Dear Family

(Thanks for letting an old Man touch you with His Thoughts. Just Scan & Delete).Some Day you may think of what I predicted)

I read this to Writing class today.

Dear Family

The Die is cast...The President’s decision is public...Never before in Human history has there been such openness about launching a “Preventive” strike to begin a war! I am worried.

In my sermons years ago I used to tell about Darius; A great Warrior who had the finest stone of his Empire shipped to the Battle Area ahead of time, to inscribe thereon the story of his coming success. Today the stone lies in the fields unused, uninscribed....for he never won the battle! It is blank!

I believe our Countries Leaders have misjudged & really don’t understand Iraq. To think we can make an ideal Democracy, even get it started in two years is idiotic...We’re just beginning to understand a little about the chief molding Force in the Arabian world: The Muslim Faith.

This is not like Germany or Japan and the Successful Marshall Plan we rejoice in. Already, billion dollar contracts to American’s Big Industries have been outlined and started for our Rehabilitating the Country. This War will

pay off for the Wealthy...as always... but Our country, I believe, will stumble and Fall in our grandiose attempt to convert the World. Our Missionaries of the Christian Gospel after a century of Christ-like helpfulness have made

little impact on the Muslim World. Why do we think in a secular sense we can convert them to a form of Democracy like ours: built on the Bible & the Renaissance/Reformation, that cradled Capitalism? We will fail and Bankrupt our Great Country.

Though Father George Sr. will be vindicated, I wonder if we are on the eve of something very cataclysmic in human history? I am so very thankful to be alive at 90 to watch and see. Though; as you all know, I disapprove of Military action in this high decisive moment of human history. Mature people could wait longer. The United Nations can muddle through and make progress... But in our Adolescent Behavior, we will wreck our Tomorrow as “The American Century.” (That’s your worry children , grandchildren, and my wonderful great grandchildren.)

At the same time, military action and so much movement and change upon the world’s surface creates other disturbing concern like the danger of Viruses, Germs, Gases etc. let loose in the air circling our globe. Remember? I was in Helsinki the morning of the Chernobyl Atomic disaster in Russia. Even the milk in the State of Oregon was affected, and the Deer in Siberia were destroyed.

A classmate said yesterday to Dr. Herschel Griffin ,another classmate here, that, ”I am more afraid of the coming air diseases like Flu, than I am of the

terrorists striking our Country.” I feel the same way remembering that I was deprived of a father at the age of five through a Plague of Pneumonia -Flu that covered every country in the world.. Five in my Family in Oklahoma and California died. Can you visualize 20 million dying...more than the Americans killed in all our wars!

At dinner last night I sat with the Griffin’s and asked questions about Epidemics. So many things can hurt us even though we can’t see them. Dr. Griffin's father, was my ideal Minister when I was a teenager growing up in Los Angeles. My classmate here has had a distinguished career as a Medical Scientist in studying and eradicating modern disease, mostly related to Atlanta’s Disease Control.

Just now the five papers in our Library this week have referred to The Report out of China. The Headlines read: “Mysterious Respiratory Illness spurs Global Alert.” Their is a fast traveling “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrone” rapidly touching and killing people all over the earth again. Fever. lung-breathing difficulty, high temperature and quick death.

Dr. Griffin says “We have a history of this Pandemic about every ten years. We have talked before about this and he reminded me that the Book by Gina Kolata, a very definitive study ends with this paragraph:

“Perhaps ,in some innocent encounter in China between a child and a bird, a new killer flu is on its way. Or perhaps even now a young man or a young woman has become infected with two different strains of flu viruses. They are mixing together in the person’s lungs, their genes resorting. Emerging from the witches brew is a new virus, a chimera, that like the 1918 flu virus is perfectly suited for destruction...As we grow smug about Influenza, the most quotidian(fever every day) of infections, a new plague is gathering deadly force . Except for this time we stand armed with better understanding of the past to better survive the next pandemic.”

Pandemic-(The whole world) .....

I love you all more than life itself...Thanks... Caleb elroy shikles 3/18/03