Memorial Day

My mother is basically a pacifist. As a youngster, she lived on the island of Guam. She was 4 years old on December 8th 1941 (Guam is on the other side of the International dateline) when the Japanese invaded. She was practicing for a Christmas program in church wearing angel wings when her parents grabbed her and took her home. My grandfather was a part of the Guam guard, he about 160 other marines, sailors and Guam guardsmen were no match for the 5500 Japanese invaders.

My mother spent the next 4 years living under Japanese occupation. Understandably she learned to hate war. But along with her feelings about war, she taught us a profound respect and gratitude for those American soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines who liberated Guam. My younger brother was an Army officer and my oldest son is on active duty in the US Navy. My second son returned to Afghanistan to finish his tour this week, he is currently serving with the storied 82nd Airborne — hooah! 

My mother taught me to hate war, and for good reason. But she also taught me that freedom is not free and to honor those who have make the ultimate sacrifice to win and preserve that freedom.

The State Central Committee

Yesterday, the 1st and 4th districts held their conventions. As I suggested before, the SCC has a different look. Of the fifteen seats (not counting our national committee people) only 5 incumbents return. If you count me that makes 6. Here is your new state central committee: (incumbents are marked with an asterisk (*))

1st District

• Chelle Adkins
• Jerimiah Johnson
• *John Ortega

2nd District

• Trudy Caviness
• *David Chung
• Emily Lofgren

3rd District

• *Wes Enos
• David Fischer
• *Gopal Krishna

4th District

• Drew Ivers
• *Bill Schickel
• AJ Spiker

5th District

• Tim Moran
• *Monte Shaw
• Craig Williams

In addition to these district representatives, the voting members include Steve Scheffler and Kim Lehman, our national committee representatives. Current treasurer Matt Randall did not seek re-election so the SCC will need to elect a treasurer soon.