Standing in the Phalanx - Initial Post and Introduction

If you are reading this, thanks.  Seriously, thank you.  It means a lot to me to have the ability to express some of my thoughts to others.

You will have to forgive me.  This is my first Blogging experience.  My thoughts might be somewhat jumbled at first, but I am sure it will develop with time.  I guess what I want to do now is to explain who I am and why I am writing this column.   

I am not a particularly important or compelling person.  I am not a politician, I am not a captain of industry, I am not a famous theologian, I am not a noted philosopher or academic.  Probably the most compelling reason for anyone to want to read this is precisely BECAUSE I am none of those things.  I am just an average man wrestling with life.  I am an unapologetic Christian, a patriotic American, a concerned citizen, a husband and father. 

I grew up in South Florida to a typical American family:  dad, mom, big sister, little brother, and me.  We weren't too poor and we weren't too wealthy either.  Your typical middle-class family.

I was raised as a Lutheran in a relatlively religious household.  My parents fostered an interest in God and the Bible at an early age, and it has stuck ever since.  My thoughts on God and my religion play an important part in my life and will likely be one of the more prominent topics in this column.  It is an important part of who I am and who I want to be.  Not that I am a righteous do-gooder, far from it in fact.  It is just that being a Christian is one of the most important aspects of my world-view. 

I was also raised to love my country.  As a kid growing up when other families were maybe taking vacations to beaches and amusements parks, our family visited battlefields of the American Revolution and Civil War, museums such as the Smithsonian, as well as many of our national parks.  I grew up reading my dad's Book of the Month Club library, which had mostly stories of America's great heroes.  As a young man, I was accepted to and graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point and served as a U.S. Army infantry officer for over eight years to include three combat tours overseas.  It is an opportunity that I will be forever thankful for having.  A few years ago I made the decision to leave the military so that I could raise a family.  But having made that decision, I decided I wanted to do something that I felt was important and would continue to serve my country from the civilian side.  I now work in the pharmaceutical industry, serving others in my own way. 

I am a husband and father.  Being a father is one of the most humbling and awesome experiences I have ever had.  I firmly believe that you don't truly know what unconditional love is until you hold your firstborn child in your arms.  You don't truly know what it is to be proud until you watch your children learn and grow.  You don't truly know what fear is until you have a child or spouse and something happens that is completely out of your control.  Its an experience that has changed me, hopefully for the better.  I wouldn't give it up for the world. 

So now that you know who I am I want to explain this column.  You are probably curious about the title of my Blog.  For those of you not familiar with your military history it goes like this.  The phalanx was a military formation used in anctient warfare such as with the Greeks and Romans.  Basically they stood side by side in a line, with deep ranks of men behind each other.  Each man held a sheild that interlocked with the man beside him to protect each other.  The rank in front would face the enemy while the ranks in back would press in upon the ranks in front, exerting an inexorable force that held the whole formation together.  A strong phalanx could stand up to the pressure of an opposing force crashing into its front line, causing them to break like a wave upon a reef. 

Now that you understand the imagery, I will explain why I chose this name.  For some time now I have felt that the values that I hold dear such as love of God, love of country, care for one another are being challenged.  Or to put it another way, these things only stand if we fight for them and imbue these values in our children.  It takes all of us making these things a priority, defending them from competing values or lack thereof, and passing them onto our neighbors and children.  Each person contributing to a greater whole. 

But this doesn't happen if we don't do it consciously.  We have to identify those things that we value, struggle with them, and make up our minds to live by them and pass them on. 

This column is my attempt to express those values, to take a moment every now and then to organize my thoughts, and to hopefully pass my thoughts on to others.  I leave it to you to read it if you wish, digest it, evaluate what I have to say, and make of it what you will.  If nothing else, hopefully it sparks your own thoughts and internal discussion.  Topics of interest to me will likely be:  religion, politics, ethics, philosophy, etc.  If this interests you, welcome!

Once again, if anyone is out there listening, thank you.  If not, well, its still of benefit to me.