Tag Archives: George Byers Jr

2022-06-30 · 8:10 pm

Son of my military-alcoholic dad: striving to follow his good example

This is part 2 of a series, with part 1 being here, published immediately before this post:

That post was about him. This one is about my own usage of the dynamic of alcohol.

As I said in that last post, dad is totally my hero for how he went from being the active alcoholic to getting really close to Jesus with daily Mass and spiritual direction from priests. He became sober in the early-mid 1970s, successfully going cold-turkey on a certain Ash Wednesday, and sticking with it. That really impressed me. Great example.

Do I drink? Not much. Nothing against it. Catholics know how to party, as we know from the Wedding of Cana. But to say that any drinking on my part is a rare event doesn’t quite tell the story.

In younger days, when offered a slice of salty pizza, I might be given a beer. Whatever.

More recently, I’m sure I’ve had a craft beer here or there. We didn’t have those when I was a kid. Back when I was in Europe I do remember having a panaché or two. Some will say that doesn’t count. Even more recently, I remember having a sip of apple cider. But hard liquor? I would try a Bailey’s Irish Cream on a spectacular occasion, every other ten or twenty years. The rector of the seminary at which I was a new faculty member ordered a Manhattan for me at a meal for all the new priest-professors at Ruth’s Chris. I didn’t know what a a Manhattan was. Now I know it’s not for me.

Here’s the deal: as I grow older, I find out that my larynx swells up because of the trauma of a drink with too high of a percentage of alcohol. I have a super rare hereditary disease and I gotta be careful. My mom, from whom I got this hereditary malady, suffocated to death with her throat swelling up (not because of alcohol), as do about 1/3 of those affected. Not pleasant. I’ve been at that point of my esophagus just barely not being entirely tightly swelled shut more than a couple of dozen times throughout my life. I’m just waiting my turn for the 100% event at anytime. So, it’s just not worth having a hard drink. That’s all been good for my spiritual life, but – Hey! – there are other ways, like a Rosary.

Besides, now, for some six years, I carry G-19 Gen-4. That doesn’t mix with any drinking, ever. Period.

Whatever about having a panaché or a craft beer or even the rare Bailey’s in days of yore, my attitude toward alcohol my entire life was simply benign neglect. You like it? Go for it! I enjoy having a sharp intellect as much as that’s even possible through my fog.

Reflecting on this now, I cannot for the life of me even once think of any occasion ever when dad offered any alcohol of any kind to me, ever. He totally respected me on this point. That respect of his for me was very formative. He wanted better for me. I took that in stride. Thanks, dad.

I’ve lost good friends in just saying “no” to their offer of hard liquor. But it’s not a friend of any kind who, even in knowing my medical condition, still doesn’t care one bit about that. I know how to be polite, but then entrench. When I was a kid there was never a problem with any forcing dramatics. The first time I had to learn how to say “no” to alcohol was when I was a new deacon just assigned to a parish Stateside for a month or so during the Summer break in between school years over in Rome. Learning how to say “no” was an event, that is to say, it happened all in the space of a couple of days which brought all the premises of a lifetime together, so to speak, in the argument that would play out to a conclusion of how to deal with… trouble. Just say “no.”

It was a huge rectory with three priests assigned there. The pastor was an alcoholic in total denial. The parochial vicar befriended me but stayed out of the way of the other two priests, one of them being “in residence.” This would be a perfect experience for me for me to be trained up in saying “no” to alcohol just to test the psychological dynamics. Was I welcome as a human being bringing with me an entire life history, or, as a deacon wanting to be a priest, did I have to conform to some behavioral standard just to impress the powers that be so as to get a good word put in for me to the bishop? In other words, would I have to drink hard liquor just to fit in, or else?

For the first week at this new assignment I stayed in my room in the evening, reading, studying, praying, whatever, anything but making myself available in the “common room” of the rectory, trying to avoid the drama of the alcoholism. But then it struck me that this was no way to live.

I made my way to the “common room” one evening with something to read, a large tome of moral theology, something about Humanae vitae by Italian author Father Ermenigildo Lio, something that would take me days to plow through. The “common room” was very spacious, with all sorts of couches and chairs and coffee tables, a large television, always stocked with chips and drinks and a beer-keg fridge with a tap through the door. The door of the “common room” was always open. I sat down, turned on the reading lamp next to me, and opened my book.

In no time at all, so predictable, the pastor appeared, taken aback at my presence, but he said hello, and then went to get a beer stein and fill it up at the tap of the keg fridge, but only, say 1/3 full. He would then waddle back to his room. Five minutes later, a repeat. This went on for hours. Finally, I had him spooked. He spoke up:

  • So, you’re just reading, right?
  • Yes.
  • So, what’r you reading?
  • Oh just something by Ermenigildo Lio. Good stuff. On Human vitae.
  • So, is your room O.K.?
  • Perfect. I just thought this would be a change of scenery. This is a nice chair.
  • We can get a chair like it for your room.
  • This is O.K.
  • So, just so you know, I only fill up the stein just a bit. I’m cutting back. Doctor’s orders.
  • [[… back to reading … head down … I wasn’t thrown out … yet … but it wouldn’t be long now …]]

I’m so bad and evil. But I got the message across. He knew better than to get plastered every night like this. He was upset with me for calling him out just by reading quietly in chair in a “common room.”

The next day I was told by the in-residence priest to make sure to show up for the evening meal. It was a setup, of course. The in-residence priest brought some very expensive hard liquor and made up some special occasion which didn’t sound special at all. The parochial vicar didn’t show up, smart as he was. No food was on the table yet, but the bottle was de-foiled and un-corked, and I was given one of the special glasses he also brought. I politely refused, setting the glass upside down on the table, now guessing the connection with the night before. I wasn’t going to be manipulated. He insisted. I even more politely refused, ever so soft-spoken, going out of my way to be very nice indeed. He insisted again, picking up the glass and filling it up, shoving it in my hands. I put it back on the table. We played this game a few more times as the pastor watched intently. It was all quite aggressive by this point as the in-residence guy told me that he was involved with seminarian formation and then instructed me:

  • “If you’re going to be ordained a priest you’re going to have to learn to drink sociably.”
  • “No.”
  • “This is an issue we’re going to have to raise with the bishop.”
  • “Fine with me.”

And in anger, he stomped out, not staying for the meal. The pastor said nothing, but that evening repeated his beer stein waddlings.

If they were going to deny me ordination to the priesthood over politely refusing a drink (they weren’t interested in reasons), that means I was already dead. I was transferred to another parish, just like that.

Look, I’m no paragon of virtue. I’m not putting these guys down to say I’m great. No. It’s just that I did learn something from my dad and I thank him for that and I want more people to gain from the lessons he taught me. It’s about Jesus. He’s the One. He’s the only One. He knew that. Jesus’ Little Flock can know Jesus. He’s our pastor. It’d be great if priests would get to know Jesus like this as well. We’re nothing without Jesus.

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2022-06-30 · 7:49 pm

Dad’s alcoholism as USMC bomber & fighter attack pilot. Be nostalgic! Do it now!

WWII Corsair footage coming up in my YouTube “suggested” feed went unwatched until a priest friend texted the same video to me. “Be nostalgic! Do it now!” That made me nostalgic, of course. I like to brag about dad and his medals from the USMC and Dept of the Navy, the Army, various nations. This is my way of supporting the military. But something has been lacking in this support. I should be more fulsome in reporting about my dad. In this way, I can brag about him even more.

To lead into that account on dad’s military alcoholism, let’s try to understand how he got there. Context is everything, as is the solution. So back to his medals, particularly a few of the citations, which recount a hell of a lot of violence:

Just weeks later, days and days after Japan was not surrendering, calling the bluff of Little Boy and Fat Man, dad would be working with Minoru Wada to take out the communications and command post of Japan in the Philippines, instantly forcing Japan to surrender, just as Douglas MacArthur had predicted.

That’s the stick of bombs that did the trick in the background, the stick of bombs that dad would point out to me with such enthusiasm throughout my childhood. I knew it was him flying that bomber with that stick of bombs. Minoru Wada, POW but an American citizen (long story) was the navigator in the foreground. We had pictures of Minoru Wada up throughout the house, also together with my dad. They’re hanging up in the rectory in front of me right now.

I’ve bragged a lot about dad in the past, putting up pictures of his multiple Distinguished Navy Service Medals, his multiple Distinguished Flying Crosses, his Purple Heart, his fistful of Air Medals, and truckloads of other medals, but that doesn’t quite capture what he was going through personally.

Here are two more citations for his three DFCs. Lots and lots of death. That makes an impact.

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I was once able to peruse dad’s log books not only detailing logistics of hundreds and hundreds of sorties, but also including his super idealistic and super patriotic dreams for future political service back Stateside. I was very taken also to read vivid, poetic descriptions of the faces of Korean rice-farmers during low-level approaches he was flying so as to take out communist munitions trains and the bridges they were using.

That’s dad at the fold of the wing of a fighter attack corsair of the Checkerboard Squadron 312 that he commanded after graduating from VLMB 611 to move on from Guam and the Philippines to Japan, China, Korea and mapping out the future air campaign for Vietnam.

Drinking!

In those log books he also briefly detailed some of his drinking sessions, with whom and where, with names having a significance for these wars that I cannot now decipher. These are not now in my possession.

Meanwhile, here’s part of a conversation I had with a Vet of 28 years yesterday after daily Mass:

  • Me: Guys often learn to drink during their time in the military.
  • Him: Yes. They do.
  • Me: Amounts of liquor are often proportional to how many of your own guys were killed and then, in response, how many enemy combatants you’ve done in, and then, also in proportion to the comradery you have in plotting out further solutions, drinks in hand.
  • Him: Correct.

Anyway, as you can see from the citations above, describing just a few sorties amongst hundreds and hundreds, there was likely more adrenaline flowing than any liquor later on, the liquor diluting the adrenaline only slightly. You’re out of bed and in the plane flying a nanosecond after you hear this, gallons of adrenaline flowing again:

Dad became a military alcoholic. And he continued to be that in my youngest years.

But here’s why this is actually the source of my greatest bragging about him.

There was one particular Ash Wednesday that he gave up his smoking and drinking cold turkey, taking up sugarless hard candies and going to daily Mass. And he stuck to it. Did he struggle? Yes. Did he seek help in spiritual direction from priests? Yes. He wasn’t just overcoming drinking, he was facing, again, all the violence that he was entirely personally involved in, more violence than many towns will collectively see in a lifetime.

Meanwhile, he would bring me to daily Mass as a little kid, when I was a teenager, when I was a seminarian back home for the Summer.

My dad, the military alcoholic, totally my hero. Because, in being pointed to Jesus, he pointed me to Jesus.

So, what’s it been like being the son of a military alcoholic? I love being the son of my father.

I’ve never hidden that my dad was a military alcoholic. I’ve never denied this, suppressed this. No. It’s the other way around. I’ve striven to follow his good example. How accepting people were of that is another story for another post. But for now, thanks, dad. The world thanks you. Rest in peace.

Here’s Part 2 of this series, with Part 2 about how yours truly has striven to follow my dad’s good example:

Son of my military-alcoholic dad: striving to follow his good example

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2022-05-30 · 3:22 pm

Make sure to visit a cemetery today to remember those who gave all

The dates say it all. The land of the free because of the brave. This boy was just 16 years old.

Reagan said it best, this time on Veterans Day, Armistice Day, about the boys who, in death, handed this country on to us, who live (around 3’15” for just a minute) but the whole speech is a gem:

Patriotism is a virtue of the natural law and is blessed by God.

Dad was a veteran. He died many decades ago. I’m sure you knew a veteran sometime in your life. Perhaps you have a favorite memory.

My favorite memory of dad was back in 1962, when I was just 2 1/2 years old. I’d walk up in the Communion line next to him with the rest of the family behind us. This was at the great Saint Mary’s Cathedral with its gorgeous altar rail with the linens flipped over the top. I was always impressed by the linens getting flipped over the top, just as I was with kneeling there beside my dad, reaching up as high as I could to put my hands under the linens like he was doing. I was pretty small. I was filled with such wonder and awe and reverence as the priest and altar boy with paten would make it over to us. They would start on the Epistle side. We were always on the Gospel side. Everything worked together to instill reverence.

It was good be on my knees with dad before the Lord Jesus. Very good. Here we have a warrior on his knees, in reverence, before The Warrior, Jesus, in the epic battle of good over evil, God over Satan. And dad is with Jesus. I love that.

Memorare: Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thine intercession was left unaided. Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, my mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen.

I was able to offer Holy Mass today for my dad, George Byers Jr. USMC

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2022-05-29 · 5:55 am

My Dad to Congress pre-JBA USN SFTI: “If you think up there, you’re dead.” Wait, what? TOPGUN Maverick

Before the United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program (SFTI) came to be in the 1960s, aka, the Navy’s TOPGUN program, what you see in the TOPGUN films, it was my dad who taught the best of the best of the best at Andrews adjacent to D.C. while he was also going through JAG school, degreeing out at Georgetown and being accredited to SCOTUS.

Did I say the best of the best of the best? Besides skill, what that also means is pushing the limits. One of his students did that over D.C. coming into formation with a too-quick barrel roll, clipping off the end of dad’s wing, so that he had to fly with that wing dipped waaaay down. He told me about the emergency vehicles there to clean up the crash. But, no. He landed on that same broken wing, then on that broken wing and and its wheel, until it dropped hard. No worries.

Dad’s one of the most highly decorated pilots (Guam, Philippines, Japan, China, Korea, Vietnam…), with the story behind some of those medals being worthy of multiple major films. Sure, I think of his saving ambushed troops, alone, his plane ripped with shrapnel, and of his exploits with Minoru Wada, ending Japanese aggression.

But, for me, what especially stands out is his F-You moment to the powers that be after funding was cut for his training of the best of the best of the best. With the new jets coming in, these guys flying faster, maneuvering faster than they ever had, necessitating flying not by thinking but by instinct, but with no program-money for practice flights, they were ramming themselves into the ground. Imagine the heartbreak. Dad made constant appeals to Congress for more money for his program. His line to them was: “If you think up there, you’re dead. You can’t think. It has to be instinct.” Nothing. Since he was the teacher of the best of the best of the best, if he had an F-You statement to Congress, it would mean something, striking a cord. Dad did have some language skills. His F-You was to take a cut in rank and pay and then join the National Guard for another twenty years while taking over a law practice and starting up a family (including yours truly). It would be a few years until they missed such instruction. That’s when the TOPGUN program was born in the Navy. Of course it was the Navy. That was the apology of Congress for cutting the funding from the Navy in the first place.

Meanwhile, as a courtesy to my dad – or as a result of his momentary thefts – there were a number of times he got in a gullwing Corsair once again from an airport an hour away by car, then flew to my hometown, and then “took off the roof” of the house with waaaay tooo low passes. I think that if I were to have been up on the roof I could’ve touched the plane. So loud! :-) I remember running outside to see him fly over and dip his wing in salute to me with me cheering him on.

I’d like to go see TOPGUN Maverick. Busy with priest stuff, I haven’t seen it, yet. Have you?

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2021-10-01 · 7:19 am

Tommy the Toronto Cardinal’s vax mandate: dark evil as occasion for a good retreat: Oorah!

Starting Sunday afternoon October 3 the priests of my own diocese will be on retreat. Maybe. Jesus set a precedent for His future bishops and priests at least to attempt to go on spiritual retreat:

  • “Come apart into a desert place, and rest a little. For there were many coming and going: and they had not so much as time to eat.”

That didn’t work out. Instead:

  • “As Jesus went ashore and beheld the vast crowd, he had compassion on them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.”

That may well happen. During the retreat there are many dramas in society and the church which, we were promised, will be addressed. I mean, try doing a retreat and not at all addressing the impact of those dramas that are directly and immediately affecting our own physical, social, economic and spiritual and priestly lives. But however that works out with the topics covered, or not…

It is before we finish the retreat on Friday afternoon October 8 that unvaxed, untested bishops, priests and deacons of the Archdiocese of Toronto to the north of us will already have been forbidden to administer any Sacraments to the Lord’s Little Flock, so that they [LifeSiteNews reports] “could face disciplinary action that includes termination.” Cardinal Tommy severely pre-reprimands those whom he assumes will lie about being vaccinated. Just. Wow. Is that projection of a fraudulent attitude or what?

  • “If an employee does not comply with this policy, or is found to have submitted fraudulent proof of vaccination, a fraudulent test result, a fraudulent summary, or fraudulent documentation in support of an accommodation request, they may be subject to discipline (which includes being placed on an unpaid leave of absence), up to and including termination of employment for just cause,” and this not only for those ordained, but also and “not limited to parish staff, lectors, choir members, and ushers.”

I mean, I’m not going to lie about getting some murderous “vaccine”, giving bad example. I’m quite happy to proclaim that I did not and will not be getting any “vaccine” the creation of which depends on extracting live organs from live babies extracted from the womb, fully developed, fully healthy, until that point when they are murdered for big pharma profits, for murder-for-hire recipients.

Such rancor from Cardinal Tommy Collins might threaten to put a dark cloud on our own retreat for us, a presbyterate of another diocese in a different country – what with expected solidarity among brothers in blood (offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in Persona Christi) – but the fact of the matter is that this kind of tyrannical arrogance has already been playing out for quite some time in other (arch)dioceses right around the world and throughout North America, in Hamilton, in Moncton, in Lexington, in Patterson, in… the… Vatican… and we’re already quite used to it, already put on edge by it.

  • “But Father George! Father George! You have no standing to say such things because you’re, like, stupid, and the Cardinal is, like, a Cardinal, and he’s got, like, academic degrees, you know, from Jesuits and stuff and everything!”

Yes, well, it’s embarrassing, but just like Cardinal Tommy Collins, yours truly also got his Licentiate in Sacred Scripture at the Pontifical Biblical Institute (Jesuits) and, just like then Father Tommy, yours truly also got a Doctorate in Sacred Theology. And it’s even worse, just like I got a Cardinal friend to fly to these USA from the Holy See and give a conference on the priesthood at the Pontifical College Josephinum, and then later got Father Swetnam to teach an entire course there on the priesthood and the Letter to the Hebrews, I also was deputed some years ago to invite Cardinal Tommy to give our diocesan retreat on the priesthood in our tiny WNC mountain diocese. He’s the only one who refused…

  • “Father George! Father George! That proves you have no standing because you’re, like, the pastor of the smallest parish in North America and Cardinal Tommy is, like, a Cardinal of by far the largest archdiocese in his entire nation, so he’s like, big, and you’re, like, small, and besides, he’s, you know, a Cardinal, like Blase, Joseph-baby, the Wilty-guy and, you know, Teddy-bear, and, like that Francisco guy in Guadalajara, you know… like a Cardinal and stuff…”

Sigh. Anyway, LifeSite reports that the memo claims that the archdiocese “will accommodate individuals who are unable to comply with this policy on the basis of a protected human rights ground to the extent required under human rights legislation.” But that’s total B.S., as LifeSite points out, because:

  • “Last month the Archdiocese of Toronto released another memo telling clergy they are not to sign any letters of religious exemption regarding the COVID-19 vaccines, despite its connection to abortion. The injections, which all have connections to fetal cell lines that were sourced from aborted children, are a cause of moral apprehension for many faithful Catholics and high-ranking clergy alike.”

But should tyranny becoming ever so common throughout the Church darken a spiritual retreat? No. Not at all. Hahahahaha. Never. That’s not how it works. Here’s the deal:

  • “And we know that to them that love God, all things work together unto good, to such as, according to his purpose, are called to be saints.”

As so many have pointed out, the dear Lord has called us to live in these times, just as He has called the saints of other times to give witness by their very lives in their times, and they did so with joy, with enthusiasm, expecting the same inasmuch as they already knew well the wounds of Christ Jesus, knowing where they were going, where they now are, in heaven, with all the saints who have all given such witness. Great! Let’s get this done!

From the klaxoned “Aarúgha!” to “Oorah!” ;-) Amen.

When I was a kid in the early 1960s, this is what we heard in my hometown when my USMC fighter-attack-pilot dad was mayor, you know, just as a test, at high noon, but also for old times’ sake, right?

Here’s the deal for little me: The good Lord has provided me with a dad who knew how to fight, who is my hero, whose example I strive to follow, and I, as a priest, have a vocation to follow Jesus, The Warrior of this Ecclesia militans, as the Master so the disciple. Whether we use it or not, all of us priests have all the heavenly wherewithal to follow Jesus and all the saints in protecting the least of the brethren, in the womb. Let’s do it! Let’s get it done! Oorah!

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2021-06-12 · 5:55 am

George Byers Jr 2-27-1924 to 6-11-1993 RIP

Sure, I like to brag about the USMC and I like to brag about dad as pilot for VLMB 611 and VMFA 312. But that is the least of my favorite memories of dad. I can’t get a picture of my most favorite memory, because everything about it has been destroyed. It was at the Communion Rail at Saint Mary’s Cathedral in Saint Cloud, MN. That beautiful Communion Rail with all its granite and bronze and linins is all gone. Here’s part of a previous post:

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Dad’s the one with his back to you immediately to the left of the propeller. This is on the USS Bataan.

My favorite memory of dad was back in the Summer of 1962, when I was just 2 1/2 years old, ten years after the picture above was taken. I’d walk up in the Communion line next to him with the rest of the family behind us. The first time I had made brave to follow him the rest of the family threw a fit saying that I should be carried, but I insisted I could make the long trek from the back of the Cathedral up to the front, and dad backed me up. The Cathedral had a gorgeous altar rail with the linens flipped over the top. I was always impressed by the linens getting flipped over the top, just as I was with kneeling there beside my dad, reaching up as high as I could to put my hands under the linens like he was doing. I was pretty small. I was filled with such wonder and awe and reverence as the priest and altar boy with paten would make it over to us. They would start on the Epistle side. We were always on the Gospel side. Everything worked together to instill reverence.

It was good be on my knees with dad before the Lord Jesus. Very good. That’s not just reminiscence with commentary of someone older. No. I was thinking that thought as a tiny little kid. And I can still remember thinking it from my diminutive height, especially so small on my knees. I remember how cold the granite altar rail was below the linens – even in summer. Here I am, thought I, with my dad, before God. I was totally enthralled. For the repose of his soul, please: Hail Mary…

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2020-11-21 · 7:34 am

AOC, MAO, Green New Deal vs Faith, Truth and Justice

I mean, do you see any connection? The Green New Deal IS the Chinese Communist Party, right? I wonder if “NOW” refers to the National Organization for Women. Just sayin’.

Oh, I forgot, isn’t China the most absolute world’s worst in their arrogance of pumping out carbon emissions? Yeah, I think that would be right.

Always hypocrites, all the time, everywhere, about everything. Styrofoam puppets.

Lemme see. I think I remember a particular medal of dad.

It’s given for the World War II service in…. China. Japan was being slightly aggressive at that time. So, these USA and China were friends at one time, you know, until the Wuhan Virus was sent around the world.

The power grabs and hypocrisy are ever so typical of the ways of the world. In all honor, we can indeed attempt to serve our fellow man right around the world by risking life and limb on behalf of the mercy of justice. John the Baptist gave good advice about proper morality to the occupying military forces of Rome. He didn’t ask them to go AWOL.

And if you’re wondering about Little Boy and Fat Man and the role of my dad in that fiasco with Japan and why we were friends with China, check out what actually ended WW2 in the South Pacific theater. It wasn’t Little Boy and it wasn’t Fat Man:

USMC VMB 611: Japan Surrenders

Minoru Wada & George Byers Jr

Someone should do a doctoral thesis on this at, say, West Point, concentrating on the culture of Japan, what McArthur said about the instantaneous surrender of Japan should the Philippines fall from their control, and the whole story of Minoru Wada and George Byers Jr.

If we forget history, it will replay in all of its worst aspects, with players changing sides just to be clever.

  • For the worst of the worst, it’s never about patriotism, but only about power.
  • For the best of the best, it’s always about respect for fellow human beings wherever they are in the world, about honor, about the patriotism which supports all the best of a localized national family, if you will, which is at the service, as a nation, to others around the world.

For the best of the best to take place, with honor and integrity and honesty and justice and mercy, humble reverence before God Almighty must be rendered.

My best memory of Dad in early 1962, at two years of age, was kneeling with him at Communion time at the granite altar rail with its linins folded over our hands. That was, at that time, in the gorgeous Cathedral of Saint Mary in Saint Cloud, Minnesota.

In America and around the world, we have forgotten that our identity is to be found in God, who so loved the world…

The party that has voted God out of its platform, the Party that is all about attacking the free exercise of religion and freedom of speech, the party that is all about the suppression of the Living Truth… that Party is bringing hell on earth in an ever more unleashed manner.

We pray for a return to the faith: Hail Mary…

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2020-08-06 · 9:04 am

Little kid then big kid trouble maker, goodness and kindness always

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George Byers Jr is the one with black curly hair wearing black with white shirt, just above center/center. Later in life from the Navy and USMC…

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Yes, that would be fully two Navy Distinguished Service Medals[!]. That would be two Distinguished Flying Crosses. Purple Heart, etc.

Other medals coming in from other countries and entities:

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And then there are those coming in from the U.S. Army. They repeated the foreign and other medals (Korea and the at-that-time United Nations). However, there’s a third Distinguished Flying Cross. I like the number five for the Air Medal. That would be five in a very short period of time as he started out on being one of the craziest insane absolutely fearless get-it-done fighter-attack pilots in U.S. history. I’m guessing they lost track of numbers as time went on:

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I thank Beverly Elliot and (then) Congressman Mark Meadows (now Chief of Staff at the White House) for forcing the hand of both the Navy and then the Army for researching and providing this history of one of great American heroes, my dad.

What did I learn from dad? (1) Reverence before Jesus, whereby fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. (2) Fearlessness, whereby we are free to strive to follow good examples. (3) Zero political correctness (see both 1 and 2). (4) Service to others (see 1 and 2 and 3).

And then there’s dad’s rule number one, which he would instruct me by inserting my name in an oft repeated admonition and was pretty much his dying request of me:

“Goodness and kindness, George, Goodness and Kindness.”

I have the citation-accounts for the Navy issued Distinguished Flying Crosses. Wow. Wow. Wow. I like to know the citation-account for the Army issued DFC.

I don’t have the citation-accounts for the Navy issued Distinguished Service Medals. Those are issued by the President of the United States. Since Mark Meadows is now Chief of Staff at the White House, I should write a thanksgiving to him for having forced the DOD for the medals, but then go further and ask if he can get me the citations for the Distinguished Service Medals. There should be copies of the citations for those rarely given medals in the archives of the White House itself.

It’s good to honor one’s parents. It’s a commandment of Christ our God.

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2020-02-27 · 7:14 am

Quite the Happy Birthday e-card for both me and my dad. Wow. Good one.

Happy Birthday ecard

That’s Shadow-dog, of course. And that’s dad’s training plane some 80 years ago. The idea is that he’s flying up in the heavens now, wishing me a Happy Birthday. Our birthdays are only two days apart.

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The Boeing Stearman was a military trainer introduced in 1934 when dad – George Byers Jr., was just 10 years old. They were dumped on the public after eleven more years, 1945, just after WWII. But I’m guessing that only after a half dozen years an early training model would have been run into the ground, as it were, and the military would have sold some of the more battered workhorses to some enterprising farmers wanting to utilize a bit of the new crop dusting technology and who knew a crazy enough young lad like my dad who would jump into such a wreck. That’s me in my immense naivete saying that. I’m sure it’s not really that way.

BOEING STEARMAN YELLOW BIPLANE

I’m betting that if the truth were told, with the preliminaries of WWII gearing up over in Europe, our own military, very short on pilots, dumped some of the planes early on with the farmers, not because the planes were worn out, but for ulterior motives. I bet the deal was that the farmers would only train in young, smart, but crazy would-be pilots who would be quietly assessed in their skills by the military. In other words, without knowing it, the kids self-select, the farmers confirm that, and then they are finally approached by the spotters. Dad was taken on in the early 1940s to a small military airstrip along the Mississippi river down in Iowa. He crashed before taking off the first time in a battered Corsair fighter attack plane they pointed him to. They forgave that crash and immediately had him try again. They knew he was better. Indeed. He quickly went on to become one of the most decorated fighter attack pilots in World War II.

This e-card took some research. I think I have the best parishioners in the world.

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2019-11-15 · 10:09 am

What’s that circling about the church? More on my best memory of dad.

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Dad was all about USMC Fighter-Attack Corsairs and then jets. I once asked him if he could fly helicopters and, to my delight, he said that he could fly about anything at all that any manufacturer has come up with that goes up in the air. Marines. For God and Country. Yes, both of those in the same sentence. For God and Country. A marine is always faithful, semper fidelis, Semper Fi, because God is first of faithful, so to speak, steadfast in the glory of honor: God so loved the world that He sent His only Son… So, I always wax nostalgic… From a post I put up some years ago, with a few more details:

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Dad’s the one with his back to you immediately to the left of the propeller. This is on the USS Bataan.

My favorite memory of dad was back in the Autumn of 1962, when I was just 2 1/2 years old, ten years after the picture above was taken. I’d walk up in the Communion line next to him with the rest of the family behind us. The first time I had made brave to follow him the rest of the family threw a fit saying that I should be carried, but I insisted I could make the long trek from the back of the Cathedral up to the front, and dad backed me up. The Cathedral had a gorgeous altar rail with the linens flipped over the top. I was always impressed by the linens getting flipped over the top, just as I was with kneeling there beside my dad, reaching up as high as I could to put my hands under the linens like he was doing. I was pretty small. I was filled with such wonder and awe and reverence as the priest and altar boy with paten would make it over to us. They would start on the Epistle side. We were always on the Gospel side. Everything worked together to instill reverence.

It was good be on my knees with dad before the Lord Jesus. Very good. That’s not just reminiscence with commentary of someone older. No. I was thinking that thought as a tiny little kid. And I can still remember thinking it from my diminutive height, especially so small on my knees. I remember how cold the granite altar rail was below the linens – even in summer. Here I am, thought I, with my dad, before God. I was totally enthralled.

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