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New polls:  
Dem pickups: (None)
GOP pickups: (None)

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The Battle of Los Angeles Continues

In general, major incidents of urban unrest last for the better part of a week. So, even if the unrest in Los Angeles right now was entirely organic, it would not be too surprising that things have not yet returned to completely normal. And given that this particular unrest is not organic, and was largely manufactured for political theater purposes, it would not be too surprising if things went on a bit longer than would normally be the case.

Whatever the future may hold, in the present, the clashes in Los Angeles continue to dominate the news. Here's a rundown of the 10 biggest storylines from yesterday:

1. No Emergency Injunction: Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) and California AG Rob Bonta asked for an immediate, emergency injunction telling the Trump administration to knock it off and stop sending troops to Los Angeles. They did not get what they wanted. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer said yesterday that he would give the Trump administration until Thursday to file briefs explaining its position. The Judge also insinuated that his decision on an injunction would come shortly thereafter.
   
   
2. Money Well Spent: The Trump administration is very interested in saving money, right up until it's not. Yesterday, Bryn MacDonnell, who is the acting comptroller of the Department of Defense, appeared before the House Appropriations defense subcommittee and was asked how much the deployment of National Guard troops and Marines will cost. Her best guess: $134 million. Your tax dollars at work.
   
   Somehow, at least so far, that $134 million does not appear to cover such luxuries as, you know, food and shelter. With Newsom taking the lead (more on him in a moment), many people have been circulating images like these on social media:
   
   
   
   Whether this catches fire, we do not know. What we do know, however, is that people are much more impressed by visual evidence than by any other kind.
   
   
3. Big Beautiful Bill Boost?: Speaking of money, Donald Trump's budget bill contains money for stricter immigration enforcement. Consequently, some Republicans are using the events in Los Angeles as an opportunity to push for quick passage of the bill. The most obvious culprit here is Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who posted this to eX-Twitter yesterday:

   The lawlessness happening in LA is ANOTHER reason why we need to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill IMMEDIATELY.
   
   It provides the ESSENTIAL funding needed to secure our nations borders.
   
   Congress WILL support the brave @ICEgov agents who are fighting to keep Americans safe against illegal aliens AND the radical left.

   Readers' opinions might vary, but to us, this sounds like hot air. There is just no chance that the Senate is going to ram through a multi-trillion-dollar budget, which contains a lot of things that one senator or another is unhappy about, just because this week's headlines happen to be about clashes over immigration policy. And by the time the Senate is ready to move, things will surely have quieted down in L.A. and elsewhere.
   
   
4. Just for Show: Several folks (CNN's Aaron Blake was the first one we saw) have made a more refined version of an observation we had in yesterday's item about the unrest in Los Angeles. In short, there is a pretty big gap between Donald Trump's words about what is going on and what is ACTUALLY going on.
   
   Trump has, of course, made it seem as if L.A. has turned into some sort of hellscape. This is not the case. The confrontations between the protesters and the authorities have been largely peaceful, have been relatively few in number, and have been confined to a fairly small part of the city. We've gotten a number of e-mails from readers concerned about Angelenos (Z) and (L), and we certainly appreciate the concern, but the fact is that the observable evidence from where (Z) and (L) live has been pretty minimal.
   
   More significantly, at the same time he paints the picture of a post-apocalyptic warzone, Trump has also asserted that order is restored (or largely so) and that the credit goes to the National Guard and the Marines (and, by extension, to Donald Trump). The latter part of this is also a falsehood. The Marines, it would seem, have not actually been deployed yet, as they are undergoing "additional training." The National Guard HAS been deployed—at least, the first contingent of 2,000 troops—but they are basically limited to glorified security-guard duty. And besides, normal order was almost entirely restored before they arrived.
   
   In addition to spinning a fanciful tale that bears no real resemblance to what's happening on the ground, it's worth remembering that, as we noted yesterday, Trump has not invoked the Insurrection Act, which means that the hands of the various armed forces he's deployed are fairly well tied. Add it up, and it looks very much like he wants the benefits of "cracking down" without assuming the risks of actually doing so. There is presumably some awareness on his part, or on the part of the people around him, that if a civilian or two ends up dead—à la Kent State—it could be politically disastrous.
   
   
5. Senators Side with Trump: Most of the Republicans in the Senate (or, as The Bulwark's Joe Perticone describes them, the "enablers") have cheered the Trump administration's pseudo-crackdown on... whatever it is Trump is cracking down on. For example, John Kennedy (R-LA), who is a reliable Trump water-toter, said: "I don't think that the president had any choice." And John Cornyn (R-TX), who is in the midst of being primaried from the right by Texas AG Ken Paxton (R), decreed: "I think [Trump] needs to restore order," while opining that there is "plenty of precedent" for Trump's unprecedented deployment of the National Guard.
   
   There are three senators in particular that we want to highlight, for various reasons. First up is Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR). As readers may recall, almost exactly 5 years ago (June 3, 2020), he wrote an op-ed for The New York Times in which he argued that the military should be used against civilians when it's necessary to maintain order. This generated so much outrage that the editor responsible for the piece, James Bennet, was compelled to resign (and several other editors were fired).
   
   Boy, how the Overton window has moved. The mere suggestion was outrageous 5 years ago. Now, it's actually happening, and... well, there's not too much outrage, at least not from the nation's newspapers. That includes The Wall Street Journal, which ran a very slightly updated version of Cotton's op-ed yesterday. We suspect nobody's going to be resigning, or is going to get fired, this time around.
   
   Next, there's Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK). We've been asked a couple of times, recently, to make our picks for which senator will be the dumbest one after Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) departs, and Mullin was very near the top of our list. He reminded us why yesterday. During an appearance on Fox, he was asked about Newsom, and said this:

   The guy absolutely should be thanking President Trump right now for trying to restore order because the only thing Governor Newsom is good at right now is sucking at being number one at being a terrible governor. I mean, that is it.

   Oklahoma has the death penalty for a lot of things, and reading this makes us wonder if it should be extended to crimes against the English language. Not only did the Senator issue forth with this nearly unintelligible gibberish, but he threw so many negatives in there that he actually ended up saying that Newsom is a good governor. Or, more accurately, that he sucks at being a bad governor.
   
   Finally, there is Sen. John Fetterman (D?-PA). The title of this section is "Senators Side with Trump" and not "Republican Senators Side with Trump" because Fetterman has largely sounded like someone on the other side of the aisle in his response to the events in L.A. For example: "This is anarchy and true chaos. My party loses the moral high ground when we refuse to condemn setting cars on fire, destroying buildings, and assaulting law enforcement."
   
   Anyone who thinks that what is happening in L.A. is "anarchy and true chaos" is unfamiliar with what actual anarchy and true chaos look like. It's hard to know where Fetterman might be getting some of these ideas from. Maybe, and we're just spitballing here, he got them from Steve Bannon when the two had dinner on Monday night.
   
   
6. Democrats Get Tough: Fetterman's odd posturing notwithstanding, Democratic politicians have very clearly concluded that they need to be against Trump's actions, but also against anything that protesters do that is not 100% peaceful. Newsom, for his part, has warned that anyone who breaks the law will be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible. Meanwhile, Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass has imposed a curfew on a relatively small portion of downtown Los Angeles, forbidding anyone from going into that area between 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. PT, unless they work/live there or are emergency/law enforcement personnel.
   
   We know that Newsom is trying to leverage all of this to boost his 2028 presidential bid (more on this in a moment). We are not quite sure what Bass' goals are. The area she's put under curfew has seen some vandalism, but isn't where the main flare-ups of physical violence took place (that was actually about 10 miles to the south of the curfew area). It's certainly possible that she should be taken at face value, and that she's doing this for the safety of Los Angeles. Or, it's possible that she's doing this for Team Democrat, to send the message that the Party is strongly against non-peaceful demonstrations. These seem about equally likely to us. Unlike Newsom, she's probably not angling for her next job in politics, as she is 71 years old, and the L.A. mayoralty is probably the final chapter for her public career.
   
   An interesting question, at least to us, is what will happen if the curfew is maintained through Friday. The Dodgers will be back at home that evening, and the western edge of the curfew area is also the eastern edge of the stadium property. The game that night does not even start until 7:10, and so will conclude well after 8:00, especially since Dustin "Bombs Away" May is expected to pitch. If people are not allowed to use the surface streets in DTLA, it will be a mess, traffic-wise. Take this from someone who ALWAYS exits Dodger Games by taking Stadium Way to Broadway, and Broadway to Ninth.
   
   
7. Newsom Seizes the Day: Newsom appears to be doing what he thinks is best for California, but, as we note several times above, he's also riding this for all it's worth, in hopes of boosting his national profile and his brand. Yesterday morning, he posted a very surreal video to eX-Twitter. In the background is footage of the imperial stormtroopers from Star Wars. In the foreground is one of Donald Trump's tweets about the situation. And then the audio is a computerized voice meant to sound like Emperor Palpatine reading the tweet. Truth be told, Newsom should have called (Z); he can do a considerably better Palpatine impression than the computer can. Later in the day (around 3:30 PT, and thus 6:30 ET), Newsom delivered an address to the state/nation that was broadcast on most local TV stations, as well as CNN and several other cable stations. To get a sense of the thing, here is Newsom's concluding thought:

   It's time for all of us to stand up. Justice Brandeis—who said it best—in a democracy, the most important office, with all due respect, Mr. President, is not the presidency. And it's certainly not governor. The most important office is office of citizen at this moment. At this moment, we all need to stand up and be held to a higher level of accountability.
   
   If you exercise your First Amendment rights, please, please do it peacefully. I know many of you are feeling deep anxiety, stress, and fear. But I want you to know that you are the antidote to that fear and that anxiety. What Donald Trump wants most is your fealty, your silence, to be complicit in this moment. Do not give in to him.

   Newsom's trying to be statesmanlike. Whether he succeeded is in the eye of the beholder.
   
   What the Governor REALLY wants, so bad he can taste it, is to be arrested by the Trump administration. We made mention of that in our piece yesterday, and Newsom continued to goad/dare the White House throughout the day. We doubt Trump would be stupid enough to take the bait, but with him, you never know. If Newsom did manage to get himself arrested, he would wear that as a badge of honor every single day from now until November 7, 2028. It would become necessary to get that old joke about Rudy Giuliani out of mothballs: "With Newsom, every sentence has three parts: a noun, a verb, and 'my arrest.'"
   
   
8. McIver, Too?: Undoubtedly, Newsom is jealous of Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ), who has already been arrested, and who was formally indicted on three charges yesterday by Trump-attorney-turned-interim-U.S.-Attorney-for-New-Jersey Alina Habba. Normally, when the feds indict you, you're in a world of hurt, since they have a success rate well north of 90%. This case would appear to be the exception to the rule, however. First, if it ever gets to trial, it won't be too tough to make a persuasive argument that the prosecution is politically motivated. Second, even if McIver were a private citizen, it's a tough climb to argue that the things she was accused of doing rise to the level of being a federal crime. Third, McIver is not a private citizen, and has at least some extra leeway by virtue of the Constitution's Speech and Debate clause, which protects her from prosecution for actions undertaken in her official capacity as a member of Congress.
   
   Exactly how far the protection afforded to McIver extends is a good question, but if you add up all the problems that the government has to overcome in order to secure a conviction, Habba's odds certainly don't look good. One wonders if this will even get before a judge, or if the feds will quietly drop the matter once they've gotten the headlines they wanted. As to McIver, she'll certainly fundraise off of this. And if she goes on trial, she'll become a cause célèbre among Democrats. Could she leverage that into a promotion, the way Newsom is trying to do? The problem is that the New Jersey governorship is about to be claimed for 4 years (see below), and the state's two U.S. Senate seats are pretty well locked up, by Andy Kim (D) and Cory Booker (D). That said, if Booker is somehow elected president, there will be a vacancy. Alternatively, one could see McIver serving in a Democratic cabinet (say, as DHS Secretary). Or, if the Democratic nominee is a milquetoast white guy (as appears likely), she could be a ticket-balancing VP candidate, although having been in the House for 9 months is a bit of a weak resume for being next in line.
   
   
9. Protests Spread: Although Trump claims to have restored order (once again, despite simultaneously claiming that L.A. is a Blade Runner-like hellscape), things actually seem to be going in the opposite direction nationwide. There were (almost universally peaceful) anti-ICE protests in at least two dozen cities yesterday. And it wasn't just pinko commie cities in pinko commie states. The list includes Columbus, Dallas, Las Vegas, Louisville, Nashville, San Antonio and San Diego. It is true that many American voters tend to take a dim view of demonstrators. However, it is also true that what Americans really dislike is instability and unrest, and that eventually, blame tends to fall on whatever person or party is in power when the instability and unrest takes place. If he were not dead, Lyndon B. Johnson might have a useful thought or two on that subject.
   
   
10. Day of Kings: The current state of affairs makes for an interesting context for Donald Trump's reenactment of Triumph of the Will birthday parade, which is scheduled for Saturday. Undoubtedly, readers know by now that there will be nationwide "No Kings" demonstrations in response to the event. That reportedly includes a demonstration in Washington, DC (though not an official one sanctioned by the "No Kings" organizers, as they are nervous about a potential Tiananmen Square situation). Trump has already warned that if anyone gives him the sads on his birfday, they will be met with "very heavy force." It's possible that he'll make good on that threat, because if there's one thing he hates, it's the feeling that he's being disrespected. But we will remind folks of two things: (1) As we note above, he's speaking loudly and yet carrying a small stick vis-à-vis Los Angeles right now and (2) TACO.

And there you have it. (Z)

New Jersey Primary Holds True to Form

Voters in New Jersey headed to the polls yesterday (and to their mailboxes in the days before that), and did exactly what everyone expected them to do, choosing Democrat Mikie Sherrill and Republican Jack Ciattarelli to face off in November's gubernatorial election.

Of the two primary contests, Sherrill's was much closer. She took 34% of the votes, as compared to 20.4% for second-place finisher Ras Baraka and 15.9% for third-place finisher Steve Fulop. It would seem that New Jersey Democrats like representatives better than they like mayors. Ciattarelli, by contrast, leveled the competition, with his 67.8% of the vote far outpacing second-place finisher Bill Spadea, who took 21.9%, and third-place finisher Jon Bramnick, who took just 6.2%.

One might be tempted to look at Ciattarelli's much more lopsided victory and conclude that enthusiasm for him is much greater than for Sherrill. That could be true; it's hard to say. However, there were a total of just under 800,000 votes cast for Democrats yesterday, and just over 450,000 cast for Republicans. The Democratic side of the contest was more competitive, which is part of the explanation, but New Jersey is also a blue state, which is almost certainly the bigger part of the explanation. And as a fairly boring moderate, Sherrill is not likely to turn off too many Democrats. She might not excite them, but an unenthusiastic vote counts the same as an enthusiastic one. Anyhow, for these reasons, we presume Sherrill's the favorite, even though there hasn't been any general election polling yet.

We should probably also note that this is Ciattarelli's second bite at the apple, as he was the Republican nominee for governor the last time around, losing to Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ) by 3 points, 51%-48%. One could argue that with greater name recognition, more experience, and facing a non-incumbent opponent, Ciattarelli might just overcome that gap and take home the prize. However, Murphy was fairly unpopular, and yet bucked the tide in holding on while a Democrat was in the White House (the last time a Democratic governor of New Jersey was reelected with a Democrat in the White House, Lyndon B. Johnson was president). Plus, the Trumpy Ciattarelli didn't have to own any unpopular things being done by the Trump administration, because Trump was not in office 4 years ago. Now he is.

After we ran our preview of the New Jersey primaries, we got a couple of interesting reports from New Jersey voters. We thought we'd share them now, as opposed to waiting for the mailbag this weekend. So:

S.G. in Newark, NJ: Despite the presence of 11 candidates across the two major parties, this has seemed like a stealth election. I would expect extraordinarily low turnout. I've seen a few yard signs (some, as always, posted not in yards but on public property along roads). YouTube has treated me to a few Mikie Sherrill ads in the last couple of weeks. I generally stay away from airwaves (dating myself, but you know what I mean) and social media, so it's possible there's been activity there that I've missed. Exactly one canvasser has come to my door, an earnest young woman working for Mikie Sherrill who detected my reluctance to engage with her but managed to race through the required pitch: "Can we count on you to support Mikie Sherrill for governor in the primary election on June 10th?" and cheerfully accepted my statement that the voters in my household had not yet decided whom to support. (That part's true—for the first time in a long time, we are going to be among the large pool of late-breaking voters).

What we have seen lots of is mailed flyers. Lots and lots and lots of mailed flyers. Sean Spiller flooded us first, probably because he is not currently an elected office holder and is much less well-known than most of the other candidates. In the last couple of weeks, it's been mostly Sherrill and Steve Fulop, with some continued Spiller mail and a scant few flyers supporting Ras Baraka and Josh Gottheimer. We've received nothing supporting Steve Sweeney, who is presumably focusing on his South Jersey base and hope the other five candidates split the vote in the northern and central parts of the state.

Perhaps it is a telling fact about the current state of our democracy that even though we've received dozens and dozens of mail pieces, not a single one has been paid for by a candidate's official campaign. Every single one has been sent by an "independent" political action committee. Some of these are recognizable—the League of Conservation Voters, for example—but most have inscrutable names like "New Jersey Citizens for Wonderfulness" (I made that up, but you get the idea).

One other note. You mentioned in your preview that Sean Spiller and Steve Sweeney would split the union vote, because Spiller is head of the NJEA (the state teachers' union on which Chris Christie declared war) and Sweeney is VP of the iron workers' union. Maybe. There are about as many public school teachers in the Garden State (reportedly almost 120,000) as there are iron workers in the whole country (the national membership of the iron workers' union is about 120,000). Sure, there are other unions that might be supporting Sweeney, but in general I think he is much better known as a politician than as a union guy.

Not that Spiller, as a teacher, has a lock on the votes of other unionized workers, most of whom wear blue collars. Nor, for that matter, on all the teachers. I am a proud, card-carrying member of two unions—the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers, which have functionally merged (at least, here in New Jersey). My local has endorsed Ras Baraka, whom you accurately described as "the leftiest and most strident" of the Democratic hopefuls. Perhaps this tells us something about American labor unions. Perhaps it tells us something about American university professors. Or perhaps it tells us something about American university professors who become union leaders.

A.L. in Highland Park, NJ: It's primary eve and I already know the guy I voted for, Ras Baraka, is not going to win. The winner will likely be Mikie Sherrill. And she is... fine. She, like Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris before her, is a nice lady, a striver, someone who succeeded in a system stacked against her. But because of that, she (like Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris before her) is a work-within-the margins, change this program by 5%, adjust this other thing by a smidge kind of person.

The zeitgeist is looking for a wholesale change kind of person: Bernie Sanders fits the bill. I guess Donald Trump and Elon Musk are the schizophrenic schismatic version you get when the same sentiment is applied to the party of William F. Buckley and the Chicago School of Economics. Mikie Sherrill smiling in her flight jacket with a diverse bunch of girls ain't it. Ras Baraka may not be it either, but at least there is a hint of anger there. One hope for Democrats in the Garden State is that likely Republican winner Jack Ciattarelli is just as much of a mismatch for the times. Another is the hope that, by the time November rolls around, this burn-it-all-down sentiment will have itself burnt out, and a straighten-up-and-fly-right governor will be just the ticket.

Thanks to both of you!

Next week, it's Virginia. And the week after that, New York City. (Z)

Mark Green to Quit Mid-term

Rep. Mark Green (R-TN), who announced his retirement from Congress in February of last year and then changed his mind, is quitting again. He says he's going to stay around long enough to help pass Donald Trump's big, beautiful bill, and then he's leaving his job for "a private-sector opportunity that was just too good to pass up." Inasmuch as he's pointedly not sharing details, we assume Green won't be working on feeding the hungry or healing the sick and infirm.

Green is one of the kookiest and one of the MAGA-est members of the House. In a Venn diagram, those two circles overlap quite a bit, so it's not unusual that he's both. He remains a believer that Barack Obama is a Muslim and a non-citizen, says public health programs are meant as obstacles to Christian evangelicals, insists that being transgender is the result of a communicable disease, rejects the theory of evolution entirely, and has sounded the alarm on chemtrails. Did we mention that he's an M.D.? Wright State University School of Medicine must be so proud to claim him as an alumnus. Maybe they can blame the school where he got his MA, namely USC.

In any event, in among all the nuttiness, Green is probably best known for two things: leading the charge to impeach then-DHS Secretary Alejando Mayorkas, and expressing his view that when men look at Victoria's Secret catalogs, it's "one step closer to Saddam Hussein." There has been some reporting that Green's "private-sector opportunity" involves the nation of Guyana. That may or may not be true. And it may or may not be a coincidence that Guyana is where the Rev. Jim Jones led his cult in a mass-murder/suicide back in 1978.

Once Green departs, it will drop the Republicans' majority to 219-212, meaning that Mike Johnson will still have a three-vote margin of error in a circumstance where all members vote, and all the Democrats stick together. Put another way, with Green, three defections means a bill passes 217-215; without him the bill passes 216-215.

Green's district, TN-07, is R+10, so it will presumably remain in Republican hands once a replacement is chosen. Under the terms of Tennessee law, Gov. Bill Lee (R-TN) must call for an election within 10 days of the seat coming vacant, and then must hold the general election between 100 and 107 days after that. So, the replacement is likely to be seated in late October or early November. By that time, two vacant-but-sure-to-be-Democratic seats will have been filled (the D+18 VA-11 and the D+13 AZ-07), and a third (the D+22 TX-18) will either be filled as well or will be on the cusp of being filled (the election is Nov. 4). So, barring any further reductions in Democratic membership, the Speaker's margin is as big right now as it's going to be for a while; maybe for the rest of this Congress. (Z)

Never Forget: No Time for Sergeants

Our remembrance for today comes from R.A.K. in Alford, MA:

We have seen a series of war memoirs, which have been deeply affecting, and have emphasized the sacrifice, suffering, and occasional heroism of war. However, my family story relates to the other face of military service: the absurdity, silliness, and occasional inadvertent humor. First, a disclaimer. This is my recollection of stories told to me 50 years ago, which were even then memories of events from 30 years before. Further, my father was an honest man, but loved to tell a good story, and might not have allowed every little fact to interfere with that story. If any readers have expertise that contradicts the story, my apologies, and I hope the effect on your blood pressure is not too severe.

My father turned 17 in 1943, at the end of his sophomore year as a physics major at CCNY. It was the custom in the New York City schools to rush bright kids along. Unsurprisingly, he found himself intellectually but not emotionally prepared for college. It occurred to him that joining the army would be a great way to avoid having to study. The army had other ideas. They thought that training physicists was a great idea, and assigned him to continue classwork at Princeton under military discipline.

Since the idea had been to get away from books, he then responded to an air corps recruiting poster. In huge boldface type it said, "Join the Air Corps. Be a PILOT, BOMBARDIER, or NAVIGATOR." And in tiny little type at the bottom, "or gunner." At the time, the combat life of a gunner was measured in seconds, and the training programs for the skilled flight positions were filled for the foreseeable future. Those who responded to the recruitment ad were given a test that virtually everyone would fail and then became gunners. My father did eventually pass the test and became one of a small group of people that the army had no idea what to do with.

His first Air Corps assignment was to work on tests that would predict who would pass flight school. There were both physical and paper and pencil components. The army felt that it was critical that everyone who entered flight school should pass and become a pilot. Keeping a wand pointed at a spot on a turntable while being spun upside down in a gimballed chair, for example, would seem to be a useful test. No correlation with passing, as it turns out. The only consistent predictor was the question of how many books were in the candidate's library at home. Those who answered "seven" passed flight school. No one ever figured out whether they were selecting for candidates who actually owned exactly seven books or who just thought that the army would like that answer.

Eventually, the army decided that as a physicist, my father would understand weights, levers, and torque. They then sent him to Bakersfield to teach pilot candidates how to balance an airplane. For an hour a day he was a temporary captain so as to outrank the students. For the rest of the day he was a private, and the army assigned the New York kid who never owned a car to drive the radio van through winding mountain roads. This was clearly the most dangerous part of his entire military service.

This story was related to me as a series of stupid choices that almost got my father killed. There is a somewhat ironic coda, however. The university assignment appears to have been a program called ASTP. In Citizen Soldiers, Stephen Ambrose describes the army's decision in 1944 that they needed cannon fodder more than future leaders. ASTP was suddenly closed down, and these inexperienced and almost untrained kids were sent to the front lines in the Battle of the Bulge, where they were slaughtered. So, the decision to join the Air Corps, which my father considered the stupidest, most dangerous decision of all, probably saved his life. Good-bye Dad, may your memory always be a blessing.

Thank you, R.A.K. (Z)

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