Puffs

Blue . . .

Whatever happened to the color of the sky . . . blue? ? ?

You know, as in the old beer commercial . . . “the land of Sky Blue Waters.”

This past weekend seemed to be the first time our sky here in southcentral Nebraska has been blue. Much of the summer it has been “gray,” as in a smoke-gray color.

I understand it came from those forest fires in Canada, mostly. Maybe some from the forest fires in California.

Our skies last week and it seems into this week, however, are blue, and I like that. I’m looking forward, again, to those Saturday afternoons with crisp, air temperatures, blue skies (they are always bluer in autumn, it seems), and maybe the chance to watch a Cornhusker football game on TV.

A O

Does history repeat its self?

What a weekend . . . I’m not talking about the Deweese Festival or the local golfing tournaments, or anything like that. Maybe I should be, but I’m not.

Did we just see history repeat its self?

The pictures shown on TV Monday morning looked a lot like those pictures we saw 45 or 46 years ago. This week they were from Afghanistan and all those years ago, they were from Viet Nam.

I realize that not everyone is of the age to remember both experiences. However, I am and I’d like to share just a little of what I think about both situations.

Viet Nam: From my own personal experience and from what I have learned, the reason we went to View Nam in the first instance was to stop the Communist takeover of Southeast Asia. To me that seemed a good and noble effort. We didn’t do it to build an American empire. This effort was not a lot different then what we did in WWI, WWII, or Korea.

However, in those three examples it seemed we let the military spell out what was needed to do the job successfully. In Viet Nam, politics took over the operations and military operations had to take a secondary role. Basically, the result was the pictures we saw of people standing on ladders trying to get into the last helicopter out of Viet Nam.

That was followed by years of American depression and advances of Communist and other terrorist throughout the world.

Afghanistan: From the history I’ve read and experienced over these last 20 years, the reason we sent troops to Afghanistan to begin with was to stop Islamic terrorist from killing another 3,000 Americans like they did on what has become known as “9-11”.

Terrorists had extensive training camps in Afghanistan which we knew about and wanted to get rid of. It seems we did eliminate many, if not most, of them before too long, but again, politics changed what we were doing and the results are pictures of people trying to climb on airplanes to get out of the country as the terrorist take over the capital city.

Will America again go into a depressive state for a number of years?

I suspect many people do not completely appreciate America. After Americans survived their own civil war they have been involved in many bloody conflicts, but they have never wanted to build an “empire.”

To quote former General of the Army, Colin Powell: “The only land we wanted from our involvement in foreign wars was the land to bury our fighting boys in.”

People will argue forever if it was “right” or “wrong” to get involved in Viet Nam or Afghanistan. However, I hope that people don’t lose sight of our intent in both situations. I also hope if situations do arise that might require our involvement, our leaders are smart enough to handle things properly and we don’t end up with such ugly endings as we’ve seen in Viet Nam and Afghanistan.

A O

While we cannot just ignore world situations, we do have to pay more attention to what is going on at home. I believe we here, in southcentral Nebraska are a very lucky people. I read and hear of all the troubles around the United States, I think we are shielded from many such troubles like Chicago and New York have with daily killings and shootings.

I hope my saying the above doesn’t bring havoc to our area as it seems to at times. I’ll continue to pray for the people in Viet Nam and Afghanistan, but maybe I’ll pray even more for the people right here in America.

A O

You may have noticed I have not used the word “Liberal” in this space yet this week. Well, that is going to change right now. Just to show you how a “liberal” mind works sometimes.

You probably heard where the Senate did pass what is called an “infrastructure” bill last week. (But the House of Representatives has not passed it yet.) You may have heard the Senate was praised for “working all night” to get this done.

What you probably did not hear of was what happened at 4:30 in the morning during this work.

A leader of the liberal group, Senator Chuck Schumer, tried to slip the so-called “For the People Act” to the Senate Floor for debate.

The “For the People Act” is the Liberal attempt to ‘federalize’ the voting process of our 50 states. It has nothing to do with what is usually consider ‘infrastructure.’

His efforts were noted (even at 4:30 a.m.) by Conservative Senators and stopped. But, it does give you another example of the Liberals’ never ending effort to get what they want.

A O