An Open Letter to His Honor _____

August 15th

The Year of Our Lord 2011

To the Honorable Judge _____

Your Honor:

Sir, I take pen (or keyboard) in hand in a state of highest dudgeon and fiercest wrath to address the grievous, near unbearable wrong you have perpetuated upon two of my dearest friends. I am speaking in regards to the mockery of justice which you — in your obvious, painful ignorance of morality, decency, and legal matters in general — handed down Friday last from the bench in family court of the capital of our fair state.

For reasons known only to God and no doubt sprung from His most rued creation, Lucifer, you have separated a caring, loving, hardworking, decent, God-fearing and law-abiding man of unimpeachable honor and impeccable upbringing from his dearly beloved son. You brought about this sorry state of affairs by granting full custody of an impressionable, naive child in the very bud of his adolescence – a time when he will need his father most of all — to a shameless hussy, inveterate liar, brazen barmaid, and unrepentant harlot.

To make matters worse — as if you in your ineptitude could manage such a feat — this Moll Flanders is recently wedded, if such “common-law attachments” are recognized in polite society, to nothing less than a slothful, n0-count, layabout sluggard unable to maintain gainful employment because he thirsts so for the waters of iniquity — Demon Rum.

Both of these pernicious and slovenly members of the dregs of society are known for wanton, unchecked consumption of opiates and narcotics gained by devious — possibly extralegal — means. Even the child is distressed by the amount and frequency with which this woman of the evening and her mewling consort take their ill-gotten “medication.” I maintain this lad is entirely too tender in years to dwell perforce in such a  chaotic state of fear and filth.

In stark contrast to the worthless, rum-addled companion of this remorseless camp follower, this young child’s father– after enduring years of loneliness spent tending only to the needs and care of his son — has but recently wooed and wed a veritable flower,  a guileless blossom of an old and distinguished Southern family. This true belle femme with education, refinement, and grace in addition to an angelic countenance has — in her brief time with the lad and his father — forged a strong and loving bond. The only logical reason for the boy’s near instant cleaving to this spotless magnolia bloom is she provides such a stark and complete foil to his opium-sotted mother.

Ever since making the young boy’s acquaintance, his stepmother has sought only his utmost good and had planned — before your imbecility of a ruling — to daily convey him to a quality school and from thence home again having never had to endure the complete lack of care he will experience in some wretched after-school day care facility. Of course, he will only be called upon to bear up under such adversity in the unlikely event his mother — if she can be called such in aught but a biological sense — and her ne’er-do-well companion manage to find someone charitable — or foolish — enough to provide either of them with employment.

You, Sir, who are sworn to protect the innocent, would rather thrust a child–  hardly more than a babe — into such a bottomless pit of perdition? And for what reason? The supposed quality of the SCHOOLS? The sex of the defendant? My good sir, it takes much more than test scores to make an excellent school and much more than a set of ovaries and breasts to make a mother! I see, however, that you are ignorant of such facts, which is all the more a shame as it is my understanding that men who sit upon Lady Justice’s bench usually possess vastly more mental acumen than you have exhibited thus far.

I press my case on by pointing out how this Corinthian woman claims to be a nurse — an angel of mercy — and yet I have seen personally a wound upon the boy’s person — obtained under her “watchful eye”  no less — infected upon the very cusp of blood poisoning. Did she avail herself of any of her “thorough and detailed medical training” to render succor and treatment to her child? No, she simply sent him off — wounded and suffering — to his father who, though not as educated in the arts of healing as this Lilith purports to be, cleansed the festering wound and bandaged it with tenderness and care so that within the weekend it was scarcely noticeable.

I allow to you that it grieves my heart to the deepest depths of my soul that this unbearable outrage, this incredible miscarriage of justice, did not occur in the halcyon antebellum days gone by. For if it had, IF IT HAD, I can assure you with utmost certainty I would forgo the posting of this missive in favor of having it delivered in person by my man with explicit instructions to closet with the suitable second of your choosing, there to make arrangements for us to settle this matter post-haste as men with implements of your choosing.

Unfortunately, decaying years and men’s callowness have robbed gentlemen — here I am generously giving you benefit of doubt as your conduct belies any notion you understand the term — of such final and effective means of gaining satisfaction when faced with such an act of reeking, ignoble dishonor as this which you have so callously foisted upon my kin and those nearest my heart. Such is the ignominy of these latter days that the only “weapons” I may use with impunity are the biting words of acerbic rhetoric.

In finality, Sir, I have no direct knowledge of your ancestry and so cannot accurately discern whether you be carpetbagger, Copperhead, or scalawag, but I am able to deduce from your actions that you are a scurrilous, low-born blackguard and a rank, base, and abject cur.

Good day to you, Sir. Good day and may Almighty God — who does not suffer the folly of the wicked but delivers true  justice in due time — reward you amply your due for this horrible, wicked act.

Sincerely,

G.S. Feet, MA, SoCV, Esq.

Flanders Field is Empty

A very hale and hearty Mr. Buckles at the ripe old age of 106 at a veteran's function in Washington, DC.

For the United States of America, the guns of the Western Front have been silenced at last and an important period of US History passed from the realm of living memory yesterday evening. With the death of Mr. Frank Buckles at his home near Charles Towne, West Virginia, everyone who remembers the blood and the mud of the Western Front has left the battlefield. For our country, World War I — The Great War — that they said would “end all wars” now resides only on grainy film and yellowing newspaper pages.

 

I will leave Mr. Buckle’s obituary and eulogy to better writers than I can hope to be. The New York Times has an excellent write up about his life posted now. Instead, I want to speak to the passing, not of a wonderful and beloved old  warrior, but of history itself. Up until yesterday, if a thorny or ambiguous question about life in the trenches arose, a car ride to Charles Towne, West Virginia could straighten the mess out quickly once Mr. Buckles spoke five powerful words: “I know. I was there.”

Now, we only have the history books. World War I has joined the Spanish American War, the War Between the States, the Mexican War, the War of 1812, and The American Revolution as a historian’s bailiwick. The next great event in American History will most likely be the death of the last World War II veteran and at the rate those men and women — all in their 80s now — are leaving the world stage, it might not be as long.

A handsome 16 year old Cpl. Frank Buckles just before his shipping out to France.

The loss of the last living figure of an event like World War I is a huge tragedy in two ways. First is the human loss. Mr. Buckles had become quite famous in his later years (and he had PLENTY of later years) and our nation is diminished by his passing. Secondly though, is the loss of the eyewitness. Now historians can “interpret” and “reinterpret” America’s involvement in that long ago global event with impunity. No one is left who can speak for the multiplied thousands who lie beneath the white crosses in Belgium’s Flanders Field.

For now, Holocaust deniers have one insurmountable obstacle to the free spread of their cancerous message and that obstacle is the every shrinking handful of men and women with numbers tattooed on their arms and horror engraved upon their souls. For now, at least, those who would say “It never happened” must answer to the likes of my beloved friend Mrs. Marion Blumenthal-Lazan who spend years of her childhood in Bergen Belsen.

For now, those who would seek to cover up the grave tragedy that was the Cambodian Killing Fields have the survivors to answer to. The aging veterans of the Japanese army must still confront the living, breathing presence of the “comfort women” whom they abused so many years ago. War Hawks who would rush to hurl nuclear weapons at one another must still look into eyes that saw a bright flash above their two cities in 1945. Some are still among us who were there to hear Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr tell a million people on the Washington, DC Mall that he had a dream.

In time, however, these memories, too, will fall silent — as silent as the grave.

What then? How will those events, so important to the world, our nation, and even to us, be remembered? It is said that history is written by the victors. That is not a true statement. History is written by the survivors and when they are gone, what is left is but hearsay and conjecture.

In Pace Resquiescat, Corporal Buckles. May you find your rest at long last.

Love to all of you as well.

Sincerely, G.S. Feet.

Veterans’ Day 2009

In Flanders Fields
By: Lt. Col. John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

From one who has never known the smell of battle and the stench of blood and fear to every veteran of every American war, popular and unpopular, won or lost, concluded or continuing, thank you so much for risking your lives and many times giving your lives in the service of your country. You did not ask if you believed in the cause for it was enough that you believed in the country that gave the call.

Bless you, each and every one of you.

I’d wash all y’all’s tired feet if I could.

Thank you again. Love y’all.