Every Word a Lesson

When Jesus showed his disciples how to pray, he began His "model prayer" with the amazing recognition that the same God with whom we can have a personal relationship -- "Our Father" -- is also praiseworthy as the Creator of the Universe -- "hallowed be Thy name" -- and then recognized God's sovereignty over every aspect of our lives -- "Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done...". (Emphasis here, and throughout, the Colonel's)

Jesus then followed those most weighty and profound words with what at first glance seems the most simple and mundane request:

    "Give us today our daily bread."  Matthew 6:11

If you are like the Colonel, you have probably taken those six words all too lightly.  Their simplicity has caused him to give them scant attention.  The Colonel will admit he ain't smart and you can't make him -- it often takes someone drawing a picture for him to get the point.  

In his exhaustive verse by verse Bible commentary first published early in the 18th Century, Matthew Henry expounded on the meaning of Jesus' simple verse on Divine Providence in His model prayer:

"...after the things of God's glory, kingdom, and will, we pray for the needful supports and comforts of this present life.  Every word here has a lesson in it."

"We ask for bread; that teaches us sobriety and temperance; and we ask only for bread; not for what we do not need."

"We ask for our bread; that teaches us honesty and industry.  We do not ask for the bread of others, nor the bread of deceit; nor the bread of idleness; but the bread honestly gotten."

"We ask for our daily bread; which teaches us constantly to depend upon Divine Providence."

"We beg of God to give it to us; not sell it us; nor lend it us; but give it.  The greatest of men must be beholden to the mercy of God for their daily bread."

"We pray, give it to us.  This teaches us a compassion for the poor.  Also that we ought to pray with our families."

We pray that God would give us this day; which teaches us t renew the desires of our souls toward God, as the wants of our bodies are renewed."

That God inspired Mr. Henry to pen these words more than three centuries ago to expound on a lesson given two millennia ago proves the Colonel's belief that there is truly nothing new under the sun and that the truth in God's Word remains rock solid and unassailable age to age.

The Colonel is convinced, without a shadow of doubt in his military mind, that as Jesus spoke the Aramaic words, "Hawvlan lachma d'sunqanan yaomana," (translated to Greek and then into modern English as "Give us today our daily bread") He did so fully cognizant of His God-given place as the "Bread of Life" -- a term by which He referred to Himself.  Jesus knew He was God's ultimate provision. 

Now, he ain't no Aramaic scholar, but the Colonel is capable enough on a computer to do a bit of research -- and looky here what he found:  The rich, chock-full - of - meaning, Aramaic words Jesus spoke, that were written down in the commercial language of the time (Greek) and later translated into very one-dimensional English...,  well, they also carry a connotation of spiritual wisdom.  

Jesus' taught his disciples; and by extension, us; that our Creator Father not only was (is) the source of every material need, but every spiritual need as well.  The Father's spiritual wisdom is ours for the asking.     

The Colonel's prayer this week is that he will be daily reminded of the greatness of God and His provision of all he needs both physically and spiritually on a daily basis.      

Kingdom Seeking

Probably the most critical component of a Christian's life -- the least understood, and the most underutilized gift from God -- is a believer's ability to communicate with Him through prayer.

The Colonel's own prayer life is instructive.

Even something as simple as praying all too often falls into the category of fails in the Colonel's life.  It's not that he doesn't pray -- it's that he doesn't pray right.

That's right, the Colonel just said there's a right way to pray.  How dare he, you're thinking.  Prayer is personal, you say.  Our communication with God is not bound by constrictive rules, you say.

You're right..., and you're not so right.

In the 6th chapter of his Gospel, Matthew records that Jesus felt it necessary to teach his disciples how to pray.  Why?  Well, the Colonel believes that God's people had a prayer problem.  The people of Israel had ritualized and politicized their prayers.  They had turned the act of what should have been a private communication with their Creator and Savior into a grossly inappropriate public spectacle of self-aggrandizement.

Jesus taught that our prayer life was a deeply personal and private affair -- "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men... But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father..." Matthew 6: 5

But, He didn't stop there.  Jesus went on to provide His followers a model prayer -- not to be prayed ritualistically; but as a complete collection of components (and sequence, as well) critical to our communication with God.

The Colonel fervently believes there was, and is, nothing accidental or happenstance about Jesus.  When he gave His disciples what we now call The Lord's Prayer, every bit of it, down to the very sequence of it, was (is) a perfect example of what our prayer life should contain.  

The Colonel just as fervently believes that Jesus' intention was not that we would ritualistically recite His example of prayer.  That defeats the whole purpose of God's gift to us -- the ability to address Him on a personal level.

The Colonel confesses that his own prayer life all too often is a variation on the theme, "Oh, God. Help me, I'm in a mess."

Admit it, so is yours. 

However, when we look at what Jesus was really trying to convey with the specific components of His model prayer, we see that our communication with God has some very important elements over which we cannot skip if our prayer is to be its most effective.  

Jesus said, "This, then, is how you should pray:

       Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name..."

Let's stop right there and take a deep, thoughtful look.  Jesus is telling His disciples (and us) that we can come to God as we would our own Earthly parent; but, with the utmost respect and recognition of Him as the Creator of the Universe.

That God created the Universe, and gave us the ability to commune personally with Him is the most amazing thing!  Think about the size of the Universe -- hundreds of billions of galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars; in one of which and around one of which, respectively, our planet circles in obscurity.  And, yet, the God who created a Universe in which light, travelling at 186,000 miles per second, takes billions of years to travel from one end of its expanse to the other -- well..., that same God, as great and powerful and hallowed as He should be, still allows each of us to personally approach Him in prayer as if we were talking to our daddy.

Remember, however, that Jesus did nothing by happenstance. When he started His model prayer with recognition of the incomparable greatness of our Heavenly Father that was no mistake.  Jesus includes personal requests of God in His model prayer, but they are prominently preceded by solemn recognition of who God is.  

Jesus continued, "...Your kingdom come, Your will be done..."

We can approach God with our personal requests, but Jesus made it abundantly clear that those personal requests must not be made without our first recognizing the greatness of God, and also, without our next seeking His kingdom and His will.

The Colonel admits that he egregiously fails to seek God's kingdom and will as paramount over his own.  It shames him to realize that he so flippantly approaches God with requests for revelation of God's will in his life, when he is, in reality, seeking God's approval of his own desires.

To seek God's kingdom and God's will is not an exercise in box checking.  God is sovereign, and until we recognize that truth what we want means zip.  When we pray for God's kingdom to come and His will to be done, we aren't asking Him to visit justice on a wicked world.  Jesus' teaching that we should first seek God's kingdom and will is a personal requirement, without which God's provision and grace is not possible.

Don't take the Colonel's word on it -- here's what Jesus said:

"...seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you..." Matthew 6: 33 

So, if you are like the Colonel and need a personal spiritual revival, here's our homework:

Let's be Kingdom Seekers. 

Sanctuary Republic

The Colonel convened an emergency joint session of the three constitutional branches of the Tallahatchie Republic last evening.

 * For those of you who have only recently demonstrated the fact that you have absolutely nothing else of redeeming value to do with your time than to follow posts hereon, and have yet to get completely up to speed on the methodless madness that is The Colonel's Corner, the Tallahatchie Republic (founded with tongue in cheek and hand on wallet) is a virtual government (of the Colonel and by the Colonel) headquartered at Egeebeegee, Mississippi  (Unincorporated), encompassing both the Colonel's vast holdings here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere and the Colonel's not-so vast readership scattered around the map. 

The emergency joint session was necessitated by a crisis of perception -- the Colonel thinks the rest of the world has gone nuts.

Surrounded on all sides by folks who have absolutely lost their minds, the Colonel had no choice but to take concrete steps to prevent loss of his own remaining meager mental faculties, which would incapacitate the Tallahatchie Republic's leadership for life and leave the citizenry and legal residents without protection.

"My fellow Tallahatchians.  The Colonel calls this joint session of the..."

The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda looked up from her needlepoint and opened up her heart to the Colonel, "Knucklehead, if you don't get out of the way of the TV, I'm gonna bust your joints with a frying pan!"

"Dear, the Colonel has called a joint session of the government of the Tallahatchie Republic to address a critical issue. Please pay attention for just a few minutes."

"You get two minutes and that's it!" The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda is nothing if not patient and accommodating.

"Thank you, Dear.  Lessee, where was the Colonel?  Ah, yes.  My fellow Tallahatchians..."

"Tally what?"

"What, dear?"

"Never mind. You've got a minute and a half left.  You better skip the preamble and get to the point."

"Uh, okay...  The Colonel calls this joint session in order to..."

"Why do you do that?

"What, dear?"

"Why do you insist on referring to yourself in the third person?"

"Well, the Colonel rather thinks it adds rhetorical and literary flourish to his speaking and writing..."

"More like fingernails on a chalkboard.  You've got a minute left. Wrap it up, Shakespeare."

"Wha...?  Uh..., um...," the Colonel thumbed quickly through the sheaf of papers in his hands and finally found the page with the words "Sanctuary Proclamation" at the top.  He solemnly intoned, 

"Whereas, a growing plurality of the cities and states, municipalities and commonwealths of the late, great re-United States of America have declared themselves sanctuaries for various persons who have challenged the sovereignty of the aforesaid late, great republic and entered and established residency in contravention to the laws of said late, great republic...; 

"We, the people of the Tallahatchie Republic, with tongues firmly planted inside cheeks and hands firmly grasping wallets, do hereby declare that the Tallahatchie Republic is, and will henceforth forever be, SANCTUARY for those persons who self-identify as Constitutional republicans (Big C, little r)."


The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda sat in open-mouthed wonder at the love of her life standing at the modified position of attention and executing the Tallahatchie Salute (tongue in cheek; hand on wallet).

"Well, that takes the cake, knucklehead.  Just when I thought your idiocy could plumb no greater depths...,"  the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda stopped and sighed -- the kind of deep, soulful, sigh of resignation that the Colonel has heard on occasions too numerous to count.  "Can you do one thing for me..., the next time you call one of your 'emergency joint sessions'?"

"Shurtinly, deah...," the Colonel paused, ceased his Tallahatchie salute, and looked expectantly into the eyes of his best friend.  "Whatever you want."

"Could you please designate the space in front of the TV a 'Colonel Free Zone'?"               

"We Train and We Fight"

President Trump wants a parade.

He wants to see the might of our Republic's military in an hours' long march of troops, tanks, rockets, and artillery through the heart of our capital; overcast with clouds of bombers, fighters, and helicopters.

The Colonel has to admit, that would be a pretty cool sight.  He means, who doesn't love a great parade?  Especially a parade of the nation's best and hardest showing off their coolest toys.

But, there's another side of the Colonel that is deeply troubled by the idea -- for a couple reasons.  Okay, probably three or four reasons.  Hear him out. 

At first blush, the Colonel has been tempted to mark this desire for a world class national military parade up to just another manifestation of President Trump's braggadocious ego.  (Look, the Colonel knows a braggadocious ego when he sees one -- the Colonel ain't the most humble man on the block, himself.)  Face it, it is who Donald Trump is -- a narcissistic bully whose modus operandi is to belittle and insult opponents (even those nominally on his team who disagree with him on a side matter).  

He cannot stand to be upstaged.

He sees a grand military parade in another country and he feels upstaged.  So, he demands that his military perform to assuage his feelings of inadequacy.

It is no secret that the Colonel despises the man Donald Trump is.  The Colonel didn't vote for him -- he wrote in the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda.  (And, frankly, she would rock as our president!)  So, the Colonel knows that his not-so secret disdain for the man colors your perception of his motivations for opposing this particular parade idea.  Just know that the Colonel has been in total agreement with nearly 90% of the policy positions and actions (as opposed to tweets) taken by the president.  (Except for that stupid wall -- empires that build walls fall immediately into decline.)  

The Colonel doesn't oppose the parade because it's Trump's idea.  

No, the Colonel opposes this parade idea for other more fundamental reasons that have nothing to do with whose idea it is.

Let's start with our nation's military tradition.

General Jack Keane, former Vice Chief of the Army, said it best:

“These European militaries and some of these other guys, they dress up in fancy outfits with fancy uniforms. They have unbelievably fancy uniforms. Gold braid, sabers all over the place. Shiny helmets. We’re a pragmatic military. We reflect the American people. We're informal. Our uniforms are dull by comparison.  And what we do is we train and we fight.  We bear the burdens around the world.  These other guys, they do a lot more parading than they do fighting.”

"We train and we fight." Pretty simple sounding. Yet, it ain't so simple.  And that goes to the second fundamental reason the Colonel opposes this parade.

Training to fight, and win is the raison d'etre of the United States' military.  You (the citizen, in defense of whose freedom the military exists at all) don't want there to be any other competing requirements that detract or distract from that paramount imperative.  

This grand parade -- intended to show the world that "our button is bigger than your button" -- is a huge waste of time and resources at a time when the threats to our security are mounting and funding for military recapitalization, maintenance, and training is cratering. 

Some of you -- particularly the Marines with whom he served -- will no doubt consider the Colonel's stance on this issue a bit hypocritical.  You will point out that the Colonel himself had a few parades marched in his honor -- four changes of command and a retirement parade.  But, there is a not-so nuanced distinction between inward-focused military ceremonies and parades for public consumption.  Unit-focused drill and ceremonies are a key component of that specific unit's esprit.  U.S. Military ceremonies aren't for showing off -- they are almost always in honor of individuals receiving awards; or, in the case of a change of command, in honor of the unbroken chain of authority vested in the position not the individual in command.  The public is often invited to witness these ceremonies, but it ain't for them.  

Defenders of President Trump's grand military parade idea are painting the spectacle as an opportunity to "honor the troops."  

Want to honor the troops?

Honor them by demanding that Congress adequately fund their new equipment, maintenance, and training needs.

Honor them by demanding that Congress not allow them to be deployed to fight without Congressional authorization as specifically delineated in our Constitution.

Honor them by demanding that Congress honor the commitments made to them when they signed on.

Honor them by demanding that Congress ensure that the Veterans Administration provides world class service and care.

Honor them by respecting the flag, under which they deploy to fight, and under which many of their remains return for eternal rest.  (The Colonel does not refer solely to NFL "kneelers" -- all citizens of our Republic need a refresher on respect for the colors.) 

The Colonel can guarantee you one thing for sure.  The men and women serving in today's U.S. military aren't there for the glory.  

They hate parades.  

They are in it for something far greater than themselves.  And they only wish you were, too.  

Twister Plus Ten

The Colonel was on a business trip to Salt Lake City ten years ago, today.  His cell rang. 

"Sir, this is ADT.  We have a fire alarm at your home, we have alerted the local fire department.  Are you there?"

"Nope."

"Can you get there quickly to confirm?"

"Nope.  But, my wife's there.  Have you tried to contact her?"

"We have, sir.  There's no answer on the home phone."


The Colonel had last talked to the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda a couple of hours previously.  She'd then told him that she had been invited to go play cards with a group of ladies from the church.  In the background, the Colonel could hear thunder.

"Sounds like you have some bad weather there, Babe."

"Yep.  Maybe we'll get some rain and fill up that mud puddle you call a 'lake'." 

"Lake Brenda is not a mud puddle."

"Whatever."

"Just be careful driving tonight, okay?"

"I will.  Call me later tonight?"

"Sure.  Love you.  Bye."


The call from ADT revived old feelings of helplessness, the likes of which the Colonel had felt many times before -- deployed thousands of miles from home and unable to do anything constructive to influence an emergency on the homefront.  Believing that the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda must still be away from the house, the Colonel thumbed her cell number on his crackberry.

"Hey, babe," she answered cheerily.

"Go home. The house in on fire."

"No..., I don't think it is."

"Yes it is!  Go home right now!"

"No it's not."

The Colonel clenched his fists and took a deep breath preparatory to placing his voice on the "stun" setting.  In the momentary quiet before the storm, the Colonel heard the wail of a fire alarm.

"What's that noise?  Sounds like a fire alarm."

"What?  I can't hear you over the fire alarm."

"Where are you?" 

"Standing outside in the front yard."

"Whose front yard?"     

"Ours, knucklehead."

The Colonel took another deep breath, and slowly asked, again, "Is the house on fire?"

"Don't think so.  I don't see any flames and it's too dark to see smoke."

"Did someone break in and set off the alarm?"

"No."

"Well... why is the alarm going off?"  

"Could be because of the tornado that just hit the house."

"Tornado?"

"Yeah."  The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda was very calm.  That made the Colonel's blood run cold -- she was always calmest in the midst of calamity.

"Dear...?"

"Yes?"

"Is the house still there?"

"Yeah, but there's a lot of damage. And, it looks like Frank's barn is now scattered all over our property..."

"Are you okay?"

"Well, thanks for finally asking, knucklehead.  I'm fine.  When I heard it coming, I grabbed the cat and jumped in the bathtub." 


The tornado had dropped down out of a thunderstorm just to the north of Oxford, ten miles south, and raced, ripping and rooting, almost due north towards the Colonel's vast holdings at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere.  It was a Category Three when it blew straight up the road on which sat the house the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda had made their forever home just 9 months previous.  A dozen homes along the mile and a half of that road exploded into splinters.  That the Colonel's house was 300 yards off of the road, saved it from destruction.

Miraculously, no lives were lost.  

The landscape was changed rather significantly, however.

The road on which the Colonel lives was once tree-lined.  The tornado changed that.  When emergency responders and local samaritans arrived, they found the entire length of the road blocked by an impenetrable abatis.  Chainsaw crews worked through the night to clear the road for emergency vehicles.  When the Colonel arrived a day later, he hardly recognized the area.

To this day, on his daily security patrols, the Colonel finds reminders of the tornado -- stumps of downed trees and detritus that once was the treasured belongings of neighbors to the south.  

Today, he thanks a merciful God.  

Please excuse the Colonel, while he goes to kiss his greatest treasure -- spared nature's wrath.


And, after he finishes loving on his tractor, the Colonel probably ought to go tell the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda that he is fond of her, too...         

Pre-Traumatic Speech Disorder

The Colonel has spent the better part of the last week feverishly crafting the most important speech of the political year here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere -- the regularly irregular State of the Tallahatchie Republic address.  

As is his custom of nearly a half century, the Colonel likes to pitch his ideas to, and practice his oratorical flourishes with, the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda...

"My fellow Tallahatchians, the Colonel comes before you this evening..."

"What?  Are you talking to me, knucklehead?"

"The Colonel is practising his speech, dear. Just listen and tell me what you think."  

"Speech?  What speech?"

"The Colonel's regularly irregular State of the Tallahatchie Republic address, of course.  You know that it is the most important speech of the year here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere..."

"Take a deep breath, knucklehead.  You're babbling again.  And for pete's sake, quit referring to yourself in the third person!"

"The Colonel doesn't babble!  He might pontificate.  He can ramble.  But, he never, ever babbles!"

"What's that, knucklehead?  All I heard was 'babble, babble, babble.'  And, what's that funny hand motion you're making?"

"It's not a funny hand motion  -- it's a knife hand.  Draws attention and adds visual punctuation to the Colonel's babb..., er..., speech.  Look, dear, just listen while you sit there doing your needle point."

"But, you're standing in front of Gibbs!"

"Who?"

"Gibbs!  Leroy Jethro Gibbs.  NCIS is on and you're standing in front of the TV.  Now there's a real Marine."  

"Uh, dear, you do know that Gibbs is a fictional character?  The whole show is the height of implausibility.  Why, the NCIS folks the Colonel dealt with when he was on active duty couldn't get the bullet out of their shirt pocket, let alone bring down international terrorists!"

"There you go again, knucklehead.  Babbling about your glory days.  Look at you, now.  You buy a few acres and now you think you're king of your own country."

"Not king.  More like a relatively benevolent military dictator."

"Yeah, right!  More like an irrelevant boorish popinjay."  

"Who you calling irrelevant?  Please, just listen to the speech and see if it strikes the right tone.  If the Colonel doesn't get it right, the republic might devolve into civil war."  

"Civil war?  Knucklehead, there's not but two of us living out here at the end of the road to nowhere.  As long as you stay out of the way of the TV, the state of our union will be strong.  Go give your speech to the chickens."

Just as well.  The Colonel can't decide whether the central pillar of his address should be his plans for expansion of the Republic via privately financed invasion route infrastructure enhancements, or raising the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's wages.

Maybe the chickens will give the Colonel some feedback on his ideas for a moon colony...    

Not-So Secret Society

The Colonel is a member, in long good standing, of a not-so secret society.

The society's membership is rather large, but relatively exclusive.  Only a small percentage of the citizens of our great nation can claim the honor..., and the honor-bound duty.

Entry into the ranks of this society is fairly simple.  Raise your right hand.  Swear a solemn oath.  

The oath's most critical component, its salient point, is the promise to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States..."   

Every person enlisting or appointed as an officer in federal service to the Republic does it -- from private to president.  And, when one swears the oath, all other personal considerations and duties are subordinated. 

Once bound, always bound.  There is no expiration on the requirements of the oath.  Likewise, there is no limit beyond which one who swears the oath may be excused from it.  It is a "to the death" duty.  

It was the utmost honor for the Colonel to pledge his life to the defense of the Constitution, and the rights of our Republic's citizens therein enshrined.  It was an honor with which he was bestowed at his commissioning and on the occasion of every subsequent promotion.  It was the Colonel's distinct privilege to administer the oath to countless subordinates as they assumed the office of the next rank to which they had just been promoted. 

Some of those subordinates subsequently gave their lives fulfilling their oaths.

You can not begin to fathom the fury the Colonel feels at the news that a person in public trust, holding an office upon entry into which that person swore the same oath to "support and defend the Constitution...," has broken that oath for personal political reasons.

"Secret Society" indeed!

Shameful.

Despicable.   

Treasonous.

Dishonorable.

A "secret society," composed of high office-holders sworn to defend the Constitution, with intent to machinate extra-constitutionally, is a dire threat to the rule of law guaranteed by that Constitution.      

The Colonel knows that his fellow oath-keepers -- throughout the personal political affiliation spectrum -- share his fury.

Mark the Colonel's words carefully.

It is not conspiratorial for those bound by the oath to band together to do everything within their legal power to hold those that do conspire to break their solemn oath.

For the record, the Colonel despises Donald Trump, the man.  But, the Colonel's life is pledged, as are the lives of millions like him, to defending the constitutional legitimacy of President Trump against "all enemies, foreign and domestic."

Traitors beware.     

Snow-hole Countries

A rare snow is falling here this morning at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere and the Colonel's memory machine -- aided by a strong mug of joe -- has kicked into high gear.

"High gear" is a relative term for the limpid pile of cognitive goo resting mostly unused in the recesses of his mostly bald brain-housing group.  The Colonel's memories have been ravaged by the onset of CRS (Can't Remember *insert expletive used in conjunction with the word "hole" to describe most places to which Marines are deployed on a regular basis*) and he has consciously reserved his last few remaining faculties for important stuff like in which kitchen cabinet the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda stores the coffee mugs and the unzip then pee sequence for head calls.

But, the Colonel's snow memories are associated with a great deal of misery and are, therefore, more prominent.  Funny how pain reinforces learning and retention.

The Colonel spent most of his childhood in sub-tropical and tropical climes wherein snow was a rarity.  Even when it did snow in measurable amounts it's longevity was measured in hours.  There ain't no such thing as "snowpack" in Dixie.

Then the Colonel, unemployable with a political science degree from Ole Miss, went into the Marines.

The Marine Corps has total mastery over the technique of forcing round pegs into square holes.  The Colonel, with warm weather blood thinned to the viscosity of gaseous helium, was groomed not as a jungle fighter -- nooo..., that makes way too much sense for someone who went to high school and played daily in the jungles of PANAMA!!! -- but as an arctic warrior.  

(For the Bama fans reading this post in the mistaken belief that everybody, everywhere cares and will eventually get around to writing about Bama's 97th -- or is it 197th? -- claimed national championship, the ARCTIC is a region extending northward from a east-west line generally traced by Interstate 40.)

It was just before Christmas at Camp Lejeune, and the Colonel (then a second lieutenant) was busy staying out of the way of his platoon sergeant, when the phone in his broom closet office rang.  

"Golf 2/2, Lieutenant Gregory, this is an unsecure line."

The voice on the other end growled, "Come see me, now."  The line went dead immediately, but not before the voice was recognized as belonging to the bane of all infantry second lieutenants -- the battalion X.O.  

The Colonel scurried down to his company commander's office and breathlessly announced, "Sir, the X.O. wants to see me!"

The C.O. looked up from a pile of reports on his desk and eyed the Colonel quizzically.  

"Who are you?"

"Lieutenant Gregory, sir.  Your third platoon commander."

"No, lieutenant, you are mistaken -- Sergeant Herrera has Third Platoon."  Then, he refocused.  "Oh, yeah. You're the new lieutenant."

"Begging the captain's pardon, sir.  But, I've been in your company for almost a year."

"Whatever.  What's the problem?"

"Sir, the X.O. just called me to his office."

"So?"

"So, what should I do?"

"Well, Lieutenant Graham..."

"Gregory, sir."

"What?"

"I'm Lieutenant Gregory, sir."

"Whatever.  Just go. And hurry up!"

The Colonel went.  During the three-minute jog up to battalion headquarters, his mind raced with worry-filled speculation as to the reason why his presence was required front and center of the battalion executive officer's desk.  He could fathom no positive reason, so it had to be bad.

The Colonel reported in as ordered, and the crusty old major -- a highly-decorated Vietnam veteran -- skipped over any pleasantries and got right down to business.

"You've been picked to attend the winter session of the Mountain Leaders' Course at Bridgeport.  See the S-3 for your TAD orders.  Any questions?"

"No, sir.  I mean, yes, sir... I..."
  
 "What, lieutenant?"  The major had already used up more of his valuable time than he wanted and was glowering disdainfully at the lieutenant whose presence was fouling the air in his office. 

"Sir, I.., that is..., well, I'm better suited to be a jungle fighter, and..."

"A jungle fighter!?!" The major's disdainful glower had been replaced by something..., well..., inhuman.  His next words barely rose above the decibel level of a whisper, but they carried the fire and fury of a flamethrower.  "You ain't (insert banyard expletive used in conjunction with the word "hole" in President Trump's latest diplomatic overture to the Third World), lieutenant!  Get the (insert appropriate foul epithet) out of my sight."   

The Colonel snapped to attention, responded with a weak, but emphatic, "Aye, aye, sir!," executed an about face, and headed for the hatch.

"Wait!" 

The Colonel froze.

"Get back in here, lieutenant."  The X.O.'s voice had changed.  It was almost human.

"You've got a lot to learn in this man's Marine Corps, son."  Amazingly, the almost human tone of voice was accompanied by an almost human visage on the major's face.  "Today's lesson: Go where the Marine Corps sends you and make the most of it."

The Colonel was still at the position of attention, eyes locked on the latch on the window above and behind the major's head.

"Look at me, lieutenant."

The Colonel obeyed, locking eyes with a real man.

"For someone with a GT of 135, you are about as dumb as a box of rocks."  The X.O. was actually smiling -- that really scared the Colonel...

"I'm going to break this down for you -- Barney style.  Our battalion is scheduled for a deployment to Norway in two years.  You, and a couple of other lieutenants, are gonna learn everything there is to know about arctic warfare and then you're gonna be the instructor cadre that prepares this battalion for that deployment.  We're gonna start by sending you to the Mountain Leaders' Course.  If you survive that, you're gonna go TAD to 1/6 for six months to get them ready to go to Norway for their deployment next year.  You'll go with them to Norway, get smart as you can, and then come back and get us as smart as you can."

A couple of months later, the Colonel was a mile up in the Sierra Nevadas, up to his keister in more snow and cold than he ever imagined, and learning...

For this skinny little southern boy, it was either learn or die.

The lessons learned served the Colonel well for the rest of his career.  He had more than ample opportunity to put them to practice, and to teach them, in numerous deployments to Norway and other high altitude and high latitude deployments over the next 25 years. 

To this day -- to this very morning -- snow in the air takes him back..., and reminds him of perhaps the greatest lesson:

If you think you are a jungle fighter, don't accept orders to go anywhere there's more snow than you can see in a beer commercial.      



     

               

Waiting for Duck Season

The night of 4/5 December 1979 was a particularly long night for the Colonel.  It was a long and painful night for the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda.

Not much more than 8 months after the birth of their first child, Miss Brenda sidled up to the Colonel and whispered in his ear, "I'm pregnant."

The Colonel blinked, and then whispered back, "I'm deploying."

Those of you who know the Colonel personally, know that he is obsessed of the insanity that is duck hunting.  The fifth of December 1979 was the opening day of duck season in North Carolina and the Colonel was then stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina through which a broad shallow estuary flows and holds prodigious amounts of migrating waterfowl during the winter months.  

The Colonel had plans to be in a duck blind when the sun rose on the 5th of December.

Instead, the Colonel was bedside of the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda as she gave birth to a second son.

Jeremy could have been born on the 4th of December -- his mother's labor had begun early on that day.  But he waited for duck season.

He and the Colonel have been waiting for duck season every year since.       

Kicking the Habit

2018 is shaping up to be a much different year for the Colonel.

He knows, there's still a good bit of 2017 to play through, but he's in the red zone with a comfortable lead.  Besides, no year has ever beaten him.

One of the reasons that the Colonel is optimistic about a different new year -- different in priorities, if nothing else -- is that he's going to cleanse his soul of an addiction that has ruled him for decades.

The Colonel is going to kick the Ole Miss Rebel Football habit.

Allow him to be crystal clear on this point: the Colonel will always be an Ole Miss Rebel -- proud that when the choosing time was upon him in the halcyon days of his misspent youth, he chose to go to Ole Miss... instead of college.  

It was the third best and second worst decision he ever made.

What was the Colonel's first and second best decisions, you ask?  Well, for those of you who don't know the Colonel personally and to whom the answer is not obvious by personal observation -- the first and second best decisions he ever made were Jesus and the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda, respectively.

The worst decision the Colonel ever made is, frankly, none of your business.

Ole Miss ranks as one of the Colonel's best decisions because the school began the process that marked him as a little different than everyone else.  The Marine Corps completed that process, but this missive isn't about the greatest fighting force mankind has ever seen.

This missive regards an institution whose very soul embodies the best and worst of the people from whose state it takes its name.

And, Ole Miss Rebel Football is the physical manifestation of all that is good (and not so good) about Mississippi.

To be an Ole Miss Rebel Football fan is to turn your back on the rest of the world and hike your kilt.

To be an Ole Miss Rebel Football fan is to pine for regular winning seasons, but take solace in the irregular upset of highly favored rivals.

To be an Ole Miss Rebel Football fan is to, with a straight face, walk proudly under the arch of the "Walk of Champions" even though the last football championships were so long ago that their memory exists only in the hearts of octogenarian Rebels.

To be an Ole Miss Rebel Football fan is to warmly and graciously invite opposing fans into your tailgate tent and then hotly and viciously tell them "we're gonna beat the hell out of you."  

For the Colonel, his Ole Miss Rebel Football fandom has been a drug with unpredictable and monstrous effects.  The highs are the highest and the lows are the lowest.

When the Colonel matriculated at Ole Miss in the mid-seventies Ole Miss Rebel Football was in a post-Archie Manning (and post- Johnny Vaught) hangover that left Ole Miss Rebel Football fans with so very little to cheer for that the only rallying cry of any consequence were the stirring strains of "Dixie" and the sight of tens of thousands of miniature Beauregard Battle Flags snapping to the beat. 

By the time the Colonel retired from the Marine Corps, moved back to the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere, and purchased Ole Miss Rebel Football season tickets, the miniature Beauregard Battle Flags had been banned in a spate of political correctness appeasement.

But, they still played "Dixie."

No matter how horrible Ole Miss Rebel Football got (and it got pretty stinkin' horrible) the Colonel and 50 thousand of his closest friends could (after shelling out way too much hard earned greenbacks for seats, parking, and stale concessions) fill the hallowed confines of Vaught-Hemingway Stadium and do what no other public collection of people in the world could do -- sing "Dixie."

Without malice.  "Dixie" was our love song to a region that was way beyond the rest of the nation in racial reconciliation.  Scoff if you must at that notion -- but if you weren't there with the Colonel and 50 thousand of his closest friends (black and white), you just don't know the truth. 

Then, a paroxysm of political correctness appeasement once again seized the trembling hearts of the temp-help then poorly filling leadership positions in the University of Mississippi's administration.
"Dixie" was banned.  

You could feel the spirit lift from the campus and drift away on a north wind of neo-reconstructionism.

Amidst this spirit-killing de-dixiefication of Ole Miss Rebel Football, the long-standing mascot -- Colonel Rebel -- took a politically correct knife to the back.  He was replaced by a cartoon bear.  The bear has just recently been replaced by a cartoon landshark.

What's next?  

If the current trajectory continues, the nicknames "Ole Miss" and "Rebel" will eventually succumb to the fascism of political correctness.

Oh, and did the Colonel mention that the University of Mississippi -- a state-funded, public institution -- no longer flies the flag of the state?  

What's next?  Change the name of the institution, because the very name "Mississippi" offends the sensibilities of a very vocal and very small minority?

Will the flag of the United States of America slide down the pole in front of the Lyceum one evening, never to fly again, because it also offends the sensibilities of that very vocal and very small minority?

Here's a fact you can take to the bank.  The Colonel, and his money, will no longer be a party to fascism.  He'll no longer shell out way too much of his hard earned cash for seats, parking, and stale concessions, to sit in a half-empty stadium and have his tinnitus-ravaged hearing assaulted by bigoted and rapine rap.

The Colonel is kicking the habit.  He will, however, forever loudly and proudly be an Ole Miss Rebel.  

Even when the political correctness fascists get around to outlawing that self-identification.               

Sweet Commands

Martha Cannon used to say, speaking of her son-in-law, "When I couldn't run him off, I adopted him."

The Colonel didn't need adopting -- he had very special parents doing a great job of raising him already -- but, Miss Martha saw the connection between her daughter and the Colonel and decided she would also lend a hand in shaping the young man who would probably end up becoming her son-in-law.

Martha lost the love of her life a year ago and came to live with the Colonel and the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda.  She passed peacefully in her sleep early this morning and awoke in the arms of her Savior and looking into the eyes of her husband of 61 years. 

Four decades ago, when the Colonel took off with Miss Brenda, Miss Martha held his face in her strong hands and simply said, "You love my daughter."  

It wasn't a question.  It wasn't a request.  

It was a sweet command. 

Miss Martha was never demanding, but she was the master of the sweet command.  And, nobody dared disobey -- not out of fear, but out of tremendous love for a lady who never gave anyone a reason not to love her. 

The Colonel first became aware of an irresistibly cute and shy Brenda Cannon when they were barely 15.  It may not have been "love at first sight" but it was definitely not long after first sight that the Colonel, young as he was, decided that the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda was someone to lay claim to for a lifetime.

When the Colonel met the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's beautiful mother, the deal was sealed.

The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's parents were not so sure.  In fact, they strongly counseled her to keep the Colonel at arms' length.  It was wise counsel.  But, to the Colonel's good fortune, Miss Brenda picked him to be one of the very few things on which she ever disagreed with her parents.

Jack and Martha Cannon were the Colonel's in-laws from the 31st of July in 1976.  But, they were more than just "in-laws."  Because Miss Brenda loved him with all her heart, they did too.

Miss Martha was a small-town girl from rural West Tennessee.  She went to work at Sears in Memphis right out of high school and there caught the eye of a stock-boy working his way through school at Memphis State.  Jack Cannon set his heart and mind on meeting (and marrying) the dark-haired beauty and finally finagled a date by inviting her to church.  They were married not many months later and parents of twin daughters within a year.  The next two decades took Martha far from Tennessee, following Jack's career as an Air Force pilot  --  Texas, Florida, Washington, Hawaii, New York, California, New Jersey, Tennessee, Panama...

Martha moved and set up household for her family more times than most folks take a trip out of state.  She kept her daughters safe and secure while Jack flew around the world representing the United States and helping keep the world safe for democracy.  She supported her husband's demanding career without question and with evident pride.  

When Linda and Brenda left home for college, Martha immediately opened her home to more children -- serving as a foster mom for dozens of children.  At her church in Panama City, Florida, Martha served as a pre-school Sunday School teacher for two generations of children, one of whom later became the Colonel's daughter-in-law.

To her grandchildren and great-grandchildren she was known as "Memaw," a name that everyone in the family, young and old, used with great affection.    

When Mr. Jack passed last year, the wise and courageous Miss Martha came to live with the Colonel and his bride.  What a blessing that year has been!  Caring for Miss Martha consumed each day, and enriched each one as well.

Compassionate, humble, positive, wise, devoted...  there's a whole dictionary of noble descriptions for this wonderful woman, and all the words in the world won't fill the hole in the Colonel's heart this morning.

Love you Memaw!                 

   

Earning the Lessons of War

Ninety-nine years ago, the guns fell silent.

For four years, mostly along a line that ran across Belgium, Luxemburg, and France from the Channel to the Swiss border, an incessant roar of artillery and staccato chatter of machine guns had filled the air.  From any listening point along that line the din of war was rarely ever squelched. 

Now, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month -- 11 A.M. on the 11th of November, 1918 -- the only sound along the front was a ragged cheer from men long at war finally at peace.

The Great War was over -- the fighting ceased by an armistice later codified by a treaty of peace.  However, the pain and suffering, political disorder, and technological change wrought by the conflict would endure for, and impact, generations.  

The war had literally bled white an entire generation of European men.  Apocryphal, yet telling, is the belief that of the plaques honoring the war dead of each graduating class at the French military academy Saint Cyr, there is one that simply says "The Class of 1914."   (In reality, only three quarters of the class died in the WWI; but, that is, in itself, emblematic.)   

The horrors of this first "modern" war defy comprehension.  The slaughter wrought by the mismatch of ploddingly antiquated battlefield doctrine and galloping technological advances boggles the mind.  Nearly 11 million soldiers (and half that number of civilians) died.  Life in the trenchworks was a horrid existence -- vermin and disease sat to a soldier's left, death by shrapnel or gas to his right.  To leave the trenches and assault forward meant crossing ground churned by shell and swept by machine gun fire.  Advances were often measured in mere yards.  Casualties dwarfed any previous war's toll. 


The killing fields of France, scarred still by the detritus and designs of war, were sown with seeds of monstrous destruction from which sprouted literal death and maiming for years to come.  Mines, unexploded shells (many filled with poisonous gas), and barbed wire entanglements continued to claim victims for decades after the fighting ceased. 

Even the 1919 Treaty of Versailles -- the treaty of peace forced on a politically, if not militarily, shattered Germany by the victorious Allies -- contained its own clutch of eggs in which poisonous offspring incubated in the heat of national humiliation, and from which slithered serpents of deception and destruction to wreak even greater pain and suffering on future generations.   

The world of 1919 was a place much different than it had been in 1914.  Empires, whose hereditary monarchs once ruled far-flung colonial possessions and commanded respect and admiration on the world stage, now lay headless and shrunken corpses in the back-alleys of history.  In their place, upstart empires led by commoners stoking the flames of ideology (democracy, socialism, nationalist socialism, and militant religious nationalism) flexed their newly fledged wings and flew about picking over the abandoned territories like so many buzzards over carrion.  From this witches' brew of humiliation and populism, new, more deadly, conflicts arose. 

Many of the military strategists who fought in the Great War (Pershing and his Operations Chief -- Fox Conner; one of the Colonel's military heroes -- prominent among them) saw clearly the certain future world war.  Pershing and Conner had argued in late 1918, as the German army retreated from the Allied offensive made possible by American reinforcements, and the German people recoiled in revolution at the great slaughter, that the "unconditional surrender" of the German army should be demanded; but, the Allied supreme command (French) considered unconditional surrender by the Germans unrealistic.  The Allied offensive was reclaiming ground held by the German army since the beginning of the war, but the German army was still very much an effective fighting force.   As the toll of the war mounted on the German people, revolution brewed.  Kaiser Wilhem, support lost among both his people and the army, finally abdicated on 9 November.  The new German regime immediately sued the Allies for an armistice.  Half a year later, the civilian leaders of the victorious powers -- France, Great Britain, the United States, and Italy -- wrought (and forced on Germany) not just a treaty of peace, but a severe punishment that included devastating reparations, humiliating territorial concessions (Japan got Germany's colonies in China and the Pacific -- setting the stage for a future war in the Pacific), and unrealistic military limitations.  

Pershing and Conner opposed the harsh punishments imposed on Germany by the Allies in the Treaty of Versaille.  Conner saw clearly that the humiliation of who he considered "the strongest people" in Europe would blowback with another even larger war as a result.  Over the next two decades, Conner made it a point to prepare his proteges (Marshall, Eisenhower, and Patton, among many others) for the coming second world war he was certain would spring from the stipulations of the treaty. 

America -- never keen to enter the war in Europe -- quickly settled back into isolationism; and worse, unpreparedness.  In Fox Conner's mid 1920's assignment in charge of the U.S. Army's logistics, he was appalled to find that the Army's entire budget for one year was less than what was spent to keep the AEF in the field for one week.  Ammunition stocks were aging and dwindling at an alarming rate.  The Army's manning dropped precipitously in the twenties and thirties -- to less than a third the number that Pershing and Conner considered the minimum to keep a nucleus of prepared forces to meet the next threat and train a rapidly swelling wartime force.

(Such unpreparedness was, unfortunately, an American habit.  When the United States declared war on Spain in 1898, it had a relatively modern and effective navy; but the American army was miniscule.  The Spanish army in Cuba dwarfed the standing American army -- Spain had nearly 200,000 men in Cuba, armed with modern weapons.  In order to invade and "liberate" Cuba, a volunteer army was quickly raised.  Fortunately, Spain quickly grew tired of the fight and sued for an armistice -- although its main force in Cuba was still effective.  The Colonel believes that had Spain really wanted to hold on to Cuba, and its other Caribbean territory, Puerto Rico, it could have easily done so -- within a half dozen weeks of landing on Cuba, tropical diseases had swept the American invasion force and reduced its fighting efficiency by 75%.)         

Clauswitz, one of history's most profound students of the nature of war, maintained that war was not a failure of politics and diplomacy, but was itself an extreme extension of those interstate activities.  By logical extension, preparedness for war strengthens a nation's diplomatic hand.  America's ability to exercise the influence in world affairs won by great sacrifice in 1918 was squandered by myopic populist politicians and nearly nonexistent a decade later.

Of the lessons of war Conner's mentorship imparted on the generation of military leaders that saw America and her allies through to victory in the next great war, the maxim that while weapons, doctrine, terrain, and weather change -- human nature does not, is perhaps the most salient.  Conner taught this maxim to prepare Marshall and Eisenhower to expertly conduct the coalition-building required to make many allied nations fight as one.  While that was indeed the competency that Marshall and Eisenhower needed most, there is a greater, big picture lesson for our Republic.

War is the one certain constant in the nature of man.  Denial of this fact places a nation at existential risk.  Peace is ephemeral -- out of humanity's grasp by God's design.   But, freedom and relative security is attainable -- at cost.

Ninety-nine years ago the guns fell silent.  The Colonel's maternal grandfather was one of a million American fighting men whose voices joined the chorus of cheers that swept the lines at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.  The sacrifice those men -- and those like them in generations before and after -- laid on the altar of freedom must be remembered.  It also must animate us to internalize and apply the lessons of war.  

There is no more fitting tribute to an American veteran than to earn, through respect and preparedness, the freedom and security for which they fought.              

The "Invisible Figure"

One hundred years ago -- November 5th, 1917, to be exact -- one of the most influential, and practically unknown, Mississippians of the 20th Century was named acting Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations (G-3) for the fledgling American Expeditionary Force (AEF) forming in France for participation in the war against Germany.  The eyes of the world were on the AEF and it's dashing commanding general, John J. "Blackjack" Pershing.  The hopes of the bled-white French and British allies were on the infusion of manpower that promised to come with the entry of the United States into the Great War.  The man upon whose shoulders Pershing placed the burden of planning the largest foreign expedition of American forces in the nation's 140 year history, was Fox Conner of Slate Springs, Mississippi.  

Pershing's AEF would be formed from a literal standing start.  The plan to field 100 divisions to help the Allies drive the Germans out of France was particularly daunting given the fact that the United States Army in 1917 had no divisions.  The largest standing maneuver organizations the Army had were a handful of infantry regiments of a few thousand men each.  The plan that Conner and his fellow planners had developed in the few short months since the United States had declared war on Germany in April of 1917 called for very large (28,000 men) divisions organized in two brigades of two regiments each.  

Organizing and training this behemoth force was one thing.  Getting a million men and their equipment to France in a matter of months was quite another.  Shipping was at a premium and German submarines were sinking allied shipping at an alarming rate.        

Colonel Fox Conner's office in Chaumont, France, near the border with Switzerland, was a world away from the cotton fields of his youth in Calhoun County, Mississippi.  He could not have arrived at this opportunity for professional stardom on the world stage from a more unlikely beginning.  This son of a Confederate soldier blinded at Shiloh is perhaps the epitome of the uniquely American ideal that one's starting point has no bearing (except that which one allows) on one's life accomplishments.

Fox Conner's path from Mississippi cotton fields to prominence in the United States Army was kick-started by his thirst for reading, which in turn was nurtured by his educator parents.  Accepted into the Class of 1898 at the United States Military Academy at West Point, Conner persevered through persecution for his humble southern beginnings and graduated near the top of his class.  The prevalent attitude amongst American military professionals at the end of the 19th Century was that graduation from West Point was all the professional military education one needed for the duration of a career.  Conner didn't buy into this attitude.  The first two decades of his career were marked by continual study, particularly in his occupational specialty (artillery), but also in the art and science of high level staff planning and strategy.  

Perhaps the seminal assignment of his first two decades of service, was Conner's posting to a French artillery regiment in 1912.  At the time, the French Army possessed the world's preeminent artillerists, as well as general staff planners second only to the Germans.  Conner returned to the United States in 1914 with three strengths unique in the American Army -- fluency in French, knowledge of world-class artillery, and advanced staff planning expertise.   When the first coordination meetings occurred with the French (and British) following US entry into the war, Conner was an obvious choice to participate in a supporting role.  His inclusion by Pershing on the AEF staff was largely in recognition of the highly professional way in which Conner had contributed to those early meetings. 

As American forces arrived in France throughout the first year of US involvement, Pershing and Conner withstood tremendous pressure from the British and French to piecemeal small American units into British and French formations.  The American plan was to assemble a nearly three million-man army in France and then employ that force in a war of maneuver (as opposed to the static trench warfare of the first three years' fighting) to take the war to the heart of Germany.  Conner's plan called for this massive force to be available in the Spring of 1919.

One of the cardinal rules of war is that the enemy gets a vote.  When Lenin's Revolution took the Russian Army out of the war in the fall of 1917, the German Army was able to shift scores of divisions from the Russian front to face the Allies in France.  By the time of the German's 1918 Spring offensive, the AEF had barely established only one of the planned four dozen Corps (each comprising four divisions).  With Paris threatened by a rapidly advancing German offensive, Pershing and Conner, despite their desire to hold their forces out of the fighting until 1919, threw their four divisions into the fight.  

Long war-story short, the German offensive faltered short of Paris and the ensuing counter-offensive by the Allies ended the war with the Armistice signed into effect on the 11th of November, 1918.

But Fox Conner's story doesn't end there -- not by a long shot.  In the run-up to the First World War, Conner befriended and began a mentorship with two young officers you may have heard a little bit about.  One was a profane squeaky-voiced tank enthusiast by the name of Patton.  The other was a serious and strikingly intelligent young staff officer by the name of Marshall.  George C. Patton and George S. Marshall had a little bit to do with the successful execution of a little scrape known as the Second World War.

Patton introduced Fox Conner to a down-on-his-luck friend by the name of Eisenhower.  Young Ike's career was going nowhere fast.  He had missed out on the fight in France in 1918 -- his tank unit was scheduled to embark on shipping for France in late November 1918.  Conner saw potential in Eisenhower, when no one else did.  When Conner was given command of the garrison in the Panama Canal Zone, he took Major Eisenhower with him as his second in command.  Duty in Panama in the inter-war years was stultifyingly boring, but Conner drilled Eisenhower incessantly in staff planning, strategy, combined operations with multi-national allies, and, perhaps most importantly in the art of recognizing talent. Two years with Conner gave Eisenhower a professional education that twenty years in staff colleges couldn't touch.  

Eisenhower later praised Conner as the "outstanding soldier of my time," and credited Conner as the "one more or less invisible figure to whom I owe an incalculable debt."   

At the end of his career Fox Conner was one of the leading officers of the United States Army.  In retirement, he was a highly respected lecturer at the U.S. military's war colleges.  

He wrote no memoir.  He ordered his letters and papers destroyed on his death.  He survives in memory nearly as invisibly as he served.

It shouldn't be so.