Speeches, Ridiculously Long Shots, and Children in Peril

Josh

For many centuries, public speeches were looked forward to and enjoyed the way we look forward to the next Harry Potter film today. A speech could be as entertaining as a play and much more easy to come by. One of the things I enjoyed most about History as a child was the many quotations from great speeches which showed up in all those biogs I used to read. I think that I had a fair idea of what a really polished and capable speaker was before I ever took that eighth/ninth grade speech class in which I first met Terry A. Lindsay.

I have a bunch of books which contain nothing but speeches. I don't really see how a person could teach History without such things. I used to read the Patrick Henry speech to my kids, as well as Pericles' Funeral Oration (selections,) the Fourth of July Speech from 1856 by Frederick Douglass, selections from the Webster/Hayne debate and the Lincoln/Douglas debates, and lots of other plums of spoken language which moved people and accomplished things. I've always loved speeches.

I still do. That is the main reason why I sat through the President's speech tonight. I was impressed. Favorably. Darn it! I rather like the fellow. He is a polished speaker. He might be almost as good as the greats of American history. In the fullness of time, he might prove to be every bit as good as them. As a speaker, I mean. He handled a sincerely angry heckler tonight with dignity and seeming sincerity.

That's the thing that got to me most. He really seems to believe that he can pull all this stuff off. I don't believe he can, but I don't think I can doubt the sincerity of his belief that he can any more. He spoke tonight about things that I'd been wanting and even longing to hear from an American leader for many years. Although the subject was health care, he referred pointedly to "civility" in American politics, a thing which has been lacking for a long time and most especially during the last several Presidential elections. If you know my mother, and most of you do, you know that courtesy and civility were paramount in her home. If you know my father, you know that he is the soul of decency and respectful communication. Therefore, these things have come to matter a great deal to those of us who were raised under their roof(s.) (We moved around a lot.) And that's why it touched me so much to hear Mr. Obama speak of this subject so appealingly and even, I think, persuasively.

There were times tonight when I believe the President actually had the nation entranced. There was a kind of awe-stricken hush (after the heckler subsided) for a long period of the speech. He was talking about things he believed would make the nation better, and he got others to share his dream, if only for a few minutes. That is the power of public speech. And that is why this president chooses to deliver speeches a bit more often than some others of recent memory have done. He knows that it is his chief strength as a leader. He can inspire people to hope for things in which they don't even believe.

Don't take this to mean that I'm changing parties. Far from it. I don't think I even have a party right now. For a couple of decades I've believed the Democrats to be fundamentally wrong-headed and the Republicans to be fundamentally cowardly in not fighting them more effectively. But the man can speak. Yessiree! There have been speakers like that throughout human history. Some were very good, even godly in their mission and intent. Others were the foulest kind of self-effaced children of God. Being able to move a crowd is a great power. It's a thrill and is a bit addictive. For some people it seems to come almost too easily. Adolf Hitler moved hundreds of thousands to tears of joy when he described the glorious future he had planned for the Fatherland. Their poverty would end. Their national shame and humiliation after the Treaty of Versailles would be but an unpleasant memory. They would be great again. Yeah. Right.

I think that I like Mr. Obama a little more now. I can at least believe that he believes. I suppose he won me over that much. But it was just today that I received an email (not yet passed through Snopes) which says that we will have to list our firearms on our income tax returns. It sounds absurd, but then a lot of things these days sound absurd. Some of them are just that. Silly. False. Made up. But how can I not at least listen to such a warning when persons like Mr. Obama, Sen. Feinstein, and Sen. Schumer are in power? They have dedicated their lives to such dangerous stunts. They are simply not to be trusted, at least on the Second Amendment and other parts of the Bill of Rights which protect us from having too much government with too much power.

Enough of that. Aric Armell and I have been having lots of fun lately. We go out for 2-4 hours at a time and try to hit milk jugs and steel gongs at long range with .22s! A couple of weeks ago we found that we could make fairly consistent hits on targets at 200 yards. With .22s! So we tried it at 300. Yes, the rate of success fell off a bit, but we still got lots of hits, many more than we'd thought possible. The scopes wouldn't adjust high enough for 400 yard shooting, so we had to start verbally describing to each other just how much we were holding over the target. It would sound like this: "OK, on this shot I'm holding the lower duplex reticle's point at the top of the big juniper behind the target, maybe a few inches above it actually, and I'm holding the vertical crosshair about one gong width left of the gong, because of the wind." And despite all the preparations and considerations, the shot might land a gong width to the right and six feet short of it! But just trying it was tremendously fun.

Yesterday and today we were shooting at a steel gong and a 2 gallon water jug which were at a
"lazed" (measured with a laser range finder) 525 yards. I hit the gong ONCE today. It was a thrill. I could barely make out the little metallic clang which came back to me long after the sound of the shot had died away. And the bullet had lost so much energy by the time it reached the gong that it couldn't dent it at all. It just sort of flaked off some of the paint we'd put on today. With Aric's .22 Mag we hit the gong about 7 times.

Now for the third topic of this post. Josh. He turns 23 on the 12th, but he'll be driving back to New York by that time, so we celebrated his birthday tonight with pizza and pumpkin pie. Those were his choices. Soon he'll be deployed to Iraq along with the entire 10th Mountain Division from Fort Drum, NY.

We're trying not to worry too much. After all, he works in the motor pool. He should be safe. But his secondary job is "SAW gunner."

The "SAW" ("Squad Automatic Weapon") is a light machine gun which shoots the same round that the M-16 and M-4 typically use, 5.56mm NATO. Its civilian name is .223 Remington. Its cyclic rate (push the cartridge into the chamber, fire it, extract it, eject it, and replace it with another cartridge) is very fast. He loves it. But, despite my admiration for such technology, I find myself hoping that he'll be bored to tears in the motor pool for the whole year. That he won't see any "action" at all. That he'll come home the same cocky, annoying little braggart he's always been, with no extra apertures or orifices in his hairy little body. That's the essence of what we're praying for. Perhaps you could join us in that from time to time. We'd appreciate it.