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You Are In Our Prayers

Greetings From Rancho Mirage

Dear Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, National Guard, Reservists, in Iraq, in the Middle East theater, in Afghanistan, in the area near Afghanistan, in any base anywhere in the world, and your families:

Let me tell you about why you guys own about 90 percent of the cojones in the whole world right now and should be damned happy with yourselves and damned proud of who you are. It was a dazzlingly hot day here in Rancho Mirage today. I did small errands like going to the bank to pay my mortgage, finding a new bed at a price I can afford, practicing driving with my new 5 wood, paying bills for about two hours.

I spoke for a long time to a woman who is going through a nasty child custody fight. I got e-mails from a woman who was fired today from her job for not paying attention. I read about multi-billion-dollar mergers in Europe, Asia, and the Mideast. I noticed how overweight I am, for the millionth time. In other words, I did a lot of nothing. Like every other American who is not in the armed forces family, I basically just rearranged the deck chairs on the Titanic in my trivial, self-important, meaningless way.

Above all, I talked to a friend of more than forty-three years who told me he thought his life had no meaning because all he did was count his money. And, friends in the armed forces, this is the story of all of America today. We are doing nothing but treading water while you guys carry on the life or death struggle against worldwide militant Islamic terrorism. Our lives are about nothing: paying bills, going to humdrum jobs, waiting until we can go to sleep and then do it all again. Our most vivid issues are trivia compared with what you do every day, every minute, every second.

Oprah Winfrey talks a lot about "meaning" in life. For her, "meaning" is dieting and then having her photo on the cover of her magazine every single month (surely a new world record for egomania ).This is not "meaning." Meaning is doing for others. Meaning is risking your life for others. Meaning is putting your bodies and families' peace of mind on the line to defeat some of the most evil, sick killers the world has ever known. Meaning is leaving the comfort of home to fight to make sure that there still will be a home for your family and for your nation and for free men and women everywhere.

Look, soldiers and Marines and sailors and airmen and Coast Guardsmen, there are eight billion people in this world. The whole fate of this world turns on what you people, 1.4 million, more or less, do every day. The fate of mankind depends on what about 2/100 of one percent of the people in this world do every day -- and you are those people. And joining you is every policeman, fireman, and EMT in the country, also holding back the tide of chaos.

Do you know how important you are? Do you know how indispensable you are? Do you know how humbly grateful any of us who has a head on his shoulders is to you? Do you know that if you never do another thing in your lives, you will always still be heroes? That we could live without Hollywood or Wall Street or the NFL, but we cannot live for a week without you?

We are on our knees to you and we bless and pray for you every moment. And Oprah Winfrey, if she were a size two, would not have one millionth of your importance, and all of the Wall Street billionaires will never mean what the least of you do, and if Barry Bonds hit ninety home runs it would not mean as much as you going on one patrol or driving one truck to the Baghdad airport.

You are everything to us, as we go through our little days, and you are in the prayers of the nation and of every decent man and woman on the planet. That's who you are and what you mean. I hope you know that.

Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. Greetings From Rancho Mirage. American Spectator. Published 4/5/2006.

A Father's Prayer

You've already met my Dad; farmer, veteran, pilot, trucker, cowboy, contractor, conservative and Christian. He made us stand still and put our hands over our hearts at The Star-Spangled Banner (First published under the title "Defense of Fort M'Henry,” the poem by Francis Scott Key soon attained wide popularity as sung to the tune "To Anacreon in Heaven.” It was officially made the National Anthem by Congress in 1931, although it already had been adopted as such by the Army and the Navy.) I once saw him and others, during Korea, rough up some younger men because they didn't stop while the colors went by in a parade and he wasn't really for sure how to handle himself at a hockey game when everyone would start to hoop and holler towards the end of the National Anthem, but he didn't seem to mind it.

He was recalled during Korea because he had already went through B-29 transition at the end of WWII. But after awhile he wanted out of a No-Win war, if they didn't want him to fight then he had better things to do. But they wouldn't let him out that easy and with his attitude he met a lot of ranking officers that thought he'd be a perfect candidate for 'Air Command and Staff School', so they sent him. It didn't help, if they weren't going to let him get at the Chinese, he was going home. They thought that if they'd make him resign his commission, he'd stay in. Didn't work, he resigned his commission and we went home. "Call me when they get to the Mississippi," he'd say.

He had his own flag and flagpole and during Viet Nam he painted his two-tone green company trucks red, white and blue with stars on the hood. The late 60's early 70's were tough for him, the protests, the war, me, etc. He didn't expect me to join up, after all Duty was something you had to do. Now that didn't mean that I could go to Canada or burn my draft card and still expect to come home, I couldn't and wouldn't. The only thing I ever won though, was the Draft Lottery, birthdate was #322 and alphabet was #1, which meant I wasn't goin. (I really think that he'd went for me, if it had turned out different.)

My Dad and I were an awful lot alike, which meant we didn't always see eye to eye. But upon my graduation from College in 1971, Dad had this hand scribed on parchment and handed it to me. I understood.

My oldest now has it and I sent a copy to my youngest while he was at OCS.

Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid; one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.

Build me a son whose wishbone will not be where his backbone should be; a son who will know Thee and that to know himself is the foundation stone of knowledge.

Lead him I pray, not in the path of ease and comfort, but under the stress and spur of difficulties and challenge. Here let him learn to stand up in the storm; here let him learn compassion for those who fail.

Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goal will be high; a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men; one who will learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep; one who will reach into the future, yet never forget the past.

And after all these things are his, add, I pray, enough of a sense of humor, so that he may always be serious, yet never take himself too seriously. Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength.

Then, I, his father, will dare to whisper, "I have not lived in vain"

by General Douglas MacArthur

Written in the early days of World War II,
as a spiritual legacy to his son Arthur.
Made public after the general died in 1964.

It is easy to become a father; it's much more difficult to be a Dad.

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