The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), under the leadership of Janet Napolitano, recently released a report listing potential threats to domestic security. Among the list of ‘right wing extremists’ that includes pro-life advocates and defenders of free speech and the right to self defense, are military veterans returning from overseas duty. The report states that “returning veterans possess combat skills and experience that are attractive to rightwing extremists” and “military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups….”

Is there any evidence of the 42 million veterans in America having so much trouble reintegrating into society that they are forming terrorist groups? On the other hand, industry and businesses love hiring veterans because of their mission focus, problem solving skills and leadership experience. I find Ms. Napolitano’s report especially telling in that she freely uses the ‘terrorist’ descriptor in referring to U.S. veterans but has vanquished the word from the government lexicon when describing the real terrorists: radical Islamic fundamentalists.

As a still-serving 27 year Army veteran I am extremely offended and insulted by the conclusions published in the DHS report. It has taken America 30 years to make amends for the insults heaped upon returning Vietnam veterans. Now, with a single incompetent blow this Administration has created anew an atmosphere of distrust and enmity between our nation’s defenders and its ruling class of naive and paranoid politicians. I’m often asked why I continue to serve when I could have retired years ago, when we’re fighting a war against an unconventional enemy hell bent on killing every American it possibly can. The answer is a simple one: my fellow soldier.

I have never known nor worked with a more loyal and selfless group of people than my fellow soldiers. From our first day of training we are instilled with the virtues of faith in a higher power, and loyalty to our homeland, our families and each other. Protecting the America we all love and defending it from foreign threats is what we do. We do this freely and without hesitation. In the Army we have a set of values that every soldier is expected to adopt as his own: Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage. Every action we undertake, both professionally and in our personal lives, must withstand the scrutiny of this list of values.

And this is where I believe Ms. Napolitano and the DHS completely miss the mark in their mistaken notion that returning veterans pose a threat to our domestic tranquility. Nothing could be farther from the truth! These veterans, one and all, were volunteers willing to give their lives in defense of their fellow Americans. This is what Ms. Napolitano doesn’t understand, that veterans live by a set of values that make using our combat skills against American citizens and our government an abhorrent thought.

The reason that the DHS conclusions are so misguided is that their leadership is lacking a set of values that guide their lives and conduct. It’s easy to understand this most recent blunder by the DHS when we realize that they and our Federal Government have expunged the basic virtues and values that have made this nation the bastion of freedom and guardian of individual rights for the rest of the world. Our Founding Fathers formed a government upon the bedrock of that Judeo-Christian set of values called the Ten Commandments. This set of values, given to us by our Creator, has withstood the test of time. In the last 40 years, however, they have been all but vanquished from our government, our courts and our schools.

Observe the chaos that seems to rule at every level of government today. The insidious partisanship, backbiting, lying and corruption that seems to be the norm in every political decision is enough to make us weep and wonder what became of leaders with integrity.

Look at the poor quality of education today in spite of the billions of dollars we keep dumping into our school systems. It’s not a shortage of money, poor teachers or a lack of computers and facilities that causes our education system to struggle every day. It’s the absence of an overarching value system that has created the greatest challenges to our children and to our society. (Remember school prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance?)

The Boy Scouts of America are often mocked as being square, un-cool, or increasingly irrelevant in ‘modern society’ because it requires its membership to recognize the station of God (non-denominational) in all of our lives. The ignored reality is that you don’t see a whole lot of Boy Scouts lined up in Juvenile Court or arrested on street corners for selling drugs. Why is this? The answer is simple; they have a system of values that every Scout is taught and expected to abide by from the day he joins the organization. Those values are summarized in their Scout Law: A Scout is Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean and Reverent. Is it any wonder that any boy who’s spent time in the Scouting program generally grows up to be a respectable, productive member of society? I think not.

All tribes, all organizations, all nations, societies and cultures who are ultimately successful have, as their central core of beliefs, a set of virtuous values by which all of their decisions and life choices are made. It seems to me that our government has steadily drifted away from the core value system that has made this country the greatest nation in the history of the planet. If our Congress keeps passing laws that punish success and strip us of our incentives to work hard, if our Supreme Court continues to uphold laws that diminish the value of human life and individual freedoms, if our Administration continues to create policies that foment fear and suspicion among our citizenry while ignoring the real threats that exist outside our borders, then we are a nation doomed to failure. Ours will be a civilization destroyed from within.

The Basuto tribe of South Africa has an ancient proverb: “If a man does away with his traditional way of living and throws away his good customs, he had better first make certain that he has something of value to replace them.” It is apparent to me that Ms. Napolitano and the DHS have published their report with its buffoonish conclusions from a vantage point devoid of knowledge of the origins of our nation and absent any real understanding of the spirit that motivates the American Soldier. The leadership at the DHS is lacking a set of values that otherwise would have led them to the conclusion that we are the safest nation in the world because of the selflessness, integrity and loyalty of its military veterans.

An Editorial by Colonel Richard B. Singer

(AWOWOTSCOA)

I posted the following in a game forum in which the game required a high degree of coordination among players to accomplish the goal.  There was no official mechanism for coordinating the various necessary actions and the coordination required quickly became a workload equivalent to operating a small business.  The only method of conducting this coordination was via forum posts.

Although players might only play 10 minutes to an hour each (or more), the operations of the game were 24/7/365.  What resulted was a continuous evolution of self proclaimed leaders declaring an organization, recruiting hundreds of anonymous members, establishing divisions of labor, a hierarchy, and, invariably, descending into chaos within a month or so (mostly due to self generated in-fighting).

Having been part of several of these “clans,” I began to notice the early symptoms of the impending self-destruction group dynamic: when seemingly every member of the clan began demanding recognition, rank or title, there was nigh over a week left before the only forum posts remaining contained words like “jerk” and “stupid”, rendering communication impossible.

Please note that I did NOT include the reference list in my original post!

The following is the letter I posted into the forum pages of one of those groups – “The PC Immortals”. I only hope the letter speaks for itself…

A Word of Warning on the Superfluous Creation of Acronyms (AWOWOTSCOA)

Let me start out by summarizing my painful induction into the mind-numbing world of acronyms so you can see that I am indeed a SMA (Subject Matter Expert).

A full two years prior to being commissioned by the CinC as an LT in the ARNG, I graduated a 4 of 5 from IET. In fact, it was so long ago that it was still called BCT, not IET. All the same, its where the FNG’s get their first taste of PT, BCS and all the T, C and S from the SMCT (LVL 1 and 2). My first assignment was with a standard MTOE AVN unit as the 3/5 leader. I did well, and eventually received a promotion to 1LT and an early assignment as the CO. In more recent years, I’ve been assigned as the S2, Asst. SPO and Asst. S3 for an RSG. Of course, this was a new unit reorganized from a TDA SPT BDE, so there were a lot of growing pains. Early last year, for instance I had to go TDY on AD for training to become DMOSQ as a 35D. I have also done brief stints in the DCSOPS, JFHQ and in the JOC. (I prefer COTTADS over ADSW, but I take what I can get.)

My longest assignment, and the one that exposed me to the most ridiculous of the ridiculous, was a T10 short tour as an LNO to NGBLL in DC! As you can imagine, coordinating with the CNGB, the CJFC, and both the DANG and the DARNG was a complete SNAFU!

[I must pause to say that my peers read up to this point and don't realize its a joke!]

So: someone in the PC Immortals got themselves a brand new, shiny RAG (Random Acronym Generator) and can’t seem to find the OFF button! For the love of God, please stop. I have an adequate supply of secret codes in my life already! You’re going to hurt someone with that thing!

The only thing I need to be a good IAL (Immortal-at-Large) is the name of the current leader (HMFIC) and the world we’re in! I mean, what do I care that the IA is currently the HMFIC because the IE couldn’t tell the IA that the HC logged in ASAP? OMG! I’m getting AIBF! (Acronym Induced Brain Freeze!)

V/R,

CPT W

SMA	Subject Matter Expert
CinC	Commander in Chief, i.e., President, aka, POTUS or President of the United States
LT	Lieutenant
ARNG	Army National Guard
IET	Initial Entry Training
BCT	Basic Combat Training, i.e., “Bootcamp”
FNG	“The” New Guy
PT	Physical Training
BCS	Basic Combat Skills
T,C&S	Task, Condition and Standard
SMCT	Soldiers’ Manual of Common Tasks
MTOE	Modified Table of Organization/Equipment
AVN	Aviation (Branch)
3/5	Fuel and Ammunition
1LT	First Lieutenant
CO	Company Commander
S2	Intelligence Officer
SPO	Plans Officer
S3	Operations Officer
RSG	Regional Support Group
TDA	Table of Distribution / Allowances
SPT BDE	Support Brigade
TDY	Temporary Duty (Assignment)
AD	Active Duty
DMOSQ	Duty – Military Operational Specialty Qualified
35D	(My new “MOS”)
MOS	Military Operational Specialty, i.e., my “job title”
DCSOPS	(The Office of the) Deputy Chief of Staff, Operations
JFHQ	Joint Force Headquarters
JOC	Joint Operations Center
COTTADS	CONUS, Temporary Tour Active Duty
CONUS	Continental United States
ADSW	Active Duty, Special Work
T10	Title 10, (US Code)
LNO	Liaison Officer
NGBLL or NGB-LL	National Guard Bureau – Office of Legislative Liaison
DC	(Washington)
CNGB	Chief, National Guard Bureau
CJFC	Chief, Joint Forces Command
DANG	Director, Air National Guard
DARNG	Director, Army National Guard
SNAFU	Situation Normal: All Messed Up
OFF	Off
HMFIC	Head Person In Charge
V/R	Very Respectfully (Often used when not true)

I was also notified on two separate occasions that – and I quote: "Garrett had trouble lissening in class today!"

Even so, I won’t name the teacher.

I was in the Crystal City Underground, returning from some mindless errand that I had decided to incorporate into my lunch break.  The "Underground" is a series of connected stores – a mall – that is in the collective basements of all the buildings in Arlington, a block or so from the Pentagon.

I decided to call my dad while I had lunch – an international call.  I carefully dialed the country code and number and was directed to customer service to activate "international calling" on my calling plan.

Now, I know I’m asking a lot, here.

  My carrier has notoriously poor connectivity in Arlington in the first place, I’m in a cave in the swamps of the Potomac, next door to a major airport.  So I didn’t really expect a miracle here, I was just hoping I’d get lucky from the spot I was in, which sometimes, though rarely, was possible.

No such luck.  We both made a valiant struggle to get through the conversation.  I even abandoned my food to go out to the subway entrance, where I’d get a line-of-sight to open air.  It worked – a little.  From this point we could both piece together slightly longer fragments of one another’s sentences.

I tried to explain that I was attempting to place a call to Costa Rica.

"Where?"

"Costa Rica!"

"Italy?"

"Costa Rica!!"

"I’m sorry, Sir.  Could you please call back on a land line."

Probably the most rewarding and memorable opportunity I’ve had in this time was at the end of 2006, when I was called to duty (canceling all my New Year’s party plans) to serve on the State Funeral of President Gerald R. Ford.

We had all volunteered far in advance for this duty – numbering in the thousands. State funerals are a HUGE undertaking with the President’s wishes, and then his family’s coming first. Prior to President Ford’s Funeral, all of the recent state funerals had, by chance, occurred in states with large active duty military bases. Since Michigan doesn’t have one, it fell to the National Guard to run the show.

With so many duties to be performed, I found myself

doing everything from answering telephones to entering scheduling data into computers, to running information (and errands) up and down the streets of Grand Rapids. On the day that Air Force One landed I was tasked – of all things – to assist military members and members of the media in “identifying” the VIP’s that would be arriving at the airport by ground. Now I’m not much of a “celebrity” guy, but I know enough of the local business owners by sight that I hoped I could at least be helpful.

As people slowly started filing into the cavernous airplane hangar dedicated to this purpose, I began introducing myself to everyone, one by one. This fulfilled multiple purposes: first, it was helping me ensure I even KNEW the VIP’s from the media folks, and second, since the big metal hangar was unheated, it was a good way to keep warm!

As I worked my way through the growing crowd, I met a lot of interesting people. I did what I could to make everyone comfortable, which; really, boiled down to pointing out the location of the coffee, bathrooms, and getting chairs for those few elderly guests that seemed a bit shaky on their walkers. I wasn’t “working the crowd”, mind you. I was trying to be polite, help out, and convey the solemnity of the occasion.

One particular man seemed uncomfortable. It could have been the intense cold. It could have been the fact that we were attending a funeral. Who knows – maybe he just had an argument with his wife? But I approached with a solemn smile and introduced myself: “Good morning Sir, my name is Captain Worrell, Michigan National Guard.” … with the intent to ask next if there was any assistance I could provide.

His simple response:

“Good morning to you, my name is Jack Nicklaus. I golf.”

Oh, yeah: I should probably note that I prefer to combat bugs with my BB gun.  The advantage in stand-off range easily makes up for the bad PR at home.  Of course, I make every attempt to make these operations as covert as possible.

And so the truce continued.  If I’d spy an advanced scout, I might fire a warning shot with a rolled up newspaper – just as a reminder.  Oddly enough, it wasn’t the domestic spider clan that launched the epic offensive.  Even more oddly, they didn’t attack my wife – they made a full frontal assault on my main body.  And now that I think of it, that term applies literally!

I had spent a day camping

with some friends out near Jackson.  Not the kind of "camping" that requires $300,000 in equipment and a few tanks of gas.  I’m talking a survival knife, a match and a couple quarts of water.  (In all honesty, there were probably some franks, chips and a beer or two as well, but that’s beside the point.)

In the morning I awoke a bit groggy… and late.  So instead of rolling my sleeping gear up neatly…

Yeah, so what?!  I had a sleeping bag.  I also took a size 12 green rubber army overboot – left, if you must know… what else was I going to use for the beer and ice?  Sheesh, not every camping trip has to be high-adventure!

…oh…

…I just wadded it in a ball and threw it in the back seat.

The weather was just about perfect, so I left the windows down… yeah, as in: they weren’t ever up all night… and enjoyed the trip home.

Even though I was in a leisurely mood (and a bit on the groggy side), this was during a phase of my life when driving too fast was just a standard procedure.  I thought the sign "kill a road worker 5 years $15,000" referred to a reward paid out in the form of an annuity!  And as the old joke has it the two seasons in Michigan are winter and road construction.  This wasn’t winter!

About ten minutes into the drive I felt something crawling on my leg, below the knee.  There was nothing there, of course.  It was just a combination of that grimy, slept-in-the-woods feeling and the wind blowing through my car.  Ten more minutes and I felt it again, this time in a different place.  Again: nothing there.  After about the first hour of this repeating I started laughing at myself.  I was letting my mind get the best of me.

Within a half hour of home, still among the orange-barrels that define a Michigan summer, I noticed a black thread had come loose in the brim of my ball cap… my all red ball cap…

I’m not sure of the time that elapsed from the split second that the wolf spider used the leverage of that one "thread" to throw the other seven and the rest of his mass from the top of my hat brim to the bottom – standing there facing me, each of us upside down to the other.  I do know that enough time elapsed that whoever it was that took over piloting duties while I was locked in mortal combat allowed the car to drift two lanes of orange barrels deep into the construction area.

(Oh, don’t worry: no one ever actually works in these construction zones.  They’re just there to protect the potholes.)

It took some time for me to calm back down – but I did regain control.  I got control of the car back from my imaginary copilot as well as controlling my own adrenaline level.  In fact, I regained my composure to the point that when I felt another one on my leg, I was able to remind myself of the earlier phantom bugs.  "There’s no way there are more of those things in here.  Get control of yourself, wimp!", I told myself.

Nope: he had a wingman!  Imaginary copilot deployed: again… Screeching tires (from somewhere): again… Hand to leg (to leg, to leg, to leg) combat: again!

I won the fight, but I never did find all sixteen legs!

There WE were…

No, I’m not Tom Cruise, but I am an Army helicopter pilot.

I was the pilot of the fifth ship of a flight of six.  The other pilot was the aircraft commander.  (There are always 2 pilots in a Huey).  My friend Tom was one of the pilots in the trail ship, which makes this as (or more) memorable for him as it is to me!

The pilots’ duties are split up in the following way: the pilot at the controls flies the aircraft, the other pilot talks on the radios and navigates.  Since each pilot has a nearly identical set of controls, it is easy and routine for the pilots to alternate these duties.

On this particular training mission, we were conducting a practice Air Assault, which means

we were supposed to be dropping good guys (presumably armed) right next to the bad guys.  We didn’t have any good guys with bullets available, so to make the flight more realistic – and by this I mostly mean heavy – we were giving "rides" to some of our soldiers that normally don’t get to go anywhere near the helicopters – it makes for much more realistic training, and improves the morale of the "cargo"!

One of the soldiers on my aircraft was a young ‘kid’ that I had mentored when he was still just a recruit, and he had specifically requested to be on my aircraft.  The other pilot I was flying with was a senior Warrant Officer – in this case "Senior" stands for far more than just his rank.  He had been flying Hueys in the Army National Guard since the Vietnam era and was preparing to retire as a Michigan State Police officer.  Oh… and he didn’t like to be shown up by hotshot, snot-nosed kids – in this case: me.

Now, when you’re practicing to fly in bad-guy-land, you typically want to stay below where the meanies can see you because its harder shoot something you can’t see (and there’s no such thing as "Whisper Mode!!!)  So I fly safe and I follow all the rules, but I fly aggressively because, well; trees are softer than bullets!

Since I was the whipper-snapper, and old Mr. Grumpy was the Pilot-in-command, he let me fly at the controls first – ostensibly to judge my competence.  I did exactly what I was trained to do: I flew fast, maintained the correct distances and angles from the other aircraft in the flight, and I flew low – very low.

The one little thing that I did that I was unaware of until it was too late was, apparently, challenged him to a duel of flying ability.  Still unaware of this miscalculation, we transferred controls normally and he took the second run-through of the route.  At first, his performance was nearly the mirror image of mine – really; there are only so many ways you can read a winding valley or river.  He was doing an excellent job.  He followed the natural cut in the valley as it first turned one way and then the other.  This was the perfect place to practice this kind of flying!

Then in one particular spot the "V" in the trees we’d been using for a highway made a sharp left turn.  The only problem was that this particular narrow valley had one large, soft pine tree sticking right up through the lowest point, turning the sharp "V" into more of a "W".  I’ve heard these anomalous trees referred to over the years as "widowmakers" and this particular one really popped out of nowhere!

He already had the aircraft in a 60 degree bank, which is the maximum bank limitation for the aircraft.  Briefly, I thought he was going to try and go steeper to make the inside of the turn, and just as briefly, I felt the aircraft "mush."  (This is a highly technical term that means: "It ain’t gonna work!")  When it finally occurred to him that he wasn’t going to make it to the inside, he executed the obvious alternative and tried to swing wide around to the outside.  Unfortunately, time was up to change tactics and he ended up decisively executing both and split it right down the middle, lightly brushing the grease off the underside of the bird.

When we got back to the airfield my young soldier friend patiently waited for me to conduct the post-flight inspection and debrief.  When I walked out of the briefing room he was there with a huge, thankful smile on his face.  When I shook his hand he said "That was SO awesome!… That tree went by us on BOTH sides!!!"

Epilogue: Mr. Grumpy retired almost immediately after this flight.  The young soldier in the story is now successful both as an army sergeant AND in his career in law enforcement.  Tom is still trying to collect on his debt – something about me owing him a fresh pair of underwear!

I had a couple young men in my company that I liked to refer to as Tweedle-Dumb and Tweedle-Dee.  They are both the type of soldiers you want in your command – hard working, enthusiastic and get the job done even without being told.  (Notice I didn’t include “smart” on the list… but I’d rather have a dull go-getter than a smart lump of laziness any day.)  I openly referred to them by these names – they seemed to accept it as a badge of honor (and clearly all in fun).  I never titled them as one or the other, though – I’d just wait until they were both present and ask their boss to, “find something dirty for the Tweedles to clean!”

One of them finally asked me once – while both were present – which was which.  I replied that 1) I wasn’t sure yet, 2) they probably wouldn’t want to know the answer anyway, and 3) I wasn’t sure I wanted them to know!  (I suspected they were both vying for the coveted title of Tweedle-Dumb.)

The following month I fought my way to drill in a pretty intense blizzard – about six inches of snow had fallen sometime between

three and six in the morning.  (It’s only a blizzard to those of us that live down-state: Grayling locals call this a dusting.)  After the morning formation, while my staff was busy getting to the tasks of the morning’s business, I remained out in the main area of the building, trying to get to know some of my fellow soldiers – which, I’m told, is a good thing for a new commander to do.

Since I had just dealt with a rather heart-breaking soldier issue immediately prior to formation, I was disturbed when one of the top soldiers on my staff quietly interrupted me and said, “Sir, I think you need to see this.  Quickly!”  As my mind searched through the possible calamities – critical testing failure; someone got hurt on the way in; worse??? – I followed him back to his office.

His office window is to his back, so that as you stand in front of his desk you have a clear view of the entire front yard and several hundred meters of the entrance road – you can even catch glimpses of the lake when the winter foliage is down.  It can be quite mesmerizing on a day with a fresh, deep snowfall.

Not allowing myself to be distracted by the view, I grew somewhat perturbed when he sat down at his desk and got back to work as if he’d never asked me to come deal with what in my mind had grown to an epic crisis!  After a long moment, I said, “Well?”

He just donned what I’ve since come to know as his routine mischievous smirk and pointed over his shoulder.

Ah, this was only a joke.

It didn’t take a second for mild irritation to turn to hilarity.  Outside was Tweedle, shoveling snow.  Actually, “shoveling” isn’t the right word – if there was an Olympic event for distance throwing heaping shovels of snow along an unused sidewalk for no apparent reason – the name of that sport would be the word for what he was doing.  At first, as I watched through my tears of laughter, I suspected that he had started to feel fatigued and what I was observing was the final burst of adrenaline prior to the collapse… But a quick scan of the previous 50 meters or so of sidewalk showed not a spec of disturbed snow less than a full meter from the clean path.

After my initial laughter subsided, I refilled my tiny little paper cup with coffee, grabbed my hat and headed out the door.  Out the door… down the steps, past the front of the building… another left on the main walk (all clean and dry).  All the way to the other end of the building I met up with Tweedle where he was approaching the matching set of outdoor concrete steps up the other side of the building.

He was dripping sweat through the outside of the outer shell of his uniform coat!  That’s about three inches of cotton and wool!  I took a sip of coffee knowing that surely an audience had grown in the office to watch this performance… “Excellent job, Tim!”, I said, startling him.  Spinning around, unable to stand fully erect – but trying – he snapped a sloppy salute and apologized: “Sorry sir, I didn’t see you coming up.”  After returning his salute, I assured him there was no breach of etiquette and reiterated how impressed I was with his initiative.

I must have said the right thing: I could see the wide smile even through the desperate gasps for air.  I put my arm around him in the most paternal fashion I could muster…

“You know…

next time…

feel free to use one of the snowblowers.”

As it happens, we were playing a racing game called Gran Turismo and I had just won a race using my son’s favorite car, called a "Tickford."  Now, I sometimes keep a car for sentimental reasons, such as, I always wanted to have that car in real life, but for the most part – in game – I select my favorites based on how well they will compete in races.  He, on the other hand, selects his favorites based on how cool they are, i.e., "that green one has a cool orange stripe!"

The prize for this particular victory was a car we absolutely needed to compete in a model-specific race; and a promising one, if tuned correctly.  But – you guessed it: he didn’t like the car’s appearance.  After some convincing, he decided to try the car out on a test track…

It was horrible, the car slid off practically every turn!  It had lousy acceleration, practically no brakes and just, generally, didn’t respond well.  I suggested that maybe he wasn’t being fair with his criticisms and he retorted that I should "try it yourself!"  And so I did…

I found the car to be acceptable, and said so.  I even noticed a certain familiarity about it’s responsiveness.  I said, "it doesn’t seem to be any different than your Tickford" (the favorite).  This was obviously not an acceptable viewpoint, based on his sarcastic reply.

Still trying to placate him – because we really DID need the car – I suggested that he let me tune it and then test the car again, to which he reluctantly agreed.

When I got to the "Tune Up" area of the game, I found that all the tuning had already been done – exactly to the set-up we usually build.  Then it dawned on me: we never got in the new car.  We had been testing the Tickford!

Note: he has caught me in similar "Eat Crow" situations, but those stories aren’t nearly as amusing!

I went to the Science Center with my son’s second grade class today as a chaperon. I found out I had chaperon duties when I arrived at the school in the morning in response to the invitation: “would you like to go on the field trip with us?” But I don’t mind wrangling a few brats for a half day – I wrangle 150 soldiers all weekend and it’s about the same job description…

Of all the great story opportunities from this little junket – I only lost one brat, and even then for only a couple of minutes – my favorite was the “ABC game” I played with my boy on the bus ride home. We were the last ones on the bus for the return trip due to the fact that the experts at the center lost my backpack, which they insisted I leave with them after lunch. (See Detroit Science Center Intelligence Story.)

So, now in the front of the bus, alone – or so I thought – with my boy,

he asked if we could play the “ABC game”, which we play by taking turns naming off a word that starts with successive letters of the alphabet. He says “A is for apple” and I respond with the most ridiculous word I can think of for “B”, like, “B is for botulism.” It makes him laugh, and occasionally, he learns a new word.

We easily got through the first time, but as you know if you’ve played this a few times, it can be difficult to get through the “X’s” multiple times in a row without repetition. So on the second run through, I broke one of my own rules and used “Xanadu.” (We don’t usually allow proper nouns.) He responded with “Y is for yankee” and I took a few moments to try to find a real whopper for “Z”.

The nice lady next to me (also a hijacked chaperon) noticed my struggle and offered up: “You could use Z is for Xylophone!”

I thanked her and switched games.