The following hyperlink is to an article that explains the amount of Debt amassed by Barak Obama since he took office.  In short, ALL presidents from President Washington to President Reagan did not spend as much money COMBINED as our current president has in his first 18 months.  You may have heard this concept before, as I have, but it must be thought about in terms of what we are to do about it as voters and as citizens. 

I know that most of you reading this post did not vote for Mr. Obama, so what we have to ask our Democrat friends within our civil discussions, as hard as that is to have with them, is simply this: “is this amount of debt that is being handed to our children and grandchildren really the ‘Hope and Change’ you were looking for?”  As I ask that question to my liberal leaning friends, their common response is the same regurgitated ‘Bush started it with his stimulus plan and he got us into this mess’.  To that, I am strong in my convictions that I was very critical of President Bush for doing it and it is not what was best for our country then and is not what is best for our country now.  The biggest difference, I tell them, is that I hold the people I vote for to the principles for which I voted, while all I see on the Left is a blind following of the ‘Blame Bush’ crowd.  

So what is the answer to the debt problem?  Simply put, we must stop outliving our means as a society.  We cannot, and should not, do it as individual families, and we must act accordingly as a country.  The unfortunate reality is that we have a mortgage on our shoulders that ONLY future generations must pay.  I am going to have to look into my grandchildren’s eyes and apologize to them for what we have done.  But in order to do that with any conviction, we must stop the overspending now.  The only way to do that is to get the current administration out of office and put responsible people in.  One of the subjects that I am going to start harping on in the next few posts is to call for Term Limits on all seats in the House and Senate.  They are the ones that imposed the term limit clause on the Presidency, but failed to do so to themselves.  It’s high time that that policy gets changed. 

Read the following article to get the whole picture of the astronomical amount of debt. 

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/72404

A few days ago, my daughter Erika and I were video chatting, and behind her I could see she had a poster of the famous VJ day photo of 1945.  A sailor approached a nurse he didn’t know and planted a kiss on her that just might be the most famous kiss in American history.  That photo became an icon of a generation and has been viewed by countless millions around the world.  When people think about memorable kisses, this picture often comes to mind.

1945

I thought it was interesting that Erika, an 18 year old, would identify with a picture of this time period, and even hang it on her wall to look at every single day.  I asked her about it, and in the conversation, she mentioned that she remembered seeing a similar picture of her Mom and I after I got back from the war in which I served.  I knew the picture she was referring to and immediately went to retrieve it. 

1991

After showing this picture to Erika, she asked for a copy, wants it blown up to poster size and converted to black and white.  Her plan is to hang both posters side by side in her dorm room at college this fall.  I started to work immediately with my newly assigned task of transforming this picture of her mother and I, caught on film kissing for the first time upon my arrival back home from Iraq.  A kiss, by the way, I will never forget. 

I believe Erika wants to have frozen in time, a moment that she can point to and see that her parents were once whole.  That there was a time when nothing else mattered except knowing that the other one was there.  I believe children desperately need to see this in their parents, and even if the two are no longer together today, the kids should be able to look back at a time to see that - Love, once upon a time, existed between them.  They need to know it was real.

This week, while working on this project, many memories started to pour into my mind that I didn’t expect and I began to relive many painful portions of my past.  I wish that the young man above, who is kissing Erika’s mother, had the wisdom back then that he possesses today.  Perhaps both of their lives would still be on the same course.  However, in the midst of these thoughts, I came to the conclusion that it is wrong for us to remain stuck mourning our losses, licking our wounds or torturing ourselves with unending guilt or regret .  There must come a time when we shed all of that and choose to move forward with shoulders back, heads raised, courage restored, and with a new found sense of purpose and self-worth.  This is where I am today.

In my reflections over the past few days, I have thought a lot about that young sailor and nurse from 1945.  I wondered what their lives were like from that moment forward.  I thought about their families, their children, careers and friendships.  I thought about their sorrows, their failures and their triumphs.  What kind of people were they at the age they were when that picture was taken?  I had to smile when I realized they were the same age Erika’s mother and I were at the time of our kiss.  Other than what we see in that famous picture, who were these two, young, vibrant people and what did they do with their lives the many years that followed?  My mind pondered these thoughts for a long time.  Who were they really and what did they accomplish afterward?  It is hard for us to really know, for one moment, frozen in time by a photograph, does not tell the story of two peoples lives or what perils they faced after such a great day as the day of their most memorable and lasting kiss.

I am sharing this with all of you today because, as I was deep in thought about the two young couples pictured above, and while working on matching both photographs, an elderly woman lay dying in her bed in Los Angeles.  Her name was Edith Shain, and she was that beautuful young nurse pictured above who freely gave a kiss to a sailor in 1945, and unknowingly affected generations around the world.  She died on June 20^th, 2010 at the age of 92. 

2010

I felt it was only fitting to pay tribute to her by sharing a few of my thoughts about life, family and the journey we all take through time.  Thank you, Edith for that one brief moment in history that has lifted our hearts, our passions and our spirits.  You will forever be remembered.  Though mine was not so famous, I feel honored to have been a soldier and to have experienced such a kiss as yours after returning home from war.

God Bless each of you as we come upon and celebrate the birthday of this great nation.

Timothy L. Cook

United States Army

Operation Desert Storm, 1990-91

Edith Shain Dies