The Quest

When we study history, we often know the end of the story and fail to understand, that the outcome was not inevitable.  Take for example, the event that actually created the United States of America, the American Revolution.  The successful separation from England was in doubt until the very end of significant conflict at Yorktown, Virginia.  Early in the war, Washington was defeated and routed in the Battle of Brooklyn, by what was probably the first Hail Mary attack in America.  Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf is famous for his end around attack in the Kuwait War, but that is not the first involving Americans in conflict.  Another was the attack by Stonewall Jackson, on behalf of Robert E. Lee at Chancellorsville.  This attack was against General Fightin' Joe Hooker, who Lee referred to as Mr. F. J. Hooker.

Washington's American army was huddled on the shore of the East River, outnumbered and outclassed.  The Brits decided to wait until morning to finish the job, but a miraculous fog appeared on the river and Washington managed to escape Long Island for Manhattan Island in small boats and live to fight another day.  This is but one example of the battle losses and narrow escapes of Washington's ragtag army.  No one at that time gave the former colonies any hope of winning that war against the most powerful army on the planet at that time.  During the Civil War, World War II, just about every war our country has engaged in, there were points where victory was in doubt.

As I wrote my blog, Flexible Flyer, How Not To Build An Aviation Career, I knew how it ended, but while I was living it, there was always great uncertainty that I would achieve my goal of having a financially successful career as an airline pilot.  If you read the blog, you will see how it developed, step by step and see how bleak things looked at several points.  There were times when my resolve was nearly broken.  There are also many elements that helped build and rebuild that resolve.

I have been thinking about a small part of that process lately.  When I was in the army from October 1965 to October 1967, I spent most of my time as a drill sergeant at Fort Knox Kentucky.  My best friend and roommate was Howard "Ricky" Richter, a Jewish guy from Cherry Hill, New Jersey, near Camden and across the Delaware River from Philadelphia.  Ricky was fascinated by the 1965 musical, Man of La Mancha, which was based loosely on the 17th Century novel, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. Ricky loved the principle song from the musical and he would sing it often as we drove from Fort Knox to Louisville, to do the things young men strive to do.  Ricky did not have a good voice and could not carry a tune, but he did not allow that to deter him. 

In recent years, I search the World Wide Web for Ricky and found his obituary.

  

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest to follow that star
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far
To fight for the right without question or pause
To be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause

And I know if I'll only be true to this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star

Dr. William P. Garvey

 The idea to write this chapter occurred as I was watching a YouTube video of an interview of Shelby Foote on Book TV, a C-Span2 program.  Foote is famous for his three volume effort, The Civil War: A Narrative.  This series was made famous, popular and successful by Foote's appearance on Ken Burns' PBS show, The Civil War.  You can click on all the hyper links if my discussion is insufficient.

Brian Lamb began the interview, by asking about the cause and impact of the Civil War.  This reminded me of my high school history teacher, Dr. William P. Garvey.  At the time he was my teacher, Mr. Garvey was still working on his masters and doctorate in history, at the University of Pittsburgh.

Garvey was my teacher for Pennsylvania history, during my freshman year and American history in my junior year.  Of course, the major discussion of the Civil War was in American history.

The thing I remember most was his explanation of the underlying causes of the war.  He compared it to an explosive device, a bomb.  I will have to paraphrase, because of faded memory, but it went something like this. 

First there has to be an explosive substance, something that will blow up, under the right conditions, such asTNT or nitroglycerin.  In Garvey's opinion, this was the vagueness of the Constitution with regard to the relationship of the Federal government to the states.  You have to remember the situation when the Constitution was created.  Briefly, the states had been operating under the Articles of Confederation, which created a very weak central government.  The states did not even have a common currency.  Some of the Founding Fathers did not believe there should be a strong central government and of course some did.  Jefferson was one who opposed it and Hamilton was in favor.  Jefferson was out of the country at the time and was not happy when he learned what had been created.  Hamilton would have made it stronger. Jefferson was from a southern state and Hamilton a northern state.  As you can guess, this was beginning to become a regional disagreement.  The Framers of the Constitution had to tread carefully and compromise to get enough  agreement to accept it.  Therefore, there was so much vagueness, that some states believed they could secede from the Union, if they had a fundamental disagreement with policy.

Secondly, a bomb must have a fuse, an ignitor, something that will cause the explosive substance to explode. Garvey asserted that slavery was this fuse. As I pointed out, the Constitution created a strong central government and there was concern in the South, that the 'Peculiar Institution' of slavery would be abolished by the government, because of growing anti-slavery sentiment in the North.

Third, the bomb must have a spark to light the fuse.  If my memory is correct, Garvey said the election of Lincoln as president was this spark.  I don't think Lincoln ran strongly on abolishing slavery, but his position was well known from the famous Lincoln Douglas Debates, which occurred when Lincoln ran against incumbent Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas in 1858, two years before the Civil War began.

Once again, I use hyper links to provide additional information and I use WikiPedia a lot, despite the many criticisms of its accuracy, because it has a standard format for comparison.  If more information is required, you can make use of your research skills on the World Wide Web.  An in-depth discussion of the preceding is not in the scope of my post.

After all, the blog is about my favorite subject, the one about which I am best informed, me.  I have been discussing the elements that went into the development of my career, as a professional pilot. I am describing how, step by step, the pieces came together, like a jigsaw puzzle.

I am the beneficiary or victim of 12 years of education in Catholic schools.  I say beneficiary, because it was a very good education.  I believe I was taught more pertinent things in 12 years, than most people learn through post graduate degrees today.  I don't really see myself as a victim at any stage of my life, but I used that word to get your attention.  I believe my parents and educators developed the Type B side of my personality and the US Army helped me develop the Type A side.  In my professional pilot career, I believe both sides came in handy.

Mr. Garvey was the teacher of whom I have the strongest memories.  In my life as an instructor, I think I used techniques I learned in his classroom.  He spoke in a way that demanded your attention.  The instructor training in the army taught that and explained how and why to do it.  I discussed some of that early in the blog, talking about military bearing, etc.  He knew the subject and it was obvious he enjoyed it.  He allowed and even required class participation.  You could ask questions and even disagree, up to a point.  There were the usual time constraints and the lesson plan must be completed.

Garvey instilled a love of American history in me. As I have blogged previously, this came in handy when I lived in Atlanta and encountered people who harbored a resentment of people from northern states, although they often lacked a good base of knowledge about WTF actually happened.  With even the most basic reading about the war, I was able to shut most of them up.  Some of them reminded me of the Japanese trying to build a case that they were actually the victims of World War II.

Of course, the internet did not exist for most of my life.  Some time after it showed up, I decided to search for William Garvey.  Through a typing error, I learned that there was a Dr. William Harvey, who discovered the circulatory system of the human body.  At the time of my research, Bill Garvey was president of Mercyhurst College.  

We have all probably been asked at some time, what person, dead or alive, we would love to meet and chat with.  Garvey would have been such a person for me, based on our time in class and my subsequent obsession with American history as an adult.  Lincoln and Grant would be historic people in the category for me also.

I decided to call Mercyhurst to see if I could have a phone chat with Mr. Garvey.  I talked to his secretary and had to make an appointment.  She called back at the appointed time and after assuring it was me, connected Doctor Garvey.  He acted as if he remembered me and said I was a good student.  I was tempted to throw the bullshit flag on that.  I told him about my memory of things I learned about teaching from him and that I modeled my techniques after them.  I told him I had 2 kids and he told me to send them to Mercyhurst.  I would have gotten into more of a history discussion, but the secretary, appointment, and Dr. Garvey crap kind of knocked me off my stride.  I didn't want to take up too much of his precious time.

I think it is worth mentioning an incident I witnessed in the classroom during my freshman year in high school.  Garvey was lecturing on something in Pennsylvania history and standing about 6 feet from the classroom door, when the bell rang.  Bill continued lecturing and all members in the class were wise enough to remain seated as long as he was speaking, except one.  Michael "Mickey" Markle got up and started walking from the left side of the room, toward the door and between Garvey and the class.  As he passed, Bill grabbed the back of Mickey's head and smashed his face into one of the desks in the front row.  Mickey's glasses were broken, but I don't remember much more about that.  

Actually, this was not as shocking as it may seem now.  In that, my 9th year of Catholic eduction, I was not unfamiliar with physical punishment.  I always say I believe the good Sisters Of Saint Joseph invented some of the submission holds of modern day Mixed Martial Arts.  My parents also did not spare the rod.  Despite that, I still do not see myself as a victim at any time during my life.  If I got a whoopin', I probably deserved it. 

Bill Garvey was still around two years later for my American history classes, so I'm guessing he paid some price for that episode, but was obviously not fired.

Garvey was born 10 years before me, so he was about 25 to 27 at the time I was his student.  There were some things about him that seemed a little strange to us, but nothing we could pinpoint.  At the time I began to research him on the internet, there were positive articles that mentioned the things that were in his obituary, when he died in 2017.

https://www.burtonquinnscott.com/obituaries/dr-william-garvey

However, not long after our phone conversation, this kind of stuff came to the surface.

https://www.goerie.com/story/news/local/2017/08/10/garvey-former-mercyhurst-president-dies/19823413007/

Yes, my educational hero was accused of sexual child abuse and an investigation paid for by Mercyhurst found that the accusations "appear to have merit".  By that time, it was past statute of limitations for criminal investigation and prosecution.  Garvey was forced to "retire".

Although he seemed unusual, there was never anything I knew about that indicated Garvey was a pedophile.  The accusations were about his time teaching at a Catholic grade school in Erie, PA, both before his time at my high school, North Catholic of Pittsburgh, as well as after.  Decades after my days there, I received correspondence from the school mentioning that there had been some incidents with some of the religious teachers, brothers and priests of the Marianist Order.  I was being asked if I knew of any such incident.  Once again, there were some weird dudes, but I never heard anything specific with regard to pedophilia.  I had nothing to report.

I guess this is another example of the complexities of human beings.  A complete study of just about every person will find that there are many levels of good and bad in everyone.  The greatest among us often have some darkness in their story

 

Skylark

 Doreen and I are in Savannah for a week, staying at Red Gate Farm RV Park.  It was raining like hell, when we drove here, arrived, set up the coach, all night and half the next day.  Fortunately, the lot was crushed limestone and not muddy, but there were a few puddles on the way in.  I will have to hose off the wheels before we leave.

We are working our way back to Louisville from Lakes Park RV, in Fort Myers.  Our next stop is at Tanglewood RV Park, near Mocksville NC, where we will have MagneShades installed on all our front windows to reduce the exchange of heat through them.  The front of the coach is a challenge for the cooling and heating systems to keep up with, depending on ambient outside air temperature.  The Magne Shades will help mitigate that problem.

After Mocksville, we will stop at Anchor Down RV Resort, in Dandridge TN, for a night.  We stayed there last year, sweating the threat of heavy thunderstorms and tornadoes.  From there, we drive home, in time for the second annual, day before Easter musical show for geezers, starring our son, Mike, and many of his great musical friends from high school and college days. (I'm thinking Weaver will wear a clean shirt this time.  These videos are from a Christmas season reunion show they did several years ago.)  Last year, they all brought their wives and kids and it was a fun reunion.  I call it a show for geezers, because it will be held at the Tin Roof bar on Shelbyville Road in Louisville at 4:30 in the afternoon, as opposed to their normal starting time of about 10:30 PM, back in the day.  The musician are now in their 30s.

Yesterday, after the rain stopped, we drove in to town to begin exploring this very historic and interesting town.  We drove around for about 45 minutes, getting the lay of the land and looking for a place to park.  Since it was a Saturday, there were tourists everywhere.  We finally headed toward Forsyth Park and, by good fortune,  ended up at Monterey Park, where we found a parking spot on the street.  There was a meter, but parking was free on weekends.  This was fortunate, because the Mercer Williams House is on the square occupied by Monterey Park.  This is the only historic house Doreen wanted to visit in Savannah.  The house is historic, because it is the site of a murder made famous by the non-fiction book, titled Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil and the movie, by Clint Eastwood, of the same title.  Doreen has read the book and seen the movie several times. 

I titled this post Skylark, because the movie opens with the K D Lang version of the Hoagy Carmichael/Johnny Mercer tune, Skylark.  Mercer is a native of Savannah and wrote the lyrics to the song.  The Mercer Williams House was owned by a family member, but Johnny never lived there.  If you would like to hear the song with a little more energy, there is an Aretha Franklin version,  There are several other Mercer tunes on the soundtrack.  James Gandolfini, aka Tony Soprano, has a small role, as the second cook during a scene at Clary's Cafe.

For more information and fun, click on the hyper links at the different colored words.

Chattanooga

 In my previous post, Uncle Billy, I discussed my time living in Atlanta Georgia.  As part of my effort to become more aware of the American Civil War, I drove to the Chickamauga GA battlefield.  It was a humiliating defeat for the Union Army of the Cumberland.  The army was routed and made a disorganized retreat to the city of Chattanooga Tennessee. 

The Army of the Cumberland, under Rosecrans, was put under siege by the Confederates, under Bragg.  Supplies were difficult to come by and the troops were reduced to quarter rations. 

 Rosecrans

Bragg

Generals Grant and Sherman made their way to Chattanooga, with the Army Of The Tennessee, after a successful campaign at Vicksburg Mississippi.  General Joseph Hooker arrived, with an element of the Army Of The Potomac after a victory at Gettysburg.  Grant took charge of al the Union troops and devised a successful plan to greatly improve the line of supply in Chattanooga.

Grant

During this time, the men and officers of the Army Of The Cumberland were taking lots of abuse, at all levels of rank, from their counterparts in the Armies Of The Tennessee and The Potomac.  They had been embarrassed at Chickamauga and it was mostly because of a communication malfunction at the highest level of command.  They were seething.

Eventually, Grant's troops outnumbered Bragg's and they were better supplied.  Grant became tired of being under siege and wanted to start trying to break out.  His plan was to send his most trusted subordinate, General Sherman, to attack the Confederate right and rolling their line along Missionary Ridge.  Before this, General Hooker led an attack on Lookout Mountain and won what became known as the Battle Above The Clouds.  This victory was important, but not as important as some of the stories of the time made it out to be.

Hooker

After visiting Chickamauga, I drove to Chattanooga.  I made my way through the neighborhoods to the summit of Lookout Mountain.  I drove to Orchard Knob and Missionary Ridge.  The city has kind of consumed by the battlefield, but there are historic plaques and statues everywhere.  It is easy to get the lay of the land and understand how the terrain effected the battle. 

Sherman's efforts were foiled by his misunderstanding of the terrain at the far right of the Confederate line.  There were more hills there that he was not aware of.  As his attack faltered, Grant ordered the Army Of The Cumberland to threaten Missionary Ridge at the center of the line, to draw reinforcements from the right.  His orders were to take the trenches at the base of the ridge only.  He still thought Sherman should be the emphasis of the effort.  

The Army Of The Cumberland, now under General George "Pap" Thomas, the "Rock of Chicamauga", advanced to the base of the ridge, driving the Confederates up toward the top.  When they got there, they began to climb the ridge, contrary to orders.  I was a spontaneous movement, not commanded by anyone and they began to drive the rebels from the top of Missionary Ridge.  This became an avenging rout of the army that had routed them at Chickamauga.  It was another victory for Grant, despite the fact that it was not according to his plan.

Thomas

After reading much more about this battle and the entire Civil War, I have come to the conclusion that this was a very under rated battle.  It played an enormous part in the final outcome of the war.  

Gettysburg and Vicksburg had just happened and were rightfully seen as critical Northern victories, but Chattanooga did several things that kept the momentum going.

First of all, it helped Lincoln install Grant as the overall commanding general of the entire Union Army.  Despite his record of winning victory after victory, Grant was accused of being a careless drunkard.  There may be some partial truth to that, but he was a hard fighter, who wanted the enemy to worry about what he was going to do, rather than the other way around.  He fought like hell and he won.  Lincoln's previous choices as commanding general had been mostly failures.  Grant's assumption of command eventually led to the Overland Campaign, which resulted in Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House.

Secondly, it turned Sherman loose on Georgia.  That is what I talked about in my previous post.  Lincoln, Grant and Sherman met after Chattanooga, to discuss and plan how they would conduct the remainder of the war.  Grant and Sherman would use the same strategy as they advanced on Richmond and Atlanta, respectively.  Previously, Union generals would fall back after a major encounter with the Confederates.  Grant and Sherman just maneuvered around the enemy and continued their moves toward the objective, forcing the enemy to abandon a strong defensive position and try to move to block them.  Eventually Richmond and Atlanta were placed under siege.  This was the beginning of a change from the older forms of battle, which involved armies lining up on opposite sides of the field and shooting volleys at each other, to the modern, trench warfare.

Lincoln, Grant and Sherman understood the importance of breaking the will of the population of the enemy, the civilians, as much as the army.  You can see this in all levels of competition.  If the people supporting the competitors realize there is no way they can win, everyone on both sides is aware that it is only a matter of time.

The only reason the Confederacy lasted as long as it did, is because of the incompetence of Yankee generals and the hope that there would be recognition of the Confederate States Of America by European countries, that it was indeed a separate nation.  The major Union victories eventually killed that hope.

Chattanooga set Sherman and Grant up to be able to demonstrate in the Eastern and Western Theaters that the North would eventually prevail. 

 

Thin Air

 I'm reading The Oregon Trail, A New American Journey, by Rinker Buck.  Buck and his younger brother, Nick, followed the Oregon Trail in a wagon, like the ones used by the early pioneers.

I just reached the part of the story where they are crossing the lowest point on the Western Continental Divide and spending lots of time above 7,000 feet elevation.  Buck discusses an incident when he watered their mules and then left one of their 3 water buckets and a ladder behind on the trail.  He attributes this absent mindedness to the hubris and euphoria of hypoxia.

If you have read my blog to this point, you know a little of my experience hiking and skiing at higher elevations.  Of course, I also had some experience at high altitudes and high cabin altitudes in airplanes.  For clarification, I distinguish elevation, altitude and cabin altitude in this way.  An elevation is the height of a point on the ground above Mean Sea Level (MSL).  Altitude is a height above MSL in the air.  Cabin altitude is the equivalent altitude in a pressurized airplane.  For example, a pressurized airplane flying above 30,000 feet would have a cabin altitude equivalence of about 7,500 to 8,000 feet.  The air density in the cabin would be the same as that at those altitudes.

The Mount Whitney Trail, which I have hiked several times, begins at 8,300 ft. and goes to the summit at 14,500 ft. elevation.  I have flown airplanes as high as 41,000 ft. (rarely) with cabin altitudes between 8 and 9 thousand feet.  Most flying of jets is done in the 30 to 39 thousand foot range.  

During the early years of my flying career, I flew only two types of pressurized planes.  Almost all of my flying time was in unpressurized airplanes.

The one experience I was reminded of by Rinker Buck's tale of euphoria on the Oregon Trail was very early in my 5 years flying for Graham Aviation FBO in Butler PA.  I was trying to build flying time and experience and always looking for ways to do so.  Technically, I was still married to a flight attendant for Allegheny Airlines and able to fly with a  non-revenue pass.  We were a Piper dealer and the single engine planes we sold were made in Vero Beach Florida.  They then had to be flown to Butler.  That is where I put all of the above together and told the boss I wanted to travel to Vero Beach and fly a new Warrior back.

It has been a while since that trip, early in my career, but what I remember about it was my first personal exposure to the effects of high altitude euphoria, which can be deadly.

I had flown planes back from Vero Beach before.  Jim, BS and I brought 2 Cherokee 140s back, when I was still a student, working on my commercial license.  I learned about the range capabilities of these planes and knew I would have to stop for fuel, at least once.  I think the Warriors range was a little more than the Cherokee's but would still have to stop for fuel.  The best place to do that was before I began crossing the Appalachian Mountains, somewhere in North Carolina.  Options thin out until the border of West By God Virginia and Pennsylvania.  I had thought about this long and hard and knew this was the smart move, when I was on the ground.

Unfortunately, we had this thing called the 1973 Oil Crisis.  Fixed Base Operators (FBO), where struggling to get enough Avgas for airplanes.  They are the gas stations for general aviation flying across the country.  This was before the internet and getting information about availability was not easily available.  Typically, you could call them on the radio to ask about fuel availability, except that the plane I was ferrying had no radios.  They would be installed by our shop, when I arrived at Butler Graham.

I had planned where I would stop.  I don't remember which airport, but it was not one that required radio communication with Air Traffic Control.  To extend the range, I decided to fly at 12,500 feet.  Piston engine planes get a higher true air speed and burn less fuel at higher altitudes, to a point.  By regulation, 12,500 ft. was the highest altitude I could fly without supplemental oxygen or pressurization.  As I neared my planned airport, I checked fuel quantities and thought I could continue farther.  After some time, I was beginning to see the mountains to the north. I suddenly realized that I must have been experiencing euphoria from my time at 12,500.  It hit me like a baseball bat.  I was beginning to think I could extend all the way to Butler.  That was probably a very fortunate and unusual realization, for someone in that situation.  I checked the map for the nearest airport at which I could land and began my descent, getting smarter with each 1,000 feet. 

I think it was Mount Airy, North Carolina, but would have to check my logbook to be sure and it is currently 1000 miles away.  I got refueled, probably got something to refuel myself and flew the rest of the trip without incident.  

When I would tell my parents about trips like this, they were always shocked to learn that you could fly around the country like this without getting permission and talking to someone all the time.  God Bless the good ol' USA, for as long as we can keep it, which is not looking very promising at this time.

Uncle Billy

 Since 1979, I have virtually stopped reading fiction, except for those few articles I may read in today's newspapers.  Just kidding...kind of.  I prefer reading books about American history and biographies of people who made an impact on American history.  

The only fiction I have read would be books that are sometimes called "faction", because they are novels about historic events, people and places.  Examples would be Burning Ground, by D.A. Caldwell, about the exploration of what is now Yellowstone National Park.  Caldwell also wrote Fatal Ground, about what is called Custer's Last Stand.  I have also read many of the novels of James Michener, which cover a wide range of history.

The reason for my interest in American history began in 1979, when I was living in Atlanta Georgia.  I had gone to attend a school to acquire my flight engineer rating and was hired as an instructor afterwards.  I met many Southerners while I was there.  One of them is still one of my best friends, about whom I wrote in earlier posts.  However, there were some who were still carrying a grudge against people from the North.  They put them in two categories, Damn Yankees were those who came to visit and left and Goddam Yankees came and stayed.  At that point, I seemed to fall into the latter group.

At that point, the Civil War had been over for 114 years.  Growing up, I had learned about the war as early as grade school and in much more detail during my junior year in high school.  However, I had moved on and was very surprised to learn how people in the South held a grudge more than a century later.

I wanted to try to gain an understanding of the war to have something to say to them, when they told my how terribly the people of the North had mistreated them.  I wanted to learn about their war time experience and their reasons for fighting the war.   Some explained that the focus of their anger and hatred and the excuse for their behavior to me was General William T. Sherman.  My thoughts were that no one from my family had come to the United States until the later 19th Century, so WTF?

Sherman had brought the war to Georgia, taking the city of Atlanta and then marching across the state to Savanah.  To execute that march, he had severed his supply lines and his army lived off the land, taking what was needed from the farms along the way.  What he didn't need was destroyed.

As I read, I got a better understanding of Sherman's thinking.  When the war began, he was the head of a military academy in Louisiana, that became Louisiana State University (LSU).  Sherman was from Ohio and had graduated from West Point.  David French Boyd, a close friend, recalled Sherman declaring at that time:

"You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about. War is a terrible thing! You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it ... Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth—right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see in the end that you will surely fail."

Southerners were not convinced.

I am now convinced that I know far more, than my antagonists of 1979, about the causes, execution and aftermath of the Civil War.  The following video provides the best and easiest to grasp explanation of what drove Sherman to do what he did in Georgia.

Communication Skills

 We learn to communicate almost immediately after birth.  Infants can see facial expressions and infer meaning from them.  They communicate with their own facial expressions in a very short time.  It is not difficult to see when they are happy or whether something is bothering them.

When my kids were learning to swim at a very early age, the guy who was teaching them had developed his PhD around a system of teaching young children to swim.  He taught us that different cries from infants meant different things.

There are cries of anger.  There are cries of fear.  There are cries of hunger.  There are cries of, "Hey, I messed my laundry and I want someone to do something about it".  There are many other messages being sent by this crying, but in all cases, a response is expected.  "Let me know you have heard and understood what I am communicating and that you will do something about it".

We moved on to learning the alphabet, then putting it together in words and eventually, sentences and paragraphs.  Even before that, kids are learning language, simply by hearing others speak and trying to imitate.  I've long said that the first time a child says no is the beginning of the development of that child to become an independent and self sufficient adult.

Communication becomes more and more sophisticated as we grow and have more life experience.  I was fortunate to be a child and teenager during the 50s and 60s, when there was more discipline and eduction going on in schools, as opposed to much of the indoctrination of today.  I attended Catholic schools through high school.  We were drilled with correct spelling, grammar  and diagramming sentences.  

As you may know, if you have read my blog from the beginning, I did not attend college.  In some ways this is beginning to look like a blessing, although college was probably not as bad then, as it is today.

Two years after graduation from high school, I was drafted into the United States Army.  I have written extensively about that experience. This morning, I was thinking about some of the things I was taught about communication while in the army.  During my second 8 week period of training, Advanced Individual Training (AIT), we were being taught how to talk on radios.  This was primarily because we were being trained to be scouts for armor units.

As scouts, we would be probing advanced areas, searching for the enemy and reporting back to the main body, the location, nature and size of enemy units.  We would also be calling in artillery strikes.  Precise and clear communication was critical. Mistakes or misunderstanding could cause lives to be lost.

Sometimes it was necessary to spell words in radio communicaion.  It has been decided that the normal alphabet can be easily misheard or misunderstood.  Therefore a phonetic alphabet was developed.  Words are used to represent letters.  You may be familiar with the phonetic alphabet that was being used by the US military during World War II, from seeing the TV series Band Of Brothers.  It covers E Company, 2nd Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, "The Screaming Eagles".  At that time the phonetic word for E was Easy.

At some point after WW II, the countries of NATO changed the phonetic alphabet.  This new one was the one we learned in 1966.  For example, Easy was changed to Echo.  Supposedly, the reason for the change was to make communication between people who spoke different languages more easily understood.

Not long after I left the army, I began learning how to fly and as you can imagine, precise and easily understood communication is as important in aviation as it is in the military.  Here, I encountered the familiar NATO phonetic alphabet again.  This makes sense, as airplanes can easily be flown anywhere in the world, it is necessary to have a standardized method of communication.  It was decided that English would be the language of international aviation communication and the NATO phonetic alphabet would be the standard.  Lucky for me, I did not have to learn new ones.  Not so lucky for those who want to be involved in aviation and their first language is not English.  Life can be tough.

Another aspect of critical communication, that I touched on slightly in discussing infant communication, is acknowledging reception of messages. In aviation, a read back is usually expected and sometimes required.  When air traffic controllers tell pilots to fly a certain heading, change to a different altitude or clears them for takeoff, landing or an approach, they want to hear back from the pilot, exactly what they have cleared them to do.  Simply saying Roger, will usually piss someone off.  The read back should also include the call sign, to assure that the correct airplane will do what the controller expects them to do.

Although it is usually not as critical, normal communication between humans should also have some standards.  When someone says something to you, it is good policy to acknowledge in some way.

OK, the reason I started thinking about this, is that I have a mobile repair guy, here in Fort Myers, I have been dealing with for a few years and I have been trying to get information from him.  He and his office have not been getting back to me and I am pissed, but I don't want to dust him off.  He is very good, when I can get him out to work on the coach.