Cakes and Mullahs

In what has become an alarming (but at least this week enjoyable) trend I was faced yesterday with work on short rest due to late night Patriots antics and falling off couches.  Luckily the holiday slow down seems to be seeping into everyone’s mentality or more likely I wasn’t the only one that spent early Monday morning watching the latest edition of the Manning face. 

In a cruel twist of fate someone at work had the temerity to have a birthday yesterday on a day that was not a keto holiday.  To rub some salt into the wound even the cake was unexpectedly awesome. This particular birthday girl is annually given a cake made of bark and roots, really natural kind of fare (in reality a carrot cake – gag!) In other words something I wouldn’t miss, at all.  Imagine my horror when confronted with a chocolate and vanilla cake festooned with butter frosting.  By the end of the day my resolve weakened to the point I stole a piece, brought it home and froze it for keto-free Friday.  My wife first exacted some kind of unbeknownst toll by lopping off a piece for herself.  

So Tough to Walk Away From!

Some major news emanating out of the Middle East where our president took a major gamble by agreeing to a limited deal with Iran on their nuclear program.  It’s so good Hilary is no longer the SecState because she is Clinton averse to causing ripples on her march to a nomination.    This is a bold move because it takes on two oddly aligned groups of American friends - Israeli interests and the Sunni side of the Persian Gulf. 

It doesn’t look like much of a deal from the outside but any step forward is historic when you’re talking US-Iran.  I liked the courage it takes to come out from behind the habitual stance of mutual assured hatred between our two peoples.  The ayatollahs finally allowed a sane president to take office who is willing to talk with the west –it’s good the opportunity isn’t wasted.

I spent most of my adult life dreaming of an opportunity to bring death and destruction upon the hostage takers of Tehran but we need to look to a new future.  I still wouldn’t trust the Iranians as far as I could throw a mullah but it has to start somewhere and this might even open up some dialogue on the morass Syria has sunk into – gravely assisted by Iran.  Every journey starts with that tough first step and in the Middle East there’s been a real dearth of opportunities like this.

Take A Seat Sidney

In my still simmering joy of the Red Sox run to glory and the Patriots’ roller coaster I’ve neglected the Bruins a little too much.  I caught most of their game last night as they took on the Penguins who boast the NHL’s answer to Lebron James in terms of maturity – Sidney Crosby.  The Bruins are a tough team and a lot of fun to watch.  They’ve got this undersized, undrafted defenseman named Krug who just keeps making plays.  Instead of collapsing when they gave up a tying goal in the last .02 seconds of the game they came out in OT with Krug scoring on an absolute rocket. 

I finished the sequel to the last book I wrote about, Thank You For Your Service, by David Finkel.  In this book he focuses on the recovery of several of the Soldiers he chronicled in The Good Soldiers.   He was obviously granted intimate access to the lives of a couple Soldiers dealing with PTSD and traumatic brain injury.  He also tells the story of a young widow of a Soldier killed in Iraq to compare her challenges with those of the wives dealing with husbands who left part of their souls in Iraq as well as some marked forever by a Soldier suicide.

Finkel, ever the journalist tries to find political issues with how society and the Army treat these wounded warriors.  What he finds however is an Army that is bending over backwards to help with efforts that start at the highest levels down to the unit.  He does capture the Army culture of refusing to admit to pain, “rub a little dirt on it and drive on” and how much it took to overcome that and get these Soldiers the help they need.

The Soldiers’ and their wives’ stories are heartbreaking and serves the same purpose as his earlier book in laying out the cost of sending fighting men into the inferno.  My wife owns a t-shirt that reads, “Army Wife, Toughest Job in the Army” – a fundamental truth.  A good read that should be required of all political leaders.