There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight

The song posted at the link below came to mind the other day due to an event that has been occurring in our area this week:

the 1958 version of an OLD song

The first clue that I had that something was amiss came at a little after noon on Wednesday, when Sharon stopped by the high school where I was working in order to bring me home. As it turns out, a small campfire had grown out of control near Slide Rock State Park north of Sedona on the afternoon of the 20th, and by noon the next day, fire department officials had declared a “pre-evacuation order” for the subdivision that we live in. After attending an informational meeting at the local fire station, we rushed home and packed up our important papers, some pictures, some clothing, our cat, and my trusty computer, and by 4:00, we were heading east to spend the night at a friend’s house in Doney Park.

Due to the rugged terrain near Sedona, (see picture below) putting firemen on the ground to fight the fire was difficult, which led to a rapid escalation in the size of the fire. At the break of dawn on the 21st, the fire had consumed 450 acres. By the time the sun set later on in the day, the fire had spread to 4500 acres, and by the morning of the 24th, it had consumed 10,000 acres. Fire officials estimate that by the time the fire is finally extinguished, 25,000 acres will have been burned.

To date, 20 separate fire departments from around the state have rushed to the area in order to fight the fire. If you looked hard enough, you could probably find the guy pictured below among the 900 firemen on the ground.

Due to the fact that the fire suppression techniques on the north end of the blaze had largely eliminated the possibility that the fire would reach our house, we moved back home again on the afternoon of the 22nd.

As is true with most fires, the mess that we now have in Sedona was caused by humans. Last week’s fires in San Diego were caused by an arsonist, who has since been arrested. By the time the 10 separate blazes had been extinguished, 10,000 acres had been burned, causing more than $20,000,000 in damage and at least one death.

Arizona and California, incidentally, are 2 of the 7 states in America that are literally running out of water.

Even without direct involvement in the fires, though, the human race is INDIRECTLY responsible for the increasing severity of the fires that occur every year in our country. Not everyone is a believer in global warming (more on that later) but the 40 years of data from the link below strongly suggest that it’s the reason that fires have been getting more dangerous every year.

fun fire facts

For nearly all of the last 30 years, the NUMBER of fires has been remarkably consistent, ranging from 50,000 to roughly 80,000 in most years. What HAS changed is the average size of the fires, in terms of acres burned.

In 1973, the average fire consumed 16 areas.

In 1983, the average fire size was 72 acres.

In 1993, the average fire had dropped to 30 acres, but increased to an average of 51 acres the following year.

In 2003, average fire size had increased to 62 acres, but by 2012 (the most recent year available) the average fire size was 137 acres.

Whether you believe in global warming or not is (obviously) dependent on the news sources that you rely on for your information. Most people would regard NASA to be a credible source of information about climate change due to the fact that the organizations has “eyes in the sky” at all times. According to NASA, the main cause of the current global warming trend is the human expansion of the “greenhouse effect”, and their opinion is shared by the United Nations, whose Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (comprised of 1300 independent experts from countries around the world) has concluded that there’s more than a 90% probability that human activities over the last 250 years have warmed the planet.

Unfortunately, the leading cable channel in America is FOX “news”, whose viewers are subjected to a constant stream of climate change denial, and a recent headline helps to explain why. On April 9, FOX published an article with the headline “UN finding on climate change is just a bunch of hot air, new report claims”. Even though the article pointed out that the report had been published by the conservative (and unreliable) Heartland Institute, and actually referenced the UN report in the article, a large percentage of the audience is likely to simply stop at the headline, and read no further.

Believe it or not, there ARE news sources that are even goofier than FOX. The ultra conservative Personal Liberty Digest believes that "the theory of man made global warming is based on spurious science, phony statistics, and outright lies".

Sadly, the remedy for improving our climate is a political one, and it’s going to be very difficult to achieve, largely due to the fact that the 113th Congress is officially the worst Congress in the last 40 years.

The House Science, Space, and Technology Committee has spent more time holding hearings (15) on the existence of extraterrestrial life than on the repercussions of climate change (2 hearings). The chairman of the committee, Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, has a long track record of climate change denial, and several committee members have similar attitudes. Committee member James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin has called climate change “a massive international scientific fraud” and committee member Paul Broun of Georgia, a young Earth creationist, believes that the world was created in six days as we know them.

Other House committees that are responsible for addressing U.S energy and environmental issues have been equally negligent. The House Energy and Commerce Committee has held only one hearing on climate change, and the House Natural Resources Committee has yet to take up the issue in the 113th Congress.

On top of all that, on Thursday of this week, 227 Republicans (and 4 Democrats) in the House of Representatives voted for an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would prevent the Pentagon from spending money to carry out the policy recommendations from the National Climate Assessment report that was released by the Obama administration earlier this month, or from several United Nations reports on climate change and sustainability. Although the amendment is unlikely to survive, it’s a clear indication of the mindset of an awful lot of people in Congress.

In case you’re wondering, the United States Department of Defense is one of the largest single consumers of energy in the entire world, and it’s responsible for 93% of all U.S. Government fuel consumption. The new solar panels that were installed at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base earlier this year are a step in the right direction (they’ll save an estimated $500,000 a year in energy costs) , but the Defense Department still has a long ways to go. Fortunately, the military is smarter than the members of Congress. According to retired Air Force General Donald Hoffman, "it is not possible to discuss the future of national and international security without addressing climate change". As further proof of the intelligence of our Armed Services, our Navy has actually figured out a way to turn seawater into fuel.

I’m normally not one to tell people how to vote, but it’s pretty clear (to me, at least) that we need to elect as many Democrats as possible in both 2014 and 2016 in order to protect our country’s interests.

The President had tried, without success, to move a climate change bill through Congress in his first term, and such legislation would now stand no chance of getting past the resistance of Republican lawmakers who question the science of climate change. As a result, Mr. Obama is taking a controversial step - he is using his executive authority under the 1970 Clean Air Act to issue an E.P.A. regulation taking aim at coal-fired power plants, the nation’s largest source of carbon pollution. Ironically, the "cap and trade" program that would pay for the costs of the new pollution controls were put into place at the state level at least 5 years ago by two Republican governors, Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Arnold Schwarznegger of California.

Despite predictions that the new regulations will kill the coal industry, the coal plant in Homer City, Pennsylvania, is proof that pollutants can be reduced substantially without causing the loss of jobs or the closure of coal plants. Currently one of the dirtiest coal plants in the country, within a few years the plant will have reduced sulfur dioxide pollution to a level 80% below its current production, with no loss of jobs or increases in electrical bills.

The United States currently gets 37% of its electricity from coal, the leading source of electrical generation. In contrast, China gets 69% of its electricity from coal, which leads to air quality like that in the picture below.

Not all Republicans are bad (unless you’re talking about the Tea Party), but there simply aren’t enough of them that are concerned about climate change. Of the 107 Republicans currently running for Senate, only one of them (Jim Rubens of New Hampshire) has declared that global warming exists, and that it is caused by human activity. The vast majority of the other 106 either ignored the issue entirely, or listed the reasons that they oppose environmental regulations more broadly.

The fight to stop the wildfire just south of our house is likely to continue for another 2 to 3 weeks, but the fight to save our planet is gong to be a never ending story, and it’s up to all of us to make sure that it has a happy ending.

Be sure to vote in November.

The ghost of Father Karras

Earlier this week, I was a substitute teacher for one of the teachers at Flagstaff High School, and provided assistance for three of her classes the day that I was there.

The most interesting class of the day was the first hour class, which was working on a budget plan related to their choice of careers. Future career choices included auto mechanic, fire fighter, Navy SWAT team, animal care, carpenter, and psychiatrist. The most intriguing career choice, however, was one that you don’t run across very often.

Exorcist.

As it turns out, there is a school in Denver, Colorado called the International School of Exorcism, and it was founded by noted cult and occult expert Bob Larson in 2012. In the last 30 years, Mr. Larson has performed more than 20,000 exorcisms, which would likely make him the number one exorcism expert in the world. In a nod to the electronic world, Mr. Larson recently has been offering exorcisms by Skype, and the suggested cost of a one hour exorcism is $295.

For most of us, our exposure to exorcism is due to the 1973 movie, The Exorcist, which was actually based on a true story, the 1949 exorcism case of a boy in Maryland named Roland Doe. Roland Doe, as you might suspect, was the pseudonym assigned by the Catholic church in order to protect the privacy of the family involved. The movie was extremely successful commercially, and was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, It eventually became one of the highest grossing films of all time, grossing over $441 million worldwide.

In the movie, the team of Father Lankester Merrin and Father Damien Karras are assigned to perform an exorcism on young Regan Burstyn (Linda Blair) , who looks more than a little scary in the movie.

Ultimately, Father Karras is forced to perform the exorcism alone, after the demon possessing the young girl manages to kill the elderly Father Merrin (played by Max von Sydow). Many people consider The Exodus to be the scariest movie off all time, and if you view the 5 minute clip posted below, I think that you’ll agree with that assessment:

how does she get her head to move like that?

The ritual of exorcism has been practiced for more than 2000 years, and it’s not limited to the ritual performed by members of the Catholic Church. Exorcisms have also been performed by Hindus, Muslims, and Jews, and the act of exorcism is mentioned in the Dead Sea scrolls, which go back as far as 400 B.C..

In general, the scientific community does not recognize possession as a valid psychiatric or medical condition, but there ARE those in the scientific community (notably Psychiatrist . M. Scott Peck) who believe otherwise. During the early years of the 20th Century, lobotomies (including surgery with an ice pick) were performed to rid the patient of what was considered to be a mental illness, but the practice of performing lobotomies has largely disappeared throughout most of the world.

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the occult, which caused the Vatican to offer a course in Satanism and exorcism starting in 2005. Dan Brown may be partially to blame, since The DaVinci Code has sold more than 80,000,000 copies since its release in 2003.

Satanism has become mainstream enough that a Harvard University student club recently announced plans to host a Satanic Black Mass on May 12th. Due to public outrage, and condemnation by the Archdiocese of Boston and the University’s President, the event was cancelled before it could occur.

I’m not a believer in giving people advice on their career choice, especially in view of the fact that most people will have more than one career in their lifetime (I’ve had 5, so far), but I’d likely recommend something other than being an exorcist.

For those who are still considering the career, they may wish to follow in the footsteps of Washington Post columnist Anthony Faiola, who recently traveled to the Vatican to witness an exorcism being performed by the Catholic Church’s best known exorcist, an 89 year old priest named Father Gabriele Amorth.

If they are still interested after that, my advice would be to feel free to move forward.

Have you ever wondered about Wonder bread ?

Like most of the folks who were growing up when The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet was still on prime time television (ABC network), I ate a lot of Wonder Bread, a brand that has been in existence since 1921, when it was created by a small Indiana bakery named Taggart Baking Company.

In 1925, the bakery was sold to Continental Baking, who retained ownership of the company until 1995, when Continental Baking was purchased by Interstate Baking Corporation, which later became Hostess Brands.

Hostess Brands filed for bankruptcy protection in November of 2012, and the United States portion of the company was purchased by Flowers Foods in January of 2013 (Weston Bakeries produces Wonder bread in Canada, and Grupo Bimbo produces Wonder bread in Mexico.)

Continental Baking was responsible for two major innovations during the company’s years of ownership. The first major innovation was that it was one of the very first bakeries to sell pre-sliced bread (in 1930). Its second major innovation came in the 1940’s, when the company began adding vitamins and minerals to its breads as part of a government-sponsored program to enrich white bread, Ultimately, the company was adding 12 vitamins and minerals to Wonder bread, which led to the creation of the slogan “helps build strong bodies 12 ways”. A 1956 ad from Life magazine will bring back a lot of memories for most of us:



I haven’t purchased Wonder bread for years, and probably for decades. My memory of the stuff was that it usually got stuck to the roof of my mouth, and I graduated to more substantial breads a long time ago.

Surprisingly, Wonder bread actually DOES offer good nutritional value, and a significant number of the wide variety of breads sold as Wonder Bread have nutritional values of either A or B:

is that stuff really good for you?

Wonder Bread was in the news recently, but not for reasons that you might expect. According to a recent article in the New York Times, the new owner of Wonder Bread, Flowers Foods, was rated as the most Republican-leaning company in the country. Since 1979, the company has given 99% of its political contributions to the Republican Party, a full 11% higher than the amount contributed by the ultra conservative Koch Industries.

If you’re a died-in-the-wool Democrat (like me) that kind of news is hard to swallow, but you actually wouldn’t accomplish much if you stopped buying the products sold by Flowers Foods. Sharon and I stopped buying Papa John’s pizzas a while back due to John Schnattner’s political affiliations and abysmal employee compensation, but the guy has a net worth of $600 million, so he obviously won’t miss our money very much.

Regardless of your political affiliation, however, there’s one thing that all of us can agree on, and that is that there’s simply too much dough in politics. It’s actually a wonder that our democracy works as well as it does.

Out of Africa

In theory, science and religion should be able to co-exist peacefully, but too often, that’s simply not the case. If you go back in history a few hundred years, you’ll discover that the astronomer Galileo Galilei was convicted of heresy by the Catholic Church in April of 1633 because he believed that the Earth revolved around the Sun. The Church, in contrast, had decided that the idea that the Sun revolved around the Earth was an absolute fact of scripture, and could not be disputed. The view of the Church was still its dogma in 1633, even though scientists had known for centuries that the earth was NOT the center of the universe.

As a result of the hearing before chief inquisitor Father Vincenzo da Firenzuola, Galileo agreed not to teach his “heresy” anymore, and he spent the rest of his life under house arrest. It took the Church more than 300 years (1992) to admit that it was wrong, and before they finally cleared Galileo of the heresy charge.

One of the modern arguments that pits religion against science is the discussion of how old the earth is, and there is a HUGE difference of opinion between the two interpretations of the issue.

Young Earth creationism is the religious belief that the Universe, Earth, and all life on earth began somewhere between 5700 and 10,000 years ago. According to Gallup polls, somewhere between 40 and 50 percent of the American population believe in Young Earth creationism.

For those who believe in the scientific view of the age of the Earth, scientific facts state that the Earth is at least 3.8 billion years old, and scientists have found ice in Antarctica that is roughly 1,000,000 years old. These facts are unlikely to change the opinion of the 30% of the American population who believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible.

Since there are large groups of people who can’t agree how old the Earth is, it’s pretty obvious that there isn’t going to be any agreement on how old the human race is.

Ken Ham, the founder of The Creation Museum, believes that the human race is less than 10,000 years old, and co-existed with dinosaurs (who actually disappeared 65,000,000 years ago). Although Mr. Ham was a high school science teacher for a brief period of time early in his career, he quickly switched to working for the Institute for Creation Research, which is a Young Earth creationist organization.

The most comprehensive discussion on the scientific viewpoint of the age of the human race was a 5 part series presented by Dr. Alice Roberts, and released by the BBC in 2009. In total, the series runs just under five hours, and can be viewed by clicking on the links below:

Part 1: (Africa)

Part 2: (Asia)

Part 3: (Europe)

Part 4: (Australia)

Part 5 (the Americas)

In addition to being a medical doctor, Dr. Roberts is an anatomist, osteoarachaelogist, anthropologist, paleopathologist, television presenter and author. In her spare time, she is professor of public engagement in science at the University of Birmingham in England).

It is her belief that modern home sapiens evolved from dark skinned humans that originated in modern day Ethiopia approximate 195,000 years ago. Although she briefly mentions the Neanderthal race in her video on Europe, she does not discuss even earlier versions of the genus Homo, which evolved around 2.3 million years ago.

To a very large degree, the series narrated by Dr. Roberts confirms the findings of an American geneticist and anthropologist named Spencer Wells, who published a book titled "The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey" in 2002. His book became a TV documentary in 2003.

You are free to believe whatever you want about the age of the Earth, or the age of the human race, but I’m of the opinion that Dr. Roberts’ version of things is a lot closer to the truth than the opinion held by Ken Ham. If we really ARE all descended from dark skinned people in Eastern Africa, then it makes absolutely no sense to criticize our fellow humans because of their skin color or their national origin. Unfortunately, the bigotry that was very evident in Little Rock in 1957 still exists today, it’s just a little more subtle. In some states, it’s known as Voter ID laws, but it takes other forms as well.

I wish that we could forever keep religion and science separate, but when you add politics into the mix, we’re all faced with a virtually impossible situation, one that our African ancestors never had to deal with. Fortunately, we can, and the best place to start is the Big Bang theory, which theorizes that the universe started out with a "Big Bang" more than 13 billion years ago. The "father" of the Big Bang theory is a Catholic priest named Georges Lemaitre.

Do you believe in the Easter bunny?

At our weekly Thursday evening dinner this week, one of our fellow diners asked how the Easter bunny and Easter eggs came to be related to the celebration of Easter.

After a little research, I discovered that they actually have no relation at all. Like both Christmas and St. Valentine’s Day, all three dates are tied to pagan celebrations. Christmas, of course, is closely related to the pagan holiday of Saturnalia, and St. Valentine’s Day is closely related to the pagan festival of love, which is called Lupercalia.

According to the University of Florida’s Center for Children’s Literature and Culture, the origin of the Easter Bunny can be traced back to pre-Christian 13th Century Germany, when people worshipped several gods and goddesses. The Teutonic deity Eostra was the goddess of spring and fertility, and feasts were held on her honor on the vernal equinox. Her symbol was the rabbit, due to the animal’s high reproduction rate. The Old English version of her name, Eostre, translates into modern English as Easter, and is derived from the old Germanic word austron, which means “dawn”. By no small coincidence, the Greek goddess of dawn is named Eos.

Spring has long symbolized new life and rebirth, and eggs are an ancient symbol of fertility.

The first Easter Bunny legend was documented in the 1500’s. By 1680, the first story about rabbits laying eggs and hiding them in a garden was published. conveniently ignoring the fact that rabbits give birth like humans, and do not lay eggs. The legends of the Easter bunny and the eggs came to America in the 1700’s, when German immigrants settled in Pennsylvania Dutch country in Pennsylvania.

If you dig a little deeper, though, you’ll discover that the pagan celebration of Easter goes back a lot further than 13th century Germany. As a matter of fact, the celebration actually goes back to the time of Noah, who was born somewhere between 2700 and 2800 B.C.. Appropriately enough, the true origins of the festival start with his son Ham. It’s a long and complicated tale, and the full details can be found by reading the details posted at the link below:

when did Easter REALLY start?

The short version of the story, though, is this:

During the later years of Noah’s life, the pagans celebrated a festival called Ishtar (which is pronounced Easter) . Officially, the festival commemorated the resurrection of their god Tammuz, who was the only begotten son of the moon goddess and the sun god.

Tammuz was especially fond of rabbits, which became sacred in the ancient religions. Like his father, he was an avid hunter. One day, while hunting rabbits, he was killed by a wild pig. To commemorate his death, his mother (Queen Ishtar) proclaimed a 40 day time of sorrow each year prior to the anniversary of his death. Every year, on the first Sunday after the vernal equinox, a celebration of his life was held, and was celebrated with rabbits and eggs. Due to the fact that he was killed by a pig, Queen Ishtar proclaimed that a pig must be eaten on that day.

The practice of decorating eggs, surprisingly, goes back in time even further, since ostrich eggs with decorations that are 60,000 years old have been found in Africa.

The Christian celebration of Easter also has a long history, but it doesn’t go back as far as you may think. Early Christians, in fact, continued to celebrate the Jewish festival of Passover. It wasn’t until the time of the Nicaea Council (in 325 A.D.) that the Catholic church ruled that Easter Sunday would be celebrated on the first Sunday immediately following the full moon which came after the vernal equinox.

At some point in time (possibly as early as the 15th Century) , the pagan symbols of rabbits and eggs merged with the Christian celebration of Easter, which is why we now have the Easter bunny and Easter eggs.

Due to today’s political correctness, I’ve actually seen newspaper ads for “spring bunnies”. Although they are technically correct, I don’t have a problem with anyone who wants to call them Easter bunnies. After all, I also believe in the Easter bunny, and I’ve got an awful lot of company.

Baseball’s holy ground

Set aside the cares of the world for a few minutes, and imagine yourself in the “friendly confines” of a major league baseball stadium.

The smell of freshly cut grass, the crack of a bat, the roar of the crowd, and the taste of a ball park hot dog can chase away a lot of tension, and make you believe (at least for a while) the words intoned by James Earl Jones in the movie “Field of Dreams”:

“it reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again”.

the master speaks

The very next scene in this movie, incidentally, may well bring a tear to your eye, because that is exactly what happened to me when I watched it again:

Doc Graham comes to the rescue

I’ve watched major league baseball games at Met Stadium in Minneapolis (before it got torn down to become the Mall of America), Milwaukee County Stadium in Milwaukee (before it got replaced by Miller Park) , and at the “old” and the “new” Comiskey Park (now called U.S. Cellular Field) in Chicago. I’ve even been to the actual field of dreams, in Dyersville, Iowa. However, my favorite professional stadium is Wrigley Field in Chicago, the second oldest major league stadium in professional baseball.

Although the oldest ball park in the country (Fenway Park) has been called “a shrine” by former Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee, it literally is true that Wrigley Field is “sacred ground”. Obviously, that statement requires more explanation, as well as a little baseball history.

For starters, the original location of Wrigley Field wasn’t even in Chicago - it was in south Los Angeles. The stadium opened in 1925, and was named for William Wrigley, Jr., who owned the first tenants of the stadium, the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League. After the Pacific Coast league folded, the field was used for a variety of other purposes, and it became the home stadium for the American League Los Angeles Angels in their 1961 inaugural season.

After their first season, the Angles moved to Dodger Stadium, and Wrigley Field, once again, was put to other uses (including a 1963 civil rights rally featuring Martin Luther King Jr.). Demolition on the ball field started in March of 1969 to make way for a new recreation facility, which is now host to Wrigley little league baseball and softball.

The professional baseball park that opened in Chicago in 1914 was named Weegham Field, and was the home field of the Chicago Whales of the Federal League.

A year later, the Federal League folded, which led the Whales owner to form a syndicate with William Wrigley Jr. to buy the Chicago Cubs from Charles P. Taft. Mr. Weegham immediately moved the Cubs from their existing location to his new stadium, William Wrigley bought controlling interest in the club in 1918, and the team’s home field was called Cubs Park from 1920 through 1926, when it was renamed Wrigley Field.

Before Weegham Field was built, however, the property that is bounded by Clark, Waveland, Sheffield, and Addison was owned by a land developer named Joseph Sheffield. It eventually was purchased by Lutheran minister William Passavant, who build St. Mark’s Lutheran Church on the site. Passavant’s dream, though, was to build a seminary, and the Chicago Lutheran Theological Seminary opened its doors in 1891. By 1910, the seminary outgrew the property, and the property was sold to Charles Havenor, who owned a minor league baseball team in Milwaukee. Havenor’s dream of a major league baeball club in Chicago never bore fruit, and the location was leased to Charles Weegham in 1913, and now you know “the rest of the story”.

The start of the 2014 professional base ball season actually started on March 22, when the Arizona Diamondbacks played the Los Angeles Dodgers in Sydney, Australia. The North American part of the season will start today, March 30.

Since baseball is a sport that is long on tradition, the 2014 season won’t bring any major changes to the sport. Due to political correctness, though, you’ll no longer see either one of the symbols shown below:

Chief Wahoo, long the logo for the Cleveland Indians, will be replaced by a logo that looks something like this:

The pirate logo for the Pittsburgh Pirates will be replaced by the gold “P” that is already on their caps.

The Cubs, though, are true believers of tradition ( Wrigley Field was the last major league stadium to get lights), and will wear commemorative patches to mark the 100th anniversary of their home field.

What are you waiting for? Buy your tickets NOW !!

The Medal of Honor

Medal of Honor Day is celebrated each year on March 25th, a fact I likely would not have known if I hadn’t stopped to buy stamps recently at the Post Office. I liked the look of the Medal of Honor stamp that the Post Office recently issued, and bought the very last sheet that they had.

There are actually three different designs for the Medal of Honor, which is the highest award for valor in the Armed Services of the United States. The Army, Navy, and Air Force have their own distinct medals, and the Marines receive the Navy version of the medal.

The Navy version is shown below:

The official website for the Congressional Medal of Honor Society can be found at the link below:

Congressional Medal of Honor Society

The Medal of Honor was created in 1861, early in the American Civil War, to give recognition to men who distinguished themselves "conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity" in combat with an enemy of the United States. Up until very recently, there were 3468 recipients of the medal, and more than half were presented to participants in the Civil War. Due to its prestige and status, the Medal of Honor is afforded special protection under U.S. law against any unauthorized adornment, sale, or manufacture, which includes any associated ribbon or badge.

Just a few days ago, President Obama presented 24 Medals of Honor to 24 vets, but 21 of those medals were awarded posthumously. The three surviving veterans were Jose Rodela, Mevlin Morris, and Santiago Erevia, all of whom were Vietnam vets. All 24 of the vets who qualified for the medal were ethnic or minority troops (Hispanics, Jews, and African-Americans) and may have been overlooked previously due to their minority status.

I served my time in the military during the Vietnam War, but six years in the National Guard was pretty easy duty compared to what the 24 vets who were recently honored endured.

When you run into a vet today, the least you can do is to tell him “thanks”, even if all he did was serve in the motor pool. He’s still helping to defend our freedom, and ALL of our vets deserve better treatment than the returning G.I.’s got in 1975, as the war in Vietnam finally came to a close.