It seems every other web log or email I read is about someone going on vacation. Vacation, what’s that?! I haven’t taken a vacation since February, and that was for a weekend camping trip with Justin and my 9-year-old nephew!
So, we’ve now got a short vacation on the books — Thursday, August 12 through Monday, August 16. We’ll be travelling East, back to our favorite alligator photography venue: Brazos Bend State Park near Houston.
Let me boil this down. We send American servicemen and servicewomen into harm’s way overseas. We extend their tours of duty and have no clear plan on when they may come home or be rotated out with “fresh” troops.
Election day comes around. Argubly the most important day for any American, thus doubly important to someone serving one’s country on foreign soil. But because we can’t get our acts straight, thousands of ballots cast by U.S. military servicepeople go uncounted every year. And thousands more never get delivered to the servicepeople in time for them to vote!
Specific intelligence of terrorist threats puts Washington, D.C., New Jersey and New York on high alert.
I remember how I felt on September 11 working on the top floor of a sprawling corporate complex in San Antonio, knowing we were far away from the threat and yet wondering in the back of my mind, “What If?”
I imagine that’s what people in the Citigroup and Prudential buildings, NYSE and others are feeling today — magnified by a factor of TEN, due to the specificity of the alert.
