Sophie's Choice and Several Others by Meryl Streep

 

After we watched "Sophie's Choice" my wife and I decided to watch several Meryl Streep movies.

We next watched "The French Lieutenant's Woman" which, surprisingly had no French Lieutenant. It is two stories, one contemporary, one in the 19th Century with Streep and Jeremy Irons the lovers at the center of both stories. The movie has two endings. It's delightful. It was filmed in 1981, the year before "Sophie's Choice."

After that we watched "Iron Lady" in which Streep is Margaret Thatcher. The main thread of the story is Thatcher widowed and long out of power struggling with herself at the end of her live. The movie flashes back to Thatcher in power and to Thatcher before she was in power--always conservative, always ambitious.

For Sophie's Choice, Streep trained for months to learn Polish and German. The year before for "The French Lieutenant's Woman" she learned to speak with an the English accent of a woman from the Midlands. In "Iron Lady" the English accent was back.

Our next movie is "Out of Africa" in which she learned Dutch.

I am not sure how many of Streep's movies we will watch, but we will definitely end with "The Devil Wears Prada."

Military Service Always Risks Death

 

In 1971 Murrie Hubbard and I graduated from Stoneham High School.  Among the 371 graduates only Murrie and I served during the Vietnam War.  

Murrie went straight to the Marine Corps. After completely Basic and Infantry training he went to Vietnam, serving a year with a Marine Rifle Company.  In 1973, Murrie came home. He was uninjured.

At the end of January 1972, I went to US Air Force Basic Training at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio.  After basic, I went to an eight-month missile electronics school at Lowry Air Force Base in Denver.  In October I went to Hill Air Force Base, Utah.  That was the closest I ever got to Vietnam during the war.  

For the next 13 months I worked as a live-fire missile technician. On November 9, 1973, after Murrie was home, I was blinded and had a couple of fingers hanging from my right hand after a missile test explosion.  I came home several weeks later. My hand was still bandaged, my fingers in a cast and my right eye patched.  

When we swear to support and defend the Constitution, we may come home unscathed, or injured or dead.  There is no partial oath.  

America's Future: Combat Medic in Training

 

Emily Burgett on Mount Monadnock just before enlisting 

Eleven years ago, I wrote a lot of articles with the general title "Who Fights Our Wars?" Now I am years away from serving and a friend who I met while volunteering at an ESL ministry is in training to be a Combat Medic. 

On Tuesday, March 17, four days after borders began closing all over the world, I got a flight back from Paris to Kennedy Airport. Emily and I had talked and messaged a few times while I was in Israel and Europe and she told me she decided to enlist. By the time I landed that day, Army Specialist Emily Ann Burgett was flying to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, to begin what was to be the last Army Basic Training for a while.  

Emily thought about enlisting for a long time. She thought about becoming a pilot. She finally settled on Combat Medic.  Right now she is in medic training at Fort Sam Houston.  I occasionally get a text from her about medic training and Army life then don't hear from her for a week or two.  

At 28, Emily is a decade older than most basic trainees. She lived in both California and Massachusetts with her family, lived in Lancaster, Pa., as an undergraduate and after getting a masters degree. She earned that masters degree in history at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. While there she studied Arabic and plans someday to work with refugees. She has traveled to China with her family. The family business is making pianos sold in America and Asia. She has been across Europe and in Central America. 

Emily is an avid rock climber and an adventure tourist so the Army travel will continue the adventure.  Last week, one of the messages I got from Emily was about the explosion in Beirut.  Her class had just learned a new life-saving procedure. She said it reminded her why she joined. 

She will complete medic training next month and join her unit in Massachusetts.