IN MEMORIUM

Two recent deaths have caused me a moment of pause: two very different persons. Dale Noyd and Milly Ivins.

Dale Noyd singularly objected to the Vietnam war and it kind of personified his life. He was the only member of his class to be given a "Regular" (in his days, most commissioned officers received "Reserve" commissions) commission of his ROTC class at Washington State. He just missed the Korean war and it looked like a promising military career was ahead, once having received a medal for landing a badly damaged nuclear armed F-100 fighter at an English airfield. He even taught at the Air Force Academy. Then what should appear but Vietnam on the horizon. He couldn't bring himself to be involved, based on what he viewed from the beginning as an illegal war. Talk about a prophet. Eventually, he was court martialed, served a year in jail and drummed out of the service. Sad. He's probably smiling today remembering the two certificates he kept on his wall: his commendation for heroism and his dishonorable discharge.

Molly Ivins. I always liked her, her irreverent style and of late, vociferous objection to the Iraq war. How I always interpreted her was not so much objection to the war but the stupidity in how it was/is managed. I can surely identify with that: it simply gets worse and when you think it can't get any more out of control, it does. Molly got it. Her last column, which she maybe knew to be her last, said it all: "We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we're for them and trying to get them of of there."