I am about to get one of those RSV shots at the VA Hospital of Philadelphia to prevent any lung infection, and I wanted to share my enthusiasm for all the work the Veterans Administration has provided me most of my adult life.
It started a month after exiting the Vietnam War alive and receiving a GI Bill stipend to become a “first generation” college student, and a few years later, to buy my first home. But it wasn’t until I got care-giver burnout in 2008 while taking care of my wife who suffered a traumatic brain injury from a fall, as well as a “PTSD-suffering uprising” from my combat experience, that I first got life support help from a VA hospital.
Former US Army Lieutenant Michael J Contos and Captain John S Han USN
You never know when an action from your past may catch up to you and remind you of what you once did in your previous life.
Take for instance my attendance last week at a Veterans Ceremony in Plymouth Township which borders my home town of Conshohocken, PA. They honored veterans who served in the municipality by placing their names in a brochure while a full-fledged US Navy Captain spoke at a memorial.
I approached the officer who was Captain John S Han and told him of my visit to Korea where he and his family had emigrated from in the early 1970s. Someone snapped the above picture and he then looked a little closer at me and asked “Don’t I know you?”
“I don’t know,” I said reminding him that I was Airborne in the Army and never served in the Navy, but had grown up and once worked in Philadelphia.
That’s when he shocked me by telling me he served as a prosecutor in Philadelphia and was my opponent in court when I tried my one and only jury trial “in absentia.” That means the defendant had flown the coop, so to speak, and the judge – one of my favorite jurists named James Lineberger – kind of declared my client AWOL (Away With Out Leave). That judge – another veteran – had once received a battle-field commission while serving in the Korean War. I felt like I was kinda back in the so-called trenches while suffering through that trial only to lose a case that we public defender attorneys called a “dead-dog loser.”
Captain Han reminded me that the defendant eventually got a 15-year sentence from Judge Anthony DeFino for a vicious crime considered to be a home invasion of a South Philadelphia man’s home where he beat a senior citizen. I told Han that I believed he should have gotten a stiffer sentence.
But what a coincidence. Getting credit for time served some 20 years earlier by a fellow veteran and a battle-hardened courtroom attorney. What a happy Veterans Day recall.
(Shortly after writing this, I learned that Captain Han was appointed to the transition team of the new mayor of Philadelphia!)
I was thinking about a story I once wrote for a newspaper about the Philadelhia-born singer Jim Croce and I discovered so many stepping stones that guided me from one career choice to another with an almost mystical maneuvering.
Today, I am a Georgia boy once again. And if we try hard enough, all of us could be Georgians!
Over the next several weeks I hope Americans join with me in offering positive intentions to convince the universe to focus and raise up the wonderful State of Georgia.
It was the second time in about a week it turned up missing. The first time was in Korea and I never detected it’s loss. The Reverend Lee, the WON Buddhist minister leading a pilgrimage in Korea last week, had approached me with a black object in her hand. She looked worried and I couldn’t figure out what caused her distress. Continue reading →
I heard a banjo strum as I fed the birds outside near the plum tree in my yard this morning. Banjo? Strumming? Where could that have come from, I wondered?
If I had a magic wand I would wave it and remove all of the hate in our land. It would take away the hurt all felt throughout the ages of man from the beginning of time when Cain killed his brother and when a stupid Esau sold his birthrate to his brother Jacob for a lousy bowl of soup. Continue reading →
I feel like the character in a comic strip who has had a cloud over his head with nothing but calamities and obstacles blocking his every move. No matter what he did, he’d be thrown off stride, be it from a torrential rainfall or an avalanche along a sunshine-filled pathway. Continue reading →
I’m enjoying life and feel a peace and calm I didn’t know I’d ever experience again. It’s like falling in love for the very first time. I look forward to each new day filled with hope and a smile for whatever life presents to me. Continue reading →
When will I develop enough faith to believe things happen for my well-being? And when can I truly trust my instincts and live more peacefully in tune with what the Cosmos is manifesting just for me ?Continue reading →
A few weeks ago, I envisioned what the coming year would be like in a “Vision Board.” I got together with a small group and pasted magazine pictures and bold 48-point type letters to a cardboard placard showing what we would like to see enfold in 2016.
I placed the Vietnam War book at the top, adding lots of spiritual and meditative symbols along side of it. On the bottom line I pasted “Love to Travel” and displayed two large pictures of my son and I on a cruise to Alaska some two years ago.
Little did I know then that writing about the war would take a backseat while my traveling plans would enlarge and grow immensely! Continue reading →
I love my cousin Betty Ann. She’s a few years older than me but I warmed up to her just as my adolescent hormones started to bubble up as I visited her at her farmhouse in New Jersey years ago. Continue reading →
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.
Brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
— Marianne Williamson
( My good friend MaryCatherine shared this and I am shining it for you!)
I met Abraham up close and personal yesterday and I learned the universe had called me to study the Law of Attraction as voiced by Esther Hicks, the one who channeled for the spirits guiding us back to the Source within. Continue reading →
Contoveros 