6/6/2023

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

Did you have fun with the football players yesterday? I’m sure they appreciated your observation that they play with “the real joy of the game & love for each other & the great city (they) represent.”

How about your visit with MF? She seems nice enough. I hope you didn’t sell her any weapons. WINTA!!!

 Speaking of war, it’s D-Day & you are not in the news. What’s up with that?

Have you heard of the “Bedford Boys?” Famous for sacrificing their lives on Omaha Beach & making Bedford, VA, the US city that paid the heaviest price on D-Day, in proportion to its population. 19 of the 34 soldiers, from Bedford, in Company A, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Division, were gunned down.

Next year, I hope you’ll spend June 6 at the National DDay Memorial, in Bedford, to mark the 80th anniversary of the storming of the beaches of Normandy.

While you are at it, you could read my uncle’s book on the topic which the NYT said, evokes “the horror, the endurance, the daring & indeed, the human failings at Omaha Beach.” I haven’t been able to get through it.

On this DDay, I am wondering about how to cultivate peace. I’d like to teach a Peace Education class to our undergrads. I’d like to have conversations with my soon-to-be neighbors about preventing conflicts. I’d like my colleagues to get along better. Do you have any suggestions?

Please do what you can to get peace processes started in Burma. The latest news from CNA indicates that things are going the wrong direction there. They reported, “Violence in Myanmar expected to worsen as civilians given right to bear arms.”

If you do talk to the press today, please repeat our mantra, WINTA! You might add, A.J. Muste’s “There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.”

BYBS,