C. David Belt's Blog, page 26

We Get to Sing with Prince Hans from Frozen!

The Memorial Day broadcast of “Music and the Spoken Word” is always an emotional one for me, and today was no exception.  As we sang “The Mansions of the Lord”, tears streamed down my face.  After the broadcast, Lloyd Newell asked all veterans to stand, and the audience applauded for those of us who stood.  And while I do appreciate the honor and I do believe that those who enjoy the blessings of freedom should be grateful to those who were and are willing to sacrifice their lives, tomorrow is not about me and my fellow veterans or active-duty soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines.  Memorial Day serves to remind us of the many, many men and women who were not only willing to sacrifice their lives, but did in very deed offer their lives on the sacred alter of liberty.  “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”  John 15:13 

So tomorrow and every day, if you see a soldier in uniform, perhaps you could say a word of gratitude for his or her service, for his or her willingness to leave home, family, children, spouse, and friends to stand as a shield between us and those who despise liberty.  Thank those who gave a limb or an eye to protect you.  That is always appropriate.  But please take a moment to remember those paid the ultimate price to give us a chance to govern ourselves, to make and correct our own mistakes.  Remember those who gave all and can give no more. 

And thank God for them.  Ask God to be merciful unto them and receive them unto Himself, for they laid down their lives so that we might have a chance to live and grow, to love and be loved, to repent and forgive.

The Mansions of the Lord

By Randall Wallace

To fallen soldiers let us sing,

 Where no rockets fly nor bullets wing,

 Our broken brothers let us bring

 To the Mansions of the Lord.

 No more weeping, No more fight,

 No friends bleeding through the night,

 Just Divine embrace, Eternal light,

 In the Mansions of the Lord.

 Where no mothers cry and no children weep,

 We shall stand and guard though the angels sleep,

 Oh, through the ages let us keep

 The Mansions of the Lord.

George Bentley has been called home to his Heavenly Father.

I never met George in person, although I did speak to him on the phone a few times, and we have exchanged a number of emails over the last few years.  I can’t say that I knew him well, but I miss him and I am profoundly saddened by his passing.  I mourn with his family.

George was my publisher.  He and his wife, Beth, gave my books a chance, and for that I will be forever grateful.  I am blessed to have known him at all.

George has been in very poor health for as long as I’ve known him.  Three years ago, his family was summoned to the hospital to say goodbye, because George wasn’t expected to last the day.

But through the grace of God, George was given three more years to bless the lives of his family, friends, and others (like myself) whose lives he enriched.

Now George has been reunited with other members of his family and other loved ones who preceded him into the embrace of a loving Father in Heaven.  In time, he will be reunited with all of his loved ones beyond this veil of tears.

Someday, I will get to meet him in person.

I mourn his passing, but I am happy for him as well.

In the words of the old spiritual:

I’m runnin’ on!

I’m runnin’ on! 

I done left this world behind.

I done crossed the separatin’ line.

And I left this world behind.

So free!  

So free!

I done left this world behind.

I done crossed the separatin’ line.

And I left this world behind.

Ain’t ya glad?

Ain’t ya glad?

I done left this world behind.

I done crossed the separatin’ line.

And I left this world behind.

Pressin’ on!

Pressin’ on!

I done left this world behind.

I done crossed the separatin’ line.

And I left this world behind.

Won’t turn back!

Won’t turn back!

I done left this world behind.

I done crossed the separatin’ line.

And I left this world behind.

Goodbye!

Goodbye!

I done left this world behind.

I done crossed the separatin’ line.

And I left this world behind.

Goodbye, George.  Till we meet again at Jesus’ feet, God be with you.

More than 300 girls have been kidnapped from a Christian school in Nigeria by Boko Haram, an al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamist terrorist group. 50 girls have managed to escape, but 276 are still in the hands of the terrorists. The monsters who took these children, these precious, innocent daughters of God, are threatening to sell them into sexual slavery unless their demands are met. They are already forcing them to convert to Islam at the point of a gun.

And while the government of Nigeria does little or nothing to protect its own citizens, our president has heroically started a Twitter campaign to shame these beasts into releasing their captives.

Bravo, Mr. President. How very brave of you.

We’ll invade Libya to remove one brutal dictator in order to install another group of Islamofacists. We’ll arm al-Qaeda in Syria in order to remove Assad and install a regime which forces women and girls into sex-jihad and films one of its leaders literally eating the heart of a Syrian soldier. In Egypt, we cheer and finance a regime that at best tolerates, if not encourages, the rape and forced Islamic “marriages” of Christian girls who were abducted off the street. Your tax dollars at work!

But when a pack of inhuman jackals kidnaps innocent children and plans to force them into sexual slavery in the name of Allah, we care enough to start a Twitter campaign?

I don’t care what possible justification the Boko Haram animals give for what they have done. There can be no justification for abduction and rape. We can debate forever whether Islam justifies such behavior, but the monsters, at least, claim that it does.

How can we possibly understand these fiends?

Well, we can thank our lucky stars for Dr. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, a British author, journalist, and scholar. Dr. Ahmed explains in his op-ed in The Guardian (a London-based newspaper and news website) that the reason why these poor girls have been kidnapped and will be forced into sexual slavery is—wait for it—it’s not the esteemed Dr. Ahmed’s Muslim faith—no, no—it’s not socialist/Marxist/Islamist dehumanization of women—it’s…

GLOBAL WARMING!

Yep! That’s right! You guessed it! Big Oil! The USA! Your SUV! You! Me! We’re the ones who caused this!

Thank you, Dr. Ahmed, for setting us all straight!

Sadly, I’m not making this up. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/may/09/behind-rise-nigeria-boko-haram-climate-disaster-peak-oil-depletion Do us all a favor and DON’T click on this link. We don’t need to give this cretin any credence.

Or do click on it. Maybe the esteemed scholar is right. Climate change does justify rape. You be the judge.

In MY judgment, what Boko Haram has done is evil. To me, the reasons don’t matter.

When are we going to call evil by its name?

And no, before I get a call from the IRS, I’m not saying that the name is “Islam”. That’s NOT the point. I don’t care if the justification given is a fanatical devotion to some warped version of Christianity or a worship of the Earth.

Evil is EVIL, regardless of the ideology used to justify it.

Even Bill Maher—a man with whom I agree on almost nothing—gets that. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/10/bill-maher-liberals-too-soft-islam-elephant-room/ Even he understands that we have to stop making excuses for the monsters. We have to stop defending them.

We have to call evil by its name.

And all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men and women to do nothing.

But, hey, a Twitter campaign is more than nothing, right?

Maybe we should all decide right now to reduce our carbon footprint. That’ll save those girls. You bet ya.

Slides from the Write Here In Ephraim writers conference

There are some great slides from WHIE here, especially from my weapons class.

An Interview with Moria

Check out this character interview with Moira!

As a B-52 pilot in the USAF, I was constantly being tested and evaluated.  These tests came in the form of practical (flying) and written tests.  Failing a test meant that you could not fly until you could successfully be re-evaluated.  In other words, you were grounded.  The standards for passing an evaluation or test were very high.  In some cases, 100% on a written test was the only passing grade. 

The following was an actual question from a written flight-safety test I took as a B-52 pilot.  (If you don’t understand the question, don’t panic: I will translate.)  Here goes:

On a lightweight touch-and-go landing, do not advance the throttles to full-MILITARY because:

  A. It may put the aircraft into a dangerous nose-up attitude from which you may not be able to recover;

  B. It may put the aircraft into a dangerous nose-up attitude from which you will not be able to recover;

  C. It will put the aircraft into a dangerous nose-up attitude from which you may not be able to recover;

  D. It will put the aircraft into a dangerous nose-up attitude from which you will not be able to recover;

  E. None of the above.

Now, let me translate.

A “touch-and-go” landing is a practice landing where the pilot sets the aircraft down on the runway (without stopping), then takes off again so the pilot can circle around and do it again.  (A landing where you actually stay on the ground is called a “full-stop” landing.)  “Full-MILITARY” is “Air Force” for “full-power”.  “Attitude” refers to the orientation of the aircraft.  A “nose-up attitude” means that the nose of the aircraft is pointing higher than it should be.  To “recover” means to correct the dangerous nose-up attitude.

Now permit me to give you a little context.

The engines on a B-52 are located below the wing.  There are many advantages to this design, however, I won’t go into them here.  The disadvantage is that the thrust of the engines generates torque that pushes the nose of the aircraft up. 

When you push the throttles to full-MILITARY (full-power), this torque increases.  If you advance the throttles slowly, you need to compensate for this torque by applying a little forward pressure to the flight controls (to keep the nose from rising).  If you advance the throttles quickly, you have to compensate more quickly (not a good thing to be doing close to the ground).   When you are lightweight (i.e., you have don’t have a lot of fuel or payload onboard), this exacerbates the problem. 

Now, if the nose of the aircraft rises too much, you lose lift and begin to fall out of the sky.  This is called a “stall”.  If you stall too close to the ground, you and your crew crash and die, your multi-million dollar aircraft becomes a giant ball of flame, and the fire department has to work a lot harder than they should ever have to. 

This is, generally speaking, a really stupid way to ruin your whole day. 

Now that you can understand the test question, here it is again (emphasis added by me):

On a lightweight touch-and-go landing, do not advance the throttles to full-MILITARY because:

  A. It may put the aircraft into a dangerous nose-up attitude from which you may not be able to recover;

  B. It may put the aircraft into a dangerous nose-up attitude from which you will not be able to recover;

  C. It will put the aircraft into a dangerous nose-up attitude from which you may not be able to recover;

  D. It will put the aircraft into a dangerous nose-up attitude from which you will not be able to recover;

  E. None of the above.

Now, let me translate.

Notice that answers A through D are nearly identical, the only difference being the “will” and “may” word choices.  The correct answer is B (I think).  The intent of the question is to see how well you know the exact wording of the warning in the B-52H flight manual. 

But honestly, who cares? 

The bottom line is that you SHOULD NOT DO IT.  It’s STUPID to advance the throttles to full-power on a lightweight touch-and-go landing, because if you do it, you will probably DIE, and your family will get to deal first-hand with your life insurance company. 

And nobody wants that.  (Unless of course, you have an insanely high life insurance death benefit… perhaps.)

The semantics don’t matter.  The only thing that matters are your actions. 

I am an expert marksman (or at least the Air Force gave me an award that says so).  When I learned how to handle a firearm, I was taught that I should always treat a weapon as if it were loaded.  I also learned that I should never point weapon (loaded or otherwise) at a person unless I intended to shoot and kill that person. 

Unless I were acting in self-defense or in the defense of others, if I were to point a weapon at someone and shoot him (or her), my reasons for doing so do not matter.  If I were to murder someone because I hate them or because I want to steal their stuff, it makes no difference.  It doesn’t matter if I were to do it because of their race, religion, country of origin, age, sex, hair color, sexual orientation, or even if they were a Captain Picard fan.  All that matters is the deliberate act, not the motivation behind it.

If I were to deliberately do harm to another (except in defense), my motivations are irrelevant.  Regardless of my reasons, I should pay the penalty for my crime.  

Matthew Shepard was murdered on October 12th, 1998.  Larry E. Byrd, Jr. was murdered on June 7th of that same year.  Their murderers deserve to be punished to the full extent of the law.  It doesn’t matter whether Mr. Shepard was murdered because he was homosexual or not.  It doesn’t matter whether Mr. Byrd was murdered because of the color of his skin or not.  It doesn’t make the crimes any more or less horrific and inhuman.  Their murderers deserve the death penalty or at the very least to spend the rest of their miserable lives in prison. 

As I’ve stated before, I don’t understand hatred.  I used to live within an hour’s drive of the Aryan Nations compound.  Now those were people who understood hatred.  It spewed from their mouths like particularly rancid vomit.  Only dogs of their own ilk would lap it up.  Every rational person who heard their poison rejected it.  Many called for them to be silenced or even arrested for giving voice to their twisted, evil ideas.  I wasn’t among those calling for legal censure.  I wanted them to speak.  At least then I would know who the monsters were.  It was only when they encouraged violence or other criminal activity that action could and should be taken.  Simply stating that they hate anybody who was different was not a crime. 

Nor should it be. 

What is the purpose of hate crime legislation?  To punish a murderer or rapist more if the motivation for violence was hatred toward someone different?  How does that make the act more or less vile? 

Punish the crime, not the intent and thoughts of the heart.  Let God be the judge of the heart. 

Right now, there is proposed legislation making its way through both houses of congress that would make it a crime to quote on radio, television, or internet any verse from the Bible that condemns homosexual acts.  I understand taking action if someone promotes violence, but how can you punish someone for quoting scripture?  Simply because I hold a religious belief and try to life my life—that’s my life, not anyone else’s—does not make me criminal. 

Well, at least not yet. 

“Go around.” 

I really did not want to hear those words from my T-37 instructor pilot.  It meant he felt my landing attempt was unsalvageable. 

“Roger.  Going around.”  I pushed the throttles forward to full-mil (100%), raised the nose of my T-37 jet trainer slightly, and aborted the landing.  I kept my aircraft pointed down the runway and began to climb.  I cleaned up the aircraft (raised the landing gear and the flaps) and accelerated.  Then I re-entered the traffic pattern and circled around to set up for another landing attempt. 

Once we were safely level at 1500 ft. AGL (Above Ground Level), the IP (Instructor Pilot) told me what I had done wrong.  “You were drug in and slow.  And you were too far down the runway.”  Translation: I was too low to the ground, coming in at too shallow an angle (“drug in”), my airspeed was too low, and I had let too much of the length of the runway pass before attempting to land the aircraft.  “There is nothing more worthless,” he said, “than altitude above you and runway behind you.  You need to recognize that, Belt.” 

The year was 1984, and I was a very new, very young USAF student pilot at Columbus AFB in Mississippi.  I hadn’t landed the T-37 (or any aircraft) very many times, so I was expected to make mistakes, but I should have been the one to recognize that the landing wasn’t going to work.  I should have been the one to say, “I’m going around.”  Instead, my IP had to tell me to do it. 

I was frustrated and embarrassed, not so much for making a mistake, but for failing to recognize that I needed to abort the landing and try again. 

But on the other hand, that was why I had an instructor: to help me see that I needed to reset and start over.  Even when I flew solo, there were instructor pilots on the ground watching my landings.  These earth-bound observers were stationed in a small building next to the runway.  This shack was called the RSU (Runway Supervisory Unit).  An IP in the RSU would watch each landing through binoculars, and if he saw something amiss, he would radio, “Go around.”  For example, if a student pilot attempted to land without lowering the landing gear (and yes, that happened more often than you might think), an IP in the RSU would say, “Short final, gear.  Go around.”  And hopefully, the chagrined student pilot would go around before become a flaming crater on the runway.  Hopefully, he would live to learn from his mistake. 

In my particular case, the situation was all my fault.  I was the one who came in too low, too slow, and took too long to attempt the landing.  In other words, my problem was entirely self-inflicted.  Other times, however, that wasn’t the case.  Sometimes you have to go around because of factors beyond your control. 

The textbook example is known as “the bus of nuns and orphans.”  This scenario is typified by a bus filled with the proverbial habit-clad women and unfortunate children suddenly pulling onto the runway in front of you, forcing you to abort your landing attempt.  Other scenarios might involve an unexpected wind-shear (a sudden drop in airspeed caused by a rapid shift in the wind), a flock of birds flying over the runway, a dog running onto the runway, a sudden malfunction (such as an engine light) or a landing gear indicator going out, or any number of unforeseen obstacles.  In each case, it was critical that you recognize the situation and “go around.” 

What you must NEVER do is try to salvage an unsalvageable landing.  In other words, you have to recognize that it’s time start over and never let your pride get in the way of a safe return to earth. 

“Going around” doesn’t erase the original situation.  It is, however, an opportunity to learn and grow (and live to fly another day).  If the problem was self-inflicted, you need to learn from your mistake and don’t repeat it.  If the problem is forced upon you in spite of your best efforts, you still have the opportunity to learn and grow.  If you recognize the problem yourself, great.  If you don’t recognize the problem, there are others to help you recognize what you cannot see or are too inexperienced to discern.  In aviation, that’s why we have instructors, co-pilots, aircraft commanders, and the RSU.  When we’re in the “cockpit of everyday life,” that’s why we have parents, bishops, home-teachers, and true friends.  These people love us and want us to return home safely.  That’s why they tell us sometimes that we need to “go around.”

“May I speak to you?”  The elderly gentleman was tall and thin, almost gaunt.  He had red-rimmed eyes and hollow cheeks.  He was dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, and tie, and wore a dark brown fedora. 

“Certainly,” I replied.  This was Sunday morning (today), and we (the Mormon Tabernacle Choir) had just finished the run-through rehearsal for our weekly broadcast.  We were having a ten minute break before the actual broadcast, and I, like a number of Choir members, was outside the Tabernacle, taking the cool, fresh air on Temple Square. 

The old man extended his boney hand and told me his name.  (Sadly, I remember only his first name, but I don’t think I would reveal the name here even if I did remember it fully.) 

I took his extended hand and shook it. “I’m David Belt.” 

He told me he was from Logan.  (For those of you unfamiliar with the northern Utah, Logan is a farming and university town about 100 miles north and east of Salt Lake City.) 

“I need to tell you,” he said with a slight tremor to his voice, “I’ve been going through a really rough time in my life lately.  My wife has dementia.  I’ve been her sole caretaker for two years now.  I came down here today, hoping to meet you.  Every Sunday, when I watch ‘Music and the Spoken Word,’ I watch you.  You sing with such joy and enthusiasm. You have literally saved my life several times.” 

I was stunned. 

“Thank you,” he said. 

I gently gripped his shoulder.  “Thank you.”  It was all I could think of to say. 

Then he turned and walked away toward the Tabernacle. 

That was a very emotional broadcast for me. 

After the broadcast, as we sang “God Be With You Till We Meet Again”, I looked for the old man in the audience, but I couldn’t pick him out. 

I know we do good as members of the Choir.  We touch lives and hearts.  But this sacred experience brought that home to me in a very personal way. 

We each affect those around us, people we love, our neighbors, co-workers, or even total strangers.  It might be a deliberate act of kindness or just a smile and a friendly word.  Or it could be just singing your heart out. 

And in most cases, you will never know whom you have touched and how. 

I am a Jew. 

Well, at least one of my ancestral goes all the way back to Judah, son of Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham.  I also happen to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  I am a Christian.  But that’s beside the point. 

Today, I stand with the Jews. 

I learned this week that a major (if shrinking) church that claims to be Christian published a study guide, “Zionism Unsettled”, that promotes the argument that Jews (and Christians who support Israel) are inherently racist and intolerable abusers of human rights.  Rabbi Yitzchok Alderstein expresses his justifiable outrage at this specious and disgusting claim far better than I can in his editorial:  http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/02/18/us-church-is-demonizing-zionists-sending-jews-to-trash-heap-history/  I encourage everyone to read it.  And I encourage everyone to sample the comments left by “useful idiots” and bigots across the internet.  These comments include the fallacy that the Jews control the media and the world’s wealth. 

Sound familiar?

Like a venomous and diseased viper, this evil has raised its hideous head before.  It is not new.  Those who promote and encourage murder (even “passively”) to rid the Earth of the Jew are not a recent phenomenon.  Al-Qaida, Hamas, and their ilk are not the first.  Neither was Hitler.  Neither was the KKK.  Neither was Woodrow Wilson.  Neither was Haman. 

You can attempt to cloak it in such statements as, “I have nothing against the Jews, just against Zionism,” but it amounts to the same thing.  It is a denial of the right of Jews to live in Israel.  It is a denial of Israel’s right to defend itself. 

At the end of World War II, when we were at last confronted with the hideous reality of Auschwitz and Dachau and the other death and labor camps, with the ovens, the human ashes, the lampshades made of human skin, and the soap made of human fat, when we were no longer able to pretend the Jews weren’t being slaughtered, we vowed, “Never again.”  However, today many deny or downplay the Holocaust.  Anti-Semitism is on the rise.  It is being taught in mosques.  It is being taught on university and college campuses—not only in the Middle-East, but in Europe, Russia, and the United States.

Now it is being taught in mainstream “Christian” churches.  Again.  Yes, sadly, this is not the first time.  And it won’t be the last. 

We don’t ever seem to learn from history. 

And the reason we don’t learn is because the author of this evil is older than Hitler, older than the mullahs who promote hatred and genocide, older than mankind itself.  Every time we wake up, even a little, Lucifer just sows the seeds somewhere else.  He is patient and his attention span, unlike ours, exceeds the relative attention span of a goldfish. 

And all it takes for him to win is for good Christian men and women to do nothing, because there will always be enough of his minions to actively do his bidding. 

Hitler was elected by a minority of Germans. 

My voice may not matter much.  Probably no more than a few dozen people will read this post.  And of those who do read it, some will think I’m on the wrong side. 

But I will not be silent. 

Today, for what it’s worth, I am a Jew and I stand with Israel.