A soldier's heart

A football match breaks out between British and German

soldiers on the Western Front as they abandon their

trenches. [World War I, 24 December, 1914]

Not every German soldier was a 'Hitler' at heart.  In fact, not every soldier is 'all in' on the real reasons that lead to conflict.

An American soldier holds the hand of a young

 Afghan girl. [Afghanistan War, 2010]

Like most of us, soldiers hope to serve well, to do what's right; they have to trust that their leaders understand the larger moral context and choices.  As they are sent off to war, they're stuck with the information they're given from the top.

In WWI, emperors and dictators sent their armies to conquer new lands, to expand their empires. Soldiers were told it was right and just to do so. Ten million soldiers died along with six million civilians.

A German soldier shares his rations with a Russian

 mother and her child. [World War II, c. 1941]

For WWII, power players like Himmler and Hitler were indifferent to the human cost.   

Nazi propaganda justified invasion on the pretext of 'protecting' German ethnic minorities in other countries.  Sixty+ million died in the war that followed, half of whom were soldiers. Ten countries lost millions each.  Eighteen more lost hundreds of thousands.

German civilians and regular soldiers in the field didn't know the details of the 'final solution', but became progressively more aware as deliberate 'desensitization' was managed through the national media. Afterwards, being brought to the reality was a horror from which many could not recover.

U.S. General Walton Walker began the practice of bringing German civilians to the concentration camps after they were liberated. He ordered the mayor of Ohrdruf and his wife to visit the Ohrdruf labor camp  discovered by American troops in 1945. After their visit, the Mayor and his wife returned home and killed themselves.

An East German soldier ignores orders

to let no one pass and helps a boy
found separated from his family by
the newly formed 'Berlin Wall'. 
[Cold War, 1961]

A soldier runs from the  battlefield with Vietnamese
children in his arms.  [Vietnam War, 1955 - 75]

As we discovered at the end of the cold war, regular folks behind the iron curtain were just like us.  Same hopes, same dreams for their children, and once they were delivered from government propaganda, similar values.  

As it turns out, most folks are reasonable and want to do the right thing.  

Farther up on the power-pyramid, what is it that rots the soul? What is it that converts reasonable intent to unreasonable actions?  Alongside power and wealth we note a lack of moral restraint, or perhaps fear and a deeply broken mind.  Depravity such as we've seen is not a single decision, but an extended decline from right thinking.  From the power-mongers to Wall Street (but I repeat myself), it's the same problem.

Christians protect Muslims as they pray during the 

Egyptian revolution. [Cairo, Egypt, 2011]

Egyptians embrace the army after they refuse 

orders to fire on civilians [Egyptian Revolution, 2011]

The good news, we can be 'normal', can we not?  We can be delivered from such wrong thinking. True?  Can ISIS? Al Qaeda?

Perhaps the sacred duty of leadership is to lead virtuously, to foster in those who follow a right heart and mind.  When the accounting comes, each will be responsible for their own actions, but the one who leads others astray will be judged accordingly.

A soldier chats with a young Iraqi girl while holding his position near Basra's main street as coalition forces take control of Iraq's second city. [Iraq, 2011]

CTF 4-2 broadcaster coaches local Afghan children - FEB 2013; they're curious, like kids pretty much everywhere, and you've just got to stop for a minute so they can see.

*T.E.C.E. - 001

From a Peace Corps worker's story...

"Music is an important part of my life and so as a teacher in the Peace Corps, I knew I wanted to share music with my students.  When I arrived with my group of volunteers in Benin and they asked us what the most unusual item we brought with us was, mine was a small ghetto blaster.  The thing was clunky and it took a lot of space in my suitcase, along with lots of DD batteries, but I anticipated that it would be well worth it.

School girls greet their Peace Corps school teacher,
holding on to her bicycle basket ...

In my village, the high school where I taught English had little amenities.  There was no electricity, no glass for the windows, no textbooks, no visual aids, and students squeezed together and shared desks.  The Beninese style of teaching was very disciplined, but dry.  Due to the lack of textbooks, students spent most of the class period copying information from the board.
With such necessary but tedious learning tasks, I was excited to introduce some creative teaching methods to the classroom and get the students engaged.   I was especially eager to share music with my students in my English lessons.

So one day, during the fall when the harmattan winds were blowing, I schlepped the ghetto blaster into my backpack, hopped on my bike and rode to school prepared to play some songs at the end of class for my older students (roughly 9th grade).  This class was large, 70 students, and managing it was always a challenge.  I worried that playing music may be too disruptive and when I pulled the ghetto blaster out of my backpack, my fears came true.  Students rushed up to the front of the classroom to see my contraption and marvel at it.  I yelled, “Get back in your seats!” feeling my head getting hot and starting to regret this exercise.  After everyone was finally seated I pulled out the flipchart with the lyrics to “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley.

We studied vocabulary words in the song and went over each lyric.  As soon as I played the song, chaos erupted again.  Many of male students stood up and did a funky dance down the aisle much to the hilarity of the rest of the class.  Seventy students screaming and laughing drowned out my admonishments to quiet down. No one was listening to the song anymore.  My temper flared again.  After several unsuccessful attempts, I finally got the class to quiet down and be seated.  Reluctant to continue, I pulled out the flip chart for the lyrics to the next song – “At Last” by Etta James.  We went over each line:

At last
My love has come along
My lonely days are over
And life is like a song
Oh yeah yeah
At last
The skies above are blue
My heart was wrapped up in clover
The night I looked at you
I found a dream, that I could speak to
A dream that I can call my own
I found a thrill to press my cheek to
A thrill that I have never known
Oh yeah yeah
You smiled, you smiled
Oh and then the spell was cast
And here we are in heaven
for you are mine...
At Last

Suddenly, my teenage students were listening.  Such romantic lyrics peaked their interest.  God, I just might have their attention now, I thought.   Then with nervous anticipation on my part, I put Etta James in and pressed play.

Now this is what I mean by a moment of being because I swear as soon as I hit play, you could hear a pin drop and a brightness of being took over.  First, the violins singing, then Etta James’ booming voice soared out of the classroom, through the windows, out into the windy sunny day and touched some strange unseen chord strung down from heaven.  Here was Etta James’ voice slowly and clearly expressing this universal elation of finding love.  And my students understood.  We all understood.   It could be my imagination or fondness of memory, but that moment was simply magic.

At the end of the song, the class cheered and some students with moist eyes gave me the thumbs up and said, “Yes teacher, we like!” They asked me to play it again.  Who would have thought that a 1960’s American love song would be such a hit with teenagers sitting in a rural village classroom in West Africa?  After class, I practically floated out of there.

Sometimes on warm, dry, windy days when I am alone and it is quiet outside, I think of that day in an African village."




*T.E.C.E. - things evolution cannot explain

Music is among the artistic and philosophical expressions for which evolutionary science and theory have no adequate explanation,*  There is a great gulf between 'survival of the fittest' and what appears (only in humans) to be, for lack of a better term, a soul.

*The dominant evolutionary theory is that music is about sexual selection.  Try fitting that to Handel's Messiah or early Egyptian Cheironomy. 

If only

Harry Nilsson was an extraordinary musician/composer and a cornerstone of the 70's music world. His childhood was spent in poverty; abandoned by his father at age three, ....

Harry Nilsson, extraordinary talent - his
personal story is a tough one ...

If only I could find a place
Where smiling strangers knew our faces
I would take you there




A place with constant melody
Where you and I could wander free
I would take you there

Seems like such a waste of time
Just trying to unwind the facts of life
If I could find a place, I'd take you
Where the pain don't cut you like a knife
I would take you there

If only there were time enough
Or word enough, or rhyme enough
I would take you there

If only I could find a place
Where smiling strangers knew our faces
I would take you there


A place with constant melody
Where you and I could wander free
I would take you there.

~ 'I will take you there', a song by Harry Nilsson

Nilsson in the 40's, Brooklyn

Harry Nilsson was an extraordinary musician/composer and a cornerstone of the 70's music world. His childhood was spent in poverty; abandoned by his father at age three, he struggled to make his way.

From the opening to his song "1941":

Well, in 1941, the happy father had a son

And in 1944, the father walked right out the door...
Harry of necessity began working early and managed to finish the ninth grade. Fortunately, he was brilliant.

From '69 to '72, his music was a major success.  Harry and John Lennon spent long days together, cocaine and alcohol, hangovers and women they didn't know and trying to remember what had happened the night before.  LSD with Timothy Leary, brief marriages (like his father's) before the last one, a life without apparent shape or restraint. Years were lost, consumed perhaps by the pursuit of wealth and success, both of which were temporary.  He died after just half of a lifetime.

Like most folks, the young Harry Nilsson had every good possibility still ahead of him.  Some of his choices were expensive.

Being a success in the celebrity world seems to have marred so many lives, you can't help but wonder if being non-celebrity, non-rich, and non-popular isn't an immeasurably greater blessing.

Nilsson's lyrics, and especially those in the song, "I will take you there" make the most sense when you realize where Nilsson was coming from.  The place he longed for but couldn't find, just a little peace, a little acceptance, a little real love.

His later years are less popularized.  You can't help but wonder (and hope) if perhaps he found what he was looking for before passing.  Remembered as a loving father, he is survived by seven children. 

Like Nilsson, each of us carries the shaping of our childhood.  We hope and intend to understand ourselves, to choose who we will be, to build well on our beginnings.  Not an easy task.  Is help available?  Or is it as lonely a path as Nilsson's lyrics suggest?

Point of View

Your view of things may be useful, particularly if it's different from the norm.  

It's not at all uncommon for everybody to agree until someone asks the question a bit differently. Suddenly, everyone can see that elephant, just like you.

(Happy Monday)

Wrong, Not Right: The Learning Myth

Isaiah does not worry about the “what-ifs,”

the negative voices around him, or even

 his possible failure, because in his mind

 he is a super hero.

Read his story here.

From Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy, "My 5-year-­old son has just started reading. Every night, we lie on his bed and he reads a short book to me. Inevitably, he’ll hit a word that he has trouble with: last night the word was "gratefully.” He eventually got it after a fairly painful minute. He then said, “Dad, aren't you glad how I struggled with that word? I think I could feel my brain growing.”

Researchers have known for some time that the brain is like a muscle; that the more you use it, the more it grows. ... most when we make mistakes doing difficult tasks rather than repeatedly having success with easy ones.

... the best way that we can grow our intelligence is to embrace tasks where we might struggle and fail.

...   And now here’s a surprise for you. By reading this article itself, you've just undergone the first half of a growth­-mindset intervention. The research shows that just being exposed to the research itself (­­for example, knowing that the brain grows most by getting questions wrong, not right­­) can begin to change a person’s mindset.

See the original Khan article - The Learning Myth: Why I'll Never Tell My Son He's Smart

Perspective - ISIL

Iraqi officer's heroism exemplifies national unity against ISIL

2014-09-03 By Khalid al-Taie in Baghdad

The heroic actions of 1st Lt. Wissam Mohammed Khaled al-Tikriti, 27, who died August 24th as he helped counter an "Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant" (ISIL) attack on Baiji oil refinery, are being held up as an example of national unity in the fight against terrorism.

Al-Tikriti, a Sunni, served with the counter-terrorism forces of the Iraqi army's Golden Division, which was tasked with protecting the refinery.

Soldiers from the counter-terrorism forces reported that ISIL fighters had been taunting the refinery protection force, saying "Come to face us, you rafidis" (rejecters, a derogatory term for Shia).

In return, al-Tikriti came out shouting, "I am Iraqi; I am Sunni and will not let you enter the refinery, even if this is over my dead body. I am for Iraq and for my 'rafidi' brothers", his colleagues reported him as saying.

Al-Tikriti's brother Maytham Mohammed described how his brother died.

"On that day the terrorist killers launched their fiercest attack on the refinery," he told Mawtani. "Fighters, along with my brother Wissam, defended the location with honour and the attacking terrorists were killed and their vehicles were burnt," he said.

"Wissam began firing at them while moving towards them," Mohammed said. "He aimed a number of rockets at them from his shoulder launcher and moved close to them after passing the concrete blocks."

"In the course of fighting, my brother went on top of a tank advancing towards him which had been rigged with explosives. As soon as he started to shoot those inside it, it exploded and he died as a result," he said.

"My martyred brother recorded the highest meanings of heroism, courage, protection of honour and the nation, protecting its people from the evils of terrorists until he became a martyr, raised the heads of his family members and became a medal on our chests," Mohammed said.

'A REAL HERO'

Al-Tikriti was born in Tikrit in Salaheddine province. He was known for his courage and selflessness, according to Hassan Faleh, a close friend who served with him in the counter-terrorism regiment.

"Wissam was a real hero who did not fear death, had great morals and everyone loved him for his dedication to duty and his sense of national responsibility," Faleh said.

Courage in battle was one of Wissam's attributes, Faleh said, adding that his friend had been "a source of pride" to others in the regiment.

"He once grew a beard, disguised himself in a uniform like the one worn by ISIL elements and attacked Abu al-Jawary area in al-Dhuluiya region with a number of other soldiers, killing about 10 ISIL terrorists and returning with his colleagues, unharmed," he said.

"Wissam also helped stop many attempts by ISIL elements to capture Baiji refinery and inflicted heavy losses in lives and equipment on the ranks of the enemy every time," he added.

In addition to his distinguished service, Mohammed said his brother excelled at the military academy where he graduated among the top students of his class.

"Wissam is an example of the heroic Iraqi fighter who does not hesitate to confront the enemy and sacrifice himself in defence of the homeland and the people of his country," counter-terrorism unit spokesman Sabah al-Numan told Mawtani.

"The martyr fought a lot of battles against the criminal gangs of ISIL in Salaheddine province, and managed with his brothers in the protection force to repel all terrorist attacks on the Baiji refinery with a strong spirit and high combat morals that always halted the enemy and led to its defeat," he said.

A SOURCE OF PRIDE

Local residents told Mawtani of their admiration for al-Tikriti, while others posted his photograph on their social media accounts with comments that reflect their pride in him.

"The martyrdom of 1st Lt. Wissam is an indicator of unity and national cohesion among all Iraqi people who are today facing an enemy […] that targets all Iraqis" regardless of sect or ethnicity, said Saad Majid, 37.

"The martyr Wissam has become an immortal national symbol in our memories and a role model for young Iraqis who refuse sectarianism and consider the love of country superior to all other considerations," 25-year-old student Huda Ali told Mawtani.

"I loved his dedication and courage on the battlefield, and shared his photos and heroic acts with my friends on Facebook," Ali said.

"We are very proud of the sacrifice of the martyr Wisam," said Tariq Mahdi, 41. "This young hero deserves a memorial to commemorate his role and sacrifice that has become today a clear indication of the brotherly links among all Iraqis."