Tom Glenn's Blog, page 38

In Flanders Fields

Every year on Memorial Day, I post the text of John McCrae’s immortal poem, “In Flanders Fields.” This year, as I was preparing the post, I received an email from my friend, Grady Smith with the text of the poem. So I yield to Grady and post his rendering of the poem.

Let us all remember this day those who gave their lives that we might live in freedom.

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In Flanders Fields

John McCrae – 1872-1918

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

The Plaque

In yesterday’s post, I mentioned the “Last Man Out Award” plaque. A reader wants to know more. I’ve reported here before on what happened, but here’s the story again:

When the fall of Saigon was imminent in April, 1975, I was the principal source of warning that the North Vietnamese were about to attack the city to complete their conquest of South Vietnam. My guys were working with the South Vietnamese to intercept and exploit the radio communications of the North Vietnamese and instantly transmit the results back to the National Security Agency (NSA) in the U.S. who, at my behest, put out a series of reports warning that the attack was at hand.

I was the head of the clandestine NSA operation in South Vietnam. I had 43 guys working for me. Some of them had their families in Saigon. I was determined to evacuate all of them as soon as possible.

But the U.S. Ambassador, Graham Martin, didn’t believe my warnings. He’d been approached by the Hungarian member of the International Commission for Control and Supervision (ICCS), a group established to monitor the ceasefire that the U.S. and North Vietnam had signed in 1974. This gentleman, a representative from a communist country allied to North Vietnam, assured the ambassador that North Vietnam had no intention of attacking Saigon—it wanted to join with other patriotic forces and rule the country jointly.

More next time.

Who’s Who Honors

I reported in an earlier blog post that both the International Who’s Who (Strathmore) and the Who’s Who in America (Marquis) have this year included me among their honored luminaries. A reader asked what the organizations cited as justification for my inclusion. The International Who’s Who specified that I am to be “included as a lifetime member,” and that acceptance “is granted to individuals who have exemplified leadership and achievement in their occupation, industry or profession.” Who’s Who in America states that its Publications Board “certified that Tom Glenn, author, has hereby been approved as a subject of biographical record in Who’s Who in America, inclusion in which is limited to individuals who possess professional integrity, demonstrate outstanding achievement in their respective fields and have made innumerable contributions to society as a whole.”

Then, several days later, I have received in the mail a plaque naming me as “a top professional, an honor reserved for Marquis listees who have achieved career longevity and demonstrated unwavering excellence in their chosen fields.”

Needless to say, I am humbled and deeply honored by these tributes. Both Who’s Who organizations sent me a plaque displaying the citations quoted above. Both of the original plaques and the third one, the “top professional” plaque, now hang in an honored location in my dining room, right about the “Last Man Out Award” plaque that my guys gave me after the fall of Saigon.

After so many years of operating under cover, unacknowledged, and out of sight, I take great pride in displaying testimony of my achievements.

Fall of Saigon

On Wednesday, June 1, at 6:00 p.m., I’ll be offering my presentation called “Bitter Memories: The Fall of Saigon” at the library in North East, Maryland. The presentation recounts my escape under fire after the North Vietnamese were already in the streets when Saigon fell in April, 1975. The address of the library is 485 Mauldin Avenue, North East, MD 21901. After the presentation, I’ll be offering my books for sale and autograph.

Hope you can make it.

The Second Amendment

Further on gun deaths: the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is often cited as the legal basis for Americans owning guns. I have written before in this blog that I believe we are misinterpreting the intent of the framers of our Constitution when we conclude that the Second Amendment allows complete freedom for our citizens to own guns. Here are the actual words of the Amendment:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The justification for freedom to own firearms, in other words, is so that people can form militias. The definition of “militia,” according to Oxford languages, is “a military force that is raised from the civil population to supplement a regular army in an emergency.” An unstated implication is that the militia might oppose the nation’s armed forces. The citizens, in other words, are free to arm themselves in opposition to the government if that government becomes autocratic.

My sense is that interpretation of the Second Amendment to mean that we permit unlimited gun ownership by citizens is erroneous. That we interpret the Amendment that way makes us a pariah nation—the only modern democracy that permits unfettered gun ownership that results in nearly 50,000 deaths per year.

It’s time to reinterpret the Second Amendment or, better yet, to repeal it. Then the U.S. can join the civilized world that limits gun deaths.

Gun Deaths (2)

The need for Congress to reduce the number of guns in the hands of citizens is urgent. And yet, although House Democrats passed enhanced background check and red flag bills, these bills failed to become law because Republican senators oppose them and Democratic senators are two votes short of reforming the filibuster.

As far as I can tell, Republicans object to gun control laws because they restrict the freedom of gun owners. They continue to oppose gun safety laws even though 17,424 people have died from gun violence in the U.S. so far this year.

Other nations, with strict gun control laws, have very few gun deaths each year. This is a problem unique to the U.S. It’s time for all of us, Republicans included, to tackle this monstrous failing, correct it, and save lives.

Gun Deaths

As a man who is all too familiar with the gross damage that guns can do to the human body, I have pleaded a number of times in the five years I’ve been blogging for the U.S. government to take action to reduce the number of guns in the hands of American citizens. We have 20 percent more guns than people in the U.S.

As I write, the press is full of reports of the most recent mass shooting on May 24. At least 21 people are dead, 19 innocent children and two adults, in a mass shooting perpetrated by an 18-year-old gunman at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. According to the Gun Violence Archive, this latest mass shooting is the 215th to take place in 2022 and marks the deadliest school shooting since the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, gun violence is now the leading cause of death for children and teens in the U.S. Guns have already killed more than 630 American children this year. And the year isn’t half over.

This is only the latest massacre. In the past ten years, we have witnessed mass shootings at the following locations:

—supermarkets in Buffalo, New York, and in Boulder, Colorado.

—a rail yard in San Jose, California

—a birthday party in Colorado Springs

—a convenience store in Springfield, Missouri.

—a synagogue in Pittsburgh.

—churches in Sutherland Springs, Texas, and in Charleston, South Carolina

—a Walmart in El Paso.

—a FedEx warehouse in Indianapolis.

—a music festival in Las Vegas.

—massage parlors in the Atlanta area.

—a Waffle House in Nashville.

—a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and

—a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. 

More next time.

Swordsman vs. Wordsman

In my long and diverse life, I’ve been described variously as a spy, linguist, cryptographer, and, finally, writer. But the two descriptive terms I liked best were “swordsman” and “wordsman.”

A swordsman is first and foremost someone who does battle with a sword, but the word’s broader usage is to refer to a fighter, combatant, or soldier. Because of my years of assisting troops in combat, some of the few who knew of my time on the battlefield—it was classified until 2016—thought of me as a warrior, even though my role was not to fight but to provide intelligence to friendly forces. Moreover, I wasn’t even in the army or Marine Corps—I was civilian operating under cover as military. Nevertheless, many of my compatriots still spoke of me as a swordsman.

Nowadays, I am more often labelled a wordsman. The term has two meanings. The one I like best and accept as defining me is “A man who is a wordsmith.” I think of myself as an artist, one who creates beauty using words, but wordsmith is close enough. The other definition is “one who deals in words, or in mere words; a verbalist”—in short, one who places undue emphasis on words rather than on action. I reject that characterization and point to my history as evidence that I acted rather than merely talking.

So these days, when my time on the battlefield is long since over, I am content with being characterized as both a swordsman and wordsman.

I take both as compliments.

Swordman vs. Wordsman

In my long and diverse life, I’ve been described variously as a spy, linguist, cryptographer, and, finally, writer. But the two descriptive terms I liked best were “swordsman” and “wordsman.”

A swordsman is first and foremost someone who does battle with a sword, but the word’s broader usage is to refer to a fighter, combatant, or soldier. Because of my years of assisting troops in combat, some of the few who knew of my time on the battlefield—it was classified until 2016—thought of me as a warrior, even though my role was not to fight but to provide intelligence to friendly forces. Moreover, I wasn’t even in the army or Marine Corps—I was civilian operating under cover as military. Nevertheless, many of my compatriots still spoke of me as a swordsman.

Nowadays, I am more often labelled a wordsman. The term has two meanings. The one I like best and accept as defining me is “A man who is a wordsmith.” I think of myself as an artist, one who creates beauty using words, but wordsmith is close enough. The other definition is “one who deals in words, or in mere words; a verbalist”—in short, one who places undue emphasis on words rather than on action. I reject that characterization and point to my history as evidence that I acted rather than merely talking.

So these days, when my time on the battlefield is long since over, I am content with being characterized as both a swordsman and wordsman.

I take both as compliments.

Obese Americans

Saturday, May 21, I spent the day at the Gaithersburg Book Festival, hawking and autographing my books. I sat at a table with my six books displayed, talked to readers (including some who have read my work), and happily signed books for buyers.

So I spent the entire day observing the crowd. Two trends stood out to me: dyed hair and obesity.

Something like half a dozen women I observed had dyed their hair colors that hair never achieves naturally: green, blue, purple, and crimson. The result was bizarre. I couldn’t imagine why any woman would want to attract attention by looking peculiar.

Far more common was the number of people who were overweight—well over half, probably somewhere between two-thirds and three-quarters.

Why are the majority of Americans obese? I don’t have a clue. I could speculate, without evidence, that few of us exercise regularly, control our diet, or are aware of the dangers to health that obesity poses. Being overweight increases the likelihood of diseases that can prove fatal: heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and some cancers. I suspect that our willingness to overeat springs from our general lack of discipline as a people. In the long life of our Pax Americana, during which no enemy has been able to attack us on our own territory, laziness has spread to the point of becoming a national characteristic.

I remember reading in my youth that the Roman Empire collapsed primarily because of the degeneration of its citizenry. Are we headed in the same direction?