Federal disrict court judges seemingly are enjoining Trump at the drop of a hat. Anti-Trump zealots are fully engaged in forum shopping. The more lawsuits the merrier. The binge of news on the legal front jarred a faint voice loose from within me. While much of today’s news involves rage and tons of litigation erupting from sea to sea against Trump, I’m instead reminded of 1971.

Papa was walking down a corridor of Long Bien Jail (LBJ) when a plantive voice called to me. He knew me because I had represented his co-defendant in a courts martial. The two enterprising young men were in the process of cornering a segment of the heroin market on their base. Supply types. they were often driving on and off base for deliveries. An ideal time to stuff a satchel with vials of heroin. With the satchel hiddden under the front wall of the truck’s cab it was 90 % profit to be made. All that was needed was to go through the base entry gate.

I’m quite positive that Vietnam was a war zone at the time. MPs guarded the entry gates to the base. And, for whatever reason, the guards made more than a cursory check of the truck and its contents one fateful day. Busted.

So charges were duly filed, defense appointed and the process began. At the time the military had a diversion program that would become popular with criminal courts throughout Ameica second chances. No trial, no conviction and no punishment. In Vietnam a more powerful incentive existed for the defndant. If a first offense and one had a drug problem they’d be administratively discharged and on a Freedom Bird within 5 to 7 days. The ultimate second chance. No dream was bigger for any of us in country than the day we’d step aboard a Freedom Bird. Home awaited.

Papa had had a hand in setting up the administrative discharge of drug users scheme. I knew how it worked. My client naturally jumped at the chance to go home for his opportunity to seek rehabilitation. Treatment may have been far fom a priority for him but I fear actual availability in the states was also a pipe dream. Out of the service, out of mind and out of the country served both sides well. He was home for at least a month before that voice beckoned to me in LBJ.

The co-defendant had opted for civilian representation.  Yes, non-Army lawyers were around. Rumored to be funded by famous Hollywood disidents a group of attorneys were trying to up justice in the military justice system. The young co-defendant’s lawyer wanted to contest the legality of the gate search. He wanted to argue that the Army had no right to screen what material was entering a secured, fortified base in a time of war. I had made an attempt at objecting to the searh as a matter of course without success. So, it was a given that the other soldier would fail.

The war do gooder of course knew this outcome. He told me that his group knew of a possible friendly federal judge in the states that might present an opportunity of success at opening up the law of search and seizure at bases. Why a more relaxed entry at a gate was a good thing was not explained to me. However, something obvious did not seem to concern him. His goal of forum shopping meant that the soldier needed to first be convicted and hauled off to prison. (That’s one way out of the country after a long wait for trial.) Then he’d need to lose his appeals inside the military system before he’d have acrack at any federal court jurisdiction. Perhaps two or three years. It seemed that the young man spending a few years in prison was overshadowed by the activist group’s interest in a cause. Papa always tried to be more practical in helping individuals out of jams. 

I could not speak to or help the soldier at LBJ other than pass on to the Army JAG office that he wanted an interview with a different military lawyer. Which I did and his administrative processing home began thereafter. I have always had a dim view of forum shopping. It is a value taught long ago. But, to an acivist it is a goal to pursue. Thus, many courts today are being flooded by lawsuits that target Trump and his actions in office. I’d prefer a more orderly filing of localized litigation allowing issues to percolate up the chain. Now, nationwide court orders seem to invite chaos. And, my memory of LBJ.

Talk about memories. A high school prom is at the forefront of one’s school days experiences. Both good and bad. Papa has a vivid recall of praying for isolation from the prying ears of brothers or parents when I made my first prom telephone call. The upstairs extension in our house was directly connected to rejection land. Or, so I feared. Today I am still amused that I mustered enough courage to actually make the call. My fingers were crosed that the expected rejection would be gentle. Fearing laugh in my face funny was unfair to the young lady but that is in retrospect 65 years later.

Now it is your turn. The two oldest have Junior Prom tomorrow. How times have changed. The land line of my day was not only connected to possible disappointment but one had to run the risk of talking with a parent who’d answer the phone. Would I stumble over her name with the gatekeeper was not an unwarrented thought. I learned that you followed a new tradition of making up an artwork poster with which to pop the prom question. Which of course put a visual in Papa’s mind. Does the young lady also need to answer with a poster? Is a yes poster more elaborate than a no poster? Has anxiety transferred from male to female in the new process? Does she have a fear she’ll grab the wrong poster answer from her backpack?

You guys are good at art. I’d bet your posters knocked it out of the park. I guess I was better off with my fears of a phone call than to try to draw stick people on an old piece of cardboard. Have all your fun. You are embarking on a journey of fond memories. Those are the best ones. They hang around for a long time; like treasures.

Papa recently returned from the old home state. I returned for my brother John’s memorial. Perhaps it was a journey that will mark one of my last visits to Badger land. Never say never but it’s getting close. Seeing family and old friends stirred up all the pleasant memories of the past. In retrospect I had very few bumps in the road of life. Nearing the end, perhaps it’s easier to bury less favorite times but even if I search I don’t recall many bad times. Losing John was tough. We were very much on the same wave length. I don’t have enough fingers than can count the times I’ve already thought of a missing detail and counseled that I will just ask John when we next talk.

What has surprised me since my return is being more attuned to memories. After a death and at a memorial it is natural that memories of the past rise to the forefront. Yet, weeks later two movies pop up on TV from the 1950’s that struck me because the actresses reminded me of a first date in high school. “The Actress” and “Brigadoon”. A month ago I would have channel surfed right past those films. Watching portions of each reminded me that I was able to exercise good judgment in my youth. Something was churning in Papa’s mind in the fifties. She was just as good looking as the actresses. It also helps explain my use of the name Fiona in my second self published novel.

Recently, I took the time to sit quietly while watching your Nana’s nemesis linger in her garden. I failed in my shoo away duties and simply enjoyed looking at a deer. As I did so often up north with my brothers. Each night our Uncle Jim drove us up and down country roads of Oneida County looking for and counting deer seen. Hundreds was not an exaggeration for our summer sessions with Uncle Jim. Fortunate does not adequately describe how lucky we brothers were to spend an entire summer near Lake Tomahawk. Courtesy of Uncle Jim, chief cook and bottle washer.

Ironic that another memory of Uncle Jim came courtesy of an old high school friend. While home for the memorial I had breakfast with that buddy. And, for the very first time I learned he went to the grade school of which Uncle Jim was principal. (Why he had the summers off to give us time in nature. ) That grade school contained a segment of handicap kids in attendance. My friend went there rather than to the school near his home. I never made the connection in all the years I’ve known him; including the need to attend McKinley. Again memories of visiting McKinley and its assortment of physical therapy equipment was revived.

A few weeks later I had finished a swim on the first warm day in months. It was warm enough to sit for a time near the pool. I like my sun even without the #2 Coppertone. It was quiet. A good opportunity to enjoy the sun. That is when I recalled what was a most contradictory moment from 1971. The military had a swimming pool on our base in Vietnam. It was available on Sunday afternoon for us. We got 1/2 day off each week. A sort of in country recreation and relaxation. Finished swimming, I was sunning. (Which as I write this reminds me of the picnicking scene discussion in a John Wayne Calvary film.) There Papa was, pursuing a tan, when I heard the distinctive sound of a Huey helicopter. It flew just overhead and landed across a nearby field. The 24th Evacuation Hospital. I might just as well been engaged in frivolous picnicking when I saw some poor GI getting off loaded on a stretcher. So, more than fifty years later I conjured up that day on a sunny day far removed from that sadness.

There’s a lot of hand wringing now that President Trump is trying to negotiate a peace between Russia and Ukraine. He’s being accused of taking the side of Russia. He’s allegedly changing/abandoning decades old European/American defense concepts. Lots of verbal rattling going on. It will certainly be interesting to see if the killing can be stopped. One question might be to ask what is the traditional defense concept that may be changed by these peace negotiations?

Our last president famously said we’d support Ukraine for as long as it takes. We sent that country a lot of weapons. Some not in a timely fashion and others in slow increments of usefulness. (Guns that shoot 8 miles but not 9.7 miles…or old but not new tanks/planes….or attacks that don’t cross the border and then later maybe by 10-15-30 miles across the boundry??) All for as long as it takes. Lots of young men and women have died in battle. As long as it takes; keep grinding. One million lost? Dead or dead and wounded combined? Hard number to count either way. As long as it takes.

After the White House blowup between President Trump and President Zelinsky the news media quickly shifted to shock and dismay that Ukraine was being betrayed. The world order was being torn apart. What happened to the as long as it takes policy? Not to worry. Papa saw an inerview a few days later with an Europen leader and darn if he didn’t use the as long as it takes line. It might be one thing to say as long as it takes if there is a clear objective. As in defeating an enemy or tossing invading forces back across a border. What is the objective of pledging not to use our troops but supply one side so that that side is not overly disadvantaged? An effort to balance arms between the warring parties so neither gets too much of an upper hand. The US policy was to supply the means to keep the fighting and dying at a steady pace. Or, so it seemed. As long as it takes.

It is hard to know what the US policy might have been if push had come to shove. As long as it takes sounds determined but it’s hard to take seriously when spoken by a guy who helped lead the charge to abandon Free Vietnam. Or, abandoned the people, especially the women, of Afgahanistan. Yet, a cold war mentality supplied the necessary materials to keep the meat grinder in Ukraine fed. Cannon fodder anyone? Shades of World War One. ( Watch the movie “Paths of Glory” for insight into that conflict’s state of mind. )

It was an odd mixture of standing up to the bad guy without getting a bloody nose for the USA. Unspoken but obvious is that the bad guy has nukes. It’s not just a bloody nose we face. Which makes a negotiated settlement between Russia and Ukraine viable despite being repulsive to the concept that good should triumph over evil. No doubt that Russia is the bad guy. But, so were the Communists in North Korea and North Vietnam as were the Soviets in East Germany. Unsatisfying truces/settlements/acceptance is not a new concept for America. The active war and killing did stop at least in prior conflicts no matter that a sense of justice eluded the good guys. There are nukes in the hands of bad guys that tempers/restrains actions. Only time will tell if Trump’s negotiations will work. If the killing stops and a truce is sustained it will be up to historians to debate who got the better of the other guy. Many will be happy that the killing stops. Others may argue that ongoing war is justified to obtain justice. Or, more favorable lines on a map.

Papa does wonder at times if Europe has stood on principles of justice too often in the past. 30 years war? 100 years war? They actually happened in Europe where borders often floated back and forth between nations/principalities/kingdoms/empires and invading hordes. I often think of the poor peasants who might have needed to swear alligence to 2 or 3 different despots in a lifetime. War followed by peace and then more map drawing. How many lives need be lost for the principle that Crimea is an entity of deep rooted Ukrainian or Rusian blood? (More Tatar may be more accurate.) European Poo-Bahs seemed to have an inate ability to fight at the drop of a hat. They were also quite creative in he naming of their peace treaties. Who can forget the “Treaty Of Eternal Peace?”

Fingers crossed for peace. However, it is difficult to ignore that Russia’s Putin appears locked in an European mindset of 100-200 years ago. Balance of power. Spheres of influence. Illusions of grand power. Not too sure that without US power the other European leaders are up to date either. They seemed to have been played by Putin in the last 20 years or so. Germany especially marches as if it made a grand bargain on oil and gas. It will be interesting to see if Europe can fend for themselves if the big stick of America is pulled back. Papa always jokes that he hates change. (Especially with packaging.) I admit it is hard to resist the impulse for the US to use force against a bad guy. However, the US feeding weapons to others who will then die conjures up a sense of resistance also. Time will tell if a third path that may vey well contain distasteful concessions ends the war. At least for now, the world may come face to face with change that involves the potential shift in US foreign policy. Unless “it” is defined it may be wise to change from a policy of for as long as ” it” takes.

(BTW: Papa is aware of even longer wars….600 to 700 years on Iberian Peninsula?)