Did I mention that Steven Pressfield, author of Gates of Fire, Last of the Amazons and Killing Rommel fame (among others) has a blog? I have been reading him for the last couple of months in my reader. It’s just as informative and provocative as the tales his books tell. Go read ‘Returning Home’. It starts like this -
In the ancient Spartan tradition, there were only two cases when burial markers were permitted: for warriors killed in battle and for women who died in childbirth. The memorials were simple stones, often without inscriptions.
Finish it, pause and offer a prayer for those who passed before us, click here, and then hunker down to read the rest and his blog from the beginning. I seriously doubt you will be disappointed.
Ocean Guy takes me back to the winter of 1991. I was pregnant with the Last Amazon and doing my best to conceal my pregnancy. It wasn’t that hard as the coming war was on most people’s minds rather than the fact I was putting on weight.
It was one of the few times I actually lost a bet. At the time, I was working for man who was a former hotshot Canadian Air force fighter pilot. We bet on what day the dogs of war would be unleashed. I was wrong but he pegged it dead on. Over his celebratory lunch he explained how he determined the date. I thought maybe he had an in with his former military buddies but he made an educated guess by researching the weather forecast for the region. I have subsequently added ‘never bet against a fighter pilot’ to my personal rules of gambling list. During the whole course of the war, I took to having lunch in his office where he had set-up a television so we could watch the CNN broadcasts of Operation Desert Storm.
I remember when it was announced Navy Pilot Michael Scott Speicher was MIA and presumed to be shot down. I was shocked my boss called him a Lucky Bastard and then made a rather startling pronouncement – that he would give everything in the world he had just to trade places with him. I couldn’t imagine how anyone could feel that way. He looked me dead in the eye, and said, ‘I trained for war for over 30 years and never went. Then I got too old and was pensioned out. Now I am old and having to settle for spending the rest of my life doing everything but the one thing I have loved and stayed true to over 30 years.’
I doubt that sentiment offers much consolation to Speicher’s family and loved ones – or even friends, but there is still a grace to have been able to live dream which soared rather then never having gotten off the ground. Ocean Guy writes a powerful remembrance and offers a welcome home from one navy pilot to another. Read it all.
