butt’s the other end.
I guess the news guys are finally rubbing off on me after all.
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But as I watched my kids and their friends play in the front, I felt like playing around with my new, fancy-schmancy Canon point and shoot – specifically hand held close-ups of the business end of a nice cigar.
It was amazing that an inexpensive camera such as this could take such equally amazing (yuk to some!) close-ups:
I did switch to my standard Canon DSLR to snap these fun snapshots of my kids. Little Brooke likes the distortion that erupts with this Canon 10-22mm lens…although a certain pro photographer buddy of mine will likely BBQ me over a slow but hot flame for using it.
Masako and Spam Musubi 