Kite Boarders Unite in Pursuit of a True World Champ

Athletes who strap modified surfboards to gigantic kites and harness the wind in order to skim lake and ocean surfaces are known as “kiteboarders.” August 4-8, 2009, is when the first true World Championship for kiteboarders is scheduled to occur at St. Francis Yacht Club of San Francisco in California.

Until now, two kiteboarding organizations from different regions of the globe have claimed to crown the world's best kiteboarder. In pursuit of a truly global champion, the International Kiteboarding Association (IKA) petitioned the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) to approve a petition to combine the Kiteboard Pro World Tour (KPWT) and Professional Kiteboard Riders Association (PKRA) World Tour. The ISAF approved the petition. Now unified under sanctioning by the ISAF, kiteboarders will not only be able to compete for the global title, but they will share equal footing with other international sailing events like “The Volvo Ocean Race” and “The America's Cup.”

Markus Schwendtner, executive secretary of the IKA, describes the importance of the ISAF approval. “Giving the world championship rights to the IKA clarifies the structure of international kiteboarding. It has now become possible to compete under consistent and recognized rules. The sport becomes more attractive and transparent to athletes, spectators, and the media.”

Aaron Hadlow of the UK is the current and five time winner of the PKRA Tour. Jesse Richman of Hawaii, USA, holds the current title for the KPWT and isn't even 20 years old.

The first three days of competition will consist of qualification, seeding, and heats. The final two days are reserved for The Finals.

In 2006, it was estimated that there were approximately 200,000 kiteboarders on the planet. Kiteboarding styles include “free-style,” jumping, “wake-style,” and “cruising.” Kitesurfing is more geared to “riding waves.” Kites and boards vary depending on the purpose and style of the rider.

In October 2008, kitesurfing became the fastest way to sail on water. The World Sailing Speed Record Council (WSSRC) validated a run by Alex Caizergues from France at 50.57 knots. This speed record is the “absolute speed record on water by any craft.”

Kirsty Jones earned the record for distance travel on a kiteboard in May 2006. She traveled 140 miles in nine hours between Lanzarote in the Canary Islands and Tarfaya, Morocco.

Big League Wiffle Ball Battle in Baghdad

As fate would have it, the Midwest Managers of Big League Wiffle Ball were able to link up in Baghdad for some wiffle ball. The July 2009 sandstorms relented during their window of opportunity and out came the yellow bat and wiffle strike zone.

While Cory Newmann warmed up his pitching arm, his teammates built the field and worked in some batting practice. The intense heat of the afternoon had cooled into the low 100's. Cory Newmann, Kevin David, Eric “The Tank” Frank, and Nathan Van Gheem were going against Ben Biddick, Tim Connolley, and Krystal Gotz.

The batters box was carved in gravel and overshadowed by the thin shade of a pair of palm trees. The single and double lines were marked off by bottled water. The homerun line consisted of massive blast walls. They loomed at the end of the field like a tan version of Fenway's green monster.

Ben Biddick began his pitching assault. After some solid introductory innings, the hitting prowess of Cory Newmann's team began taking advantage of small mistakes. Some waning control produced some serious homeruns including one by Cory Newmann (which is the longest recorded homerun on the Baghdad field to date). Kevin David added one to the scoreboard, and Nathan Van Gheem had a solid performance.

After three outs, Cory Newmann took his place at the pitcher's line and began working his game. Tim Connolley generated a pair of homeruns, sending in runners put on base by Krystal Gotz. Biddick popped a pair of triples to contribute to a lead that they hoped would hold out through the bottom of the final inning.

The teams continued to battle in the fading light of day. Frank “The Tank” stepped to the plate with two outs in the bottom of the final inning. They were down by two runs, and the bases were loaded. It was all on his shoulders. Biddick hoped he could sneak in a riser under the cover of darkness. The sun had already gone down, and it was becoming difficult to see the ball. He was one strike away from victory.

Biddick unleashed the pitch. Frank “The Tank” committed. He crushed the ball. The tiny white comet landed somewhere beyond the blast walls, and the game was over. Grand slam.

The following night, Biddick, Connolley, and Gotz were looking to avenge their loss. Connolley, who had been working on his pitching, warmed up his arm. Newmann, Van Gheem, and The Tank worked in some batting practice. Kevin David was on administrative leave due to a contract dispute.

For the first innings, Connolley dominated the strike zone. Van Gheem fought through the onslaught and managed to smack a triple. Connolley quickly shut down a short scoring run after two runs.

Cory Newmann began working his knuckle ball with solid results, but Biddick, Connolley, and Gotz managed a two run lead by the time they entered the final inning.

After a series of base hits, the inning closed with Connolley, Biddick, and Gotz facing a one run deficit. The memory of the prior evening's loss still raw in their minds, Biddick leaned in and cracked a base hit. Gotz gave the strike zone a tap as she entered the batter's box and got to work. After a series of foul balls, Gotz sent one down the right field line for a double. Connolley stepped to the plate and readied himself for the pitch.

Connolley swung. The crack of the plastic shattered the hopes of their opponents as the wiffle ball ricocheted off the blast walls for a triple, scoring two runs. The hit claimed victory in the second and final game of the two night series.

A show of sportsmanship followed as they shook hands and broke down the field. MRAPs and Humvees growled as they drove by. They were heading out on missions that put the final American touches on a liberation of Iraq from tyrannical rule.

American friendships begun decades ago never foresaw that they would find a pocket of time to play their favorite game in this foreign land. A country that during those same decades languished under a tyrannical rule, now hastens toward stability and a future of asserting its collective, national will on the international stage. They are a resilient people struggling to unite internal sworn enemies from multiple ethnic, cultural, geographical, socio-economic, and religious backgrounds. Under internal and international pressures, they face the agony of countless wounds and immeasurable losses. They face tyrannical insurgents hoping to undermine and intimidate Iraqi gains with crowd-killing car bombs. They face neighboring nations who seek to exploit their weaknesses and vulnerabilities. They face danger on every side, a danger that burns away in the brilliant light of freedom, in the sweet breath that oxygenates a collective identity, and the glory of possessing the right to exist as a sovereign nation.

As the soldiers walk back to their housing units, their footsteps crunch through gravel where their fellow soldiers once sweat, bled, and died in order to give a gift of liberation to the Iraqi people. The horizon swallows the sun. The stars shimmer above the whirring helicopter blades. They have played an iconic American game and passed a pair of hours in the tenuous, unfolding creation of democracy in the Middle East.

The Power and Consequence of Hate: Written After Touring a Death Row Prison In Iraq Teeming with Al Qaeda Murderers

Hate is powerful. It finds its home in meat. It isolates a person, a group, or a concept and pins its aggression to the chest of the target. It provides an illusory freedom, giving a brief respite from powerlessness. It abandons and overrides the rational mind. It strengthens the weak, the debased, the undisciplined for greater self-induced degradation. It is the readily available, easy, thoughtless answer for those whose minds are a mysterious and unused organ, encased in a body devoid of a sensed worth. It makes brutality an appealing tonic, a drink swallowed that batters you until you share it.

If there is no intervention by the greater good, by fathers of these virtue-orphans, then these young abandoned will make an art of annihilation. Instead of detailing their degradation and giving them skills and guidance to overcome, they will frequently forfeit all responsibility for their own behavior and simply provide themselves a convenient enemy.

Hate conveniently encapsulates frustration in the mind and packs discontent together like wet, moldy clay. No matter how hard you pack it, you can't rid your arms of the residue. There is a pounding momentary illusion of false freedom. It leads to a spiraling degradation that increases cruelty for everything in its kill zone. The secret of its cruelty is the split-second sensation of freedom that births a greater strangling, a greater spiritual and physical incarceration.

The constructed model of hate is to remain aggressive, remain intolerant, and remain resistant. For those who have no internal ability to rise above Maslow's security, they remain midbrain animals. They forfeit any actualized concept of redemption or elevation due to unbelief.

Aggression edges toward action. You want to reflect the massive pounding pain that you can't field. With hands too small under a load too big, the mind wobbles and crescendos and seethes and fails at its attempts to rest.

In your agony you churn in the dream of it: the sweet, hot breath of violence. You are swinging your elbows, your forearms, your bayonets, your curses, in pursuit of your illusory target. You hunger to crush soft flesh. You want to hear the snap of bones. You want someone to pay. You want to be comforted. You want resolution. You want peace. You want satisfaction.

When the search for peace invites and allies with hate, then those who choose it set fire to their own home. A welterweight of consequence is unleashed by mad, violated children who have no perceived light of hope, no faith, and no love. The chain is cut that curbs the snarl of dogs. The razor of their teeth follows the scent of blood in their nostrils. It calls to their thin ribbed, churning stomachs. They seek the flesh of those who have made invitation of their own free will. They unknowingly welcome their own destruction in the throaty growl of approaching, unimpeded dogs.

I remember the American soldier in the VA hospital who consistently woke with night terrors. I remember his story.

He and his unit were on patrol in an Iraqi village. The day prior, they handed out soccer balls to Iraqi children. Today, as they neared the same neighborhood, everything was deathly quiet. As they came around a corner, insurgents had the children who had taken the soccer balls the day before lined up on their knees in an execution position, drenched in gasoline. When the insurgents saw that the Americans were watching, they ignited the children. The American patrol froze, horrified. In the terrifying frenzy of watching the children scamper and burn, a senior NCO ordered that they open fire on the children in a helpless attempt at stopping their suffering. What kind of animals set children on fire? These experiences have been seared on the soul of this American soldier.

I thought of how insurgents were strapping suicide vests to people with Down's Syndrome, how they raped young women then told them they were no good to God or man anymore, and that the only way to regain respect and salvation was to strap on a suicide vest.

In the prison cells, in dark alleys where RKG3's are handed out, in the mountains of Afghanistan, in the spiritual famine-lands they are hearing the howl of their decisions. It is the sound of eternity grinding its gears against a senseless present.

We walk the hot halls where these men await execution.

I think of what these men have done. These men have eyes like flowers wilted in the heat. They have hacked the limbs from children, and murdered scores by the use of their talents and skills in the creation of roadside bombs. They languish in their cells while we walk by their cages.

Americans struggle to understand the twisted route that leads these men into the maiming and killing of their own kinsman and such a vehement hate of American freedom. The soldiers walk by in a solemn and satisfying victory. They are the American face. They symbolize the victims and families of those who were killed on 9/11. They symbolize the families of those whose fathers and mothers will never come home from the war on terror. They are the face of rational civilization over hatred.

In the silence and stench one wonders if these prisoners prepare for their death with a true repentance or if all that is left is a deluded rationalization of their aggression. One wonders if any of them will find mercy in the afterlife, when they have shown so little in this one.

Ping Pong May Cause You to Put Your Head Through Drywall

A grass seed salesman I know went head to head with the power of ping pong and lived to tell about it. Table tennis has been known by a variety of names including gossima, flim-flam, and ping pong. Experts believe that the game was created in England during the late 1800's. Early versions of the game used balls made of cork on table tops.

The International Table Tennis Federation was formed in 1926. It soon became a favorite in many nations and led to the dominance of the game by nations like Japan and China.

Ping pong was the reason for the first entrance of any American sports organizations into the Chinese mainland after the communist takeover in 1949. In 1971, the American Ping Pong Team was in Japan for the 31rst World Table Tennis Championship. While they were there, they received a surprise invite from China to play. It initiated “Ping Pong Diplomacy” with the massive communist nation in the thick of the Cold War.

Ping pong has a history of breaking down barriers.

A grass seed salesman from Wisconsin who I will call Wild Bill for the purpose of this article has been a life long player of ping pong. He recently told me about the wildest game he has ever played which also broke down a barrier. More specifically, it broke down a piece of drywall the size of his head.

Wild Bill traveled to Alabama for a sales meeting. When the meeting was over, he noticed a ping pong table in an entertainment area of the resort. He met an individual from California, and they struck up a game. The Californian had no idea that Wild Bill had been playing ping pong since he was a small child, that he had gone undefeated at church camp 40 years prior, that he had a stellar record in college, or that he had dominated his own children in the garage for the majority of their short lives.

The game rapidly became a heated contest. At a crucial point in the game, the Californian smashed the ball toward the left corner of the table. As Wild Bill recalls it, “I went horizontal, stretched out, planning a miraculous return. That's when the wall came out of nowhere. When my head hit the wall, there was quite a thud. Everyone in the room stopped. I was actually stuck in the wall for a moment. I pulled my head out of the drywall. Dust was swirling around my head. I stood up and looked at the little circle in the wall where my head had been. Someone asked if I was okay. I said, 'Hell, yes, I'm fine—I missed the stud.' Someone started laughing. Then everyone started laughing. I was a little befuddled after that and wound up losing 21-16. I think my opponent's name was Harold.'”

Wild Bill doesn't think there was any “residual damage.” He says he was “a little dizzy when I pulled my head out of the wall. It's just a good thing I missed the stud.”

I think we can all be thankful for that.

Bjork, The Contemplative Nature of Music, and the Possible End of the World

One evening in an apartment above a college bar in Madison, I attempted to discuss the contemplative nature of jazz with some new acquaintances who were talking about what was and what wasn't good music. I should have known better. They were dead set on getting drunk and my attempt at conversation was a distraction. While I spoke, their eyes alternated between glassy with boredom and darting between the various bouncing body parts of women dancing in the apartment. They didn't care about the history of jazz in hip hop or anything else I had to say.

I stopped talking and got out of the way.

It wasn't a completely worthless moment though, as it contributed to a life lesson. I have learned in multiple situations that when speaking with young white people from agricultural communities who speak in ebonics, very little to no good can come of it.

Music often communicates with people in a more immediate, instinctual, and visceral way when compared with language and invites the mind into contemplation.

Bjork is an artist who creates modern music that is more than a mere gathering of sounds. Often maligned for her oddness, she is an artist who has spent her life crafting music that engulfs causes, mankind, and nature in an ethereal embrace of innovation and metaphor. Convention is a cobweb that Bjork swipes away while pursuing a greater communication. She seems to self-inflict a child-likeness that produces uninhibited exploration.

Her native country is Iceland, the isolated jewel in the Atlantic Ocean that was discovered and settled by vikings and priests. It seems an ideal location to gain unique perspective on the goings-on of the globe. Anyone who has lived in a wintry climate knows the hush of sound after a snow fall and the curious crunch of the snow under your boots. One wonders if it was in similar moments when Bjork first fell in love with the possibility of the sacred world of sound.

In interviews she credits an invested step-father with the awakening of music in her life. Contrary to a world that utilizes vision as their main method of sensory perception, her mind seems to have traded vision dominance for audition. Her spoken dialect even possesses a sing-song quality that has an other-worldly beauty. She inhabits the place where sound communicates beyond words and has learned its language. In bursts, words, gasps, electrons sliding microchips, and musical instruments, Bjork accesses tsunamis of emotion and reconnection with lapping memories all by the power of sound. She is a grand communicator of the massive.

Experts do not give much credit to the actual “content of words” used in the process of communication. More important are tone of voice and body language which includes posture, gesture, and eye contact. To appreciate Bjork's music, one must enter a contemplation of what she embodies upon the production of sound and the craft, science, and posture that she utilizes to unveil her art.

Shedding singular, fractured categories, Bjork utilizes a variety of means to communicate her art. From elaborate costumes to technologically advanced computers to incorporated video images, Bjork fearlessly produces explosions of passion, growl, and joy in brilliant frenzy. Often embedded in animal imagery, she is in one moment the polar bear emerging from hibernation into brilliant and painful light, and in other moments a mother bear licking her cubs in motherly recline, a roaring bear swatting salmon, and a dying bear gasping its final breaths in an elegant tundra.

Speaking boldly on political issues, she offended Communist Party officials in China by chanting “Tibet, Tibet” during a 2008 performance of her song “Declare Independence.” Also in 2008, Bjork released a song called “Nattura.” All profits were dedicated to increasing awareness about eco-friendly business and industry practices. The Nattura organization describes itself as a “desire for a renewal in discussion and debate on Icelandic resources; a desire for bridges between different spheres of knowledge, news, composition and productive ideas on self-sustainable evolution, on cluster of start-up companies and other ways than heavy industry.” More information can be found at http://www.nattura.info/.

If you're just here to get drunk and chase tail, then all you will see is a weird lady in weird costumes at a weird concert.

But if you allow yourself to contemplate the grand wild reality, then you will find in the simplest of things electrifying bursts of glory. You will find a soul from a foreign land who holds out a tiny hand and asks that it be filled. Many words come in contact with her and slide away like petty, silly raindrops in a greater storm. When the storm recedes, her hand is cupped around the myrrh of music.

In her exploration, Bjork has uncovered one of the current and most immense challenges that mankind has ever faced. As the advancement of our science and technology wraps its hand around the entirety of the globe, we are forced to make a gambling assertion. As our planet undergoes frightening changes in its ecology, as wars are unleashed in all their fury, as industry drives forward in their practice, as economies bleed, and as men and women pursue the dignity of noble and profitable work, we are forced to ask: is current science a tiny surgical incision in the flesh of reality or is it an incision broad, sufficient, and trustworthy enough to make life-dependent assertions?

As we stand on the polar ice caps nuzzling the ice with our boots until it cracks and bloops into the drink, we evaluate our systems. Our minds run and rage through our collective experiences and aspirations. We are like penguins that push and shove until one falls into the water waiting to see if they are devoured as a test of the safety of the waters.

If we assert ourselves by a sacred humility, and we test our knowledge by implementing it into action, we may see unparalleled unity. We may not merely gain new discovery, but we may see schisms of the past fuse into wholeness. Creationism and evolution. Science and art. Ecology and industry. An assortment of cultures melting into pots of universality. But if we allow our technology to overwhelm and dominate our humanity and annihilate our ability to live in responsible dignity, then we will shift into fifth gear and grind our engines in blood. Nature and eternity will arch her neck toward us and ask us why?

Landscape Gardener Wins World Nettle Eating Championship

The Bottle Inn is a pub located in Dorset County, England, in a town called Marshwood. A historic argument occurred there between 2 farmers in 1986. The argument was over who had the longest nettles.

Nettles are weeds that possess hair-like needles on their leaves which cause a painful and itchy rash when touched.

The pub landlord, Rory MacLeod, reports that during this legendary argument, one of the farmers dared to say that he would “eat any nettle of yours that is longer than mine.”

Little did they know that the nettle eating that followed would become an annual competition, drawing people from across the globe.

Only 65 competitors are allowed to compete. Nettles are supplied by contest organizers to prevent tampering with nettle toxins. No mouth numbing agents are allowed. Competitors remove the leaves from the stems and eat them. Their empty stems are measured at the conclusion of the contest and whoever has the longest length of stems wins. The competition lasts for one hour and no nettles are allowed to be “expelled from the body” during that hour.

Some dubbed him “the human lawn mower.” Mike Hobbs, a landscape gardener from West Knighton, England, is the official 2009 World Stinging Nettle Eating Champion. On June 13th, he swallowed 48 feet of nettles washed down by 12 pints of his favorite alcoholic beverage: Addlestones Premium Cloudy Cider. His face turned black and green while he ate the nettles, and his throat was stung so badly that he couldn't speak for two days afterward.

He won a crate of beer and a cup with World Stinging Nettle Eating Champion engraved on it.

Elephants Take the Cake at Eating Competition

America stands on a new frontier. July 3, 2009, marks the date of the first known cross-species eating competition. The showdown occurred at the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Coney Island Boom-A-Ring in Coney Island, New York. Three Asian elephants conquered 3 humans from the Major League Eaters organization by eating 505 hot dog buns in 6 minutes. The humans only ate 143.

Minnie, Bunny, and Susie weighed in at over 9 tons while the humans only brought approximately 6 hundred pounds to the table. Human competitors were listed as Juliet Lee, Gravy Brown, and Eric “Badlands” Booker.

On the heels of this historic event comes Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, scheduled for July 4 at 12pm Eastern. It will be televised by ESPN. A single species event, approximately 20 human competitive eaters will attempt to ingest as many hot dogs as possible in ten minutes.

The reigning champ, Joey Chestnut, beat six-time champion Takeru Kobayashi last year in a five dog overtime eat-off. They both ate 59 hot dogs and buns during regulation.

The Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest is held annually at the original Nathan’s Famous location in Coney Island.

The International Federation of Competitive Eating (IFOCE) is “against at-home training of any kind. The IFOCE strongly discourages younger individuals from eating for speed or quantity under any circumstances. The IFOCE urges all interested parties to become involved in sanctioned events -- do not try speed eating home.”

Drive-By Dogging

My wife, Tess, strives for professionalism and excellence in her work. She takes pride in her family and shares her mother's love of animals. She is also very mischievous. Our family dog is a Dalmatian-Lab mix--the result of a stray who conducted his own mischief with a local breeder’s purebred Dalmatian. We named her Dakota and got her for $15.

Dakota adores her Uncle Jerry. He lives three blocks away. If our daily walk or run should happen to pass his home, Dakota loses all decorum, goes into a wagging frenzy, and nearly tears your arm out of socket in pursuit of a possible visit with Uncle Jerry.

On a recent Sunday, my wife and I were walking passed Jerry’s house at 9 AM. A musician, he is often out late on Saturday nights, performing with his band. By the look of it, he had had quite a time the night before. A pair of dirty underwear dangled at the end of his fishing pole which was lodged in his porch, his truck was parked half in his lawn and half on his drive-way, and a lone boot was in the middle of his front yard. Dakota had her snout buried in it, tail whirring back and forth.

“Looks like your brother had a quite a time last night,” I said.

“Are those his underwear?” she said.

Dakota strained forward like an Iditarod dog, dragging me up Jerry’s porch. I gave her a stern command and got control of her again. She stood at the door, wagging hard, looking at me as if to say “You gotta let me in. Jerry’s in the there somewhere. C’mon you gotta let me in.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Tess said, grinning. She nabbed the secret key from under a ledge on the porch, unlocked the front door, and released Dakota from her leash. Dakota tore into Jerry’s house. I could hear her ransacking the first level, sliding on rugs, then clawing up the stairs toward his bedroom at 100 mph. I could only imagine that she was giving Jerry her usual greeting which consisted of ecstatic slobbery licking. I wondered how hung over Jerry was.

A burst of shouting zinged out of Jerry’s bedroom window. I heard some obscenities, then the word “Dakota,” then more obscenities. Tess grinned. She whistled, and Dakota cruised back down the stairs. Tess nabbed her at the door, I reattached the leash, and we were off. We ran up the street giggling. When we got to the top of the hill, all three of us were panting.

Jerry emerged from his front door wearing only a pair of shorts, squinting, and scratching his head.

“What was that about?” he called.

Tess stopped laughing just long enough to say, “Drive-by dogging, Jerry. We got you!”

Jerry shook his head and went back inside.

Tess petted Dakota, “Good girl, Dakota. That’s a good dog.”

The Most Perfect Place

The sun descends on the distant mountains like an artillery shell. Two young soldiers are giving each other haircuts on the sandscape of Fort Bliss, Texas. One sits in a three-and-a-half legged chair and trusts his buddy with the clippers. It buzzes up and down his scalp, carving out a symmetrical, Army-standard high and tight.

“My grandfather wore a high and tight until the day he died,” the soldier says, leaning his head to the side as the blade buzzed his scalp. “He was massive. He towered over me when I was little. After working all day, he'd take off his boots, crack a beer, and sit on his reclining chair. He would run his gigantic hand over his chin. I can still hear the sound of his hand against his whiskers.”

“That right?” his buddy says.

“He was over six feet tall and probably weighed 220. He used to stop at the house for his lunch break. Grandma always had lunch ready for him. He'd eat, then drag a piece of bread across the plate to sop up any gravy or sauce. When he was done he laid down right there on the floor to take a nap. I helped my Grandpa wash the dishes, and I would look around the corner to see him there, sleeping face down on the floor.”

“Can you lean left?”

“Yeah, sure. He was in the Army during World War II. He never talked about it, but Grandma said that he was a mechanic. She said that he'd welded some extra steel to the bottom of a personnel carrier he was riding in. It wound up hitting a land mine but no one was hurt because of the steel. I guess he was in the Pacific at some point, and spent some time at Iwo Jima.”

“No kidding.”

“They used to live in Oconomowoc too.”

“Where we drilled before we deployed?”

“Yep. That's where we used to visit them. He kept up a vacation property for some rich guy who lived there only a few months out of the year. There was an apple orchard, raspberry bushes, and a short walk down to a lake. I remember walking into their house and seeing my Grandma elbow deep in fresh-picked apples and raspberries, making jam, pies, all kinds of stuff. Then Grandpa would walk me down to the lake and take me fishing. We caught bluegills, crappie, a perch every now and then. He taught me how to clean a fish. Come to think of it, that is probably the most perfect place I've ever been. Right there, with my Grandpa and Grandma.”

“You ever drive by it when we drilled there?”

“I thought about, but I decided against it. Those memories are so good that I didn't want to mess with them, you know? I just wanted to leave them like they are in my mind.”

“Probably a good idea.”

“Yeah. I figure I'll see those memories again though. When we get back from Iraq. Years from now, when I'm a grandpa and my grandchildren are watching me. When I have stories to tell, like my grandpa told me.”

The buzz of the blade goes silent. The soldier whisks off his buddy's neck, and they head toward their barracks. The three-and-a-half legged chair remains in the fading light, stoically peppered by a sandy breeze. Their footsteps fill with sand until they are gone.

Fathers Must Be Warriors

"To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right." -Confucius

One of the gifts that the Founding Fathers built into the framework of American government is the full acknowledgement and embracing of competition in society. That embrace became the backbone of American commerce and one of the cornerstones in the dominance of American interests on the planet. Military leaders cite the disciplined acknowledgement of this truth as a reason for their dominance on the battlefield: the ability to improvise, adapt, and overcome in the face of the ultimate competition [battle] by taking a hard look of the reality in front of them, no matter how complimentary or cruel to one's own comfort.

A young Lieutenant who speaks with a wisdom beyond his years says: “Where other militaries collapse when things don't go as planned, the American soldier steps up. They take what is thrown at them, adjust, and pivot with power toward solution. They are taught how to face combat, which is the ultimate competition, with tenacity, ferocity, and discipline. It breeds effectiveness.”

Soldiers provide keen insight into the value, benefits, and drawbacks of competition. It, after all, is their entire craft.

American society seems to have a split personality when it comes to competition.

Media outlets make billions of dollars in the sports arena, including extremely violent sports like mixed martial arts fighting and boxing. Violent movies make millions at the box office. Daytime television is filled with court TV which is a televised competition for justice. Evening television is filled with police shows where tough guys conquer the morally corrupt to make a safer society.

The American public appears to be ravenous for and fixated on a competition for actualized justice. It loves a winner and pursues intensely what it takes to become a winner. It despises a loser. Water-cooler talk is contentious with who is the better athlete or team and why. Judgments are made about the arguer based on the faultiness or solidity of his or her argument.

On the opposite side, a large contingent of American society seems horrified by competition when it comes to education or parenting. Philosophies that seek to build “self-esteem” often tag competition as negative and seek to make both of the competing teams winners so no one's feelings get hurt. Statements like “no one wins in a fight/war” and “violence never solves anything” surface.

Direct opposition to this philosophy is what kids see when they go home and turn on the television. War and violence is on television as the way that Presidents solve problems. Children are bombarded with stories that say that police have arrested and/or killed bad guys to make society safer. The Armed Forces are tagged as heroes and footage of precision bombing is applauded. Our leaders and communities honor our veterans with the utmost sobriety on Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Veterans Day. In history classes, children are taught that after an insurgent war against Britain, American became its own glorious nation that waves the flag of freedom higher than anyone else on the planet.

The message that says “all violence is bad” is not what is embodied by American leaders “in the real world.” Civilized society even contracts with its government not only to provide a military, but also to provide a police force in their community. History has shown that without this form of social control, it deteriorates into a mob. If all violence is bad, our children ask, then why are there men and women who are paid by their own communities to carry guns, tasers, and batons, wear badges? Why are they given the right to use force (even lethal force) against those who would seek to harm others if "war is not the answer?"

Can't the more articulate argument be made? As our children become young adults couldn't we provide them with a more accurate view? One that empowers them with a more realistic view of reality? One that doesn't lead to an emasculated confusion?

One that says: “War and violence are repulsive, ugly, and painful, but they are a necessary part of remaining free, responsible, and stable in an imperfect world. When dealing with irrational, manipulative, destructive, and immoral people, communities, states, or governments it often becomes necessary to engage them in a form of combat that is not limited to, but which does include physical violence.”

In our recent past, the way to overcome a bully was to stand up for yourself and fight back. Both the bully and the victim learned valuable lessons about power. Now, fighting itself is what is branded as wrong. Now instead of facing their enemies, our children are told to tell their teacher and the teacher refers the child to a counselor and the counselor develops a diagnosis and the school system develops a disciplinary action. Medication might get prescribed. Swamped social services might get involved. The police might be involved. Societal ills are grieved over. The very real risk of a school shooting is fearfully fielded by school administrators.

Is this progress? Or is the whole thing a ridiculous circus of overeducated fools who actually cause a more violent response from our youth by not providing them with a clear moral code in the first place?

Is it too difficult to admit that violence is a necessary part of our world? Or is the most terrifying thing that we don't get to decide this? That reality has made this choice for us, and we have very little control over that fact?

A young sergeant heaves body armor over his shoulders and says: “Haven't you heard the Spartan proverb that says: If men were just, there would be no need for valor?”

The Insult of Relativism

Recently, academia has espoused relativism as a viable philosophy. Relativism conflicts directly with the concept that we don't get to make the ultimate decision on reality. Relativism tells us that there are no absolutes, that reality is whatever we decide. Even if two ideas directly oppose or conflict, they can both be “true.”

A soldier who had to put his college education on hold for his military deployment states: “Relativism is ridiculous and irrational. A number of my fellow students seemed to think that they were brilliant when they said things like 'Hey, man, whatever's true for you is fine. It might not be true for me. Believe what you want. Reality is merely socially constructed ideas.' It's these students who are the most confused and depressed people I've ever encountered. They are terrified of conflict. By their belief system, nothing matters. They bury themselves in an inability to assert themselves. In their twisted view of the world, Osama bin Laden would be just a guy living his reality. We as Americans would be oppressive dictators simply for asserting that his world view is wrong."

"I wonder why adherents to this philosophy don't make a louder argument. Maybe because it's cowardly, insulting, irrational, and ridiculous. Maybe because of what the families of those who lost loved ones on 9/11 would do to these people if they did pose their argument outside of academia. But I guess when you hide there it's a perfectly valid idea. It's just that in the real world, in kitchens and childrens' bedrooms, it's an impossible idea to swallow. Especially when your husband doesn't come home from work and never will, and you have to tell your kids that daddy isn't ever [expletive] coming home.”

Another soldier chimes in. “Simply believing something doesn't make it true. A person can believe that when they walk off a cliff that they will float in midair and not fall to their death. Who wants to be the first to try it? Not me.”

The original soldier speaks again. “God help us if the dominant idea is that everything is relative. If that's the case, then there can be no valid moral code. If there is no valid moral code, then I'm heading for the hills because civilization is about to collapse into fierce, barbaric chaos.”

A Clear Moral Code

If a rational morality has been abandoned by those who are supposedly the most educated and intelligent of our nation, then one wonders where we stand as a nation, as parents, as educators? Shouldn't morality spur and order our minds instead of forcing our minds to attempt asphyxiate morality because it is not easy or convenient? Isn't that what dictators do?

To take a reasonable look at the use of force doesn't mean that we are going to rush into it. In fact it means the opposite. It should be the most heavily weighed option of a free government. Sending its sons and daughters into harm's way should be debated constantly and vehemently by the nation's representatives before and while its Armed Forces are in harm's way. Police activity should be constantly debated and evaluated as they seek to serve and protect community members who pay for them to handle crime in their neighborhoods.

How can we have a healthy “self-esteem” if we are not free to acknowledge the truth? It seems instead that we are terrified of it.

The War For Our Childrens' Minds

As our children develop and formulate their views, they receive multiple mixed messages. These mixed messages cause confusion. Many reject the idea of morality altogether as they embrace relativism and dissolve into an internal chaos. If we, as parents, do not articulate an objective moral code, then how are our children supposed to successfully navigate the cresting and ebbing waves of their emotions, stressors, and the certain struggles of life?

If we strip our children of rationality, then why should we be surprised that our children are excessively violent, frustrated, depressed, anxious, unable to confidently assert themselves, face conflict, maintain lifelong relationships or employment? If we don't take the time to think about the significance of our actions, to bring morality into the “real world” of human interaction, then we are shooting our own children in the leg and telling them to run a marathon. When they collapse we look at them as if they are crazy and prescribe them medication.

Can't we empower our children by telling them the truth about the world, even if it isn't pretty or a “warm fuzzy?” Don't we owe them that? Or should we torture them with an endless mascarade of “thinking positive” to the point of crippling them into an inability to function?

Combat, A Sobering Teacher

A young sergeant, drenched with sweat in the 115 degree heat, says: “The way to win a fight is to first know that you are in a fight, then train as you fight, then fight. The way to lose a fight is to be too afraid to figure out what is worth fighting for, reject the fact that you are in a fight, then not fight.” He says this as he prepares to go “outside the wire” in Baghdad. In the last two weeks they have found 2 sets of explosive formed projectiles that could've killed multiple soldiers by piercing all the armor on their humvees and MRAPs before detonating inside the vehicles. He and his squad live in constant readiness against these attacks as well as snipers and armor piercing grenades that have been smuggled into Iraq from Iran.

He continues: “That doesn't necessarily mean physical violence, either. You can fight a war without physical violence. Legal wars are fought in board rooms across the world every day. Emotional wars are fought in homes between husbands and wives, parents and children. Democrats war politically with Republicans and vice versa. There is no such thing as a conventional or unconventional war. War itself is the convention. The sooner people wrap their minds around that, the better we'll all be.”

His buddy is getting situated in the turret of his humvee. “It doesn't mean we have to be war mongering pillagers of nature and each other to make a dollar. It means the opposite. An acknowledgement of competition in society causes people to have a greater ability to lay hold of a lasting peace. Denial of this truth creates a weak and vulnerable existence riddled with fear, self-doubt, anxiety, and depression.”

“When bullets are flying, the worst thing to do is sit down and wish it all away. That will get you and your buddies killed or leave you with a future nightmare filled with PTSD, guilt, and shame. Dante said 'The hottest places in hell are reserved for those in time of great moral crisis, remain neutral.' There are things in life worth fighting for, worth dying for. If you aren't aware of that, then you are living a small, petty, and uninvested existence. It's the same for business, education, your job. You're in a competition and you have to put up stats. You have to get the project done. You have to save the company money. You have to respect the environment to maintain your natural resources. You can't alienate your employees or your customers by abusing or disrespecting them.”

“Competition isn't the devil. It's a corrupted character during competition that is your enemy. No one can withstand attacks without character. Character is the gut check that keeps you in the fight, that keeps you focused on the goal, that keeps you innovating, struggling, striving, persevering when the world is stacking up chips against you.”

“That's why at the end of a fight there is often a display of respect between opponents. The warrior knows that he would've never become the man he is at that moment in the glory of victory if he hadn't trained for such a worthy opponent. Without enemies who test us, and without the character that creates a response to those tests, then we would not become better. Honor is earned. That is the real victory. Why shouldn't we teach these things to our children instead of a brain trick where we are supposed to constantly tell ourselves I'm fine I'm beautiful I'm wonderful I'm special no matter how untrue it is?”

“We're filling our elementary schools with Omerosas,” the soldier says, referencing reality show star from Donald Trump's television show “The Apprentice.” “How scary is that?”

These young soldiers roll out of the gate and into the blazing, dusty desert filled with innumerable hazards, they laugh as they go. They are giants among men although they don't have PhD's, tons of money, or grace the covers of magazines. They would ridicule each other if they were on the covers of magazines. Celebrities and politicians have made insulting comments that the youth of America will wind up in Iraq or Afghanistan if they don't get a college degree. They have no idea about the wealth in the humble hearts of those who sacrifice so much intentionally and voluntarily for the glory of their free country. When they complete their service overseas they will come home to a country that may need them and their wisdom even more than the countries that they seek to liberate.

http://thefatherlife.com/mag/2009/07/01/fathers-must-be-warriors/