A week from today…

…the polls will be closing across the United States and we’ll be deciding what fork in the road this country is deciding to take.

It has been a nasty season.

General-in-chief Trump has now ordered troops to the Mexican border to “protect” us from a few thousand mostly women and children, some of whom may reach the border area perhaps a month from now.

A few weeks ago, Oct. 3, when they were testing the telephone Emergency Alert warning system – I was in a restaurant when all the phones in the restaurant went off simultaneously – I was wondering what the first crisis under the latest version of this system would be.

Well, this is it.  The phones weren’t necessary because General Trump has been threatening it on his campaign stops which are amply covered by the media.

As Trump likes to say, “very sad”.  Huge amount of national resources, financial and otherwise, wasted on a fake crisis.

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Back on October 22, 1962 – it was a Monday – I was an Army Private at Ft. Carson CO, and President Kennedy was addressing the nation.  I was 21.  It was a crucial point in the Cuban Missile Crisis.  We watched the President on Mess Sergeants Stubbs 9″ black and white TV.  It is one of those memories which has never left me.

Thirteen days in October, 1962, was a time of real danger.

The photo (above) and Cuba002 is what we read in our barracks the following day.  We were stationed just a few miles from a major target of those missiles, the NORAD facility on Cheyenne Mountain – a mountain we saw most every day.

The day we heard President Kennedy speak was the end of the 7th day of the crisis.  The crisis ended Sunday October 22.  We never had to leave our base, though we were prepared to do so.

We had experienced a legitimate crisis.

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Now we’re engaged in a fake crisis with an immense public cost in money and national reputation – all to buy votes based on fear and hatred.

The man with the microphone threatens to attempt to amend the Constitution on his own, declaring children born on our soil to non-citizens to be unwelcome here.  It is not the childs fault to have been born here, and, of course, the child is defenseless.

We are a nation of immigrants.  There likely have been millions of first children of immigrants who were not citizens here when their child was born.

Everyone of my family ancestors came from elsewhere to North America.  That is the story for most of us.

Next week is a referendum on our values as a nation.

Don’t waste your opportunity to cast a ballot for your and our future as a nation, and the future of everyone who comes after us.

Ft. Carson Colorado 1962, my barracks a couple of blocks from this end of the base; Cheyenne Mountain and Pike’s Peak area in background.

POSTNOTE:  Squirrel Hill, overnight.

POSTNOTE TWO: Back in October, 1962, I had only recently turned 22 and was a little older than many of my colleague GIs.  We knew nothing about the Cuban Missile Crisis until President Kennedy went on television.  Before that, the efforts to deescalate had all been diplomatic.  The rest of the week was a little busier than usual in our companies, but not all that much.  We never went anywhere.

My fellow citizens from that era are all in their 70s or older now.  It seems that it is our generation that is most prone to fear and resentment of immigrants…for no good reason at all.

POSTNOTE THREE Nov, 2, 2018: Bad Always Getting Worse, Just Above Sunset, overnight.