“Do you think I am an automaton? — a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! — I have as much soul as you — and full as much heart.”

Charlotte Bronte – “Jane Eyre”

Things in America are changing at what appears to be light speed.  This is especially true in our political arena. Power has shifted from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. Donald Trump, the man who, not too long ago, seemed to be on the verge of “making license plates and busting rock” is now the President of the United States. 

How could it have happened? Donald Trump, a man who has been hounded and vilified by his political enemies, mocked as a crude, power mad fraud, or a know-nothing carnival barker, has defied what political handicappers have told us about his popularity. 

 I’ve given it all some thought and I think it comes down to one very remarkable word – metamorphosis.

Metamorphosis is defined as “A change of the form or nature of a thing or person into a completely different one, by natural or supernatural means.”

The definition fits on three levels. Doanld Trump has changed. Politicians, especially Democratic Party politicians have changed. And, the people of the United States have changed. 

I’ll start with Donald Trump. Over the years he’s been portrayed as a thin skinned braggart. I think there’s a grain of truth in that description, but what those who label him that way fail or refuse to see is that there just may be a reasonable explanation for that behavior. When young Donald was in college his father, Fred Trump, took him to the dedication of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge in f964. Before they went. Trump’s father told young Donald 

 to make careful note of what was going to happen at the ceremony. Then, as the ceremony proceeded, politicians, as they so often do, took credit for the dedication and hard work Othmar Amman, the Swiss engineer who had designed and overseen the construction of this technological marvel, had actually done. As the minutes passed by the politicians ignored Amman and kept patting themselves on the back. On the way home Trump’s father told young Donald, “Did you see what they did to that man?” He followed that up by instructing young Donald to “Never let anyone ever treat you with that kind of contempt!”

Donald Trump took his father’s advice to heart. Over the years since he has become a world famous entrepreneur with a notoriously short fuse. He’s become wealthy beyond imagination while, at the same time, developing a reputation as a buffoon who will fight at the drop of a hat, an insult, or a slight.

It really was, and is, a strange combination of personality traits and a willingness to respond forcefully to the insults and slights.

Yet, somehow, in spite of all his deficiencies, Donald Trump is  the President of the United States. And, he’s vowing to once more “Make America great again.” Will he succeed? I don’t know, but I am seeing something in Donald Trump this time around that I haven’t seen before. During the campaign, Trump miraculously escaped an assassin’s attempt to end both his life and his campaign for the Presidency. There’s been a remarkable metamorphosis in Donald Trump. He has become, much to the chagrin of his political enemies,  a “man of the people.”

Now, it’s not that there haven’t been shades of this Donald Trump on display over the years. My wife and I lived in New Jersey back in the nineties and got to see the reports of him cavorting around the Garden State. For those willing to see it, he much preferred rubbing elbows with construction workers, bellhops, and other “ham and eggers”than fraternizing with the high and mighty. If one cares to see this , he or she could watch media reports and video feeds these days and see Trump interacting with average Americans – policemen, laborers, soldiers, sailors, etc. He enjoys being around them and they, in urn, enjoy being around him.

I believe it’s a recipe for success. 

Will Donald Trump succeed? Only time will tell, but I do know this. He’s going to try like hell to do the things he’s promised the American people.

On the other side of the ledger we have the Democratic Party, the Party that used to be known as the “People’s Party.” As almost everyone in America can see, that Party is now dead. Their contempt for the people of this country is palpable. It’s so dead, in fact, that even our pliable news media can see it. What follows to demonstrate this truth is an extended quote from Peggy Noonan’s op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal: 

“We are in “Death Wish II.”

In this space we believe two strong and healthy parties vying for popular support is good for the country, and we offer advice for the Democrats.

I will start with something they won’t believe. In politics, there is bringing the love and bringing the hate. When the 13-year-old boy who had brain cancer and has always wanted to be a cop is appointed as an honorary Secret Service agent, laminated ID and all, and the child, surprised by the gesture, hugs the normally taciturn head of the Secret Service, the only thing to do, because you are human, is cheer that child. And when the president honors a young man whose late father, a veteran and policeman, had inspired his wish to serve, and dreams of attending West Point, and the president says that he has some sway in the admissions office and young man you are going to West Point—I not only got choked up when it happened I’m choked up as I write. The boy with cancer high-fives the young man, and the only response to such sweetness is tears in your eyes.

That moment is “the love.” It was showing love for regular Americans. To cheer them is to cheer us. It shows admiration for and affiliation with normal people who try, get through, endure and hold on to good hopes.

The Democrats brought the hate. They sat stone-faced, joyless and loveless. They don’t show love for Americans anymore. They look down on them, feel distance from them, instruct them, remind them to feel bad that they’re surrounded by injustice because, well, they’re unjust.

Mr. Trump says: No, man, I love you.

Which is better? Which is kinder, more generous? Which inspires? Which wins?”

I’ve seen this sordid business play out in our political arena and as we’ve watched journalists and Progressive influence peddlers parrot the same tired spiels. They reflect nothing but contempt for the American people. Just this morning for example, I watched a report on a recent encounter the Boston police had with a knife wielding lunatic who was attempting to murder people in a fast food restaurant. The only way they could stop him was to shoot him. The lunatic died. In a news conference that followed, the mayor of Boston and a couple of police higher-ups expressed their sympathies for the family of the dead lunatic who was in the process of trying to kill a couple of innocent Bostonians in a fast food restaurant. 

It’s evident. This is not the kind of metamorphosis America needs from its leaders  right now.

Thankfully, there is another segment of our population that is experiencing profound change right now. It’s the people themselves. It’s America’s mothers and fathers. It’s a cadre of cops on the beat, bricklayers, auto workers, cab drivers, mechanics, waitresses, waitresses, and veterans, and millions of other American citizens. They’ve just taken part in a ballot box revolution that has resulted in a call for change – change for the b

etter. They’re tired of the stale bread that our leaders have been throwing at them for far too long.

Those of us who want change know that the road ahead won’t  be easy. We’re not helpless pollyannas. We are ready to embrace the changes we believe will benefit all of us.

“He will judge between the nations
    and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
    and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
    nor will they train for war anymore.”

Isaiah 2:4 (New International Version

Up until this past Sunday it appeared there was hope for a diplomatic settledment to the bloody war in Ukraine. Those hopes were exinguished when Ulranian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with the urging of what I’d best describe as a shadow government of leaning Democratic legislators and a few charter members of Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s diplomatic team, demanded more in the way of security guarantees (NATO membership) than Donald Trump was willing to give. As of this morning Zelenskyy may be reconsidering and Marco Rubio, our Secretary of State, is trying to salvage  the diplomatic deal Zelensky had originally agreeed to sign.

Where do we go from here. It’s anyone’s guess.

I live in a Kansas City neighborhood called Pendleton Heights and from what I’m reading on our local social media, my neighbors, for the most part, are siding with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and are decidedly against any approach Donald Trump and his team might undertake to stop the bloody conflict. “Stand with Ukraine” seems to be the current battle cry. The blue and yellow Ukranian flags are a very prominent feature on our neighborhood Facebook page. 

I don’t know for sure what means, but it sounds too much like, “let the fighting continue until every last drop of Ukraninan blood has been shed. 

Now, I don’t want to get crossways with my neighbors, but I find myself thinking  differently about the conflict. I want the bleeding and suffereing and dying to stop!

I grew up as a child of what has become known as America’s “greatest generation.” Our mothers and fathers fought their way through the Great Depression and followed that economic conflict by engaging in a world war. Young Americans fought a two front war while their parents took jobs in defense plants producing the weaponry essential to defeating two totalitarian regimes. I had an uncle, for example, who was wounded at Anzio and my wife’s mother worked in a defense plant wiring radios for B-25 bombers here in Kansas City. She approached her work diligently and  often talked about how she would also pray for the young men who would be flying those bombers. 

That world war was, as author Studs Terkel once put it, the “Good War.”

That war ended nearly a hundred years ago and, as I see it, there really hasn’t been what could trul be considered a “Good War” since.

I was too young to serve in the Korean conflict, which wasn’t even considered a war. The United Nations talking heads called it a “police action.” Thousands of young Americans and other Allied troops died before an armistice was decleared in 1953. Thousands died and our leaders called it a “police action.” That’s what I’d call the height of arrogance.

My turn to serve came in 1961 when I joined the Air Force. By 1962 I’d completed basic training was serving on temporary duty in Washington D.C. The assignment was pretty quiet until October, when Russia started instaling nuclear missiles in Cuba, little more than a stone’s throw from the United States. Clearly, President John Kennedy had to respond, and he did. He told Russia’s leaders that we were going to set up a naval blockade of Cuba and that any atack on the United States launched from Cuba would be a considered an attack by the Soviet Union, requiring a full retaliatory attack, including nuclear weaons. We were on the brink of World War III. All American military units were placed on Defcon Status II, which was only one small step from all out war that would almost mean the use of nuclear weapons. For two very tense weeks we watched and waited as Soviet ships carrying even more missiles steamed toward Cuba. We really didn’t know from day to day whether or not the world was going to be cast into a lake of nuclear fire. Thankfully, the Soviets blinked. Their ships turned around and the missies were taken out of Cuba.  Nuclear war was averted.The crisis ended and we could all breathe again.

My next call of duty came in 1965 when  I volunteered to go to Vietnam. I’d seen a photograph of a Montagnard tribesmen while at work one night and I asked my duty sergeant about the photo. Ge explained that the man was an indigenous tribesman from the Central Hightlands of Vietenam, I mentioned in passing that “I’d like to meet one of those guys.” “It’s easy,” he said. “Just go the orderly room and volunteer.”

He was right. In about two weeks I found myself  peering out the window of the Continental Airlines 707 as we made our approach into Tan Son Nhut Airport in the early spring of 1965. To this day I can still occasionally hear the gentle strains of Billie Holiday drifting through the cabin’s PA system — “I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places, that this heart of mine embraces …”

When I arrived in country, there were about 15,000 American GIs serving as advisors to the South Vietnamese. By the time my tour was up, there were over 200,000 of us and we were in a full-blown war. At our high-water mark in ‘68 or ‘69, we numbered over half a million.

I was far more fortunate than most of my fellow GIs. My duties as a cryptographic specialist kept me, for the most part, out of harm’s way. There were the occasional mortar and rocket attacks which came when some dumb American politician blustered that we had secured everything at Tan Son Nhut. You could count on incoming mail, courtesy of “Charlie,” as soon as the boast hit the airwaves. Whenever it happened we’d try to send word up the chain of command to tell the politicians to shut up about security at Tan Son Nhut. “Tell them they need to pay more attention to graft and kickbacks, the types of things they’re really good at.”

The human memory can retain powerful sights and sounds. I can still feel Vietnam’s oppressive humidity and smell the stench of death that hovered over my body like grave clothes. Once in a while I can hear Charley Bock, our squadron court jester, plunking away on an old beat up guitar and howling, ‘The money makers are makin’ more money all the time,” while the rest of us hooted and applauded in response. “Give ‘em hell, Charlie…give ‘em hell, buddy!”

And so it went. During the 1968 presidential campaign, Richard Nixon pledged “we shall have an honorable end to the war in Vietnam.” When he signed the Paris Peace Accord on January 23, 1973, he declared that America had won “peace with honor.”

As I watched the reports of North Vietnamese tanks advancing south toward Saigon, with the remnants of South Vietnam’s rag-tag army fleeing ahead of them, my heart sank. I kept shaking my head in disbelief. “How could this be?” “How could it all come to this?” “How could this be considered peace with honor?”

Within days, North Vietnamese tanks were rumbling through Saigon’s wide boulevards. South Vietnamese loyalists were desperately climbing the U.S. embassy walls, hoping to escape the Communist onslaught. Then, on April 30, 1975, the last helicopter and the last Americans left Vietnam. The war was over.

One night, years after the fall of Saigon, I penned a crude sonnet to commemorate the pain of loss so many of us who served in Vietnam felt. The last three lines, a few lines past the turn, went like this:

“Oh Saigon, bitter Saigon, please restore my youth unseen

For I’ve cast my life as pearls before the swine

Whose the dying then, oh Saigon, yours oar mine?”

There are 58,286 names inscribed on a black granite wall in Washington, D.C. I’ve occasionally wondered how they would have felt about “peace with honor,” had they lived to see North Vietnamese tanks rumbling through the streets of Saigon.

I still feel a sense of betrayal about Vietnam. I’ve tried to temper those feelings, but subsequent events on on the geopolitical scene have made things even more painful. Think of the folly of Iraq, Afghanistan, Benghazi, and now, Eastern Europe. Back in the nineties Nancy and I were vacationing in Vienna. The trip coincided with the conflict in the Balkans. In the evening, as we were leaving to go to dinner, the desk clerk asked us if we were Americans, We said we were and he told us to be very careful. “There are anti American demonstrations going on. Please be careful.”We thanked him and as we made our way out he also said, “You Americans need to come over here and fix this mess.” I got more than a bit offended and asked, “Why is it that our children have to come over here and fix things in your back yard? Is there something wrong with your children that presents them from defending their homeland? “Why are we the ones who have to make all the sacrifices?”

But, the time has come for the madness to end.  America has done far more than its fair share in the defense of freedom. We’ve done far more than  our fair share to liberate Europe and Asia from totalitarian tyranny. We’ve spent billions of dollars putting the broken pieces of civilization back together. 

It’s time for America to put America first!