Ronald Reagan. I know, you think of him as the 40th president of the United States. But for me, for eight years, he was my boss. I know, he was four echelons up the Chain of Command, but he was in it; Commander-In-Chief is not just a courtesy term. I happened to have been in a war, you see, and the decisions that your boss makes are really critical during wartime. The war? It was called “the Cold War”, but trust me, while there were no shots fired between us and the Soviet Union, it was a war nevertheless. I was there; I saw many, many Soviet naval units close-up and personal. But what did my boss do for me? In the words of Lady Margaret Thatcher, “...he won the Cold War - not only without firing a shot, but also by inviting enemies out of their fortress and turning them into friends.” Words cannot even begin to express my gratitude to the man who ended the “big war” of my naval career. Mr. President—sir, we'll miss you. You probably saved my butt.

Yes, I know the blog has been blank for many days now; between the end of my semester, my son's graduation and college stuff, my chemotherapy, and preparing for my summer school class, I just got overwhelmed and the one thing to give was the blog. I hate it but I'll try not to let it happen again.