Dream a little Dream

 Today is a National Holiday
It should be, but not for the reasons people think. 

We should be remembering Dr. King's legacy. 
We should be trying to strive for the ideals that he set forth and holding them in the light. 

But more importantly we should be measuring.  
How far down the road  have we really moved from the time of Dr. King's life? 
What strides have we taken.  

What strides have we not Taken? 

Today, in respect to Dr. Kings family, to the person he was,  and the movement he championed, we should be figuring out how to Vote.  

How to make our voices heard. 
And if our voice is already heard, to remain silent so that those that speak softly, or those to long held in silence may be heard. 

We have come a long way down the road in some ways. 
In others we have not. 

But at the end of the day, it is about lifting up voices. 

So go forward and listen. 
Listen to stories you've never heard. 
Listen to stories you have. 

And, don't be color blind. 
Be aware.
To be blind to the tone of some ones skin is to be blind to their life experiences. 

It's funny.  
Dr King said
"...That my four little children shall be judged, not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character..."  
The entire speech is about awareness.  
Awareness of the realities of the time and the changes that needed, and in many cases still need,  made. 

So listen to the stories.  
The stories of  the past, the stories of the present, and the stories of the dreams yet to be. 

And by God, do your part to get a ballot into every hand that can and should vote. 
Even if it's just getting it into your own hand. 
Voting, being heard, is how we affect change.  
If it wasn't, there would not be so many people trying to stop it from happening.  

After all, those that would see others oppressed.  Those that would maintain a status quo that was agreed over a hundred years ago to be changed are not afraid of not enough votes being cast, but too many.  
They are afraid of the change on the wind. 
The wind of dreams. 
The wind of hopes.
The wind of justice. 

Stay Safe

Midnight

 We're nearing the end of 2021.  

Three years.  
That was the original projections. 

As 2015 neared it's end I felt like chicken little screaming that the sky was falling. 
As 2016 ended I struggled to come to grips with all of it while those around me tried to convince me that I was over analyzing and loosing my mind. 
At the end of 2017 I found myself realizing that the sky had not fallen yet but it was starting to rain.  
Towards the end of 2018 I found my mind again and pulled things back together. 
As 2019 ended I found myself in a strange limbo and trying to end battles while trying to avoid creating new ones. 

As 2020 ended I was being proven right.
Now as we look at the end of 2021 my immediate world finds it's self stabilizing while the more nebulous and existential aspects of the world we live in are still in a state of flux. 
An entire world going through a shared grieving process.  Reflecting on what was and how it has shaped the world we are in. 
Morning the world that could have been while struggling to see the world as it was. 
Trying to imagine what the world could be. 

2020...The year of Denial.  
Many didn't believe, or want to believe what was happening.  
"How could a global pandemic sneak up on us like this."
"It will be over in a few weeks....a few months." 

2021... The year of Anger. 
So many pushing back against the realities and how they came to be.  
So many refusing the simple, but effective, panaceas crafted when a world decides to focus, together, on a singular issue. 


2022...Hopefully...the year of Acceptance. 
As we slowly come to grips with the reality of what has happened we have to truly watch out for those that care for us.  
I feel so greatly for those in the medical field right now because as we enter the third year of this Pandemic, hopefully the year we truly get it under control, their work will be the hardest.  
They've been in the forefront of the trenches this entire time. 
As the rest of the world ebbs and flows between outbreaks and surges, enjoying respites and breaks and the ability to get out and breath the medical community has had no such luxury. 

the early deaths, in the 2020 could be taken in stride, "this is an emergency, we need to roll up our sleeves and get to work and we will get to the other side" being the mentality through out. 

The deaths of 2021 taken with a grain of salt. "We have the vaccines, even though some fight against simple safety measures, there is an end in sight." 

But the deaths of 2022 will take the greatest toll.  
Will hit the hardest.  Will break through professionalism  and the pushing drum beat like rhythms of seeing the end of a long road.  
Because the deaths of 2022 are the ones that could have been avoided.  
I'm not saying that vaccines and masks were a magic bullet to stop it all in it's tracks. 
What I"m saying is that as the hospitals fill, again.  As the winter months take their yearly tolls of injury and illness as is it's want for time near immemorial those struggling to save lives will see so many lost because of simple refusal.  
Refusal of facts.  
Refusal of those they viewed as trusted voices lead them astray. 
Refusal to care for themselves. 

This time, this year, was coming. 
It's as unavoidable as the wind. 
And these are the hardest to deal with, the hardest to keep trying for. 
The  ones that leave the harshest and most bitter memories in those trying to care for others.
Because they tried and they warned and they counseled. 
But the ones that refused to listen will be the ones lying in the  screaming their defiance into the faces of those trying to help them. 
And those, struggling to ask for help that did all the right things will be lost in the sound of those screams.  
The ones that could have been saved.  The ones that should have been saved. And...the ones that are begging to be saved even though they refused to pull themselves up when the water hit was at their waists and are now being pulled into the unforgiving rapids. 
The hardest year, but the inevitable year. 

2021 I put my head under the pillow and listened as the world struggled to find it's footing again.  
the leadership changing hands and old policies being addressed while new policies enacted.  
It will be over the next few months that we can examine what was done well and what was done wrong in the process.  When the courses can be addressed and adjusted.  
But his year, aside from the pandemic, is a vital year for the Nation we live in as a whole. 
It's the midterms.  
As much as people want to put at the feet of the President and the choices they make now is when the failure or success of their time is truly decided.  
See, the president is working with rules and policies that were made by the people voted in during the last mid terms, in 2018.  Trying to make adjustments and find common ground with the people voted into, or to maintain, their offices then.  
The 2020 election was simply a change in focus and dealing with what was.  
the 2022 midterms, like kids playing leap frog, will be when the truly policy enforcement takes effect and begins setting the focuses and setting the rules and agendas for whatever teams in leaderships take over during the 2024 elections. |

Maybe mine. 

But first we have to get through what will be the roughest year, emotionally, for the medical community that has been holding this world together the past two years. 

First we have to get people to vote. 
To make sure everyone has their voice heard this year. 
To mobilize voters on the same scale as 2020 saw.  
Because this is when the grading happens.  
the grading on the previous teams jobs and the grading on whether or not the current team will be able to handle their jobs over the next two years.
2022 is when the 2024 presidency is made or broken, not 2025, or 2026, or even 2028. Those are just when the report cards are turned in. 
Now is, 2022. Will dictate the agendas and projects for the next presidency. 
So be diligent, be informed, and start now on securing your ability to vote when the ballots start to be passed around. 

I have a lot of work to do this year. 
I have to analyze the date from the last year, re examine my goals and projections with this new data, and then realistically re adjust those goals and projections. 
But even more than all of that. 
I need to start pulling the team together.
Who that is yet...I don't know.
I just know that by the end of 2022
I need to have it done, or at least, mostly done. 
Because, if I get the job, I have to do the job.  And it's not a job I can do alone.

Foof.

I'm trying to find some words of hope and encouragement going into this new year.  
and hopefully, as I start pulling the data together, and along with it my brain, things will look more so. 

I guess, it's this.  
the storm is still blowing, the waters still raging, and it will test our hearts to breaking. 
But as the storm hits it's peak and the night gets darkest we will know, that it will get better.
The winds will die down, the waters will recede, even if their paths of have changed, and the sun will shine again. 
In the mean time. 
Stay Safe. 
I'll do my best to do the same.

The Wheel Goes Around

 Just finished watching the first Episode of the Wheel of Time series.  
I avoided it, any news about it's production, when it was releasing and all of that. 
Which is funny, because I've read the series cover to cover multiple times and listened to the audio books on repeat for years while working by myself on overnights. 

And here it is almost a half hour after it's conclusion and I just don't know how I feel about it yet.  

Watching a book adaptation to television or film is always a feat in mental gymnastics because it is an adaptation.  There is no way to fully portray the inner workings of a character that you get in a written form transferred to a visual medium. 

I mean there are ways but...ah, that's a debate for a film class. 

As a fan of the books I like it.  

As fantasy film and television goes it's defiantly above average.  

My only quibbles are largely technical.  But I think that comes more from the medium than the actual production it's self.  

It's an Amazon streaming series.  Which means it's meant to be watched in a binge or in small clumps on a phone or a tablet which gives it's pacing...for me...was almost to fast.  
I guess the biggest nit pick is that I would have zoomed out more.  
Giving some longer shots to really appreciate the level of detail put into the scenery, sets, and costumes.  I would have used longer cuts.   the short clip, fast pacing of the sequences didn't allow the actors to really shine with much in the way of chemistry.  
I have to quibbles with the casting or ability of any of the actors in the show.  I actually would have done a very similar casting had I the reigns of the production.  However because of the focus on short, closeups of each of the actors and an almost light switch flipping level of angle changing done in the editing together you didn't get to see the characters really interact.  I'm not saying that they should have had Robert Altman levels of non directional character interactions but a little more in the way of letting the actors act with each other rather than the camera and slowing down the pacing for the interdictory scenes would have given the characters more time to impress on the audience.  

Again, these are more film school level nit picks over all wanting something I've cherished since child hood to be the absolute best of the best.  But over all it was enjoyable, and it was only the first episode, which, is meant to grab an audience that doesn't exist yet while trying not to ruffle the feathers of to many of the fanboys out there. 

On a personal level, it hit hard. It hit in a way that seeing Iron Man the first tine did.  Or the way that seeing End Game did after spending a decade with the characters. There's a lot to sort out there and I'll more than likely be watching more of it so feelings will be had even if I'm not wanting to. 

It's funny, that the Wheel of Time is what gets these fingers properly moving after so much silence.  
An enforced break more than anything.  Focusing on being...social...even if it is in a virtual space.
And...let's be real...in an effort to build a team. 

We'll see.  
After the holidays when I really get back into the thick of things and start the build up for the next couple of years.

Stay Safe

Where my heart is.

I've only felt "at home" maybe a total of 4 times in my life.  
At least four times that really stick with me as times of being "at home".

The thing is. 
Everywhere I've lived has felt like a half way.  
A place that I didn't belong, but I was at. 
Growing up, home was...where I got in trouble.  
Home was where people fought. 
Home was where secrets were kept. 
Home felt like a gilded prison.

When I got older and moved out on my own.  
The places I lived felt temporary. 
Transient. 
All of the warmth of a hotel room.

While I was married home felt like the place that I slept. 
A place where I hid. 
Like I was a place holder for someone else. 

That "at home" feeling.   
Like feeling I was where I was supposed to be. 
Where I was safe.
Where I was at peace.
That feeling has only been very, very fleeting in my life.
Everything else has been somewhere between prisoner and visitor. 

The first time I really recall feeling that way.  
The "I'm home" feeling. 
Was a bright sunny afternoon. 
The wind cool, but the sun warm. 
I was working in the yard with my partner at the time.  
We pulled weeds.
Planted flowers.
Hung shutters. 
It was...idyllic and comfortable.

The second time I remember feeling that way.
That at home feeling. 
That loved and cared for feeling. 
I was sick.  So terribly sick. 
I had been bed for days and I wasn't entirely certain I would be able to get out.  
A friend came to check on me.  
Brought orange juice, and medicine, and cold clean water. 
And Soup. 
I was only conscience for brief moments. 
They sat in the rocking chair by my bed in silence.  
They made sure I ate. 
Took the medicine.
And they were just, there.  
Their familiar breathing and shifting a comfort beyond measure. 
They left after I they made sure I was going to be okay and was sleeping comfortably.  

The third time I remember feeling at home was Thanksgiving. 
Modest.  
A feast funded by a students allowance and a librarians modest wages. 
A chicken instead of a turkey, and stuffing from a box, with potatoes and beans.  
and a pumpkin pie bought from the local grocery
A wood fire burning in an iron stove and the smell of lavender in the air. 
I remember thinking I would never feel happier than I did with Cat in my lap and my fingers twined with my partners. 
It felt safe.  
Like peace. 


The last time I felt at home...
Was curled up in in a to small tent as the rain poured down outside. 
Just comics and blankets turning the dreary day into heaven. 


As the days move on and the years pass
I think of moments like these and wonder. 
Will I ever find home?

Operation Food Truck

When your whole world has fallen down around you what helps more? 
A hot meal
or
Having a bag of rice thrown at you?

Looking at the situation in Hatti and examining the post earthquake response the biggest concern is medical aid and food supplies.   

How would I handle this if I were commander in chief?   
I would Hire food trucks. 
Offer food truck owners and their teams $50,000 per person to go to Haiti.  Then take armor transport ships and load them with the food trucks.  The Navy's responsibilities would be getting the food trucks to the locations, making sure their operational needs are met and ensuring the safety of the food trucks and their workers.  


Why food trucks?  
Pretty simple.  
NGO's can get the food but they can't prepare it.  
Food Truck owners know how to prepare food and maintain a level of cleanliness. 
Second, Food trucks can be easily moved to and from locations so as clean up operations and some sense of normalcy is restored.

Budgeting $25 million per 100 food trucks for workers.
Then an additional $25 million for operational costs such as fuel, electrical setups, and cooking supplies. 

Bringing the total cost of hiring the trucks to $50 million per 100 trucks. 

To avoid creating issues with garbage there would need to be reusable bowels, plates, and utensils and setting sanitization stations  for the dishes and utensils to be ferried too and from to be cleaned and sanitized.  I'd recommend looking at hospital supply catalogues for the types of sturdy, reusable, and transportable setups.   

Budget an additional $500 K per sanitization station for setup, stock and hire locals for the cleaning and transport duties.  With a total budget of $10 M. 

Total Price Tag for initial costs.
$60 million per 100 food trucks. 

As for total costs, that is a question for the Haitian government. 
The U.S. contribution would be the transportation and supply line operations and welcoming assistance from any other organization  that would be willing to assist. 

Plan for a one year operation. 
That should be sufficient time for rescue operations and clean up to be completed and for local infrastructure to be able to take over the operation.   

Why do it this way?

For Decades and Decades dumping supplies into a disaster area though helpful rarely does the good necessary to help a region get back on it's feet.
By doing it this way it creates a dignified way of distributing the food and supplies while the area and/or region, in this situation Hatti, is able to address the disaster it's self. 
This is literally how we do it here in the U.S. during emergencies.  
It's just more neighbors helping neighbors, or the next town over putting people up in the local school or church, or other place with kitchens and bathrooms and showers. 
At the moment, Haiti, for all intents and purposes has none of this.   Nor do many of the other areas facing food shortages post disaster. 

Providing prepared foods during the Emergency does one other very important thing.  It makes sure that hoarding and exploitation for those supplies doesn't happen.  After the emergency has passed and stabilized supply lines and surrounding infrastructure is reestablished then trade and markets can return to normal operation.   

Just make sure your food truck teams are versatile and inventive cooks with  a solid supply of spices.  Because when it comes to aid supplies it's usually mostly beans and rice and powdered nonsense. 

Food Trucks =
Mobile Kitchens
And hey, for food truck operators they can put up a badge of honor on their trucks.  
"Hatti Relief - 2021" or something like that. 
And looking at how successful this ends up being then this model can be deployed to disaster areas anywhere in the world

And here in the U.S.  After the Rail infrastructure is repaired and revitalized...well that's a discussion for another time.   

Gridiron Blitz

How do you do distance learning when you can't interact with your students? 
How do students ask questions when they can not reach their teachers. 

That is the next big question we will be asking our nation, and worlds, educators. 

The Afghan Project. 

At least that is what I would call it if I were starting something like that. 

For the past 20 or so year women and girls have moved into the same position that women were fighting for at the turn of the century in the United States. 
Removing the factor of race issues, the divide between male and female hasn't even been fully settled in most of the rest of the world.   
The ability to Vote.
The ability to Learn.
The ability to Work. 
 How do you support these things without a military presence? 
Fundamentalists are, much like in the U.S., leading the charge to "Make Afghan Great Again." as the U.S. forces withdraw. 
...
The above words I wrote weeks before the situation is what it is in Afghanistan today.   Crowds trying desperately to make it to the Kabul airport to evacuate the country.  
The focus is getting the Americans and other foreign nationals out while accepting refugees "as they can."  
This isn't a U.S. problem. 
 This is a U.N. problem.  
Unlike the Iraq war the war in Afghanistan was a U.N. sanctioned multinational response spear headed by the U.S.  
So though I do not fully agree with the President's response that it is "an Afghan problem" I will say that it is a U.N. problem as to figuring out what to do for the people trying to leave the nation. 
So let's talk about the hard numbers as if the U.S. where shouldering the entirety of the burden. 

Roughly 300,000 Afghan people where allied directly with and working along side American and Coalition forces throughout the past 20 years.   So that is the target number for the next 5 days. 

300,000 people 
We'll worry about the bureaucratic side of this in a moment. 

The average NFL stadium holds 60'000 spectators.  
that means you would need 5 stadiums to evacuate people to. 

Why a Stadium?   
Though sleeping in the seats may not be comfortable the stay would be temporary.
There are bathroom facilities and food vending facilities already set up to accommodate that number of people.  
There are P.A. systems for announcements and communicating what's going on for large crowds.
Locker facilities have showers if needed for emergencies.  
The Stadiums are already set up with a mind for large crowd security and there are ways of getting supplies in and out efficiently.  
The field it's self where medical and security screening facilities can be set up. 
So five teams volunteer their fields for the season to evacuate the refugees to and use as processing facilities to find them their homes.  
I'm sure there are a number of active and former military members what would assist in the screenings by helping the individuals they worked side by side with in a war zone figure out if they are staying, going, or heading back.   

From there, as the evacuation is happening and people are being screened we find 300'000 homes. 
I know, many of the 300'000 will be family units and/or willing to cohabitate so 300'000 homes may be overkill but still, the overage...well..we'll talk about that when this operation is done and the Kabul airport is no longer the site of a humanitarian crisis. 
In the U.S. or outside the U.S. it doesn't much matter, but homes to find.  
Plan on giving them starting money. $30,000 per adult and $10,000 per child. 
to buy clothing, food, and necessities to get started.
Remember almost all of those people will be arriving with nothing more than a suitcase...if that much.

"Who's going to pay for that?"
Well, considering that it costs $1,000,000 per troop per year to be in Afghanistan and all but a very small number will still be mobilized in the region in evacuation efforts I'd say we can find it in the budget somewhere. That's roughly 9 billion, we'll round it up to an even 10 billion out of the $45 Billion dollars spent in Afghanistan last year.  

As for the bureaucratic side of things. 
Well, this is a humanitarian crisis. 
And, this isn't just a U.S. problem, but as I illustrated in the above numbers, the U.S. is capable of shouldering the burden entirely without extra budgetary concerns, it's just a matter of will. 
The Army can handle the logistics, 
Marines the escort operations while coordinating with the Airforce and Navy for getting people where they need to go. 
The National Guard is already busy with wildfires, floods, and other natural disasters...or should be.

So that's what you need.
5 stadiums
$10 Billion Dollar Relocation Budget.
And
the Elbow Grease of the U.S. Military ($40 Billion Budget, $5 Billion less than the Afghan operational Costs) 

Granted, some icing on the cake would be some NGO's and assistance from other nations involved in the operation.  Especially with the finding homes part, but that's the short of it. 

From there, it will be making sure that everyone that needed out got out and then figuring out what roll the U.N. and the U.S. will have in Afghanistan when the dust of all of this settles. 

"The hell makes you think all this would work Jack, and what makes you think this seat of the pants idea of yours would work anyway.?"

...Oh...Well...I came up with this idea years ago when we first started talking about leaving Afghanistan seriously. 
And everyone is wanting to equate every damned thing to holocaust, so that's what we're doing. 
Treating the Afghan people the way the Jewish people should have been treated after World War II. 
Ya know, because we have a lot less Nazi Sympathizers in Congress now...or at least we should. 

Anyway, that's the plan.
Has been the plan.
Just need the American people to agree with the plan. 

We have six day.   

Symptoms of Withdrawl

 I'm yet to look into the full events of the past few months but so far things are going mostly as anticipated. 

"We didn't expect Taliban forces to move so quickly."  
Some are saying. 

Actually, yes.  
You should have. 

The long and short of it is, as I was telling trainees almost 20 years ago now, is this. 
The "War on Terror and our efforts in the middle east are not wars that will be won on the battlefield but won in the the hearts and minds of the people."  

The original grievance of the Various terrorist organizations of the 90's and 00's was that their homes and nations were being used as battlegrounds between larger nations and that their rights and cultures were being disrespected. 

So why/how did the Taliban gain so much ground so quickly? 
Simple.  
They won the war. 
The coalition and American forces won the ground battle yes, but after years of occupation the Taliban won war in the hearts of the people.   

Pulling American forces out of those nations was not the wrong move. 
Not by a long shot.   
Various pundits and arm chair strategists will give their reasonings as to why we should pull out. 
But the simple answer is that it was time.
Win or loose, it was time.  
There would be no accurate gauge on the effectiveness of the strategies and support that has been poured into the region over the past twenty or more years (depending on how you view the scope of the conflict).  Like knocking over the first domino in a carefully constructed design, pulling American forces back and looking at what was built and/or achieved was necessary.   
And now that has been done things, over the course of the next handful of years will play out in a number of ways but from a success perspective it will be hard to tell immediately.
For starters, the Taliban and groups that have supported them over the past decades have been taking a much longer view of the proceedings.   After all, these regions have been disputed by major world powers since recorded history began.  Been passed back and forth as well as hosted major civilizations from start to finish. 
So they've been planning and waiting for the moment coalition and American troops would leave, and as the dominos placed by those forces fell so are the ones they had placed. 
They were able to snag "seats of power." essentially over night by all accounts. 
But that's the interesting part, and why, things will take awhile to shake out. 
Just because you sit in the castle does not mean you control what is happening in the fields. 
If the Taliban forces want to be taken seriously as a government then they will have to adhere to larger international laws. 
After all, they too had been moving and operating on the resources that had been brought into the region over the course of the conflict.   So the question is, did they actually set up a government or simply win some well executed and planned battles? 
The second very large factor that will determine success of the whole endeavor is how the outside.
 world will interact with the situation at hand.  
Remember, the major reason many of the terrorist organizations were able to make such headway in their agendas and why groups like the Taliban formed in the first place was because of disrespect and religious suppression.
Especially in the early 00's the agenda was pushed forward on the backs of people screaming "Christian Nation" and "Muslims are bad."   And even though this was not the intention of those tasked with fighting the war on Terrorism these were often the loudest voices heard, or allowed through the curtains of propaganda.   
Let's be honest, both sides were guilty of this. 
So over the coming months the U.S. forces have two very large, very tough tasks ahead of themselves.  
First, is to prove themselves. 
Aiding the interpreters and other on the ground allies that have helped, for years, the American and Coalition troops be so successful in their military maneuvers. 
Getting they, and their families, safely out of country until the fighting dies down. 
Once the blood and tensions of cooled it will more than likely be safe for them to return home and begin the hardest part of the whole thing.   

Building peace.
Not a nation.
Not a tactically advantageous location.
but a safe and peaceful place like that so many people from nations like the U.S. take for granted.  
This will be a true test of the whether or not "The U.S. won the war on Terror."  is in how we treat our allies from these past 20 years. 
This is how we will win the hearts in the battle. 

The second piece of the puzzle. 
And possibly the most difficult, is how to aid in the years to come. 
As has been shown through out the course of the Covid Pandemic no nation is truly isolated.  
No one nation is truly independent of any other. 
How the U.S. and N.A.T.O forces choose to aid and show support in the region will show how much respect is had for the nations we were 'saving' as many people view it. 

Let's be real.  
Mission was accomplished. 
The perpetrators behind the September 11th attacks were brought to justice in one form or another.
The political parties that had become dictatorships that had been installed by Allied forces through the mid 1900's removed and local governments in various forms of success taking over the roles. 

The mistrust is still there, and will be there, easily for another full generation or two.  
Hell, here in the U.S. we're still debating civil rights between the races and trying to find a healthy balance between religion and government, so attempting to enforce such in another nation any further would be an exercise in narcistic hubris.   
So that is how we win minds.  We recognize that the tasks outlined in the 00's have been achieved and quietly withdraw for the time being.  


One third piece to this puzzle. 
Respect.
Recognizing that it will be painful to watch as things slowly settle out for good or ill in the region over the course of the next few years. 
But also offering true aid when needed. 
Natural disasters, famine, disease.   
These are still battles that need fought on a global scale, and in many places that are considered "first world." still rear their ugly heads.  

So on our side of the fence it will be the task of regrouping, examining both success and failures, while retraining to meet the tasks and difficulties ahead. We also need to keep the gates open for the people in true danger to be able to find safe harbor until the storm has passed. 

As things settle there, into what ever the future has in store it will be time to look inward and more close to home.  To the South.  To the island nations and those we share borders with.  
Because right now, much as was happening in the middle east during the past decades, we have migrants fleeing warzones.  Coming to the U.S. for help and safety from conflicts instigated by those in our nations past.   Those aren't opinions.   Those are matters of public record. 
But this time, unlike the problems caused during the 70's into the 00's and all of the conflicts entered into their we should not be asking "how do we fix this."  
we should be asking "how can we help."
And a much more difficult question. 
"How can they help us."

Success is measured in years and decades, not weeks and months. 

Stay Safe out there.