From the Flight Deck

The last US combat troops left Iraq in the wee hours of the morning. After years, many dollars, and more than 4,000 lives lost, we are finally coming home. Was it worth it? I wouldn't want to ask that of those who served nor especially those who lost loved ones. However, I do believe that in 10 years, maybe as few as 5 years, the situation in Iraq will not have improved significantly for those still trying to live in the country. John Prine once sang that we were trying to "save Viet Nam from the Viet Namese." What we succeeded in doing was losing some of the best and brightest of my generation, proving that maybe the French Foreign Legion wasn't all that inept after all, and filling a memorial wall in Washington with names. One of the saddest war pictures, to me, is that of the last US helicopter evacuating what few people it could from that Saigon rooftop. The Russians were kicked out of Afghanistan. It is surely only a matter of time before we follow them. Will there ever come a time that we Americans learn that our military can't save the world, that democracy won't work everywhere, and that morals can't be legislated? I pray that time will come, but I don't expect to see it.

On a bit of a lighter side, my dreams are driving me crazy! The other night, I dreamed that I was driving my school bus and, at the same time, delivering the morning newspaper from the bus. What a job! Why can't I dream of reading by the ocean, dating Angelina Jolie, or driving cross-country with the dog? At least delivering papers from a school bus is easier than my dreams of trying to solve computer problems using an archaic language.

Back to some heavier stuff... over the past few weeks, I have been the only adult around when two of my bus students had major melt downs. The first, I found curled up on a bus seat crying. I thought, at first, he was in real physical pain. I found out that he lives in a small house with a single parent, his mother, and with his brother who is barely into his twenties and unemployed, his brother's girlfriend, and their infant child. My guy has no privacy and way more responsibility than he should have at his age. My second student was leaning against a support pillar on the high school bus loading ramp and sobbing as if his heart would break. This is his first year in high school and he is being picked on in gym class. I see this happening and I think of Columbine. I also think that I would like to take a baseball bat to those who are bullying him. In each case, I let the child, and they are still children no matter how hard they try to be grown up, have my contact information and told them I would be available to them 24/7. Neither one has contacted me and I hope that things change, in their lives, so that they don't feel that they need to do so. In the meantime, I'm looking for some kind of training that will make me more able to understand and help them. I hugged them both, but I learned long ago that hugs won't cure the world's ills. Pray for them and for me, if you will.

Please take the time to rejoice in this season. Keep your eyes open for opportunities where a smile, a greeting, or a dollar may make a difference in someone’s life and take that opportunity. I know from past experience, hard learned, that they won't come again.

Merry Christmas!