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Please forgive me if I take a lengthy break today. I feel I must say something about Senator John McCain while he lives. After that, I will observe the ancient mandate, De mortuis nihil nisi bonum.

 John McCain is the son of a Four-Star Admiral of the World War Two era. John Sr. was the leader of the Fast Carrier Attack Force that once battled a much larger enemy fleet heroically and famously in the Pacific Theater. He also stands, if one knows where to look, in the famous photograph of the signing of the surrender documents by the Japanese on the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Navy Secretary James Forrestal said of him, “He was a fighting man all the way through.”

 The junior John received an appointment to Annapolis due to his father’s service and influence and completed the four years. His was a checkered performance and might have ended without a commission had he not been an admiral’s son.

 Being in good physical shape, he qualified as a Naval Aviator, flying off the USS Oriskany (CV-34) in the South China Sea.

 Here is where I want to express my feelings. On October 26, 1967 John McCain was flying a bombing mission, his 23^rd, over selected sites in Hanoi Vietnam. He was following orders issued by the military command of the United States of America. Whether he fully agreed with those orders is a matter that only he knows.

 I question them. This was an unprovoked and savage attack upon a nation that had done no harm to our country. Oh, there was a trumped-up (good word these days) charge that one of their boats had fired a round at one of our warships in the Gulf of Tonkin but I don’t think a single serious historian believes that happened as reported, or, if it did, justified the millions of deaths that followed.

 Certainly, the women and children who were victims of John McCain’s bombs had done nothing to deserve the horrible, blistering, firestorm that his bombs created.

 Whether one supports the war or not, John McCain, on that day was flying his A-4E Skyhawk directly into fire from an anti-aircraft battery. Incoming fire hit his aircraft and he had to bail, injuring himself severely in the process. Captured, he was paraded through the streets of Hanoi and humiliated by the victims of his bombing. The Vietnamese took him to a notorious prison, called “The Hanoi Hilton.” There he remained, untreated and tortured.

 A month later, I arrived in Da Nang, South Vietnam as a war-giver, certainly not at the scale and grandeur of a naval aviator, but as one who followed the orders of my country, the same as John McCain.

 On the second day in country, I received orders to escort a Vietnamese woman and her baby to the Sick Bay on base. Wanting to make sure I understood why she was there, she removed bandages from her child’s face and I saw nothing but raw blisters and scabs where a baby’s face should have been. One dark and bottomless eye, surrounded by raw flesh, looked at me in bewilderment. I still see it sometimes late at night.

 That’s what happens when the bombs fall on the innocents. That’s what made me hate war as anything more than an absolute last chance at survival.

 But … but … but: I followed orders for the next 12 months, doing some things I’d rather not talk about and others that still make me smile. I spent two more years in the service afterwards and then went into a professional civilian job, an adventure about which I am currently reporting. In 1972. I met a young girl with long reddish hair, a mind like a polished diamond, a smile that could melt steel, and a figure that could make a monk do a double-take.

 On August 17, 1972, we had a modest but marvelous wedding with friends and relatives in attendance. Then we left on our honeymoon.

 On that date, John McCain remained in the Hanoi Hilton, lacking medical care for his injured body and suffering repeated torture. My new wife and I were in Aspen Colorado enjoying life. Our families waited at home, anxious to hear about the adventure. John McCain’s family continued to hope for his release.

  I’m not sure where Donald Trump was on that date. I’m sure he was having fun with whatever trophy-wife he enjoyed at the time. He had avoided the whole military thing. His career, too, had been boosted by his father, not by his father’s service to our country, but by his father’s money.

 John McCain stayed in prison, loyal to the country on whose behalf he had landed there. On one occasion, he was offered release, the Vietnamese believing that positive publicity awaited the release of an admiral’s son. McCain refused the offer unless all his fellow prisoners went home as well.

 More time passed. In 1973, the inmates of the Hanoi Hilton were finally released. McCain later became a respected United States Senator and ran an honorable, but unsuccessful presidential campaign against Barack Obama.

 During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump, a draft-dodger himself, insulted the service of John McCain, saying that he (Trump) preferred military heroes that “didn’t get captured.” For this sin, and similar behavior, we elected him president of the United States of America.

This week, as John McCain is facing death from cancer, another of Donald Trump’s staff demeaned a statement from Senator McCain, saying that it didn’t matter because “he was dying anyway.” Donald Trump has not disowned it as of yet, nor, I imagine, will he. Oh well, when a worm challenges a mountain, the butterflies must flutter and laugh.

 Here’s what I think:

 - I don’t agree with what John McCain and millions of us were ordered to do.

- I believe we were of the post WWII generation that believed in duty to our country uber alles.

- I believe we served faithfully and thanklessly in a misguided war, perhaps making us “The Greatest Generation.”

- I believe that our country never forgave us for our service, as witnessed by the lack of a national uproar when people like Donald Trump, and his sort, besmirch the heroic service of brothers like John McCain and John Kerry.

- I believe Americans will pay a dreadful price for our misguided blindness.

 Today I’m ashamed. Tomorrow I’ll press on, having said my piece.

 This story shall the good man teach his son;

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,

From this day to the ending of the world,

But we in it shall be remember'd;

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition:

And gentlemen in England now a-bed

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

 William Shakespeare – Henry V

 My Sainted Mother would have made a great city manager: How many times, during a public meeting, have I heard an elected body vote to do some stupid thing because other cities were doing it? My mother would have shaken her finger at them and, well you know what she would have said. It would have included the admonition about other kids jumping off cliffs and such.

 Throughout my career as an urban planner, the profession has held up two cities in particular as examples of doing planning right. They deserved emulation, imitation, and adulation. They received it in bushels. Today, portions of those cities lie in smoldering ruins while the rest of the urban area avoids taking a deep breath for fear of setting off more explosions. Could it be that over the years, they were applying the right solutions to the wrong problem?

 As I grow closer to the inevitable termination of my “use module,” I wonder if proactive planning is a “'a consummation devoutly to be wished” as much as reactive planning. The overarching dynamic of a city rests more on the vagaries of fortune than upon the foresightedness of humankind. The modernization of farming technique resulted in the loss of population in our state’s delta areas. Transportation decisions left some cities isolated and abandoned and other cities bisected, dissected, and infected. Long festering racial bigotry, made so despairingly evident with the election of Barack Obama, ballooned sleepy, all-white villages into throbbing metropolitan areas.

One may say, with accuracy, that the bigotry existed long before the Obamas and that other events had stirred the sleeping monster. True that. When a gentle appearing politician announced his candidacy for president in the racially iconic city of Philadelphia, Mississippi, the “dog whistles” were loud and clear. The demon must have stirred and smiled, perhaps never to sleep again. Later politicians would sharpen his mendacity and unleash it hard against Americans, particularly the "least of those among us."

Not all white-flight cities prospered equally. Some managed growth better than others. Some cities on the other end of the success spectrum managed hardships better than others. Some cities, like well-ballasted transports, lumbered through the storms. Some simply died. In most cases, however, results depended more on reaction than conscious visioning.

 How to proceed? Hell, I’m not sure. Maybe we understand that beautiful streetscapes, long considered a proper move for downtown areas, may not work in places where the level of crime prevents downtown merchants from unlocking the doors to their businesses during peak hours.

 Maybe finding the right problem is, after all, more important than finding the right solution.

 

 

 Finished, or at least taking a break from, my study of Woodrow Wilson, a fascinating person. He could soar to heights of intellect, decency, and prescience before descending into stubbornness and vindictiveness, perhaps due to his health. His counsel could, had it been followed (or had he the health to push it through), have likely prevented World War Two. Though still befuddled about the man, as are historians, I learned things from my effort:

Most people don’t understand the complex and irrational dynamics of politics.

It was a lot easier to keep personal secrets in 1919 than it is now.

Physical health is a wonderful ally to mental health.

Most people have better and not better angels of their nature. Ascendency can change the world.

Revenge serves as a poor palliative for post-war restoration.

Mitch McConnell was not the first malevolent senator in U.S. history.

Writers should borrow a trick from cinematographers and use shorter segments as they approach the end of their work.

Had one exalted leader like Woodrow Wilson shown support, in those days, for racial equity, America would be a much different place today.

I will go to my grave not understanding how African Americans donned uniforms and went to war in 1941 considering their treatment after 1918.