Monthly Archives: March 2019

A Meditation On Resistance For Today From General Henning Von Tresckow

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,


British Historian Laurence Rees wrote:







Tresckow noted:






Tresckow also said:












So until tomorrow,


Padre Steve+




Friends of Padre Steve’s World,







I need to laugh, especially in times like these.





So until tomorrow,


Padre Steve+

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A Few Thoughts about Life on My 59th Birthday

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Yesterday was my 59th Birthday and I plan on sharing a few bits of wisdom among the events of the day. The great Roman Emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius wrote:


I think that is a good birthday thought. I came across it last nigh before bed and I think that it describes the way that I want to live my life.

My day began with a visit to my doctor to see what is going on with my left hip. On Sunday night when in a deep sleep and not having any of my violent dreams my left hip exploded in pain. I had been previously diagnosed with osteoarthritis in both knees, but I had never been bothered by pain in the left hip. Yesterday I had an appointment scheduled with a doctor different than my primary care manager who called in sick, so I saw my own PCM today, got new x-rays to compare to the last ones, and some medications. They said it would take a couple of days for radiology to read the reports so I won’t know what is going on for a few days. I wonder if the osteoarthritis has gotten worse. It hurts like hell trying to get up and down and walking, stairs are a bitch, even laying down hurts. At least the pharmacy wasn’t crowded and not too stressful. For that I am thankful because usually that pharmacy is so crowed, cramped and slow that I leave with a severe anxiety attack, and yes this particular reaction goes back to a particular incident in Iraq.

Even with that today has been a good day. After the medical appointment I went out with Judy to breakfast, and then did a little shopping with her. Then we went home and hung out with out Papillon babies. I got a call from my mom and brother, those were both nice, and today, in spite of all the turmoil in the country and around the world my soul is at peace. Since being told by my Commanding Officer and Regional Chaplain to take care of all my medical issues and prepare for retirement my blood pressure has gone back down to my normal, 114/68, instead of spiking to 160/100 as was the case just a few weeks ago.

I have received hundreds of well wishes and greetings for my birthday on Facebook, and so far I have made a personal response to each one, though I know that I have more to answer. I’ve had them from the United States and Canada, the U.K., The Netherlands and Germany, Australia and South Korea. I have known some of the people for 50 years or more. Honestly, I think that is the only reason that I stay on Facebook. Every one of them means something to me that is special, and some of us cannot agree on anything anymore in the current political environment but I cannot help but to remember each one with love and appreciation. You see, I don’t have to agree with someone’s politics, ideology, or religious beliefs to still love and appreciate them. At times I haven’t done well in this, but honestly it is my baseline. Some of the most meaningful exchanges today were with friends who we have had it out and disagreed in a most uncourteous manner to each other. That is when you know you have a friend.

I guess that the late Bob Marley was right“The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.” Likewise when it comes to friendship I cannot help but to remember the quote of General William Tecumseh Sherman about Ulysses Grant. “Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other.” That’s my kind of friend.

Later in the evening we went out and did our usual things. Since Judy will be getting her left knee replaced on April 12th she went to her group of friends to work on her ceramic projects and she dropped me off at Gordon Biersch, where I continued to answer all the well wishes from friends, had some dinner, talked Baseball with the early crowed, soccer with a couple of young guys later, and then spent some time with an active duty service member from a local base who I have started getting to know over the past couple of weeks. He was in Iraq before me and was there during some of the worst of the action. He saw a lot worse than I did and both of us struggle with PTSD and sleep issues. Judy came and got me and we hung out until closing, talking with friends and each other.

It was a good day. We’ll find a time to actually celebrate my birthday in the next week or too, no rush.

But when you start pushing 60 years old memories of the past, worries about the future and visions of mortality begin to intrude on life, that is why I think that what I quoted from Marcus Aurelius is so spot on. The same is true of the German Lutheran theologian Jürgen Moltmann who observed:

“As time goes on we become old, the future contracts, the past expands…But by future we don’t just mean the years ahead; we always mean as well the plenitude of possibilities which challenge our creativity…In confrontation with the future we can become young if we accept the future’s challenges.”

We went to bed late, spent some good time with our three Papillons and then passed out. We spent most of the morning getting our cars serviced and the afternoon with her doing some artwork as I perused the news. We continue to work hard to prepare for her surgery and dealing with what the sports medicine doctor will recommend next week for my right knee. I am doing my best to keep up the physical therapy to at the minimum strengthen myself.

I found out this afternoon that one of my high school friends passed away last week. I just noticed the obituary. He was a good man, a father, pastor, and football coach. I had the opportunity to serve with one of his nephews on the USS HUE CITY. He made a difference in a lot of lives.

It kind of put a damper on the day but then I remembered a quote from the film Star Trek Generations, in which Captain Picard tells Commander Riker:


Today is a new day and the future still awaits, By this time next year, Lord willing and the Creek don’t rise, I will be retired from the Navy and hopefully teaching college history, and humanities in the civilian world, hopefully I’ll be sporting the beard I practiced growing on our last Germany trip.

So until tomorrow,


Padre Steve+


Filed under faith, life, Loose thoughts and musings

Life Unworthy Of Life: The Rational of the Trump Budget

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

In a previous era a government through its laws, decrees, and policies deemed certain people to be “life unworthy of life.” That government was the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler. The life that was unworthy of life included the physically and mentally handicapped or disabled, those with Downs Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, Polio, and people with other neurological conditions. Likewise the mentally ill, those suffering clinical depression, schizophrenia, and other mental illnesses were considered to be life unworthy of life. Even the deaf were included, and veterans suffering from what we would now call PTSD or Traumatic Brain Injury. Also included were people labeled as “asocial” a very loose definition that could include almost any metal disorder or criminal act.

Tens of thousands were liquidated at the T-4 Euthanasia centers, most located in hospitals or sanitariums. Mostly gassed with carbon monoxide gas from the exhaust of trucks or Diesel engines, their remains were cremated. Others, especially children were either starved to death or given a lethal injection while they slept. The next of kin of each victim was sent a standard form letter telling them that their relative had died of influenza, typhus, or some other disease. They were given the option of paying for an urn that may or may not have contained the ashes of their loved ones for inurnment near their home town. If they could not afford it the ashes were disposed of in the cemetery where they were killed.

Despite the Nazis attempts to disguise their crime they could not be hidden, and after over 70,000 Germans were Euthanized the official T-4 Euthanasia program was ended in German. The gas chambers and cremation ovens and facilities were disassembled and sent east to Poland, where they and their experienced technicians became key components of the Holocaust of the Jews.



The tolls in Poland, the Baltic States, and the Soviet Union were much higher, but outside of the T4 program which “officially” ended in 1941.

Now in the United States the laws guaranteeing health care to people are being challenged, the Secretary of Education has removed funding from the Department’s funding request for the Special Olympics, programs for the physically and mentally disabled under the SSI are being cut to the bone, and even care for disabled veterans is being threatened as not being economical because none of them are economically valuable to an administration for which profit is the bottom line, and supposedly pro-life Christians have no problems in cutting such programs because many have bought into the materialistic Prosperity Gospel, whose fawning preachers have anointed President Trump if he were King Cyrus. Criticism of the President cannot be tolerated, and the sick, weak, weak, infirm, or mentally ill, who are not productive have no place in society. Inside the womb they are a political issue, outside the womb they might as well be dead if you listen to Trump’s clique of Reichsbishofs those who cannot produce for the economy should not eat, get medical care, or live. They are life unworthy of life.

You see, in the authoritarian world where an uninhibited and unhinged executive backed by profit minded billionaires, and equally greedy preachers, such lives; the old and infirm, the disabled, the mentally ill, the young but physically disabled, those with neurological issues, and birth defects stand in the way of profit, stand in the way of a “perfect” society. Such people may not advocate euthanasia per say, gas chambers, or firing squads, but starving them, depriving them of medical care, turning them out of care facilities knowing that their families lack the capability of caring for them, and if they have any capacity for work, work them until they die, so long as they Confess Christ before they die.



As I turn 59 today, this does bother me enough to speak out. As a senior military officer facing the end of his career and retirement amid multiple physical and emotional issues, it does matter. I keep two things in mind today. First is that of my own responsibility. In that I am reminded of the words of German General Ludwig Beck who wrote:





Those all are hard truths to comprehend. As Americans we always presume that we are the good guys, when in fact many times we have acted in means contrary to the ideals of the Declaration as well as the Constitution, and other laws enacted by Congress. But our republic and its institutions are both resilient and fragile. History has proven this, we have even survived a civil war, but we may not survive an increasingly vindictive and unstable President, his compliant majority in the Senate, and the 35-40% of voters who are in effect no longer Republicans, but the Trump Cult which is largely buttressed by Conservative Evangelical Churches, and inspired by a President who uses force, legal, and extralegal alike to secure his rule.




The choice is ours.

Until tomorrow, or maybe later tonight,


Padre Steve+



A Walking Anachronism: thoughts on Approaching my 59th Birthday

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,





Liz: How does it feel to be a walking anachronism?

Red: Righteous.




So until tomorrow,


Padre Steve+



Stupid is as Stupid Believes

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Anyone who ever watched the classic film Forrest Gump knows the classic comment by Forrest played by Tom Hanks: “Stupid is, as stupid does.” But Forrest didn’t really get to the root of the epistemology question, of why people do things. Truthfully it all,comes down to beliefs.

If one believes that the world is flat in spite of all the scientific and physical evidence are stupid.

If one believes that their religious beliefs and traditions trump all other such believes and traditions, which none of which are based on fact, but rather faith, they are stupid.

If anyone believes that vaccines against a host of proven scourges which in times before they were introduced killed millions of and devastated the pieces of millions of others are more harmful than beneficial, they are stupid.

If someone believes that a particular political ideology is superior to all others, or has no weaknesses, they are stupid.

If someone believes that their race is superior to all others beasts on some combination of religion, political and racial ideology, or pseudo-science, the are stupid.

I could go on to a host of other topics including long held military dictums, economic and social theories, but I will not.

There is not one human held theory or belief that when followed to its logical conclusion cannot be either disproven or questioned. But there are some things which on the simple basis of fact can not only be disproven, but the following of can be called stupid.

The fact is that stupid people do stupid things, but the deeper truth goes back to what they believe. Forrest Gump wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box but he had good character and a bit of common sense. That makes a lot of difference.

So as the world heads into a very trying and tumultuous time when basic beliefs or right and wrong, true and false, ethical and unethical are being refined and tested to separate the precious from the dross, it is time for every serious person to look to character, and if they are Americans ask if a particular belief or ideology aligns with the premise of the Declaration that “all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with the certain unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” From my point of view, if they do not, regardless of their beliefs, religious, or political ideology, they are stupid.

Stupid is, as stupid believes, and the beliefs result in actions that can only be labeled as stupid.

Until tomorrow,


Padre Steve+

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Filed under Loose thoughts and musings, movies, News and current events, philosophy, Political Commentary, Religion

“You can take our lives and our freedom, but you cannot take our honour. We are defenseless but not honourless.” Remembering the Resistors to the Enabling Act Of 1933

Otto Wels

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I will not be talking about the Mueller report until we know what is actually contained in it. So I will continue to discuss historical events that are relevant in our time.

One of the most relevant as this country and others lurch toward legally elected authoritarian governments is the example of the Hitler’s Enabling Act, or by its full title Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich (“Law to Remedy the Distress of People and Reich”) came on the heels of the Reichstag Fire Decree and though very short had tremendous repercussions for the German Republic and in effect made Hitler and his administration a dictatorship. The legislative branch, the Reichstag was limited to nothing more than a rubber stamp for the executive, as was the judicial branch, the Reichsrat. It supposedly protected the rights of the President, the Reichstag, and judiciary, but it made Hitler the the sole decider of domestic and social laws, as well as all foreign policy decisions.

The law stated:


Article One


Article Two


Article Three:


Article Four


Article Five







But eventually the Nazis would be driven from power. Their descendants today must be confronted at all costs. Democracy, and Constitutional republics based on the principles of the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes that all men are created equal, and the Constitution of the United States which was the first to checks and balances between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of government in which the Legislative branch was assumed to be the most important.


One does not know what will happen next, but anyone who values the primary principles of the Declaration and the Constitution must ne willing to take a stand like Otto Wels when confronted with a dictatorship in the making. Even if the President unleashes the power of the police and his own heavily armed supporters against opponents, we must remember like Otto Wels, they can “take our lives and freedom, but they cannot take our honor…”

This is something that anyone committed to the principles of the Declaration and Constitution must take seriously over the next 19 months leading to the next Presidential election. If we fail, the effects will be felt for at least a generation, and the institutions of our government will be transformed in ways that the founders could only imagine in their worst dreams.

Democrats and Never Trump conservatives must keep this in mind. Nothing is guaranteed right now, it is quite possible that Trump and his cult like supporters in Congress and the courts could enact something like the Enabling Act if we are not careful, regardless of the findings of the Mueller investigation or anything else, and we must be careful to watch for the major terrorist attack, or war that could lead to the implementation of already legislated laws, or executive orders that give nearly dictatorial powers to the executive, and which would be supported by a majority of Americans.

So until tomorrow.


Padre Steve+

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Filed under ethics, History, laws and legislation, nazi germany, News and current events, philosophy, Political Commentary, Religion



Rabbi Roland Gittelson, Chaplain Corps U.S. Navy

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,





Have a great weekend,


Padre Steve+











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Books, the Freedom Of Speech, and its Limitations

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

In his book Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury wrote:














Until tomorrow,


Padre Steve+

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Filed under civil rights, Loose thoughts and musings

Alexander Stephen’s Cornerstone Speech and the Continuing Curse Of White Supremacy

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

On March 21st 1861 in the midst of the Secession crisis, the newly elected Vice President Of the Confederacy, The former Georgia Senator, Alexander Stephens made a speech in Savannah Georgia demonstrating just how much the new Confederacy was different that the Republic founded in 1776 and who those founders struggled with the morality of slavery.

For people who like to comfort themselves in the myth of the Noble South, The Lost Cause, or the illusion that the war was brought about by Northern infringements on the States Rights Of the Slave States, the Speech is damning. The American version of White Nationalism and the superiority of the White Race over African slaves, and in more recent times Eastern Europeans, Jews, Chinese, Japanese, Hispanics (especially Mexicans), and Arabs can be refuted by Stephens’ words. He spoke:





Stephens honesty infuriated Confederate President Jefferson Davis who while he agreed with Stephens was infuriated by the international response to the speech. On learning of the speech and its contents Davis, who had counseled his cabinet members to downplay slavery as an issue wrote:


Unfortunately, what is called America’s Original Sin remains with us. We have a President who historian John Meacham points this out repeatedly in his book The Soul Of America.

So, before anyone wants to defend Southern Secession based on anything other than the maintenance and expansion of slavery and White Supremacy at the expense of Free States as evidenced in the Compromise Of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Law Of 1850, compounded by the Dred Scott Decision, and the attempted takeover of Kansas and the battle over the Lecompton Constitution which would have made it a slave state over the majority of its population, try to defend the words of the President and Vice President of the Confederacy.

I bet you can’t.

Until tomorrow,


Padre Steve+

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