Largess at home and war in the East

I’ve read several accounts this week of a gentleman in Hinsdale, New Hampshire, who died and willed a large chunk ($3.8 million) of his estate to the town of 4000 residents. Much appreciated and a committee was formed to use it in an appropriate manner. Gee, that sounded familiar! Yes, it wasn’t long ago that McCook benefited from my own high school friend Jim Lee or “Scout Lee” as we called him, who did something similar.

In my own experience, this community too has benefited from several (many) local persons who have done well in life and have generously shared with the community. Our Community College has several buildings, and one in progress of renovation, that were direct gifts from individuals/families and a new ballpark for our youth is in our near future. We owe them all a big thank you.

Not so happy thoughts but the war on Israel rather dominates the TV news that this old former military guy watches. I’ve no clue why so many in the world hate the Jews so much and a lot of the Muslims also for that matter. Both have been accused of being like Hitler’s Nazis that we fought and decimated in WWII. Most Germans of that era were of the Christian faith example those that immigrated to this area. If any of them were believers in the Nazi dominance the locals sure kept that quiet.

I’d suspect that the Palestinians living in Israel today are like the majority of the German people that had been taken over by the Nazi political party. They have employment and all the rights and privileges of the Jewish-believing Israelis. The problem came when Israel succumbed to politicians who insisted on a two-state solution for Israel. Have the Palestinians who wanted to live in the Gaza enclave and let them self-govern themselves. Somebody wasn’t watching and the Palestinians let the terrorist group called Hamas take over. A part of the Hamas approach to life was to educate the Palestinian youth to hate the Jews and eventually the radicals committed the mass murder of their neighbors that took place on the 7th of October. Yes, they broke a ceasefire!

Hamas, meanwhile, with the help of the radicals in Iran had weaponized all of Gaza, building a vast network of fortified underground tunnels. Using ordinary citizens for shields they launched rockets from schools and hospitals. Then they captured hundreds of citizens from Israel to use as human shields as they knew that Israel would hesitate to fight where those captives might be killed.

There is only one answer and that is what the Israeli government has vowed to do and that is to completely destroy Hamas. It will be a tough fight but absolutely necessary. Then as we did at the end of WWII, under the Marshal Plan in Germany and Japan that is to oversee the building of a democratic style of government for Gaza. That is their plan.

Now there is a monkey in the wrench and his name is President Biden. He calls for a ceasefire, (pause) in an attempt to get as many of the hostages out ignoring Hamas’ efforts to reorganize their defense making the job of the IDF even harder in the near future. Hopefully, political forces in our Congress will put forth effort to hold Biden back from sending aid to the Hamas terrorists and while they are at it put pressure on Iran to stop the flow of aid to the terrorist Muslim forces that are helping Hamas to fight against Israel. I’m not too optimistic but there is always hope. We need another election and the sooner the better!

Now to happier thoughts. The first snowfall of the season has come and gone. It was a good practice session for those who clear our streets and highways, the airport too, and it appears that they did a superior job. Tuesday as you read this the temperatures are forecast to be in the 50’s and the nice wet snow that we had should be soaked into our topsoil that sorely needs it. Your old columnist is ready for a mild winter but of course, I can only hope and pray for that to happen. Yes, we chose to live here so what will be will be.

That is how I saw it.

Dick Trail