One Lap

Date: 11/11/2013

Day: 46

Location: Sonora, TX

Miles Today: 392

Total Miles: 10,786

First Person Warning;On the Road West; Zoom, Zoom; The Alamo; Sonora, TX; Seen on the road; A Veterans Day Editorial, Tomorrow.

First Person Warning:

I feel called upon to say something about Veteran's day and the American military, so the first person singular is required. If editorials and pictures of West Texas are not your cup of tea -- understandable and probably reflective of good taste -- please come back tomorrow for pics of the Carlsbad Caverns.

I-10 Westbound

The big cities in Texas seem to grow out of the ground like mushrooms from a cow pie. This is Houston viewed from outbound I-10. By the way, since concern has been expressed: the procedure here is to turn the camera on, put it flush against the front window, keep the eyes locked down road in the direction of travel and push the button on the camera half a dozen times. Digital pictures are free.

Above and below are more hurricane escape route signs. These will continue as far inland as San Antonio. The message is to use the emergency lane as a traffic lane during a hurricane emergency. These folks are serious about this; good for them.

Flat. Yes it is flat.

There are, from time to time, nice oak trees to look at.

And always a big sky.

In addition to the oak trees, there are occasional rolling hills to look at. In the road cuts, the strata of the sedimentary rock is almost completely horizontal. This land has not folded or twisted at all since these layers were laid down. This is almost impossible to find in California.

Zoom, Zoom

Clearing the confusion of Houston, the speed limit is first 70, then 75 as shown below. Then 80 mph is the posted speed limit on I-10.

Good news: The miles tick off smartly.

Bad News: Both hands get tired white knuckling the steering wheel for hours at a time.

San Antonio; The Alamo

There are not many places -- other than here and Pearl Harbor -- where Americans get misty over a defeat. Pearl Harbor was forced on us. The defeat at the Alamo was a matter of choice. In this place a number of people from all over the world died for no reason clear to me. If they had advanced to the rear in the face of overwhelming force, would history have been any different? No. This was bad soldiering and a waste of modestly competent infantry.

There were lots of young service men in class A uniforms about San Antonio today. There must have been a parade.

Sonora, Texas

Literally a wide spot not far from I-10, this is a place to stop when making ~350 mile strides across Texas. About 3000 people live here. Street shots follow:

Could someone in Sonora have read Edwin Drood? Certainly possible.

Seen on the Road

This is a sign directing people to obey signs. Kind of a tautology, isn't it?

Texas does good with social engineering, despite their red state politics. "Drive Friendly" is good, so are the "Don't Mess with Texas" antilitter signs, also done in a triangle like this. Best today, alas, not photographed: "Drive clean across Texas."

Yes, there is a Flatonia, Texas.

11/11

As most of you reading this know, I served in the Army for a few years.

Don't thank me.

I volunteered for the job, and was properly paid for what I did in a number of ways. On balance military service was a positive experience for me and I got out of it with all my parts and most of my sanity intact. It was a good bargain. I had never had a black man for a friend, never met a functional illiterate, and never really tested myself physically in the real world until I was in the military. And I sometimes got to blow things up! I learned a lot at your expense and for better or worse that experience made me the person I am. I still feel possessive about the Army. I am happy when it succeeds (100 hours in Iraq.) I am personally saddened when it fails (Abu Ghraib.) That recent stop at the Infantry museum at Ft. Benning was an emotional one for me.

Some people are not as lucky as I was on the parts and sanity front. To those people we owe thanks and more than thanks; we owe them an open checkbook and the best care it is possible to provide.

All that said, I am concerned with the attitude of hagiography directed toward the military in American life of late. Hagiography is correct the word here. Literally, as you know, it is the biography of a saint. Practically, it means an excessive regard for someone or something. The most recent Gallup poll shows that more of us have confidence in the military than in any other American institution. The confidence rating for the military is 76%. (Small business is second at 65%, the police third at 57%.) For comparison, congress rates a 10% confidence level in this poll.

My guess is that this is in part because so few of us now have any military experience. In a country with more than 300 million people, fewer than 1.5 million are on active duty right now. The military is perhaps our only public institution that speaks publicly of sacrifice, of duty, honor and patriotism. When you look at a group of young soldiers, you know that they are willing to put their lives at risk for something they believe in; hard not to admire. Whatever the reason, the public attitude toward the military has certainly changed since the 1970’s from one of dislike, even revulsion, to respect to and in recent years to something different, something larger.

My point is not that folks who do this necessary and, yes, difficult job are not worthy of respect. My concern in fact is twofold. First; they are honored and others, at least equally deserving, are not. Somewhere in Oakland there is a person who examines the contents of the stomachs of the murder victims looking for poison. Someone works the valves down at the sewerage treatment plant. There are police officers who routinely roll around in gutters with drunks, firefighters who run toward burning buildings. All these people do necessary and nasty things to make society work. Each of these jobs – and the list could go on – is as important and worthy of honor as any military job.

What the military does is in my judgment equally necessary at those listed above and certainly equally nasty. The military executes the presidents will by killing people and destroying things. I’m OK with that, but to add glamor to the ‘necessary and nasty’ is a dangerous thing.

Secondly, and more importantly, I believe that there is a danger that excessive regard for the individuals doing the work makes it impossible to think clearly about whether or not the job should be done at all. “Support the Troops” is a common phrase on bumper stickers and tongues across the land. (I like to think I know a bit about rhetoric, but I have no idea what that phrase means.) Suppose a president sends the troops off to do something criminally wrong; hard to conceive, of course. But if this were to happen, would we “support” them? Have we the discrimination to say that SGT Smith, who volunteered for the job and is our employee, is now doing something we are ashamed of and must stop?

I don’t think there is any chance of a military coup in this country, but I think we can be blinded when making public policy decisions if we are distracted by a more than appropriate aura around those who do this particular necessary and nasty job.

Tomorrow

More westing, with enough north thrown in to get to Carlsbad and my first ever visit to the caverns. If photos are possible I will share them with you.

Monday, November 11, 2013