Before I tell you my tale, let me give you a brief synopsis of who I am, and how my life has been shaped… My mother has always been a person of exceedingly great faith and persistent prayer. Her early years, framed by extreme poverty, were molded and formed in her local Catholic Church where she often spent hours of her childhood in prayer. The local parish was about a block away from her home. Without means, her hope was in the only noble ideal she could envision, something she found in her local church. The local priest nicknamed her their ‘prayer angel’ so often was she found in prayer at the altar. Fortunately, for me and my siblings, she cast her faith towards God. Prior to my birth, my father was an accomplished fighter pilot, having flown over a hundred combat missions during the Korean conflict, earning The Distinguished Flying Cross as a 1st Lieutenant at the age of 22 as flight lead for eight F-84’s. He later served in Thailand, collecting another eighty-six combat missions over Viet Nam. He was an incredible man from an early age who lived an incredible life. The first three years of my life were spent near Luke Air Force Base in Arizona where my father was a flight gunnery officer, a type of Top Gun instructor, but of the Air Force variety. His active career caused our family to travel extensively, moving often to his different assignments. We moved to England from 1958-1961, moving often between Royal Air Force bases. At that time, my father was a command missile officer representing the United States nuclear missile arsenal in England. On his personal key ring was his personal Action Key to access and launch Thor missiles should that need ever arrive. I remember playing with those keys as a child and experiencing the surreal realization about how important those keys were. There is a fascinating 1960’s article written by Bob Considine that mentions my father. It was later published in Reader’s Digest. If you are a fan of history, it makes for an interesting read. While in England, I rode to school each morning on a red double-decker bus in the thick fog of England learning an appreciation for literature and mathematics at a very early age. It was in this setting that I received diligent instruction on how to properly conduct myself if perchance Queen Elizabeth should ever grace us with her presence. Always with the necessity to be proper, manners and decorum were forced upon me with diligence and severity in the English school system. Think in terms of a Catholic School system, but without the requisite need for occasional mercy. During my time there, I was also surprised to experience a reserved disdain for Americans among many of the older English people. Even as a young child I knew of the war and the American contribution to their sustained freedom. I found it a bit incongruous to experience their prideful disdain. But considering that their once great Empire had until very recently ruled the world only to be saved by the upstart Americans, a certain incongruity must have existed for them as well. When we returned to the United States it was to Stillwater, Oklahoma where my father traded time between TDY from Tinker Air Force Base and working on his master’s degree in Engineering at Oklahoma State University. Our home on West Admiral Road abutted the university’s agricultural pastures where work was done on an assortment of exotic animals. It was not uncommon to have camels, zebras, and many other unusual animals graze just beyond our red picket fence. We later moved north from Oklahoma to a home near the corn fields surrounding Grissom Air Force Base, formerly Bunker Hill Air Force Base, near Peru, Indiana. And from there we moved south to my current locale in Fort Worth, Texas. The effect caused by these quick duration moves resulted in a type of social discombobulation. Once I made friends in one geographic location, we inevitably moved into another substantially different culture. Being repeatedly subjected to those adjustments, I became a chameleon of sorts, able to adjust and learn from different people groups. I learned to value various cultures, finding their differences quite curious. As a result, I became extremely adaptable in my adult life. In the course of my life, I have had best friends who are Jewish, and other great friends who served with distinction in the army of Nazi Germany. Sunnis from Arabia and young Shiite pilots from Iran have both been dear friends during different times of my life. To this day I have many Jordanian friends, Kuwaitis, and other friends from the Emirates. I have spent days on end with a black family that I always thought of as my extended family, their son as my brother, and yet, I have also had close friends among white South Africans. I have had many friends from Indian culture, and some few among Native American tribes as well. Among these many people groups I have enjoyed the company of industrious people, some middle class, and others who were of poor economic conditions, but in all cases seeing them for who they really are, individuals: people just like me. I am not the least bit intimidated by the very rich or the very powerful. Nor am I put off by the poor. I love Southerners. I love Yankees. I love Europeans. I love Asians. I am, for all practical purposes, a cultural chameleon. I am probably best suited to be a diplomat. I suspect the more contentious and difficult the international situation might be, the more ably I would adapt to perform that role. I also developed a love for research and reading. Having not yet established playmates among my peers, reading became an interesting outlet during the early months of any new environ. My favorite book in the 2 nd grade at Westwood Elementary was the World Book Encyclopedia in which I studied history, war, and sculpture. During regular visits to the school library most of the 2nd graders had colors, as we called them, and drew pretty pictures. I spent my time exploring the World Book Encyclopedia. I had a particular fascination with statuary; Greek and Roman antiquities which represented idyllic heroes. As my fascination grew, I began to compile my own Glossary of Pages in my own private notebook. When I found a statue in the ‘A’ book, I referenced the name of the statue, its place and date of origin, a bit of its history, and the corresponding page number of that volume. In hindsight, I am amazed that a 2nd grader would imagine an organizational structure, dutifully compile an independent glossary, and have an overall fascination with ancient statuary. For me they were a representation of nobility, grace, and strength that was above the normal representation of humanity. Perhaps if I had reverted to the crayon experience of my classmates, I might have discovered some latent art talent, but alas that was not to be. During that school year my compilation had reached 61 pages of notes, as I recall. I can still see my precise cursive penmanship that one would think my teacher would be proud of. But that was not the case. One day the teacher took note of my work and deduced I was referencing the World Book collection. She turned to ‘A’ finding Apollo and Athena on the pages I had designated. Some of the statues appeared clothed, while others were adorned only in their natural state; quite naked. It didn’t matter to that prude that Brutus and Caesar had clothes. She was offended that the Greek and Roman goddesses were not always so adorned. To this day, I have often wondered what that teacher must have thought about her 2 nd grader when she examined the notes of my collection. She confiscated my book. So, I developed a love for books, for knowledge, for research, for cultures, and a certain appreciation for art, perhaps especially so for those Greek goddesses who inspired me so long ago. In my later life I take great joy in my visits to the Louvre and to the Vatican where I often spend hours among many of my earliest friends.