We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. – Thomas Jefferson, with an assist by B. Franklin, Printer, “The Declaration of Independence”
CARE BEARS IN BIKER GARB, ONE FOR EACH OF THE EIGHT CHILDREN WHO LOST THEIR LIVES IN AIRPLANES ON 9/11
Grapevine – It’s fair to say that there is a certain place on a hill near DFW Airport where men and women live with their heads in the clouds.
They are makers of things, mostly aeronautical, but nevertheless, the devices that make the world smaller, easier to navigate, and yet somehow harder to understand.
Col. Wm. P. Brandt grew up right around the corner, left his home in a rural farming community for the Air Force Academy, and returned to an international space port, to practice law after his war, a war of terror prompted by terror at which he was present on the day it all started.
Bill Brandt was on duty at the Pentagon when the big jet hit the building in a fireball, just yards from where he stood by, walking his post on a Tuesday morning in what weather men described as a day in which flying conditions were what they termed “severe clear.”
On Sunday, he stood at the foot of a memorial dedicated to his neighbors who manned that jet, and all the others forcibly taken from their control by terrorists armed with blades smuggled on board, men terribly upset about a fact of business.
Their common denominator – a certain fundamental religious faith.
They forced neighbors of Col. Brandt to their doom, paying the ultimate sacrifice of their lives and the lives of their passengers, under the duress of the blade, a horror to their minds, regarding a mortal torture to their flesh.
The conflict of those terrible moments – in what currency would the petroleum producing mideast nations be paid for crude petroleum shipped freight over bill to the Port of Houston – or anywhere else. As the reserve currency, the dollar is the reserve denomination per an agreement with OPEC, an agreement hammered out by the Treasurer of the U.S., Willam Simon, the President, Richard Nixon, and the then National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger.
On a table behind him lay eight tiny teddy bears dressed in leather jackets and chaps, each with a biker’s doo-rag and the name of one of the eight children who lost their lives on board the jets of 9/11 on that fateful day.
Col. Brandt, who is a candidate for Justice of the Peace, Precinct 3 in his home town, returned to the semantics of the law.
He first sang the National Anthem, then he reminded his listeners of the nature of law, of its strict attention to the meaning of words.
He chose the concept of endowment, the origin of the word coming from the root for dowry, the price of so many goats and this many milk cows paid by a father in return for his daughter’s marriage.
But to be endowed by inalienable rights does not mean one may spend his fortune for just anything.
There are rules, rules of law, of common decency, which must be followed, or the community of the world will pay the price.
And so, each of the tiny care bears will be bestowed by a police officer or fireman, or other first responder upon a tiny person who is afraid, alone, in pain because their moms and dads have been injured, their houses burned down, their cars wrecked, their parents taken away due to arrest or depredation.
It’s a small thing, but so is the meaning of any word so inscribed upon parchment, recorded by We The People as the way of our world.
Brandt, who would be judge, reminded the world of that on this day, the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 Memorial Ride by the Sons Of Liberty Motorcycle Club, in observance of a surprise attack on our nation prompted by a commercial dispute over an essential commodity, its value accounted in terms of the petrodollar.
Look it up. Interesting word – war word.
So mote it be.
- The Legendary
The 9/11 Flight Crew Memorial at Grapevine, Northwest Hwy at 1000 Texan Trail, overlooking one of our world’s busiest airports – DFW