Kris Kristopherson

Jinny and I went to a benefit concert today. I was at one of the winery in Temecula.
Seating outside under the star we enjoyed an very nice dinner al fresco. Then the show started with a the opener of a Spanish guitar player whose performance included some very good flamenco numbers.
The music was good, the food tasty and the local Pinot Grigio helped setting the stage for what ended up being an unbelievable emotional roller coaster.
I am not a great connoisseur of country music; I only knew that Kris Kristofferson would be the main attraction of the evening.
His set started with some song I recognized from old time: “Me and Bobby McGee”, “Jody and the kid”, “Sunday Mornin’ coming down”, “Derby’s Castle”, “ Help me make it trough the night”.
The magic of the simple melodies, the raspy voice, the honesty of a delivery without pretension, reached out deep into me and soon I was not in the courtyard of a winery in the middle of a charity fundraiserany longer.
Some songs took me way back to some better times and some other one to bitter sadder times.
The music and songs of that men standing alone on a simple stage were really tearing my soul, at time feelings of joy or tenderness were rolling in, at time I was chasing tears.
I felt again the boozy loneliness of a confused kid in sailors uniform in the bars of the infamous Chicago area of Toulon France or in the cold foggy night of Recouvrance in Brest, trying to convince himself that he was a tough and heroic warrior but not able to accept what he saw in Algeria nor willing to ask if he was on the right side.
Then another set would come and other feelings would swamp me. Songs dedicated to his kids would send me back to the time when my own kids were still very physically close to me and trying to open there wings before the heartbreak of the departure in their own flight to freedom.
Some song brought me back to the time when Jinny came into my life and gave me the breath of a new life in allowing me to take a look at it from another vintage.
I felt a deep kinship to his spirit when the song were condemning the use of war and the stupidity of the arrogance of claiming to bring freedom to people by bombing them back to the stone age.
I was not a sixty year old men anymore, my emotion were raw and to the surface. Some songs brought tear to my eyes, some put a lump in my throat, some raised my indignation and some brought a warm glow of tenderness.
When the show was over I felt drained but somehow cleansed and could not resist the impulse to thank Jinny for being part of my life.
That was a good evening.

Of deers and two pretty cool women in my life

A few weeks ago, on a Saturday morning, I was driving my daughter Debi to the dentist in Orange County. We were driving on the infamous Ortega Highway that on top of being a site of horrendous motorcycle accidents is notorious for the large amount of road kill. Beside crossing a couple of free spirited villages with an hefty population of free roaming dogs and cats, providing a fairly heavy percentage of the road fatalities the highway is traveling thru the Cleveland National Forest and it is a rare day when one does not have to drive by the carcass of a rabbit, skunk, fox, coyote, bearcat or even deer. I hate those moments and feel a large amount of guilt about being part of the problem.
On this day, on the approach of San Juan Capistrano, we drove by a dead deer and a quarter of a mile later by the car responsible for the killing. I was very troubled and felt my throat a little tight at the thought of the killing of an innocent animal for the sake of a right a way. I noticed that Debi was a little too quiet and turned to look at her, and that beautiful young women look at me with tear rolling out of her eyes and gently sobbed with a desperate anger: “That not fair Dad! It was his country! And we shoved a road through it” I was not able to carry much of a conversation at this time, able only to give her a gentle tap on her laps.
The other morning, driving to work with my wife Jinny on the same highway, coming to the Forest Service Fire Station next to the lower San Juan bridge, we came across another deer, visibly hit by another car, but still alive, prone on the side of the road, heads up, unable to stand and get away. The sight greatly disturbed me, as I was turning toward Jinny, I saw this stern look on her face, as without any hesitation she pulled her cell phone out and called 911. No other seemed to react as they sped by the incident.
I do not know what the outcome was. But tonight, as I seat her on my computer reminiscing, my eyes get a bit misty and I realize how proud I am of the humanity of those two wonderful women in my life.

A General,s work is never done!!

Napoleon was first and foremost a military man and as such was the origin of some of the tenets of modern warfare.

My point here is not to debate if he was good or evil, a tyrant or something else.

I only want to use a little part of some of his military philosophy.

Among some his favorite phrases were “ De l’audace, toujour de l’audace, encore de l’audace » dear to Georges Scott’s Patton, “ un grenadier porte son baton de Marechal dans son havresack » meaning that even the lowly grenadier has a chance to accede to the high rank of Field Marshal (Many of his Field Marshal came in fact from the Rank)’ then there is the one I need for this story: “Une armee voyage sur son estomac” (An army travel on its stomach). Loosing sight of this truism was a major contributor to his 1812 debacle.

But enough with the little guy!

The image included in this blog shows that in fact if an army travels on its stomach, when the traveling is over, the focus point shift a bit lower.

The picture is an image of a General Order of Operation issued by the French General Brissaud-Desmaillet, Commandant of the 127^th Division dated of May 3, 1919. At the end of World War One that particular Division was occupying the Sarre before the government of this part of the German Nation was handed over to the League of Nation to be held from 1920 to 1935. The rest of course is History.

The order reads as follow:

127^th Division.

General Headquarter, 1^st Bureau.

Number 3,233/1 of GHQ

Order General Of Operation- 3^rd Section.

Monopolization of the Public Houses (1) by the Riflemen.

The General has received several anonymous letters from scouts, infantrymen and cavalrymen complaining about not being able to gain access to the houses of tolerance (2), monopolized by the riflemen operating in large groups. The later staying too long in exercise and causing frequent traffic jams.

The Administration Superior of the Sarre and our Municipal Authorities is in the process of augmenting sizably the population of filles de joie (3) but in the meantime while the population is being reinforced it is paramount that the riflemen demonstrate more expeditiousness in their endeavors. Instructions will be offered on this subject.

The General Commanding the Division

Signed: Brissaud- Desmaillet

(1) and (2) are elegant ways to avoid calling a cat a cat and refer to houses popularized by our House of the Rising Sun ballad.

(3) is also shooting for the same effect in regard to the ladies working in theses houses.

While it might not be of the highest moral standards I personally wishes that our Generals and assorted Defense Secretaries could have been concentrating on issues similar to the above instead of the massacre presently still unfolding.