New Sailor

One of the newest sailors in the United States Navy had graduated last month is one of my best friends. Jordan M. is currently training to be a nurse.

She is one of the most amazing people I've ever known. She graduated high school cum laude, and that was the only achievement title she accepted. There was a special title afforded to students who had served at least 10 hours of volunteer service, but she did not even recognize that she served that many. How wrong she was! She never logged for herself a single hour of volunteer service, never thinking her actions merited such record, but others logged it for her. During her graduation party, she recieved the President's Call to Service award, which is given to someone who had served 4,000 hours IN A LIFETIME!!! She received a lifetime achievement award at 18! One of the things she spent her time doing was taking care of a veterans wall she set up in her school. She was pretty much the only patriotic person in a school generally hostile to their country. She had to battle against vandalism of varying degrees while making sure all the veterans she knew of was properly represented on that wall.

I am so proud of her. You can't even imagine! She is on her way to do some of the most amazing things with the most amazing people in the world. To know that she's out there, defending all of us, makes me sleep more soundly at night.

Good luck, Sailor!

Nebraska Senate Race

This is an interesting twist. In Nebraska, we have a Democrat for a senator: Ben Nelson. He is highly respected by both sides of the aisle and works to break through partisanship as much as possible, a trait that Nebraska respects. He has a proven track record of doing what's right for Nebraska. He also falls away from party line alot when it comes to lowering taxes, supporting the war, and not increasing gun control.

The Republican candidate, Pete Ricketts, is a former Ameritrade executive who wants to change things in Washington by working against the special interest groups that infest politics there and reduce rampant spending. Otherwise, many of the issues that Nelson has are the same as Ricketts.

A vote for Nelson ensures that a good senator remains in office and continues to do good work for Nebraska. A vote for Ricketts provides an opportunity to break through the special interests in Washington and get spending down.

I worry that Ricketts is going to go into Washington and get so flooded with special interest groups that he may get drowned and fall into the same trap. He doesn't have any campaign ties to special interests, but that doesn't mean he can keep his head above water there. He's not a career politician. However, Ricketts is a Republican.

The chance of a Democrat controlled Congress with the mood of Democrats now scares me. I wish it didn't, but I can't shake that concern. If Democrats own any house, absolutely nothing will get done for two years until we replace the whole lot of government. They'll waste time investigating wrongdoing by the president and his cabinet, just because they can. And, even though they claim they won't, it's a very good bet that they'll try to impeach the president in reprisal for Clinton.

I don't think I'll know who to vote for until I actually fill out the sheet.