YES WE DID!

Yesterday, the base was closed due to 2-6 inches of snow that fell Monday night. Kinda wish I could of stayed an extra day in Tempe, AZ with my 84 year old Mother whose birthday I came back for 36 hours to celebrate. Mom, like countless other older Black Americans, grew up during the era of Jim Crow and Civil Rights. So I can only try to imagine how this event felt to her and others of that generation. "Kumbaya" won't happen overnight but the seeds are being sown. Back in mid December, I had gotten some nasty comments on my blog that were like these incoherent rants from someone who knows me but preferred to post behind "ANONYMOUS". After attacking me about being an individual, writing a book, yadda, yadda... they then felt that my celebration of Obama as a man of color and being the next commander in chief was racist. This "ranter" kept on wanting to make the point of saying "Obama was raised by his white family and that his black family did nothing." I think this "scaredy cat" needs to check their own racial politics or lack of them. H/She has sadly revealed their wealth of ignorance. Maybe it's better that they hid under "ANONYMOUS".

Anyway, moving on...

I am so grateful that Mom was able to witness this historic event yesterday. Wished the same for my father, who had passed on 25 years ago. I so wish I could of gotten to Washington to share in this collective experience. Instead I caught it alone in my barracks room on the web via a streaming site that carried CSPAN. Hands down, I felt that CSPAN had the best video pool coverage of the Inauguration without the stupid/inane chatter that came from the network reporters. Sometimes less is more. One of best things I felt was the call-ins from across the country that reflected the mosaic of opinions. Some were poignant, stupid, hilarious, democratic, republican but overall one could not deny the impact of Obama's presidency had on all people. The NYTimes has an incredible multimedia page devoted to reader photos taken since January 18th leading up to the Inauguration. Great snapshots in time...

Well, back here at Bragg, the place was like a ghost town yesterday. Just like the night Obama won, it was silent-there were no collective cheers heard from other rooms/shouts of joy or cars honking nor did I see any celebratory signage. Those in the know, will probably give each other that look or nod of "yes we did" and keep it moving. What will be noticeable in the days ahead, is the chain of command walls that are all over the base in official buildings. GWB's mug will go down as will most of his underlings and Obama and crew will go up. I also will be curious to see how soon it will be. Today? Or will it be on some classic military bureaucracy s***; "Sir, the pictures of Obama & Co are still at the printers and won't be here til next month..."

The issues of A and I are on Obama's list but the economy is priority and hopefully, our deployments to A and I will start to have a better clarity in reducing our involvement. To those who doubt Obama's toughness, peep an excerpt from his speech yesterday; "We will not apologize for our way of life nor will we waver in its defense. And for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you that, our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken. You cannot outlast us and we will defeat you." Spoken like a true leader.