What Elvis was doing fifty years ago this week;
DB or Not DB?;
A Sobering Milestone in Iraq

Remembering Private Presley
What Elvis was doing fifty years ago this week.

Half a hundred years ago
the blue suede kid from Tupelo
became a Private, lost his hair
and gained a new ID.

His dog tags barked it silently.
His numbers started 5-3-3
and then came 1-0-7-6
before a final 1.

His service to his Uncle Sam
began in Heartbreak Hotel Land.
A few months after being shaved,
his mother Gladys died.

To Germany the King was sent.
Twas not your common deployment.
In spite of wearing Army duds,
His Majesty was known.

And when at last the King came home
we learned he wasn’t all alone.
His Queen was only princess age,
too young to even drive.

And now she’s dancing with the stars.
Priscilla hasn’t come that far.
She’s still defined by her ex-mate.
Ain’t that a tragic waltz?
 

DB or Not DB?
That is still the question 37 years later.

Is the fabric that was found
in a field beneath the ground
D B Cooper’s missing parachute?
“D B Cooper who?” you ask.

Oh, my gosh, do you not know?
Was it all that long ago
when a crazy man jumped from a Northwest jet
that he hijacked?

With a briefcase of marked bills,
Cooper ‘chuted. Was he killed?
That remains an unsolved myst?ry
after nearly forty years.

If he lived, where is he now?
If he spent the money, how?
Chances are he never did survive
and next we’ll find his bones.

And the lesson of this crime?
In the end we all will find
that a suitcase filled with money
matters little when we die.
 

A Sobering Milestone in Iraq
Counting the cost of the lost (and freedom).Five years there.
Four thousand dead.
And I knew one of those.
(His name was Jack.)

But as the number grows
I can’t help wondering
if the critics of this ongoing conflict
know jack.

Is not war (by definition)
an enemy we must abhor
and embrace
simultaneously?

Is it not (at times)
a necessary evil
that we are called to employ
in the business of doing good?

Sadly, when it comes to
making a case for
liberty and justice for all,
the insurgents in Iraq
aren’t the only foes we face.