"What fates impose, that men must needs abide; It boots not to resist both wind and tide." Henry VI

Not that I'm any great historian or philosopher or seer but I believe the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States was the most astounding event in the history of the world. And after all, my blogs are simply a record of my own opinions, and my skill in having opinions goes back a millennium ago to when I was five. But Obama's election was more incredible than an asteroid wiping out the dinosaurs; more unimaginable than Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt; more stunning than the assassination of Julius Caesar; more unbelievable than Israel winning a six day war against millions of Arabs; more impossible than the Greeks overcoming the Trojans with a wooden horse; more awe inspiring than landing a man on the moon; more implausible than knocking down the Berlin wall; more inconceivable than Hannibal leading elephants across the Alps; more improbable than my book becoming a best seller. And now that I have exhausted the thesaurus, perhaps there is an answer to this event of the centuries.

When television broadcasts projected and announced that Obama had won the election, millions of people--not only here--but around the globe were dissolved in tears. A man of color, a black man, an African-American had somehow become the President of the United States in a country where men like him had once been slaves and where minorities like him had suffered discrimination and prejudice since the Emancipation Proclamation. How is it then, that Obama was nominated to run, let alone win the election? Is it because the country was fed up with George Bush and the Republican party? If so, why not a white nominee?

Why not Hillary Clinton? Is it because Obama has a mesmerizing charisma? A hypnotic style of speech? His ability to raise millions of dollars from public contributions? Will anyone ever know how this all happened? Will the answer ever pop out of Pandora's box along with her economic evils? Yes. Perhaps in years to come, but not right now. Am I happy with the result of the election? Yes, very much so--and I'm hopeful that Obama will be able to fulfill the dreams that Americans have in him. And for those whose hopes rose and fell with John McCain, perhaps they will support and board Obama's train.

Barack Obama--President of the United States. Wow!

I admit that when the news reported that Barack Obama would become our next President, I didn't know how to react. I just felt a great sigh of relief, for I truly felt that this marvelous man would energize this country and bring Americans of all persuasions, races, color, religions or otherwise together as they never have been in the past. We must follow the beacon of equality and freedom that the founding fathers left burning for us until our country is truly--America, the greatest democracy in the history of the world--and the world has a very long history. I did happen to read in today's newspaper that a Haitian-American woman said she should now be known as an American-Haitian. And so why not just a plain American? Obama's election has electrified the world. It has been a fortunate occurrence that, in the past, when countries are suffering from great and debilitating events that a great leader appears on the scene. Lincoln appeared, saved the Union, and signed the Emancipation Proclamation; FDR and Winston Churchill appeared in WWII to counteract the madness of Adolf Hitler, and Benito Mussolini. Queen Elizabeth found he Admirals to defeat the Spanish Armada, and the Bible reminds us that Moses led his people out of Egypt. Now, Obama has arrived to somehow lead us out our financial morass, and the two wars we are engaged in; give us the jobs and the health care that we need, and provide us with the energy we need without dependence on foreign oil.

Obama's election has been the most important since Lincoln. I'm not claiming that Obama is a saviour, but a man smart enough--if he lasts eight years in the White House--to accomplish the things that he has promised and what we need. It will remain for many years in the future to understand the meaning of the historic election we just witnessed. I know the pundits on the TV, the newspapers, magazines, and the internet are having a marvelous time with all of these questions, but none of them will come up with the right answers until they learn what Obama is doing with his power, and now he is the most powerful man on earth. May he use this power to get this country moving in the right direction. And what is the right direction? If it happens, we'll know it.

Signature Days

Into every one's life come signature days which etch themselves into the mind and soul of those who experience them so that they are never forgotten. These days make a difference in the entire world and become a part of history that will last forever. October 29, 1929 was one of those days when the stock market plunged into oblivion and created The Great Depression. The United States and the world economies did not recover from that disaster for ten years until WWII began. That event, that signature day, certainly had a dire affect on my own life. Granted I was only five years old and I did believe there was a Santa Claus. But when my sister and I hung our stockings out on our little fireplace, the next morning found only oranges in them. It was then I began to realize that we were very poor. I looked around at our circumstances, our crowded bungalow, the clothing we wore, the food that appeared on out table, my handicapped father, and jobless mother and with my empty stocking in hand, wept for our lot--not for me so much, but for my parents who could not afford to buy a toy for my sister and me.

The second signature day in my life occurred on December 7, 1941 when the Japanese navy bombed Pearl Harbor. At the time, I was listening to a football game on the radio when the announcer broke in with the news. His report was rather sketchy--hardly comparing with the skill of the news media these days. I was 17 at the time, and hardly aware of a place called Pearl Harbor until I had a chance to hear the late news and read my newspaper on Monday morning. It was not long after that when Franklin Roosevelt declared war on Japan. I couldn't understand how the bombing could happen. Wasn't anyone on the radar? Couldn't a Japanese fleet and aircraft of the size involved be detected in adequate time to defend the ships we had berthed at the Harbor? And what did the Japanese hope to gain from what they achieved that day? I believed it to be an impossibility for them to invade the United States. So, the event was a puzzle to me. But that day had an effect on my life--I voluntarily joined the military--the United States Navy. On June 6, 1944, known forever as DDay, the greatest invasion in world wars took place. And the rest is history.

Two other signature days occurred in my own life after WWII. One was on August 28, 1963 when I took time off from school to go on the Washington March and heard Martin Luther King make one of the greatest speeches in American History. Before that, I was hopelessly and helplessly against the inequalities I saw for blacks in America. It would be 45 years before Rev. King's dream would come to fruition with the election of a black president of the United States--an unthinkable and amazing event surpassing even the first time election of an Irish Catholic president a few months later than the March when JFK defeated Richard Nixon. Certainly 9/11 was a signature day. I woke to the TV when I saw replays of the planes charging into two magnificent buildings. When I saw them collapsing it was beyond belief. Over 3000 people died in that project of terrorism, and it changed our lives in countless ways.

But one of the greatest of my signature days happened yesterday when Barack Obama became the next President elect of the United States. While he was making his historic speech in Chicago's Grant Park, you could see the look on the faces of some of the people who were there. Many were shedding tears of joy, including Jesse Jackson and Oprah. Others were looking at Obama who had them mesmerized with his presence and his speech. Now, it remains to be seen what Obama can do to put this country back on the right road. It will take great skill and leadership to accomplish all the needs that we have, and if he succeeds in saving the real America, he will become a legend as a truly great president.

A Jewish Marine--female at that!

While surfing the net looking for articles about celebrity Jewish marines I came across the following quite by accident and thought as a blog, why not?


Editors Note: The following is an excerpt from Howard Leavtt’s Semper Chai , an amazing book that profiles numerous Jewish Marines through many generations. Look for Howard’s new book, OZ - Chronicles of Courage, which talks a good deal about Jewish participation in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since this book was published, of course, Robin has retired and busies herself as a "gentlewoman farmer" on her ranch in Montana.

A true hero and a remarkable woman in America today, Lieutenant Colonel Robin Higgins, USMC (ret.), nee Ross, was born in the Bronx in 1950. She spent her early days on Long Island and obtained two degrees in English, a bachelor’s from State University of New York at Oneonta and a master’s from Long Island University. After studying for a time at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, she returned to New York in May 1970 and completed college with a 4.0 average. Following her graduate studies, she taught high-school English on Long Island. At her father’s suggestion to go into the military, Higgins went to a local Marine Corps recruiting office and was accepted into OCS at Quantico. She was commissioned a second lieutenant and performed duties in communications and in military police at Quantico.
On December 23, 1977, she married Captain William R. (Rich) Higgins, USMC. The turning point and perhaps the most significant event of her life was the calamity that befell her husband, thrusting her name and image into national, if not international, attention. In 1988, while on duty as a lieutenant colonel and leader of a UN observer team in Lebanon, her husband was taken captive by Hezbollah terrorists and later murdered. Since “the Hezbollah were fanatically committed to the destruction of the Jewish state, during the period of his captivity, she “had to keep my Jewishness hidden. Ironically, it was that very Jewishness that helped me survive.”
She continued to perform her duties as a Marine officer during this period, all the while suffering the numbing terror and loneliness of a hostage’s wife. She made diligent efforts to get information about her husband and to obtain his release, enduring extreme frustration and uncertainty. She learned of her husband’s murder on July 29, 1989. Rich Higgins was promoted to colonel while in captivity.
On October 4, 1997, Robin Higgins christened the guided-missile destroyer USS Higgins (DDG-76), named for her husband. During 41st President George Bush’s administration, she was appointed to the U.S. Department of Labor, where she served as deputy assistant secretary and then acting assistant secretary for Veterans’ Employment and Training. While a senior executive at the Department of Labor, Lieutenant Colonel Higgins was an adviser to the Department of Veterans’ Affairs Advisory Committee on Women Veterans and a commissioner on the Department of Defense’s Defense Conversion Commission.
Moving to Florida after leaving the military, she served as director of public affairs for Florida’s state comptroller, and then spent a year consulting, public speaking, and writing on a variety of topics, including media relations, public affairs, and veterans’ advocacy. In January, Governor Jeb Bush appointed Robin Higgins executive director of the Florida Department of Veterans’ Affairs- the first Jewish woman to hold that job in Florida. As the Governor’s chief advisor on veterans’ issues, she was responsible for advocacy programs for the state’s 1.7 million veterans. Then in early 2001, she was nominated by 43rd president George W. Bush to serve as the Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs at the U.S. Department of Veterans’ Affairs. Confirmed by the U.S. Senate in May 2001, she is responsible for numerous burial benefits for the nation’s veterans and oversees the National Cemetery Administration. She became the senior Jewish person ever to serve in the Department of Veterans’ Affairs and the senior Jewish woman in the Administration.
Lieutenant Colonel Higgins is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Marine Corps League’s Dickey Chapelle Award for outstanding service to Marines, the American Legion Auxiliary’s Public Spirit Award for outstanding service to country, and the American Academy of Physician Assistants Veterans Caucus Award for outstanding service to veterans.
She is a member of Disabled American Veterans, the Retired Officers’ Association, the Jewish War Veterans, Gold Star Wives, AMVETS, and the Marine Corps League. Higgins has testified before Congress; appeared on numerous morning and evening news programs; and has had many letters, articles, and opinion pieces published in major publications, all in addition to her book, PATRIOT DREAMS: The Murder of Colonel Rich Higgins
Posted by Howard Leavitt in Great Stories • Email this story

The Mother of All Blogs

I feel this is the appropriate venue to respond to a comment made following the blog I recently wrote about Sarah Palin. Bob Fox a former student of mine in high school, and now a good friend, apparently learned of P.B's current existence from that blog and wrote the comment addressed to him even though I don't feel that blogs should be substitutes for emails. Now I adore the friendships of both Bob and P.B., and friends, "their adoptions tried" should be grappled to your soul like hoops of steel, and no matter their ideology in this election of elections, it will not have an iota of an effect on the strength of our friendships as far as I am concerned.

However, at the conclusion of Bob's remarks to P.B. regarding his Yearbooks and his height and the height of his sons (which had little to do with my views of Sarah Palin), Bob advised P.B. to "Keep rattling Norman's cage, he's a brilliant man but ideological lefties sometimes let their dreams interfere with reality."

Now, I do appreciate Bob's reference to my "brilliance" but I never thought of myself that way as much as I felt that they had much more of that quality than I. But somehow, I don't know how, it seems their brilliance has taken a hiatus these days. Now, Bob and P.B. are two rattles at the end of the snake, and their rattling makes for less substance than they do noise. Whatever I have accomplished in life I did, not because of brilliance, but in spite of a shortage of it. I did what I dreamed of doing, and whatever I dreamed of doing, I did. Our political purposes are poles apart. And, in spite of Bob's assessment, I indeed am aware of reality. The realities are that when we examine the labels on our clothing, they all read, "Made in China"; when we speak to a customer service representative on the phone for any reason, they all seem to come from India, Canada, or Australia. These are realities. In recent weeks the market has plunged into hitherto unknown depths for our times; many families have lost their life savings, their home mortgages are now higher than the worth of their homes. These are realities. Millions of people in our country are without health insurance; untold numbers of workers have lost their jobs; torture of prisoners has become commonplace, and the Constitution is being compromised. These are realities. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been going on for years with no end in sight and thousands of young men have died; we have lost credibility with many of our allies; These too are realities. But dreams do have a way of dealing with realities.

Our country fortunately has had its share of dreamers who confronted "reality".

Gen. George Patton and Douglas MacArthur were dreamers. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower was a dreamer, John Kennedy was a dreamer, George Washington was a dreamer, the Wright Brothers were dreamers, Jonas Salk was a dreamer, Marie Curie was a dreamer, and Martin Luther King was a dreamer whose dream is about to become true. I believe Barack Obama is also a dreamer; a brilliant man with the requisite charisma to lead people; to give people hope and to encourage movement and sacrifice. He has dreams also, and what are dreams but motivators nudging us to follow them to fruition...or yes, even to failure. But at least they have purpose. Now, I believe that John McCain is a good man and a good Senator, but compared with Obama he has the personality of an amoeba and the dynamism of a tortoise. Who can follow him? Compared with a man like Pres. Eisenhower he is like Kon Tiki next to the USS Enterprise.

Now, in light of my father's service, my daughter's, my late son-in-law's, and my own, I could never understand why John McCain has been considered a "war hero". Perhaps someone can tell me what he did that was heroic. I don't consider being a prisoner of war for six years heroic, nor does that qualify him to be Commander-in-chief, although many have claimed that it does. You want real heroes? Visit a VA Hospital and say hello to veterans who have lost limbs, and eyesight, and their mobility from meeting enemies almost face to face. And has McCain lost some of his "leadership" by vetting a Looney Tunes vice president who can see Russia from her house? Doesn't he realize that he is 73 years old and a heartbeat away from forcing upon America a hockey mom as a president? Doesn't he care? Now, Bob, my friend--and my 60ish student, P.B. can bang on it all he cares to, but he cannot rattle my cage; it's already been rattled many times over, and strangely enough you are right-- as an "ideological lefty" my dreams have had a way of interfering with reality, and my whole life has been proof of that, thank God!