When 11 is more than just an odd number

I didn’t know it at the time, but yesterday’s activities and news caught me a bit unprepared. At bedtime, when I clicked off the light, I must have activated some kind of emotional electro-magnet. It gathered all of the hidden metallic shavings from the post-9/11 world and dumped them into my mental drive train, where my brain’s gears ground away into the wee hours of the morning.

I’m sure it kicked off when my brother invited me down to the Motts Military Museum in Groveport, Ohio. Mr. Warren Motts, the founder, gave a small tour of the 9/11 artifacts he’s collected for his planned museum expansion. We walked across the back lot to a generic metal building, where he opened a side vehicle door. Inside, there was an FDNY ladder truck and two NYPD police cars recovered from the wreckage of the World Trade Center. I was a little stunned. I have a short circuit connection to the events of that day, even though I was on the opposite coast and sound asleep when the first airplane flew into the building. Mr. Motts’ story of how it came to be sitting in a storage building in Ohio made the scene even more remarkable. It was one of those disjointed time/place continuum moments that makes you wonder what else you’re missing. It was remarkably similar to the feeling I had watching the TV at 6 in the morning on 9/11/01.

Later in the day, I tackled a task I’d been putting off for a while. The publishing company that agreed to handle my first book suggested my social media presence was inadequate, and I needed to at least get on facebook or twitter. I’ve been resisting the idea, but apparently it’s how books get sold these days, so I reluctantly signed up, in my own name, hanging my laundry out the window for all to see. It was a lot like the day I made my first blog entry on teleceptor.blogspot.com 11 years ago. (It’s not there anymore, so don’t bother looking.) It was May 24, 2010. I called the post “Motivation” and explained the purpose of the blog. My wife, whom I refer to as The Captain, was going on her second deployment to the “sandbox” in support of our armed forces. Over the course of the next year, she experienced almost the full range of human emotion while leading a team of USN medical professionals, saving every life they could. Back on the home front, our family had a similar range of feelings, but in a very different way. We weren’t in harms way, but our hearts were in Camp Bastion, and we anxiously awaited news from the other side of the world.

Yesterday rounded out the insomnia set-up with today’s news from Helmand Province, Afghanistan. The base where The Captain gave her blood, sweat and tears, and so many Brits and US Marines sought vital medical care, was being handed over to the Afghan National Army. It was a Brit hospital when The Captain was there. Then it was US Army. Now it’s ANA. Who will have it next? The Taliban? And what of the men and women who made the place? And the tax dollars that went into building and maintaining it? Should we stay or should we go? What changed if the place was important enough to hang on for 20 years but now it’s not? John McCain made the statement that if we wanted to win Afghanistan we’d have to stay for 3 generations, because that’s how long it takes to change minds and cultures. That’s something like 60-90 years. Some pundits claim his view cost him the Presidency, yet we’re still in Germany and Japan after a war that ended 76 years ago. For sure Bin Laden is gone, and nobody wants to spend money or send our kids to die in a place that has no meaning anymore. There are so many conflicting ideas. Can you see why the gears are grinding?

Thanks for reading this far. Hopefully the next entry will be a little more up-lifting.