For Those Who Gave All

Rob wrote what appears below sixteen years ago.  It is absolutely a sentiment worth repeating...

 

Just A Thought

I started thinking in this time of war what this day means. It is for those who didn't come back. They didn't come back to their mothers, their wives or their kids. They stormed beaches, fought and died in foreign countries. All that returned was a box and a folded flag.

I recently attended a Springsteen concert in North Carolina. I traveled by plane through this American land because I could, because I am free - and because of the generosity of some good friends. As Springsteen played a song called "Last to Die" I got emotional. The song asks, "Who'll be the last to die...." presumably in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. It does not matter what you think of the American involvement in these wars. What does matter is that we remember these brave American servicemen and servicewomen.

Meanwhile I am enjoying a Springsteen concert, enjoying a beer and enjoying starting a career with the best government in the world; enjoying freedom. How can I do this? These are my brothers, my peers, guys my age fighting and dying. They volunteered so I didn't have to. They're not coming back to their favorite band, their favorite beer, their families or the state they grew up in.

Their children will not know their fathers. They will know only their sacrifice and some stories their mothers will tell. They sacrificed for someone they will never meet - you and me.

Remember them today.

-RJM

U.S.S. Arizona Memorial

Photo Credit: Robert J. MacMaster 

(c) 2014

-AK

A Day for Cake

 

Rob and Me - Yankee Stadium 2009

The significantly-better looking member of the duo in this now-almost-fifteen-year-old photograph celebrates a birthday today.  I have any number of more recent photographs in which Rob and I are together, but this one has been a favorite of mine from the time it was taken for it was taken while I was doing something I love with someone I love.  The definition of time well-spent.  

It thrills me to no end that Rob has never been burdened, not even for a minute, by being forced to go through life carrying my DNA.   Truthfully, the man he has become has significantly more to to with him than it ever has had to do with me.  My hope is to one day day be as good a man as my son is today.  I have quite a bit of ground to cover, I know.  I reckon I better get started. 

Happy Birthday, Rob, and much love always. 

-AK 

Of Mothers and Sons

I am now as many years old as my father was when he died.   A day at which I have stared from varying distances over the course of the past forty-two-plus years has now arrived.   This lap around the sun, Dad’s last, is one he did not complete.  One hundred sixty-three days into it his race ended.   He died.   For those keeping score at home, July 16, 2024 is one hundred sixty-four days from today.  It is a Tuesday.  

I had intended today to fill this space with my lamentations about this particular birthday.   But then Adele Springsteen died.  Bruce’s mom died on January 31st.   She was ninety-eight.   I care not how old a man you are when your mom dies.  You cry until your eyes sting, your throat burns, and your nose runs on a continuous loop.  You do so because in that moment you are again a little boy and you feel gutted by her loss and the knowledge you shall have no more time with her.  

The death of Adele Springsteen made me think of Mom. June 3, 2024 shall mark seven years since Mom died.  Today?  Today marks the 80th month.   My mother, much as Adele Springsteen was for Bruce, was the great hero of my life.   Speaking of his mother, he said, “She believed that there was good faith, good heart, good hope in all citizens.  She gave the world a lot more credit than perhaps it deserves, but that was her way.”  He could have used those same words to describe Joanie K.  

“The Wish”, which he wrote for his mom, was among the songs he performed during Springsteen on Broadway.   There, he led into the song by telling a simply beautiful story about a favorite memory of his childhood, which was walking home with her from her job.   It would be just the two of them, walking on Freehold’s streets, “And she’d be looking down at me with a look that for me, was like the grace of Mary.  Made me understand for the first time, how good it feels, feel pride in somebody that you love, and who loves you back, ya know.”   

Yes I do, Bruce.  Yes I do.   

-AK

A Day One Hundred Years In The Making

 

Today is the birthday of my father, William P. Kenny, Sr.  Had he lived, he would be 100 years old.  He, of course, did not live to see this day.  Did not even come close in fact.  Missed it by almost forty-three years. 

On my next birthday, I will be the age my father was when he marked his final birthday, which he did on this very day in 1980.  Six-and-one-half months later he was dead.  

He and I had an absurdly difficult relationship during what proved to be the final year of his life.   He was hard on me and I, in turn, was hard on him.  Truth be told, I have been hard on him for the overwhelming majority of the past almost forty-three years.  While I do not write in this space too often, it was here on this very date three years ago where I wrote him the apology it took me forty years to muster up the spine to write. 

Happy Birthday, Dad.  

WPK, Sr. - The Browning School

circa 1964

-AK 

A Feeling of a Place Where We Ache to Go Again

Today is Thanksgiving.  Wherever, however, and with whomever you spend it, it is my most sincere wish for you and yours that it is a peaceful, safe, and happy Thanksgiving.  

For those of us fortunate to spend today in the company of at least some of those people who we love and who love us, let us be mindful that not everyone shares in our good fortune.  Life is hard for most of us but it can be unfairly so for far too many, and tragically it is far too often.  

If you open your eyes this morning and close them tonight in a place where you are loved and a place where you are wanted, then congratulations.  You are home.  Your vow to yourself, to those you love, and to those who love you is to not take that feeling for granted.  Not today.  Not tomorrow.  Not ever.  Work hard today and every day to honor that feeling and, better still, to earn it. 

Appreciate just how precious it is to feel as if you belong.  It possesses the capacity to fill us up more heartily than one's inhalation of turkey and its accompanying side dishes shall ever do.  Experience teaches us all that that feeling - of love, of belonging, of home - is never guaranteed.  Not today.  Not tomorrow.  Not ever.  

Kindness costs nothing.  It is, however, invaluable.  It might just be the beacon that helps someone find his or her way home who otherwise would not have gotten there.  

Happy Thanksgiving.  

-AK 

A Toast to the Watchmen on the Walls of Freedom

 

Today is the sixtieth anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.  While I do not write too often any more, it was on this very date three years ago on which I wrote what appears here.  

Sunday, November 22, 2020

A Testament to the Endurance of Ideas

Fifty-seven years ago today President John F. Kennedy was assassinated while his motorcade snaked its way through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas.  He was scheduled to speak at a luncheon before the Dallas Citizens Council.  The speech, which he never gave, remains as relevant and timely today as it was on the date he intended to deliver it. 

Fifty-seven years ago.

On this very day.

We in this country, in this generation, are - 

by destiny rather than by choice - 

the watchmen on the walls of world freedom.

We ask therefore that 

we may be worthy of our power and responsibility,

that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint,

and that we may achieve in our time and for all time

the ancient vision of "peace on earth, goodwill toward men."

That must always be our goal,

and the righteousness of our cause 

must underlie its strength. 

For as was written long ago:

'except the Lord keep the city, 

the watchmen waketh but in vain'...

This Nation's strength and security 

are not easily or cheaply obtained.

There are many kinds of strength

and no one kind will suffice...

Ignorance and misinformation can handicap the progress

of a city or company, but they can,

if allowed to prevail in foreign policy,

handicap this country's security. 

In a world of complex and continuing problems,

in a world of frustrations and irritations, 

America's leadership must be guided 

by the lights of learning and reason -

or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality

and the plausible with the possible

will gain the popular ascendancy 

with their seemingly swift and simple solutions

to every world problem. 

President John F. Kennedy

Speech (not given) to Dallas Citizens Council

November 22, 1963 

-AK 

If you are so inclined, then consider this to be food for thought.  An appetizer if you will for the Thanksgiving feast that you presumably shall enjoy tomorrow.  If any part of your plan for this long holiday weekend includes travel, then be careful out there.

-AK 

Sue's Crew XV?

Joliet Jake and Elwood Blue 

Margaret's mother died on June 2, 2009.  For ten Autumns thereafter we assembled a team, which team we named Sue's Crew in honor of Suzy B., and ran in a 5K dedicated to fighting breast cancer and finding a cure for it.   We last ran in 2018.  Sue's Crew X was our final go-round. 

Sue's Crew X - 2018

Last year, I ran solo in a terrific event that I learned had actually taken place for the past several years, which is the Team ROAR 5K.   It honors Donna Karlis, who died in 2017 at just forty-two years young following a battle against metastatic breast cancer.  It is a labor of love her husband Michael has put together to honor her memory and to help their two daughters celebrate the hero that their mother was.  

This year's Team ROAR 5K at Duke Island Park in Bridgewater Township, New Jersey is Sunday, October 22, 2023.  Gun time is 9:30 am.  I am running in it again this year and, contrary to my generally anti-social nature, I would love some company.  If you are a Sue's Crew alum or you would like to be become one, then reach out to the Missus or to me.  The link to register is here.  When you register, you should be asked if you want to join a team.  Click "Yes" and you should be given the option of joining an existing team, which list of names should include Sue's Crew.  If it does not, for whatever reason, do not sweat it.  Simply let us know you have signed up. 

Here is the plan:  Once you have signed up, and ran at least one time previously with Sue's Crew, plan on wearing your Sue's Crew t-shirt on race day.  If you no longer have it - or if you are like me and are still struggling with your "Covid-19 15" and it now fits somewhat snugly - then let Margaret or me know what size shirt you need and we will bring one in your size with us on race day.  While I do not know whether we have shirts from each of the ten iterations of the Crew, we have quite a few carefully packed away in our basement.  It is more likely than not we have one in your size.  

Long may we run.  

-AK