3954
Pt. 1
Six or eight years ago, my wife and I drove up to Kentucky to visit our daughter and son in law and their family. And since I am a military retiree, we often rent a hotel room on the nearest Army, Air Force or Navy installation. And this vacation was no exception. We booked a couple of nights at Fort Knox. (And no, Ft. Knox is not just the repository of our nation's gold supply).
While we were at this particular installation, perhaps the best known of all military forts and bases, (due to its immediate connection with the world's most precious metal), we visited the General George Patton Museum.
As we entered the museum, one of the first exhibits we came across was General Patton's staff car. This was, per the placard standing next to it, the very vehicle in which this famous military man was involved in what ultimately proved to be a fatal accident. As a result, General Patton was immediately paralyzed, and died days later.
As we walked a respectful distance away from the car, which was surrounded by a rope line, I could not help myself. Totally oblivious of the likelihood of video cameras, I reached out and quickly touched the hood of the vehicle. Thankfully, alarms didn't sound, not did military policemen run towards me, manhandle me, and slap me in handcuffs.
As we continued to walk through the museum, (which I never knew existed 'til I just happened upon it), I noticed an oddly familiar table with mannequins sitting around its perimeter.
Reading the sign next to the table, I realized why it was so familiar.
"Surrender Table - Persian Gulf War"
Here was the table upon which General Norman Schwartzkopf and a couple of Iraqi generals discussed peace terms in 1992. Once again, I could not help myself. Once again, I stretched out my hand, and did what I had done before.
Pt. 2
And once again, I found myself looking around to see if a video camera or security guard had seen me in the course of fulfilling my temptation to touch a significant historical relic.
But once again, there was no apparent camera, nor security person to be seen. Now, suddenly, I remembered a couple of stories I had seen on the news and/or internet of military retirees who were arrested for one thing or another they had done; and which were somehow connected to the Army or Navy or Air Force. I figured if I got past the lone individual at the front desk, I was home free. Ten feet, five feet, two feet. Now we were out the door.
There were other times in which I touched a couple of super famous, super expensive historical items. Once we were at the Kennedy Space Center and I touched the Space Shuttle Atlantis. Another time I touched an SR-71 Blackbird aircraft on display at Werner-Robbins Air Force Base. However, in both instances 'touches' were permitted, if not welcomed.
A few years ago, my wife and I visited Scotland and Ireland, and we toured what is referred to as the White Castle; located in the former of the two countries.
As the tour guide walked us through the sundry rooms of the castle, we were told that Queen Victoria visited the place a century and a half before us, and "by the way, she slept in that bed."
Of course, once again I felt the tempestuous juices beginning to circulate in my body. And, once again I could not help myself. Thus, when the tour guide momentarily turned her back, I stretched out my right index finger, and (you guessed it) I tapped the side rail of the bedstead. (Yeah, I did)!
Pt. 3
Then there was the prized possession of a famous military figure, also a four star general; (whom the previous general, mentioned above, may very well have known).
General James Van Fleet was, at one time, overall commander of U.S. forces during the Korean War. President Harry Truman claimed he was the finest military officer that America had ever produced. (And while I am a bit "ahead of myself," here, he was also America's longest lived general of all time; dying at the advanced age of 100).
Well, Gen. Van Fleet owned what is referred to as a cane and barley rocking chair; which was manufactured at least a century ago. The general had purchased the chair about 1925 from his landlord in California when he was a mid-grade officer. Ultimately, he went on to serve during WWI, WWII and Korea, and after his retirement he was recalled by President Kennedy during the Vietnam War, and was sent on a diplomatic mission to Greece.
However, speaking of the rocking chair, a friend of mine who oversees estate sales had notified me that he had been selected to handle an auction of General Van Fleet's personal possessions, and he thought I might be interested in buying the chair prior to the auction. Anyone who knows me knows that I almost literally "jumped" at the opportunity to make it mine.
All this to say, that as soon as I retrieved the chair from Calvin's shed, ran the passenger seat forward, put the chair in my backseat, drove home, unloaded it, and brought it into my house, I immediately satisfied my intense temptation to install my posterior where the general had often installed his own.
Afterward
As any astute reader of this blog might have easily deduced, each and every individual whom I have enumerated here are... dead; (while the writer, as he pens these words, is still very much alive). The cars, and tables, and rocking chairs and bedsteads that "begged" to be touched, now strangely unimportant, except to those, like me, who the notables of the earth left behind.
People such as Generals Patton, Schwartzkopf, and Van Fleet, and Queen Victoria have, each in their own turn, "crossed the proverbial Jordan River."
The great and mighty of the earth, now brought low before the King of kings and Lord of lords, and who will stand as humble and unassuming as the rest of us when God, the Father imposes His rightful judgement on us all; be it good or bad.
by William McDonald, PhD
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