An Ode to My Wife

It's Sunday afternoon. We just got home from church and I can hear Caroline clanking the pots and pans in the kitchen as she prepares the last lunch she'll have to make for me until mid-October. I'm not sure how she'd feel if she knew I were hijacking her blog, but the Army shut down my own blog so this is all I have to work with.

I am Caroline's husband Justin. Most of you who know Caroline don't know me because I surfaced during a transition period in her life. Caroline was ready to go to a master's program in London before I offered her a luxurious, carefree life in Fayetteville, North Carolina. For some reason, she chose me over London, and I am so grateful she did.

Caroline is one of the kindest women I've ever known. I see it more every day and it humbles me that a person like her would choose to spend her life with a man like me. I'm a guy's guy. I watch sports and South Park. I am a combat soldier who genuinely enjoys the risks that my occupation entails. And yet somehow, I have this wonderful woman in my life that dulls my rough edges and coarse exterior.

There are 4 types of people in this world: people who we know, people that we don't know, people that we wish we didn't know, and, most importantly, people that we are grateful to have in our lives. Caroline is without question in the latter category for me. Her brilliance, her kindness, her smile, her quiet beauty grace my life every day.

I have to leave for more combat training tomorrow morning for 10 tough weeks. The only thing that keeps me from gushing with excitement to learn more of my craft is the simple fact that I won't be with my wife. From waking up next to her, I go to waking up in the woods next to a camouflaged man who hasn't bathed in days. That's hardly a good trade. But the training I get will qualify her and I for a better military life, a more comfortable life, and she is worth every hardship that will come over the next few months.

I love my wife more than I ever thought I could love another person. I hope you know Caroline because she has a presence about her that brightens rooms and lives. If you see her over these next few months, take good care of her for me. And remind her how much I love her.

The Woes of the Woman

There was a great article in the Washington Post yesterday about working moms in Congress. The story focused on the ten congresswomen who have children under the age of eleven. It was really interesting to read how these women balanced their work and family life. Every week they have to shuttle between their congressional districts (where their family live) and Washington, DC (where their career is located). It seems like such a hectic life, but they all make it work somehow. And as a woman, I am really proud of them for doing it.

Yet there was a small portion of the article that made me sad. In the article, the point was made that men running for office get kudos from voters for raising young children--but women are often penalized for it. For male candidates, people think having young kids is a total plus. They believe such a man would be concerned about family values and that he would be more "future-oriented." Women candidates, however, face an uphill battle if they have little children. Their voters often wonder who's at home minding the kids when their mom is on the campaign trail.

First, I think it's unfair to women in congress that they cannot be good mothers and good politicians. Obviously this a hard road to head down, but it is not an impossible one. The women in the article demonstrate that they try their hardest to be the best moms that they can be while serving our country at the same time. They fly home for piano concerts and they check their children's homework every night--sometimes via fax. These women show that you can put your family first and succeed in your career. Of course, sacrifices must be made, but such a thing can be achieved.

Secondly, I also find it unfair that nobody questions the various congressmen who are raising young children about their abilities to be good fathers. Congressmen and congresswomen share the same political responsibilities---yet why is it that only female politicians are questioned about their parenting skills? It's interesting that men are applauded for balancing the two realms of work and family, yet women are criticized for doing the same thing.

And lastly, I feel really lucky to live in a time when more and more women are serving in the Senate and the House. For the first time in our history, we have a woman as the Speaker of the House and an African-American woman as the Secretary of State. I know there is ground that still needs to be broken when it comes to leveling up the playing field, but the strides we've made thus far are truly inspiring.

Anyway, it is a great article. Take a gander if you have the time.

We, the Southerner

On a warm Sunday in 1963, four black girls dressed up for a special youth program at their church in Alabama. The girls wore white dresses and they were primping inside the basement when a bomb exploded by the church stairwell. All four were killed. The bomb had been planted by the KKK.

Gene Patterson, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution, was mowing his lawn when he heard the news of the Sunday blast. Patterson quickly started writing a column for the paper's Monday edition. He contacted reporters on the scene in Birmingham and was particularly captivated by a report that a mother was walking around the church ruins, holding a shoe from the foot of her dead daughter. The editor decided to address his column to his fellow white southerners:

A Negro mother wept in the street Sunday morning in front of a Baptist Church in Birmingham. In her hand she held a shoe, one shoe, from the foot of her dead child. We hold that shoe with her.

Every one of us in the white South holds that small shoe in his hand.

It is too late to blame the sick criminals who handled the dynamite. The FBI and police can deal with that kind. The charge against them is simple. They killed four children.

Only we can trace the truth, Southerner---you and I. We broke those children's bodies.

We watched the stage set without staying it. We listened to the prologue unbestirred. We saw the curtain opening with disinterest. We have heard the play.

We---who go on electing politicians who heat the kettles of hate.

We---who raise no hand to silence the mean and little men who have their nigger jokes.

We---who stand aside in imagined rectitude and let the mad dogs that run in every society slide their leashes from our hand, and spring.

We---the heirs of a proud South, who protest its worth and demand it recognition---we are the ones who have ducked the difficult, skirted the uncomfortable, caviled at the challenge, resented the necessary, rationalized the unacceptable, and created the day surely when these children would die.
This is no time to load our anguish onto the murderous scapegoat who set the cap in dynamite of our own manufacture.

He didn't know any better.

Somewhere in the dim and fevered recess of an evil mind he feels right now that he has been a hero. He is only guilty of murder. He thinks he has pleased us.

We of the white South who know better are the ones who must take a harsher judgment.

We, who know better, created a climate for child-killing by those who don't.

We hold that shoe in our hand, Southerner. We hold that shoe in our hand, Southerner. Let us see it straight, and look at the blood on it. Let us compare it with the unworthy speeches of Southern public men who have traduced the Negro; match it with the spectacle of shrilling children whose parents and teachers turned them free to spit epithets at small huddles of Negro school children for a week before this Sunday in Birmingham; hold up the shoe and look beyond it to the state house in Montgomery where the official attitudes of Alabama have been spoken in heat and anger.

Let us not lay the blame on some brutal fool who didn't know any better.

We know better. We created the day. We bear the judgment. May God have mercy on the poor South that has so been led. May what has happened hasten when the good South, which does live and has great being, will rise to this challenge of racial understanding and common humanity, and in the full power of its unasserted courage, assert itself.

The Sunday school play at Birmingham is ended. With a weeping Negro mother, we stand in the bitter smoke and hold a shoe. If our South is ever to be what we wish it to be, we will plant a flower of nobler resolve for the South now upon these four small graves that we dug.

Journalism 101

There is a mantra amongst journalists to become the ultimate "detached observer." The reporter's duty is to observe current events and to document them in a balanced manner. In no way should a journalist insert himself into a story. He is not there to influence unfolding events; he is not there to change things. He is there to watch.

But are there exceptions to the rule?

In the fall of 1957, a fifteen year-old girl named Elizabeth Eckford got off a municipal bus and headed towards her school. She held her books against her chest and she wore sunglasses to cover the fear in her eyes. A large crowd had gathered outside the school and people shouted at her.

"Go back where you came from," one woman yelled.

"Don't let her in our school," called out another.


Elizabeth Eckford was black. She was part of a group of nine African-American students who attempted to integrate Little Rock schools in 1957. The students planned to meet that morning so they could all head to school as a group. But no one was able to reach the Eckford's because the family did not have a telephone. So Elizabeth, who arrived early, headed to school alone and faced the crowds and soldiers by herself.

Elizabeth walked up to the entrance and tried to go into the school, but she was turned away by the National Guard. The governor of Arkansas had sent in state troops to prevent school integration. Elizabeth tried to enter the school a second time, but again she was rebuffed. She was stuck. She walked back to the bus stop and took a seat on the bench, hoping anxiously that a bus would arrive soon. The angry mob followed her, shouting more jeers and epithets at the fifteen year-old girl.

Benjamin Fine of the New York Times had watched the entire seen unfold. As he watched tears dribble down Elizabeth's cheeks, he couldn't help but think of his own fifteen-year old daughter. He sat down besides the girl and put his arm around her. Gently lifting her chin he said, "Don't let them see you cry."

Fine's actions are criticized in the book The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of the Nation. The writers of the book decry Fine as being "completely inappropriate" and "provocative." And in the traditional journalistic sense, the writers are right. Fine did step out of bounds and he may have provoked the angry crowd. He broke the rules of Journalism 101. But are his actions wrong?

In my mind, Fine did the right thing. He understood that his actions would break certain journalistic rules, but he also couldn't withhold his comfort from a scared young teenager. I'm sure at the end of the day, Fine felt no regret for sitting down on that bus bench and putting his arm around Elizabeth Eckford. Would he have felt the same way if he had remained a silent observer in the crowd?

I'm not one to judge when and where a reporter should lay down his journalist duties. I'm sure it is a very fine line of what is appropriate and what is not. But I am proud of Ben Fine for following his heart. Whether or not his actions were right or wrong, he did the best humanly thing. He stood up against hate.