Well, it’s been a long time since I posted a new article on the “Observer", the last one being on March 25, 2021, so figured I should explain a little about why I neglected writing over the past many months.
Simply put, in 2021 my heart was broken when I watched the insane events at our Capital on January 6th. Later, over the course of several weeks I saw on television and read in newspapers more than a few veterans my age and younger condone the actions of the insurrectionists. This just made no sense to me.
Back tracking just a bit, I’ll tell you that I had generally voted Republican since I turned 21 in Vietnam. The exceptions being that I voted consistently for our two senators from Washington State, Warren Magnuson and Henry “Scoop” Jackson, who were both Democrats, when they were in office. Sometime in 2018 I watched Meet the Press on NBC when the late Tim Russert interviewed then Senator Barack Obama. I was impressed by Obama’s answers to Russert’s questions.
Not much later in the presidential campaign when Trump got involved and, even though John McCain was a veteran and, to my mind, a good candidate and a war hero from the same war I fought in, Trump’s language and what-turned-out-to-be lies got more and more disparaging about Mr. Obama, I could not continue being a Republican any longer. The lies unfortunately have continued with our now-criminally convicted current president.
To my mind since that time the Republican Party has steadily become more and more radical and unhinged. I have voted Democratic in each election since. Coupled with the pandemic that cancelled two of our Mohawk Reunions in New Orleans, this reinforced my decision to discontinue participating in veteran-related activities.
So now time has passed and it’s 2026. And I’ve decided the write again. However, since I had not used the Mailchimp mailing list for such a long time, seems that the list has been tossed out and no longer exists with Mailchimp’s parent Intuit. But just a few days ago I discovered a complete email list still on my trusty Mac! Small miracles never cease to amaze me!
That in the proverbial nutshell is why I have been silent on my blog until this time.
So, what have I been doing instead of posting stuff on my blog? Well, in 2019 my bride of nearly fifty-three years and I moved from Kirkland, Washington, where we lived in the same house for 43 years, to about 70 miles south to Lacey into a brand new house. We have enjoyed putting in a backyard (the front was already done!), doing lots and lots of reading, some traveling to DC and Baja California Sur, making new friends in our 55+ community. I work out frequently at LA Fitness, and build model airplanes like I did when I was a kid. In fact, I have plane reservations to go to our Mohawk Association's 2026 Reunion in Washington, DC in August!
The first model I attempted was an OV-1B (“SLAR Bird”) like we had in Vietnam (photo below). I flew a SLAR mission over Cambodia with CWO Bob Jensen (even though the US “never” was in Cambodia). I bought this model at the Pleiku hobby shop one day when I visited our ground station there. At the time the electronics on the Mohawk were cutting edge technology. Since then I have assembled a number of models like a PBY, Spitfire, Corsair, Hellcat, and the little known British aeroplane the deHavilland Mosquito which was built entirely of wood during World War II.
Anyway, I’m back now and will continue to add some things of interest more or less regularly. [Here’s a link to the original “225th Observer” to which for some reason I could not add items after January 2017. www.225observer.blogspot.com]
