Thank You!

As a nation, our thoughts and prayers today and everyday are with our service men and women who are serving the world over to protect our freedoms at home. I want to thank my Navy daughter who served her country with honor and distinction, not only on the high seas, but also in Iraq. Her mother and I are some of the lucky ones whose sons and daughters came home to a hero’s welcome.

As parents, our hearts go out to the families who were not so fortunate. Their children gave the ultimate sacrifice for the concept of freedom for all. It has been this way down through the ages because the fight for human dignity and freedom remains the goal of every peace loving country.

I, for one, wish peace could prevail around the globe, but there are others who try and dominate the world through fear, torture and death. As long as these tyrants exist, we, as a freedom loving people, must stand and be counted among the nations that will resist until the tyranny is vanquished.

Today, as we honor our fallen soldiers, let us pray also for our wounded ones as well. These young combatants are dealing with all manner of terrible injuries. Sometimes the scars are not visible, but they are there just the same. There are horrible psychological wounds that disable just as surely as bullets or shrapnel. The road to recovery is a long and painful journey and we need to support each and every one toward a full recovery.

For those still fighting the good fight, I pray you all return home safe and sound. America can never repay the services our fighting men and women have performed throughout our history to make the world a safer place to live. We can only thank them from the bottom of our hearts….

Write on,

Mittster

From There to Here

The newest hobby my ex-Navy daughter has taken up is cooking from scratch while trying to juggle a full-time job and full-time studies at Northern Arizona University.

After a twelve-year stint in the Navy, which included a tour in Iraq, she is close to a college degree. When she left the service and joined her stepmother and me here in Camp Verde, Arizona, she had enough credits for most degrees, but unfortunately they were not the specific ones necessary. It is hard to take the proper classes when you are traveling around the world in a nuclear submarine tender and then on a nuclear aircraft carrier.


The positive side from my perspective is all the homemade food my wife and I get to enjoy because we have a ready- made chef less than a block away. There have been some disasters, but they are rare indeed. We discreetly dispose of failures while praising the triumphs.

I really don't know what we are going to do once she graduates and moves away into her future. We are really quite spoiled, you know. Perhaps a diet to start? Oh well, in the meantime; yum, can you bring more Cornish game hens, or how about some more biscuits? "Don't forget the mac and cheese," my wife calls out over my shoulder. And, I get the last word with; "cream cheese filled tarts would be nice."















After leaving for the walk back to her house, she is probably thinking, "Good grief, chief, what kind of food monsters have I created?"

I'm just saying,

Mittster