... to answer that. Goering.
Btw, I contend it was Hitler's breaking of the Hitler-Stalin Pact, so I would be in agreeance with Titus. No Russian invasion means no Eastern Front whatsoever. No way Stalin permits us across from Alaska to open it up on our own either. He would have been content to watch us attempt a one front European conflict. How much tougher is that Atlantic Wall if there's not single German trooper East of Minsk? I'll venture another theory - if Hitler conspires with Japan NOT to attack the US until all of Europe, including the UK, falls, at what point do we enter? What does our battle plan look like with no viable Allies? Is it that much of a stretch to say Pearl costs the Axis the war? Without it we might have been comparable spectators until Germany owns every square mile of Europe. At any rate, I don't think its the Poland invasion. I see what you're saying, but I think there are too many poor choices by German civilian leadership between 39' & D-Day to blanketly say they lost before they started. At the very least, if there is no Russisn front &/or no Pearl, we're talking a war that extends well beyond 1945, despite our industrial capacity.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
I want a smart phone that posts to the BUND!
I know we had this thread before. But several of my perspectives have changed since that thread, the first of which I believe was the direct e mail bund list way way back in 03.
When EXACTLY did Hitler lose the war?
Titus says 22 June, 1941, when Germany invades Russia. For a long time I felt the same way. But afterwards my opinion changed to 29 Sept, 1939. I felt that the industrial might of the Allies could never be overcome by the Axis. Germany had NO CHANCE at beating the Soviets on any scale.
But then there's more digging and more thought and reflection.
Titus makes a valid and old argument that had the military command in Germany been allowed to fight the war without interference, Germany would have fared much much better than it did. The same argument can and has been made for the Soviets and Stalin.
In this old argument let me ask a new question. Who was it exactly that redirected the Luftwaffe attacks during the Battle of Britain from the airfields to the cities?
When EXACTLY did Hitler lose the war?
Titus says 22 June, 1941, when Germany invades Russia. For a long time I felt the same way. But afterwards my opinion changed to 29 Sept, 1939. I felt that the industrial might of the Allies could never be overcome by the Axis. Germany had NO CHANCE at beating the Soviets on any scale.
But then there's more digging and more thought and reflection.
Titus makes a valid and old argument that had the military command in Germany been allowed to fight the war without interference, Germany would have fared much much better than it did. The same argument can and has been made for the Soviets and Stalin.
In this old argument let me ask a new question. Who was it exactly that redirected the Luftwaffe attacks during the Battle of Britain from the airfields to the cities?
Father's Day (LATE)
I am sorry I missed out on the posting of Father's Day. A summer cold knocked me down from Wednesday to yesterday. Hopefully I will get to cash in on my Father's Day rain check this week.
I am glad everyone had a good one, even if loser Titus had the specter of work, (aarrgh!) overlooking the happiness of any given Sunday.
I am glad everyone had a good one, even if loser Titus had the specter of work, (aarrgh!) overlooking the happiness of any given Sunday.
On this day...
... in 1941, Nazi Germany initiated the largest overland operation of World War II with the invasion of the Soviet Union, code named "Barbarossa". Nearly 5 million men moving across an 1,800 mile front ended both the lie that was the Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty and any prospects for German victory in WWII.
I think Barbarossa failed because the goals of the operation were not clearly defined, and the scope of the effort was simply too grand. Hitler wanted a decisive conquest of the Soviet Union and insisted on a drive north that would A) capture and destroy Leningrad and B) capture Moscow and force Stalin into a general surrender of all Soviet forces. The OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, or Supreme Command of Armed Forces, Germany) wanted a strategic drive into the heart of Soviet production by taking the Ukraine and the Baku oilfields, and dealing the Red Army such a defeat that a counter attack was unthinkable. Operation Barbarossa was a compromise of those two views, and because of this... it was destined to fail from the start. Had the OKW won the planning argument, and the effort to the north been abandoned in favor of taking the arable land and industrial cities of the Ukraine along with the oilfields, things might have turned out much different for the Allies. Cutting off Moscow from the south and east would have made Stalin's job about a thousand times harder, wouldn't you agree?
Anyway, just got to thinking about this as I listened to satellite radio on the hour-long trip home from the joint today. A definite turning point in the war, if you ask me.
I think Barbarossa failed because the goals of the operation were not clearly defined, and the scope of the effort was simply too grand. Hitler wanted a decisive conquest of the Soviet Union and insisted on a drive north that would A) capture and destroy Leningrad and B) capture Moscow and force Stalin into a general surrender of all Soviet forces. The OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, or Supreme Command of Armed Forces, Germany) wanted a strategic drive into the heart of Soviet production by taking the Ukraine and the Baku oilfields, and dealing the Red Army such a defeat that a counter attack was unthinkable. Operation Barbarossa was a compromise of those two views, and because of this... it was destined to fail from the start. Had the OKW won the planning argument, and the effort to the north been abandoned in favor of taking the arable land and industrial cities of the Ukraine along with the oilfields, things might have turned out much different for the Allies. Cutting off Moscow from the south and east would have made Stalin's job about a thousand times harder, wouldn't you agree?
Anyway, just got to thinking about this as I listened to satellite radio on the hour-long trip home from the joint today. A definite turning point in the war, if you ask me.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
The price of peace...
One hundred years ago, places like Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia were considered damn-near worthless to American political and business interests. Fifty years earlier than that, Afghanistan was considered the biggest waste of time and money the Brits ever spent a bullet on.
Since WWII and the establishment of the post-war Middle East map as we know it today, the oil reserves discovered in Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia have made them regional (if not global) security players on the international political scene. The whims of a select few in Saudi Arabia, for example, can have repercussions that echo across the globe as crude oil supply increases or decreases.
Israel, on the other hand, has no oil, and has very limited mineral resources. Water supply is a problem for the frontier areas of the nation (as it has been since it was controlled by the Canaanites). Port facilities on the Mediterranean coast must be man-made (as Herod the Great knew all too well) and require constant maintenance and upkeep. Natural defenses are limited, so national security is an ongoing concern for Israeli leadership even if all surrounding nations weren't sworn enemies or potential belligerents.
What Israel has is the "Holy Land" of three of the world's most influential religions... Christianity, Islam and Judaism. What was once considered by all three faiths to be the "center of the world" could still rightly be described as just that: the center of the world. If there is a flash-point on the globe that could conceivably bring about another global conflict, that place is in Israel.
Iraq has oil... lots of oil. Iraq has access to the sea in the form of natural, easily utilized sheltered waters on the Persian Gulf (although, currently, Iraq owns only 36 miles of this coast). Iraq has vast amounts of water (compared to many neighboring states), both surface and subsurface, and while much of the land area is desert, Iraq boasts a very sophisticated national irrigation plan that allows a full 21% of its area to be farmed profitably, in one way or another.
Now let's talk about Afghanistan...
Historically, Afghanistan has been important because it is the region where trade and communications between the Far East met with routes to India and the sub-continent and the Middle East in Persia (now Iran). The famous "Silk Road" ran through Afghanistan (now mainly employed by opium smugglers taking the poppies into China), and it was this route that the Brits so wanted to control that they fought no fewer than three major conflicts there.
So, why is it important now? We started the war there to remove the threat to world peace that was the Taliban, as we all know... but why the commitment to remain? I don't deny that there are those in the halls of power that understand that even pseudo-functioning democratic governments in Islamic regions are good things, and that keeping that area safe and secure benefits all of humanity as well as the locals, but I also know that real change and development come at a price, and where is the profit in spending billions upon billions of dollars securing Afghanistan to the states that are taking all the risk?
Recently, it has come to light that the powers-that-be in places like Washington DC and Moscow have long known that Afghanistan is a "sleeper" investment of monumental proportions. Conservative estimates now go no lower than $1 TRILLION dollars in reserve mineral wealth within the current borders of the nation, with some especially nice "gems" like the fourth largest (estimated) reserve supply of uranium on the planet, enough coal to power all existing Afghani power plants for the next 280 years non-stop, more gold, silver, copper and lead than all of California, Nevada and Arizona COMBINED have ever mined, and the second biggest salt dome on the Eurasian continent (with more exposed salt deposits than Israel has around the Dead Sea). Newly reviewed Russian (probably Soviet-era) estimates put the figure at far closer to $3 TRILLION... a staggering amount of resource wealth.
Today, I read the first of what will undoubtedly be MANY articles about the evils of using this mineral wealth as the means by which Afghanistan's future is guaranteed. It recounts the evils of imperialistic greed that drove empires like Great Britain to colonize place like Afghanistan in the first place, but I think these are very short-sighted views in the modern era. True, wrongs were done in the name of "empire" in the past, and there is no greater proponent of the historical perspective than I, but in today's "global neighborhood", the prospects of another imperialistic movement developing from America or Europe and taking control of all that is good and valuable in Afghanistan is very unlikely. Furthermore, one can see multiple examples of material wealth and development stemming from "commercial" exploitation of mineral wealth and natural resources.
Look at the oil industry in Saudi Arabia, for one. That entire nation's ability to find, drill for, produce and refine crude oil came from the commercial knowledge of American and British companies working under contract for the Saudi government between 1948 and 1971, and it is now one of the richest nations (per capita) on the face of the earth. Mining interests from the West could easily work at a HUGE profit in Afghanistan under strict license to the Afghani government, employing civilian labor and reinvesting some profits back into the local economy, without "raping" the natives.
The Christian Science Monitor estimates that $2 billion is needed by the Afghani government to modernize and get back into production the nation's irrigation system (used to control the vast amounts of melt-water from the mountainous north that annually floods the lowlands and valleys), and this sort of funding could be made up (LITERALLY) with one contract for gold, silver or coal mining rights for 10 years... less time (almost) than the Taliban have been gone. With that one contract, the Afghan government has quadrupled the square miles of land being used for agriculture, increased its national revenue, and ensured the gainful employment of upwards of 15,000 otherwise unemployed young men who would otherwise be more inclined to shoot at government officials to pass the time. All that, with ONE contract. Do you see what I am driving at here? Removing the Taliban was the easy part... ensuring a secure, democratic regime to take its place is what drove Rummy and the boys nuts, and is still giving NATO headache after headache.
In both Germany and Japan the push of American "rebuilding" was mainly on getting those nation's industrial capabilities back on-line, and it was done with shocking success. Both Germany and Japan have proven to be manufacturing superpowers in the years since their utter defeat at the hands of the Allies, and there is no reason (NONE) that the same can't be achieved in places like Afghanistan, either. It simply must be shown to be a profitable venture for BOTH the Afghani people and the Western companies that will be investing in Afghanistan itself.
Since WWII and the establishment of the post-war Middle East map as we know it today, the oil reserves discovered in Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia have made them regional (if not global) security players on the international political scene. The whims of a select few in Saudi Arabia, for example, can have repercussions that echo across the globe as crude oil supply increases or decreases.
Israel, on the other hand, has no oil, and has very limited mineral resources. Water supply is a problem for the frontier areas of the nation (as it has been since it was controlled by the Canaanites). Port facilities on the Mediterranean coast must be man-made (as Herod the Great knew all too well) and require constant maintenance and upkeep. Natural defenses are limited, so national security is an ongoing concern for Israeli leadership even if all surrounding nations weren't sworn enemies or potential belligerents.
What Israel has is the "Holy Land" of three of the world's most influential religions... Christianity, Islam and Judaism. What was once considered by all three faiths to be the "center of the world" could still rightly be described as just that: the center of the world. If there is a flash-point on the globe that could conceivably bring about another global conflict, that place is in Israel.
Iraq has oil... lots of oil. Iraq has access to the sea in the form of natural, easily utilized sheltered waters on the Persian Gulf (although, currently, Iraq owns only 36 miles of this coast). Iraq has vast amounts of water (compared to many neighboring states), both surface and subsurface, and while much of the land area is desert, Iraq boasts a very sophisticated national irrigation plan that allows a full 21% of its area to be farmed profitably, in one way or another.
Now let's talk about Afghanistan...
Historically, Afghanistan has been important because it is the region where trade and communications between the Far East met with routes to India and the sub-continent and the Middle East in Persia (now Iran). The famous "Silk Road" ran through Afghanistan (now mainly employed by opium smugglers taking the poppies into China), and it was this route that the Brits so wanted to control that they fought no fewer than three major conflicts there.
So, why is it important now? We started the war there to remove the threat to world peace that was the Taliban, as we all know... but why the commitment to remain? I don't deny that there are those in the halls of power that understand that even pseudo-functioning democratic governments in Islamic regions are good things, and that keeping that area safe and secure benefits all of humanity as well as the locals, but I also know that real change and development come at a price, and where is the profit in spending billions upon billions of dollars securing Afghanistan to the states that are taking all the risk?
Recently, it has come to light that the powers-that-be in places like Washington DC and Moscow have long known that Afghanistan is a "sleeper" investment of monumental proportions. Conservative estimates now go no lower than $1 TRILLION dollars in reserve mineral wealth within the current borders of the nation, with some especially nice "gems" like the fourth largest (estimated) reserve supply of uranium on the planet, enough coal to power all existing Afghani power plants for the next 280 years non-stop, more gold, silver, copper and lead than all of California, Nevada and Arizona COMBINED have ever mined, and the second biggest salt dome on the Eurasian continent (with more exposed salt deposits than Israel has around the Dead Sea). Newly reviewed Russian (probably Soviet-era) estimates put the figure at far closer to $3 TRILLION... a staggering amount of resource wealth.
Today, I read the first of what will undoubtedly be MANY articles about the evils of using this mineral wealth as the means by which Afghanistan's future is guaranteed. It recounts the evils of imperialistic greed that drove empires like Great Britain to colonize place like Afghanistan in the first place, but I think these are very short-sighted views in the modern era. True, wrongs were done in the name of "empire" in the past, and there is no greater proponent of the historical perspective than I, but in today's "global neighborhood", the prospects of another imperialistic movement developing from America or Europe and taking control of all that is good and valuable in Afghanistan is very unlikely. Furthermore, one can see multiple examples of material wealth and development stemming from "commercial" exploitation of mineral wealth and natural resources.
Look at the oil industry in Saudi Arabia, for one. That entire nation's ability to find, drill for, produce and refine crude oil came from the commercial knowledge of American and British companies working under contract for the Saudi government between 1948 and 1971, and it is now one of the richest nations (per capita) on the face of the earth. Mining interests from the West could easily work at a HUGE profit in Afghanistan under strict license to the Afghani government, employing civilian labor and reinvesting some profits back into the local economy, without "raping" the natives.
The Christian Science Monitor estimates that $2 billion is needed by the Afghani government to modernize and get back into production the nation's irrigation system (used to control the vast amounts of melt-water from the mountainous north that annually floods the lowlands and valleys), and this sort of funding could be made up (LITERALLY) with one contract for gold, silver or coal mining rights for 10 years... less time (almost) than the Taliban have been gone. With that one contract, the Afghan government has quadrupled the square miles of land being used for agriculture, increased its national revenue, and ensured the gainful employment of upwards of 15,000 otherwise unemployed young men who would otherwise be more inclined to shoot at government officials to pass the time. All that, with ONE contract. Do you see what I am driving at here? Removing the Taliban was the easy part... ensuring a secure, democratic regime to take its place is what drove Rummy and the boys nuts, and is still giving NATO headache after headache.
In both Germany and Japan the push of American "rebuilding" was mainly on getting those nation's industrial capabilities back on-line, and it was done with shocking success. Both Germany and Japan have proven to be manufacturing superpowers in the years since their utter defeat at the hands of the Allies, and there is no reason (NONE) that the same can't be achieved in places like Afghanistan, either. It simply must be shown to be a profitable venture for BOTH the Afghani people and the Western companies that will be investing in Afghanistan itself.
Back at ya!
My best wishes on Father's Day, as well... to our members and readers. Mine has been great so far... Jacob, who normally wakes the house up when he gets out of bed, was already up and playing his games quietly when I came downstairs. No fuss, no yelling or demanding breakfast... just quietly playing his building game. I actually got to sleep till 8 AM... and that's a treat for me even before I went back to work.
Something Ryan said made me think... every house has its "poli-sci" junkies, in my experience. Someone in the casino will have a political opinion about any topic, and will voice that opinion at every opportunity. Most (if they're smart) will confine it to the break room or some crossfire on a dead game, but a few are dumb enough to bring it to the customer, too.
Shockingly enough, I wouldn't have put Ryan in that class. In fact, I can't even say that Ryan brought his fascination with all things political to my attention, because I dragged it out of him in a half-hearted attempt to get to know a new dual-rate that someone had conveniently placed in my pit. It's always been my experience that when getting to know new casino people, finding common ground or experiences is the best way to do it, then finding something funny to relate to that shared view. It gets people past the nervous, anxious stage to a point where they can (at least) function in their new role in the pits. So, as I fished for some insight into the "glamour-boy" that Carpenter had assigned to my pit as a brand-new floor, it took about two questions to find what I was going to spend the next several years beating him up over... a Mormon Republican.
Keep in mind that I knew his name (Ryan, with a Celtic family name), and simply made the not-too-broad of a leap that he might stem from Irish Catholic roots (which, in fact he does). That is what I thought our common ground would be... until he dropped the Mormon-Republican thing on me. However, we weren't 15 minutes into our first hour of working together, and the fur was flying in all directions. I may even have called him a "fascist" that first day... but the point is I don't think either of us actually gave any lasting offense as we discussed politics in the pit. Had we, then we wouldn't be friends now, right?
We have a junkie at this house, too. His name is Tom (unfortunately), and his last job was in Tampa, FL. I won't beat around the bush, and I'll say he is an awkward-looking gentleman that can't be in his 30's yet (he's like a shorter version of Michael W. of the famous "protruding stomach" that we all remember) that is a far better dice dealer than Michael ever was, but is of equal skill in smooth communication and fashion sense. We have only been in these meetings for five days here, and he has already managed to alienate himself from at least half of his fellow supervisors, and is well on his way to a very long and lonely time here in NEPA.
My point is that Ryan didn't force anything down my throat... I asked the questions and led him into that first debate (which has been going on, nearly uninterrupted, since the late 90's), not the other way around. The "Tom" here in NEPA doesn't even have that much sense. He is the type that will interject his opinion in conversations he isn't even involved in, with no thought or care as to the views that others might hold. A risky course of action in any industry, but especially dangerous in the casino business when so many of your fellow employees are hailing from all corners of the globe (literally, too).
I take no offense from "Tom"... I have every confidence in my ability to rationally, calmly and very quickly destroy whatever argument he might be trying to make. He is simply too young and too brash to have any real insight outside of what he reads, sees or hears in the media. The fun part is that he is rabidly GOP in his views. That's right... I'm not describing a liberal, but an enthusiastic conservative with no tact, taste or temperament to help him profess his views and opinions.
A quick example: Our son, Jake, has been diagnosed with ADHD for about 3 years, and it is only in the last year that his treatment for this condition really began to show some improvement. During the course of Friday's adventures at the casino training center, I was talking with other parents and this topic came up (as it so often does when talking with parents about the trials and tribulations of raising kids). "Tom" wasted no time in declaring that ADHD (and all other "alphabet soup" disorders) were nothing more than liberal fiction made up to offer the next generation of Americans the means by which they could avoid personal responsibility and depend on the Government for all their needs. A rather awkward silence ensued among the other people I was talking to, but I didn't miss a beat and asked "Tom" if he had kids. His instant response was "I'm not married" (a very insightful response, don't you think? Does anyone in this world anymore still instinctively correlate the two: marriage and parenthood?). I put on my best smile, slapped him on the arm, and said that prior to being a parent myself, I might have agreed with him, but when you see your child suffer utter and complete frustration and anxiety through no fault of their own, you will follow any course presented to you to give that child some relief and support, and our present course of treatment was making a world of difference for JAKE, first and foremost, and for us only as a result. I explained that my primary responsibility as a parent was to make sure Jacob is growing up into a functional, well-adjusted adult human being and if alternate parenting methods, some medication in the morning, and counseling for his mother and me is the best means to fill this responsibility, then that is what I will do all day long.
Tom's response? "Huh... I never thought of it that way." and walks off. The others I had been talking to were amazed that I had managed to get him to go away without picking a fight (which must have been what they had all done to get him to leave them alone).
I really am going to like this job...
Something Ryan said made me think... every house has its "poli-sci" junkies, in my experience. Someone in the casino will have a political opinion about any topic, and will voice that opinion at every opportunity. Most (if they're smart) will confine it to the break room or some crossfire on a dead game, but a few are dumb enough to bring it to the customer, too.
Shockingly enough, I wouldn't have put Ryan in that class. In fact, I can't even say that Ryan brought his fascination with all things political to my attention, because I dragged it out of him in a half-hearted attempt to get to know a new dual-rate that someone had conveniently placed in my pit. It's always been my experience that when getting to know new casino people, finding common ground or experiences is the best way to do it, then finding something funny to relate to that shared view. It gets people past the nervous, anxious stage to a point where they can (at least) function in their new role in the pits. So, as I fished for some insight into the "glamour-boy" that Carpenter had assigned to my pit as a brand-new floor, it took about two questions to find what I was going to spend the next several years beating him up over... a Mormon Republican.
Keep in mind that I knew his name (Ryan, with a Celtic family name), and simply made the not-too-broad of a leap that he might stem from Irish Catholic roots (which, in fact he does). That is what I thought our common ground would be... until he dropped the Mormon-Republican thing on me. However, we weren't 15 minutes into our first hour of working together, and the fur was flying in all directions. I may even have called him a "fascist" that first day... but the point is I don't think either of us actually gave any lasting offense as we discussed politics in the pit. Had we, then we wouldn't be friends now, right?
We have a junkie at this house, too. His name is Tom (unfortunately), and his last job was in Tampa, FL. I won't beat around the bush, and I'll say he is an awkward-looking gentleman that can't be in his 30's yet (he's like a shorter version of Michael W. of the famous "protruding stomach" that we all remember) that is a far better dice dealer than Michael ever was, but is of equal skill in smooth communication and fashion sense. We have only been in these meetings for five days here, and he has already managed to alienate himself from at least half of his fellow supervisors, and is well on his way to a very long and lonely time here in NEPA.
My point is that Ryan didn't force anything down my throat... I asked the questions and led him into that first debate (which has been going on, nearly uninterrupted, since the late 90's), not the other way around. The "Tom" here in NEPA doesn't even have that much sense. He is the type that will interject his opinion in conversations he isn't even involved in, with no thought or care as to the views that others might hold. A risky course of action in any industry, but especially dangerous in the casino business when so many of your fellow employees are hailing from all corners of the globe (literally, too).
I take no offense from "Tom"... I have every confidence in my ability to rationally, calmly and very quickly destroy whatever argument he might be trying to make. He is simply too young and too brash to have any real insight outside of what he reads, sees or hears in the media. The fun part is that he is rabidly GOP in his views. That's right... I'm not describing a liberal, but an enthusiastic conservative with no tact, taste or temperament to help him profess his views and opinions.
A quick example: Our son, Jake, has been diagnosed with ADHD for about 3 years, and it is only in the last year that his treatment for this condition really began to show some improvement. During the course of Friday's adventures at the casino training center, I was talking with other parents and this topic came up (as it so often does when talking with parents about the trials and tribulations of raising kids). "Tom" wasted no time in declaring that ADHD (and all other "alphabet soup" disorders) were nothing more than liberal fiction made up to offer the next generation of Americans the means by which they could avoid personal responsibility and depend on the Government for all their needs. A rather awkward silence ensued among the other people I was talking to, but I didn't miss a beat and asked "Tom" if he had kids. His instant response was "I'm not married" (a very insightful response, don't you think? Does anyone in this world anymore still instinctively correlate the two: marriage and parenthood?). I put on my best smile, slapped him on the arm, and said that prior to being a parent myself, I might have agreed with him, but when you see your child suffer utter and complete frustration and anxiety through no fault of their own, you will follow any course presented to you to give that child some relief and support, and our present course of treatment was making a world of difference for JAKE, first and foremost, and for us only as a result. I explained that my primary responsibility as a parent was to make sure Jacob is growing up into a functional, well-adjusted adult human being and if alternate parenting methods, some medication in the morning, and counseling for his mother and me is the best means to fill this responsibility, then that is what I will do all day long.
Tom's response? "Huh... I never thought of it that way." and walks off. The others I had been talking to were amazed that I had managed to get him to go away without picking a fight (which must have been what they had all done to get him to leave them alone).
I really am going to like this job...
Happy Fathers Day!
Seeing as we are all fathers here, I thought I'd wish everyone well today. However, given this is Titus' first "official" Fathers Day, I want to wish him a particularly happy day. Welcome to the club! I have no doubt you will prove as much of a blessing to your child's life as he is to yours.
My favorite Fathers Day gift of all time was last year. My then 7 year old took his green army men (the tiny fixed leg plastic ones for a dollar that we all grew up with), a large paper cardboard egg carton, and his trusty Elmers and recreated a scene from the Band of Brothers episode, "Replacements", complete with one of those parachute guys you wrap up and throw in the air. It's worth its weight in gold.
Today we may take in a movie, or slay the Huns on the fantastic video game Call To Duty, World At War. Good stuff. So here's wishing you many an egg crate full of Elmers glue as you celebrate the joy that is fatherhood.
My favorite Fathers Day gift of all time was last year. My then 7 year old took his green army men (the tiny fixed leg plastic ones for a dollar that we all grew up with), a large paper cardboard egg carton, and his trusty Elmers and recreated a scene from the Band of Brothers episode, "Replacements", complete with one of those parachute guys you wrap up and throw in the air. It's worth its weight in gold.
Today we may take in a movie, or slay the Huns on the fantastic video game Call To Duty, World At War. Good stuff. So here's wishing you many an egg crate full of Elmers glue as you celebrate the joy that is fatherhood.
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