Chip's Blog

As is my penchant, I had a "synthetic moment" today on the way to the office.  While serving my daily "anxiety penance" about how we are going to pay our heating bills this winter, I harkened back to my college days.  Ya see, kids are going back to college this weeek and I....Oh well, no use trying to follow my logic....

Anyway, I was remembering my freshman dorm back in the days of "all male colleges" and "all male dorms".  Any of you remember that?  And, after watching T. Boone Pickens advertisement on TV about the use of natural gas as a more frequent, and domestic energy source, I started thinking about methane as an alternative energy source.

Ah yes...the "boys", bored sitting around the dorm "lighting farts"....then I thought...Jeez, if we'd lit them all at once, we'd produce as much hot air as Bill Clinton and John Kerry did last evening in Denver.

I really think I'm on to something here...well at least something as credible as Barack Obama's energy plan....which seems to disipate as quickly as one of those unlit farts.....

I sat and watch Duh-val Patrick take the stage at the Democratic National Convention, and many thought/questions came to mind.  The one that was primary in my mind was: What's so special about Duh-val Patrick that earns him a prime time slot at the DNC?

I mean, let's be reasonable here for a second.  Has the first half of his first term in his first political office been a stellar success? Ummmmm...NOT!!!  He began by buying himself an expensive luxury car at our expense, followed it by furnishing his State House Office with expensive furniture and drapes, at our expense, then culminated his first few months of taxpayer supported "shop-aholism" with hiring a personal secretary for his wife on the taxpayer dole.  Took this little boy three times with his hand caught in the cookie jar to learn that Mommy and Daddy ain't giving out unlimited cookies....

Let's look at his legislative record....OOPS...there isn't one.

Let's look at his fiscal management...OOPS...he's spending again...How many employees have been added to the State payrole while he's been in office?  The largest percentage at Mass Highway?  In one of the Unions who bankrolled his campaign? HMMM....

OK, his platform of reduction of property taxes?  He ran based partly on that right?  Opps...my local property taxes went up 15% last year...OUCH!!!

So...I ask myself...What are Duh-val's qualification to be "hired" to speak, in prime time, at the DNC?  He has none.

What I'm going to say here is as politically incorrect as anything you've ever read here (at least on the blog side!!!).  And what I'm going to say is as factually accurate as anything that I've ever said. 

Duh-val Patrick took the podium at the DNC last evening for one reason and one reason only:  He's black.  How sad is that folks?  You see, what you really saw was the cultural end product of a well intentioned social policy gone bad.  Affirmative Action.

In our cultural zeal to mend the historical wounds of slavery and racism, we have re-invented racism!!!  Ya see folks, when one of the major political parties, at its convention to pick a Presidential candidate, picks a failed Governor who is black to speak on prime time, they are sending the subtle message out that "This is the best it gets..."

Dammit...it isn't.  We have plenty of competent black, hispanic...end the litany of ethnic groups..folks who could have spoken last night.  The Democrats just can't find one in their ranks....

Affirmative Action has failed in the ranks of the people who created it....

I'd like to share with you the body of an email I just received.  As a Retired fire Chief, I'm a Life Memeber of the Fire Chiefs' Associatioin of Massachusetts and am on their email list.

Thank God!

"The Ashburnham Firefighters Association/Ashburnham Fire Department is being honored by the Department of Defense with the Seven Seals Award. This is for our efforts in sending supplies including the ambulance to Afghanistan (we are just waiting a shipping date). Obviously we do not do what we do for awards and accolades. Just knowing we are helping people in need is enough thanks.

The ambulance project could not have been accomplished without the help and caring of the Fire Chiefs Association of Massachusetts, the Mid-state Mutual Aid Association and especially Fire District 14. We have also had great business and vendor support with supplies and materials. THANK YOU ALL!

The award ceremony will be at 11:00 hours on August 12, 2008 on Ashburnham Town Hall Lawn. My understanding is that this is shaping up to be a pretty big event with several legislators attending/speaking and representatives of the 7 Armed Forces including a 2 Star General. Please join us as you all deserve the credit for all of your contributions." 

Enough said.  Men and women of God....

As I watched Jim Barretto this morning on the "Legally Speaking" segment, I was praying that he, and Kim would put their two seperate stories together.  The hospital smoking ban in Ohio, and the disability pension fiasco in Boston.  Those stories don't intersect, you think? 

Actually they do, and in a way the general public should like.  Since November 1, 1996, firefighters appointed after that date may not smoke.  Not on the job...not at restaurants...not at home..not at all.  This was driven by "pension reform".  In the late '80's, most communities in the Commonwealth's employees were covered under County Retirement Systems.  (Not Boston, who maintained their own)  These county retirement systems were crumbling under the weight of disability pensions from police and firefighters.  What most citizens may not know is that these folks work under a "presumptive Heart and Lung provision" that assumes the stress of the job, and inhaled toxins causes heart and lung disease, and any such disease is presumed to be job related.  Makes sense, actually, if you factor in otherwise clean breathing habits and a decent degree of physical fitness.

So, when the Legislature "bailed out" the County Retirement Systems, what they really did was to absorb them into the State Retirement System and to place administration of retirements under the "Public Employee Retirement Administration Commission (PERAC)"  They also passed a law that requires that PERAC promulgate and maintain physical fitness standards for firefighters and police officers.  This law is Chapter 31 Sections 61A and 61B.

This law didn't stiffen the standards for a disability retirement, it stiffened the accountability on how they were awarded.  Firefighters lost the right to smoke.  They also have to pass a state mandated physical fitness test, and to be retested every two years.  I was intimately (and trust me...at times it felt like the "other kind of intimacy"!!!) involved in the negotiations for these standards as a representative of the Fire Chiefs Association of Massachusetts.  At that table was the President of the Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts as well.  None of us opposed the standards.  All of us wanted to ensure they were fair and equal.

The moral of this story?  Almost all firefighters in Massachusetts work under strict rules regarding disability retirement.  Only Boston doesn't.  Not because of the firefighters, or the Union.

You figure it out!!!

As the ongoing saga of Boston Firefighter (folks, it brings bile to my throat to type that, trust me.) Arroyo unfolds, and the public perception of both firefighters in general, and the Jakes on the Boston Fire Department goes down the "crapper", I want to take a minute to tell a story of a guy who didn't take disability.

In 1996, as part of my duties as Fire Chief in my community (I admit, not the worst of those duties....) I had the pleasure of going to Ocala, Fla to attend what is called a "pre-build conference" for an engine we were purchasing from Emergency One.  At the time that I was there, three guys from the Boston Fire Department were also there, working out the final spec's for two engines a ladder and a lighting truck.  Needless to say, we are significantly smaller than the BFD!!!  One of these guys was Kevin Flynn, Head of Maintenance and the brother of Mayor Flynn, the second was a retired Lieutenant who was expert in fire apparatus design and a consultant to Commissioner Stapleton, and a Captain named Hugh Duffy.  Although we worked in seperate rooms, and fought fires in substantially seperate worlds, we dined in the same restaurants, and this old chief became a real fan of Hugh Duffy.  We never stayed in contact, but his story I'llo never forget.

At the first dinner we attended together, he invited me to join him in the hot tub the subsequent morning at 6 AM.  He said it was part of his "rehab" and I willingly agreed.  Now folks, understand that, although this was Florida, it was winter there, and the dawn temperatures were close to frost levels...but we were firefighters...we were men.

When I met Hugh at the hot tub, I asked him about why he was "rehabbing".  He told the following story.  About a year previously, he had been Captain of the House in Brighton.  A fire had come in for a residenttial structure and he was supervising the interior crews who were face to face with a bigtime fire, inside the building.  An unexpected (duh) floor collapse occurred, and he, and another firefighter fell through the floor into the basement.  The other firefighter was a rookie that Captain Duffy was keeping close for his protection.  Both of the men were trapped in the basement.  Hugh told me that the rookie was holding on to his boot, obviously frightenened.  Hugh's back was seriously injured in the fall, and a burning timber was laying on his shoulder.  The scars from the full thickness burn were evident on his shoulders as we sat there.  He couldn't move; he couldn't get out; they were trapped and he was being serioiusly burned.  He never said it, but I know he thought his number was up.  I would have.

Into that basement came a mutual aid crew from Brookline, pouring water on the burning timbers.  Hugh jokingly told of the rookie yelling, "Hey you're gonna drown us!!!"  And the Brookline Jake yelling back, "Do you want to "freakin" (I translate here!!) drown or do you want to "freakin" burn to death?"  Hugh laughingly said, "My rookie didn't say another word till they took us out."

Saved from almost certain death, Captain Duffy spent the next year on extended sick leave, rehabbing himself.  Commissioner Stapleton put him on administrative duty when he was well enough, and was trying to convince him to stay there.  Hugh wanted back "on a company".

When I last heard about Hugh Duffy, he was running "Moon Island", the Boston Fire Department Training Facility.  You see, ladies and gentlemen, the Boston Fire Department, like every other in this Commonwealth, wants more Hugh Duffy's.  None of them want Firefighter Arroyo.

And my request....when you think of the Boston Fire Department, think Hugh Duffy...think Stevie Minehan...please don't think of Arroyo.  He just ain't a "good Jake".

As a retired Fire Chief, I'd like to weigh in on the recent reports coming out of the Boston Fire Department, regarding the fact that Firefighter Arroyo was granted a full disability retirement on the eve of his bodybuilding competition.

Listen, folks, I agree with the Mayor, the commissioner, and the vast majority of the general public that this is a flagrant abuse of the retirement system.  No doubt about it.  I, like VB Goudie, think Ed Kelly, President of the Boston Firefighters Local, should have stepped forward already and distanced his rank and file from actions like this.  In fact, I am even more upset than the Morning News crew was.  This is not the retirement of a firefighter from Boston Rescue 1, nor is it from Engine 33 or Ladder 15.  This is not a man required to throw ladders or "hump hose", run into burning buildings at mortal risk and save innocent citizens.  This guy was retired from being an Inspector.  The heaviest thing he lifted (other than his musclebound ass out of the car) is a freakin' pencil!!!  Curl that, Barbell-boi!!!

But I want to go beyond the rhetoric being spewed by the Menino Administration.  Ya see, they are using this as a bargaining tool against the union who has been working without contract for two years.  And, they are using this in a duplicitous way.  My question: Is this the simple egregious abuse of one firefighter, or is it the failing of the City's Retirement Board?  Does responsibility fall on the Mayor for not reforming his retirement board, or on the firefighters for one of their member's actions?  Isn't the answer to that obvious?

Although I feel it is the absolute responsibility of every firefighter, individually, to work as long and as hard as he/she can, I am more offended by the policy set by the City that would allow this to occur.  Why isn't the Mayor calling for the firing of the whole Retirement Board?  Precedent has been set, and practice is in place that would allow this man to be retired LOD...Sad, Sad Sad.  And...there are light duty jobs available for the injured to do, in Inspectional Services.  A little training...voila...enthusiastic Inspector.  For the love of God, a person in a wheelchair could do that job, if the City purchased one wheel chair vehicle for the Inspector to drive, with all the handicapped accessible buildings that need routine fire insptection.

So...Let's take umbrage at this, but let's make sure our "aim" is deadly.  Sure..."shoot" Arroyo...I'm good with that.  But don't stop there.  It's the Retirement Board, stoopid!!!

At a time when we, in the bordering State of Massachusetts, are both mourning the death of Brooke Bennett at the hands of a multiply convicted, Level 3 classified, child predator from Randolph, Vermont, and expressing our umbrage at the fact we don't have, nor does Vermont have, a death penalty to deal with this.....words fail me...or civil ones at least....so-called human being.

And yet, at the very same time, our State Legislature has before it, yet to be heard, Jessica's Law, so named for Jessica Marie Lunsford, who was raped and murdered by a multiply convicted, Level 3 classified child predator, John Couey.  Jessica's Law, as passed in her native State of Florida, provides for a minimum 25 year sentence for a first time offender.  It has subsequently been passed by 41 other states, leaving only Massachusetts and seven others who have not passed it.

Here you have it folks, tougher sentences for child predators.  Why, you ask, hasn't it passed here?  Quite simply, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Eugene O'Flaherty (D-Boston) refuses to release it from committee.  He is, however, not alone.  Martha Coakley, our esteemed Attorney General, has termed it unenforceable, and has suggested, like the other butthead O'Flaherty, that it infringes on attorneys' and judges ability to plea bargain.

Well, duh, why do you think it is passed? It is designed to limit plea bargains and sentence reductions.  It is designed, instead, to protect children from the selfsame people who would molest and murder them just like that mutt Jacques did Brooke Bennett.  DUH!!!!!

Instead, Coakley, in her inimitable wisdom, has suggested a watered down version...watering down the protection of children from rape....

"Less-ica's Law"....not acceptable in 42 or our 50 states...not acceptable here.

And here we are debating...bemoaning...our lack of a death penalty.  May God have mercy on the Commonwealth.

As is my style here, I am going to re-visit an issue, but look at it from a slightly different perspective.  The death of Brooke Bennett in a small Vermont town, and the circumstances of her death, along with some of the debate cry out for a different perspective.

It is doubtful that this unfortunate young lady did not die at the hands of her pedophile uncle.  It is aslo equally as doubtful that her ex-stepfather didn't have a hand in both her potential victimization, and in her death.  These facts alone are sufficient to bring up the lunch of the toughest of folks....

But the debate has moved to the parents...to the mother.  The more than reasonable question that is being asked is : Where was the mother?  Where were the parents?  These are excellent questions looking at this from the "parental responsibility" perspective.  Anyone who has read any of my threads knows I'm a big "personal" and "parental responsibility" person.

Folks, that is insufficient in this case.  You can line up a hundred folks to tell me she should have known and I'll say back to them:  She DID know!  It is just humanly impossible to have a Level 3 classified (more than one convictions folks...more than one...) brother (brother in law?) who is a pedophile, and an ex-husband who aided him in his perverse criminal activities, without knowing.  Please don't offer that option.  It only helps the pedophiles.

Look at the house.  A 4 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath center entrance colonial with a two car attached garage?  New Construction?  No other houses to be seen in the news footage?  Puh-lease.  How did he afford that?  Level 3 sex offenders can't get a job flippin' burgers at the local Mickey D's, to say nothing of having the wherewithall to live in a house as big as mine!!!  Puh-lease.

Here's the sad truth.  What you have seen is the tip of the pedophilic iceberg in Randolph, Vermont.  This "ring" was large, and profitable.  And this mother knew about it.  You see, she is a "perv magnet".  She is around them, and they are around her.  She was involved sexually with at least one of them (her ex-husband) and God knows how many else.  She knew.

So let's stop making excuses.  Let's stop asking questions that are completely relevant in other situations, but are grossly naive here.  Let's acknowledge that where perverts exist, so do pervert magnets.  And, let's hold them equally responsible.  We need to do two things:

1.  We need to broaden our perspective on accountability where child sexual abuse is concerned.  We need to hold those, who are likely spectators, equally as responsible as the perpetrators.  Legally responsible.

2.  And, we need to develop a technology that can cure people of pedophilic urges.  We need to invest as much money and time and emotion as we have to finding the cures for cancer or AIDS.

When all is said and done in Randolph, Vermont, we're going to find many many more perpetrators, and more victims...many many more victims.  My guess?  Mom was a victim at some point in her life...Not an excuse...an observation.

I have been reading here (truth be told, looking forward to the journalism of Ted Daniel and Bob Ward...and I'm betting our new blogger Lynn has alot to do with the quality of journalism I've seen!!) about the Neil Entwhistle trial.

What is striking, beyond the absolute morally bereft actions that took the lives of a Mother and her infant child, is the frequency of references to "the OJ verdict".  I half liken this to the phenomenon we experienced (and still do to some extent) after the Blizzard of 78, when, every time snow was predicted, store shelves magically emptied in the bread and milk departments, almost instantaneously!!

Did the verdict in the OJ murder trial so jade our perceptions of jury process that we now view every trial and every jury through this optic?  Did our perceptions of the actions of one jury cloud the public perception of our system, a beautiful system, that protects both the public from crime, and law abiding citizens from unwarranted legal consequences?  Was that jury even wrong, or was an investigation mishandled by over zealous detectives?

Whatever the explanation, it has affected us.  It has affected our perceptions.  In the Millenium, no hurdle lives without a diagnosis!  Post OJ Stress Disorder 

I think we need, as individuals, to go back to trusting our wonderful system of legal safeguards.  Judgement by a jury of our peers.  I want to believe...I will believe, dammit...that a slow verdict is a measure of a thoughtful jury, not a bad verdict.  A woman and an infant are dead and, boys and girls, that truly sucks.

But won't it suck more if with them dies the belief in the most beautifully designed judicial system on our planet?

What I'm going to write will irritate some folks.  I don't mean to be insensitive, nor do I mean to be uncaring.  Quite to the contrary, I mean to be kind...kind to the children of the future.

That being said, the recent story out of Gloucester has caused me to rethink how we, as a society, have gotten to the point that 17 girls, from 17 families in one community could have such a cavalier attitude toward parenting, and toward the future of children.  How, in the Name of God, have we gotten here?  This is not a story of a "bad family" or a "bad school" or a "bad community."  This is the story of a "bad policy" put into place with good intentions.

Our present welfare policy is failed, ladies and gentlemen.  It is the proximate cause of the problem in Gloucester and across the country.  By paying directly, with our tax dollars, for having babies (Aid to the Families of Dependent Children - AFDC - "Welfare"), we have created what has become the largest cottage industry in the country, having children and collecting AFDC to support them.  And with that industry, we are supporting the destruction of the lives of hundreds of thousands of children and the potential demise of our society as we know it.

Here's the math:  to make AFDC work, a woman has to have 4 children.  Then, a single mother can afford an apartment (Section 8) and have enough money for a nice car.  She can afford babysitting (subsidized daycare) and can buy jewelry and have her nails done professionally.  Unfortuantely, that causes a generational problem.  One lifetime (important word here, I'm not referring to those respectable women who find themselves pregnant, by mistake and use AFDC as a springboard to self sufficiency) AFDC recipient becomes 4 teenagers who have no working role model, nor a parent who understnad show to get a job and be successful.  Those 4 become 16 in the next generation and 256 in the third.....even if a modest number of these children "make it" by learning sefl sufficiency outside their own families, we still have a logarithmic crisis.

Do we want to do this?  I doubt it.  Is this kind to children?  I don't think so.  Is our goal to create foolish and unsuccessful children and adults?  Not likely. But we are.

What we need to do is think of children first;  we need to place the happiness  and, more so, the convenience of, parents a distant second.  We need to expect that each child will have a parent (preferably two) who is an excellent role model.  One of the minimal standards of being an excellent parent is holding down a job and supporting yourself and your children.  Any less is unacceptable.

At the same time as we have this crisis...the crisis I call "Childbirth as a Cottage Industry"....we have another.  We have thousands of couples who are childless.  Childlessness is the result of many factors, but we have "a gazillion" successful folks who are importing third world babies so that they can be parents.

What would happen if we time-limited AFDC?  What would happen if we made having employment (one parent) be a minimal standard of being a parent?  What if we set in motion a child welfare policy that took from parents their parental rights if one parent wasn't supporting his/her child?

Wouldn't both children and society be better off?

Buried in the midst of a news report replete with fire and death, was a heartwarming story that was easily "missable" for it's brevity.

Yesterday, at the Kennedy Library in Dorchester, David Ortiz, with many others became naturalized citizens. In his spare time, between playing, training and doing superhuman amounts of charity work on behalf of children, he found the time and effort to take the classes, take the test and become a naturalized citizen.

David Ortiz, like his fellow teammate and naturally born Dominican native Manny Ramirez, are what are called LEGAL IMMIGRANTS. They are the finest examples of American citizens, one who came legally and chose their citizenship.

Hat's off, Papi. You have humbled an old white guy born here, not with your prowess with your bat, but with your dedication to OUR (yours and mine) country. And for that I thank you.

As I watched the news this morning, I was hit with the images of a fire on the pier in Boston.  Alarms were struck overnight, seven of them, for a fire at the James Hook Lobster Co. at the corner of Atlantic and Northern Aves.  As I watched all the raised ladders and flowing ladder pipes, I harkened back to a day in June in 1994.  Nine alrams were struck that day, and at the end of the day a valiant Boston Fire Lieutenant was dead.  I remember the day well, both with deep sadness and enormous pride.  I was saddened, as I have too frequently been, by the death of one of my brethren.  But I was proud, deeply proud or the tradition Lt. Stephen Minehan carried to his grave.  His was a story of bravery, sacrifice, courage and most importantly loyalty.

That day, fire crews were summoned to a stubborn blaze on the pier in Charlestown.  A vacant warehouse was on fire.  It was extremely difficult to get to, since it was rally just a sturcture built on a pier.  Fire crews were sent into the building to search for occupants.  Homeless people sleep in abandoned warehouses.  They did in Worcester in 1999, too.  Six of my brethren died that night....

When no occupants were found, fire operations continued inside the burning building because it was extremely difficult to fight it from outside, due to the fact that it was on the pier.  As fire conditions deteriorated, two Boston Jakes became trapped in the building.  Due to intense smoke conditions, firefighters Terrence Jones and Darrell Johnson were trapped in the building.  On arrival, crews for Boston  Ladder 15 from the Prudential Center station were sent into the building to search for and rescue the two trapped firefighters.  Both men were rescued. As an aside, both of these firefighters were black. The Lieutenant who commanded Ladder 15 died saving his brethren.  For the record, Stevie Minehan was a white Irish Catholic kid from Dorchester.  In the fire service, neither race nor gender affects loyalty...not one iota.  Stevie Minehan proved that.

As we discuss issues like pensions and sick time.  As we discuss issues like drug and alcohol use and testing.  As we discuss union contracts and pay rates, let us remember this: The images we see on our television of fire crews in action are the faces of courage and dedication.  They are the faces of commitment and loyalty.

Their dedication is to each other and to you.  Their courage and loyalty have no racial or ethnic bounds and do not factor in socio-economics.  Be angry with the system if you will; I certainly am.  But don't be angry with the men and women who show up every day for you.

After listening, not too happily I might add, to the debate on teen pregnancy and the clinic at Gloucester High, I felt compelled to give a more comprehensive opinion.  I simply do not believe that teen pregnancy is caused, or cured, by disseminating birth control in schools.

Three decades ago, we began a policy of compassion, in an attempt to do away with poverty.  With noble national aspirations, we embarked on a welfare policy that has grown to gargantuan proportions today.  It was noble, and it was caring.  No child should be left hungry, and no mother should be left unable to care for her child.  No person should be left without income to support his/her family, and no family should feel the keen pain of economic hardship.  We designed, with these principles, the Welfare System we know today.

Unfortunately, in the process of loving our fellow man, we missed one important point.  It is the direct consequences of our behavior, both good and bad, that shapes that our behavior.  In our zeal to be kind, we built a system that robs people of the most important building block of human learning....consequences.

Now, we have an epidemic of teen pregnancy.  We "need" to have birth control immediately available (no consequences).  We need to have clincis in our schools (no consequences).  We have a day care center (no consequences).  We NEED these things, because parents aren't stepping up to the plate (no consequences).

Folks, all the birth control pills on the planet will not cure this epidemic.  Why's that, you ask?  Because it is not an epidemic of teen pregnancy.  It is an epidemic of poor behavioral control, created by a well intentined, yet tragically flawed, Welfare philosophy that robs our children, as it robbed their parents, of the most precious thing in life, a firm understanding of what makes you successful, and what makes you a failure, based on the direct consequences of what you do.

Yesterday, Massachusetts passed the most watered down version of "Jessica's Law" in the country.  We now have the weakest penalties for child rape in the country....great.  If the reports are true, this bill actually LESSENS some penalties for child rapists.  did you know that Massachusetts was the last state to pass a Sex Offender Registry statute?

Then I watch Martha Coakley, the Attorney General of the Commonwealth, at a podium saying it is hard on perpetrators who use weapons in the commission of child rape.  Weapons in the commission of child rape...  The most prevalent weapon used in child rape is candy for God sake.  Our most senior law enforcement officer in the commonwealth is handing us this drivel.

If you were a child molester, where would YOU settle?  Where would you chose to live?  The price just went down at the freakin' candy store...

Then, I listen to Mike Beaudet report that there are no less than 400 people who have warrants for their arrest for felonies and misdemeanors are receiving direct cash assistance from the Department of Transitional Assistance, and 2500 are receiving food stamps.  Good Lord have Mercy....Now we're paying them to live here?

Massachusetts is simply a Maggot Magnet....

This evening God looked favorably on our family and took our son to Boston with his girlfriend's father, and our daughter to a friend's house overnight.  I called my wife and we decided to meet at the restaurant in town for dinner.  After dropping off our daughter, I got to the restaurant considerably earlier than she would be arriving.  I went in the lounge, sat by the fire and ordered a Diet Coke.  At the table in front of me were two people in uniform, a man and a woman.  I drank my Coke, watched people and a bit of the sports on the TV.

The woman in front of me got up, leavng the man in uniform (BDU's).  I tried to see his rank insignia.  They've put it in a different place since my days....and saw "three up and three down".  But I saw something else.  In my usual forward way, I asked him, "Is that a diamond stuck in there?"  He smiled and said, "Yes it is.  You have previous service?"  I acknowledged I had " a hundred years ago", and told him it was along time since I had been in the presence of a "Sar-Major"..  He pointed out that, in fact I had been in the presence of TWO!!

"My wife has something in the middle of hers too." he said.  Being my usual fresh self, I said, "So who's the boss?"  "She is." he said.  I smiled and said, "Back in the day, it was if the boss was a Major or a Lt. Col...."  He said, "No, she's really the boss."

When she returned, I looked at her insignia...it held a STAR in its center.  I was now in the presence of both a Sergeant Major AND a Command Sergeant Major.  She indeed WAS the boss....and the highest ranking enlisted person in the United States Army.

They introduced themselves, and as we were exchanging pleasantries, their bill was brought over by the waitress.  I grabbed it and said I'd buy them dinner.  Both protested. "Sir, you don't have to do that."  "I know I don't.  I want to; it is my privelege, not my duty."

"I want you to understand how deeply appreciative I am for what you are doing for my family.  I ask only one thing in return.  Please tell your troops that we love them, and appreciate what they are doing for us.  And let them know an "old guy" wants them to know this because they are beginning to read in the papers things he used to read so many years ago."

"Yes sir.  We don't learn from history well, do we?  I'll tell them that.  They will appreciate it."

They thanked me and said they hoped to see me again in that restaruant...they were from he next town.  When my wife arrived, I told her the story.  When I said I bought their dinner, her smile couldn't have been more radiant.  "Good"  I was proud of my wife, and proud of my country....and I'm still shaking my head....I need to catch up...

She was the boss....