Colonel Bud Day Passes

I've been absent from this blog a while and there are many reasons for it, vacation and writing being chief among them. But I wanted to pop back in to share my thoughts on the passing of yet another of those individuals who I remember hearing about in my youth: Col. Bud Day.

He passed away last Saturday after 88 long years. But if you were to compare Bud's years to how the majority of the world spends theirs, he might as well have lived a hundred eighty-eight of them. For those of you who don't know of Bud Day the man was a veteran of World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam. He was the recipient of not only the Air Force Cross, the Distinguished Flying Cross, various Air Medals and multiple Bronze Stars, but also our country's highest military decoration, the Congressional Medal of Honor, for actions carried out during his capture by North Vietnamese troops, his subsequent escape and evasion and his later recapture. He endured many torture sessions, always resisting, and as the highest ranking officer in their group served as an inspiration to his fellow POWs, among them future Senator John McCain, in the years that followed.

Bud grew up in a generation that believed in service and engendered in their youth strong senses of honor, duty, courage and commitment.  He was part of a rapidly disappearing vanguard that sees the defense of American principles and values as the only way to live one's life well.

Yes, the world has changed a lot since Bud's day, and life is not so simple anymore in terms of discerning the right way forward from the wrong way. People have access to more information which gives them (hopefully) a better sense of what is going on in the world. In some ways this is both better and worse. We, the masses, are less easily controlled because we now know enough to question the actions of our governments, but this often leads to complications, stalemates and ineffectual governance.

In recent years Bud made headlines for some rather controversial remarks in the political arena that I am certainly not here to defend. But I do respect the man for being someone that in a world full of talkers, pundits and armchair quarterbacks, was always willing to put both his name and life on the line to be  "in the game."

Rest in peace, Colonel.

We buried a friend

We buried a friend yesterday. His name was Vince and he was about twice my age. I hadn’t known him long, maybe two years tops. But he was one of those characters in life who make an impression. Even in the first days of our meeting he wasn’t in the best of health, but his mind was always clear. Always sharp with humor and the kind of off-balancing questions that if you were looking the wrong way when they struck would knock you on your ass in a fit of laughter.

Twice my age… That’s not long at all.

It gives me pause and forces my priorities – often straying from life’s long term goals to the little mundane worries of the everyday – back into perspective. We don’t have long on this planet to make the experiences that we will be proud to look back on when we're Vince’s age (which wasn’t all that old, by the way). You never know when it’ll happen, so don’t let yourself get bogged down in the small stuff. Don’t worry over the little things, and especially those things that haven’t even occurred yet, despite what your inside voice is threatening will happen.

Worry, as they say, is interest paid on a debt you may never owe. Life IS short, so despite the cliche, get your ass moving and do something worth looking back on in your golden years. Thirty years in a cubicle (not me) ain't cutting it, world.