Leif and the Treatment of Animals

Leif loved animals. His pets were dear to him, but his protectiveness of animals extended far beyond that. In September 2007, seven months before he died, while he was recovering from his collarbone surgery after his motorcycle accident, he sent out an email strongly condemning the cruel treatment of animals. That resulted in some email exchanges with members of the family. I am posting some excerpts of what he wrote below. They are very revealing of his feelings about causing harm, pain and death of innocent creatures.

"Any of you that know me know that I am not much of an activist or a humanitarian but on occasion I come across something that I just can't ignore. Sending an email out to those I know is a very small effort and if it makes a difference for even one fuzzy creature then it was certainly worth my time. I stumbled upon this as a sidebar ad on Yahoo Mail because I recognized the name Trent Reznor as musician I respect and admire from the Group "Nine Inch Nails" or NIN. I was suprised and impressed that he was involved in this. Watch the video and share it. It is short but shocking. Ironically, for myself I have little sympathy for the suffering and death of most humans, whom I generally see as corrupt and self serving, yet I could not kill an animal unless it was a threat or I needed it for food, and after doing so I would feel regret at even the necesity. Anyway, here it is:"

Trent Rezor's Shocking New Fur Video

He got some responses from those to whom he sent the email, including from me, and he answered:

"Yeah, I don't condone hunting or any sort of unecessary killing or hurting of animals. Animals of course hunt and kill, but they do so out of necessity. Never hear of a lion keeping a collection of anelope heads to show other lions how cool he is. You know my attitudes about gun ownership and right so I won't repeat them save for how they relate to this issue. I have been asked either directly or via the basic and often repeated media question of why do I need/own an assault rifle? What sporting purpose does it have, or, most bluntly, what are you going to hunt with that thing? To which I would reply, "whatever gives me a reason to shoot it. Innocent fuzzy animals rarely do." I mean, if I found an alligator in my back yard and it was not safe to wait for Florida Fish and Game to remove it I might shoot it, but otherwise not. I honestly hope that I will never have cause to shoot my weapons at anything but some paper targets or maybe a clay pigeon, but then one never knows. Being a cynic and a beliver in the Boy Scout idea that it is better to have it and not need it than need in and not have it should home ever become like Iraq or Darfur, I choose to arm myself.

"I would not shoot an animal unless it threatened me or I needed to eat it and had no alternative, and killing animals for their hides is just wrong. Leather is one thing; it's a byproduct of a necessary meat industry. We don't murder cows for leather. We do kill them for food, but that is necessary. Leather is just a bonus.

"One little success of mine was managing to get some video taken off of MySpace and YouTube and hopefully getting some US marines in hot water with PETA. A friend came across a video of some marines shooting dogs for fun in Iraq. Some yellow Lab-looking mutt was just sitting there panting, trying to stay cool and this marine just goes up and pops a round in it with his rifle. The poor dog yelps in pain as it hit it in the flank and it tried feebly to move or get away, but my guess would be that it was hit in the lower spine as its mangled hindquarters did not respond at all. The marine shoots it twice more and it yelps in pain again but is still twiching. The marine walks away from it, off camera, making a callous remark about his surprise that it is not dead yet. This is followed by another marine carryng a SAW [squad automatic weapon] who stands over the poor dying dog and puts it out of its misery with a short burst of full auto fire.

"We were actually in contact with these assholes via email for a while and I tried to impress upon them how wrong it was. They replied saying that I had no idea what it's like over there and that made it ok, and that they knew other special forces guys, even, that shot dogs, and that made it ok. And, that since I was a mere infantryman from the lowly army that I knew nothing compared to the higher morality of marine force recon - and that made it ok. And that the heroic deed of these fighting men, which were undoubtedly virtuous, made it ok for them to viciously murder an innocent dog for their sadistic amusement. It wasn't just one dog. Actually there were clips of them shooting others from afar for target practice. They eventually toook the video down and closed their MySpace profiles, hopefully not before PETA got ahold of their info, as we send the links to them.

"What amazed me was that all these other marines came to defend this guy and to attack me for not blindly supporting and worshiping him as a member of marine force recon. What I found surprising was not that they defended their buddy, or even his character, but they actually defended his actions. Were I to witness a buddy do that I might defend him as a man, considering his other deeds, but I would still tell him he was an asshole and admit that what he had done was wrong.

"Ironically, I am really not even a dog lover, but then what animal besides man causes pain or death for purposes of amusement?"

I don't know whether Leif's assertion that animals are not killed for their hides for leather is completely true, but he believed it. We also pointed out to him that killing animals for their meat is not completely necessary, as people do live as vegetarians. However, he felt that food needs are legitimate throughout the animal kingdom, and that while regrettable, were understandable. He was an avid meat eater. I do wonder how difficult it would have been for him had he lived in another time in history and been forced to hunt for his meat.

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The first photo above is Leif with our kitten, Scamp, circa fall 1987, in his favorite black leather Members Only jacket. The second one is Leif feeding pigeons in Kamakura, Japan, in May 1981.

Were there really no regrets?

Last night I read some old email from Leif, all the way back to the summer of 2000 when Nikko left him and he was very depressed, and thinking about how he always insisted he had no regrets. I wonder if that was true to the end. Knowing Leif, I believe he would have insisted it was true, for, as he said in email to me on September 9, 2000,

"But if there is one truism that I believe in it is that you don't regret the things you do or even the mistakes you have made. You only regret the chances you pass up and the opportunities you let slip away."

Then I think of what that really means . . . no regrets about what he has done, but what about the opportunities that he let slip away? I wonder if he thought about those, too.

He was always to eager to seize the moment, to be spontaneous, to have what he wanted today without enough regard to his future, that there were opportunities that slipped away or were closed off to him.

We talked about regret a few times, and he maintained that even the things he had chosen that turned out badly were not cause for regret, because they were experiences in his life that were valuable and that he would not have chosen to avoid.

A possible exception, he admitted to me, was choosing to enlist in the infantry for four years instead of some other army specialty for a lesser time, but even that he backed off of, because he loved being a machine gunner, treasured his friendship with his assistant gunner, Jim (who he sadly lost contact with once they were out of the army), and was proud of being a "boots on the ground" soldier.

But that night when he blew a 45 caliber bullet into his brain, he threw away all the opportunities he would ever have in his future. Would he have even then steadfastly insisted he had no regrets?

I have regrets. I regret that I didn't somehow see that he was in such deep trouble, that I didn't insist he get help (though he probably would have refused), that there wasn't some way I could keep him alive. I regret the things that came between us, which were almost always his finances or when he didn't live up to some agreement about his living arrangements. I regret that I didn't insist on seeing him more often in the last months of his life.

Did he know how much he was loved?
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This photo was taken on March 1, 2003,

My Grandmother & Great-Grandmother Lost Children, Too

It is easy to get lost in one's own grief and loss, to focus on it and feel it so deeply that one loses sight of the pain others have gone through or are experiencing. Sometimes it helps to remember that others have suffered in the same ways. A few days ago a friend, Darren, told me about the "SOS" (Survivors of Suicide) group on Facebook. I read some of the poignant stories there and I can truly understand how they are feeling.

Although suicide has it's own especially painful aspects, any way of losing a beloved son or daughter is a torment. I have thought many times since Leif's death about the loses my grandmother and great-grandmother faced. We never talked about those things. I never knew my great-grandmother, except in the stories my mother told, for she died in 1926, long before I was born. However, the story of her life fascinated me for many reasons, and since Leif's death, even more. She endured the loss of two of her children and her husband and lived to be 86. Her daughter, Issabella, who was less than two years old, died of "brain fever" in 1877, and eleven months later, when she was pregnant with her sixth child, her husband (my great-grandfather) died after he became ill from exposure in the Minnesota January while trying to help find the bodies of two young boys who had gone under the ice on a pond. To endure two such heart-wrenching deaths in less than a year must have been very hard, and how she managed bear her youngest child four months after he husband died and then to keep her family together by taking in boarders, is an inspiring story of courage. As far as I know, there is only one small tintype photo of the infant Issabella and I don't have it scanned.

Her children adored her. Her youngest son, Johnny, named for his father, was only seven when his father died. He went out west as a telegraph operator when he was still in his teens. Later, in 1897 when the Klondike Gold Rush started, he wrote a letter to her telling her that he was going to the Yukon but that he was coming home first to see his mother. He never made it. He was 26 years old. No one ever found out what happened to him, though his older brother who was a steward on trains going out West looked for him wherever he could.

Imagine the pain of not knowing what happened to her son, never having any kind of closure about his disappearance. She had a nice Victorian oak table that stood in the front bay window of her house, and on it was a kerosene "globe" lamp. She kept that lamp lighted every night so that in case Johnny ever came home, he would know there was someone there waiting for him.

I grew up with that story, and I found it poignant even as a child. I now have that oak table, and though I don't keep a lamp burning on it, I fervently wish I could do so in the hopes that one day my Leif might come home.

The top photo in this post is of my great-grandmother, known to the family by the Norwegian word "Besta" which is a nickname from "Grandma." Her name was Martha Sjursdatter Haugsjerd Anderson. The second photo is of her husband, John E. Anderson, who was only 37 when he died. He must have taken the death of his infant daughter hard, too. The photos are probably taken around 1877.

The third photo is the only photo I know of of Johnny. It was probably taken around 1881 when he was around ten years old and living in Fergus Falls, Minnesota.

In those days, when a child died, it was common to name a baby born later with the same name. When her sixth child was born in September 1978, she was named Jeanette Isabella Caroline and called Isabella. She became my grandmother. She married Helmer Swenson, and their photos, taken around 1950, are the next ones. They had two children, their son Orrin and my mother, Marion. Although Helmer had only an eighth grade education and Isabella had the equivalent of some high school, they managed to send both of their children to college and they must have been immensely proud of Orrin, who went to medical school and during World War II became a flight surgeon for the Army Air Corps, serving in India. In 1943 when he was stationed in North Carolina, he somehow contracted gas gangrene and died within hours. He was only 30 years old and left behind a wife and five-year-old son. It must have been a terrible shock to his parents, to have such a young and up to that moment health son suddenly dead. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, and they weren't even able to be present for that ceremony. A couple of years ago, when I was in the Washington DC area, I went to find and photograph his grave. I never knew my uncle. He died four years before I was born.

Although I grew up knowing these stories and I knew intellectually that such losses much have been devastating, I, like everyone else who has not experienced the death of one's child, did not in any way fully understand or appreciate what they went through. Now I do.

Many people have said to me that the reason it is so hard to lose a child is because that is not the "natural thing," that children are supposed to outlive their parents. That should be, yes, but it often is not. Before the advent of modern drugs and medical practice, many, many children died of childhood illnesses. Others were lost to accidents. It is only lately in the human story that we could even have an expectation that children would all outlive us, but that expectation is often not granted.

Were they able to get past their grief and remember the years they had with their children as the gifts they were? Will I?

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My father committed suicide at the age of 46, but his parents were spared the grief of that loss. They died relatively young, in their mid-sixties, several years before he took his life.

Jerri's Depression Test

Leif took this interesting photo of himself in a convex security mirror somewhere in the downtown Chicago "Loop" area when he and I were walking around there looking at architecture one day. I think it shows an interesting eye for composition and even makes a kind of statement. He is in the center with his camera on a monopod. It was in the late fall of 1989, I think, and he was almost 15 years old.
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Jerri's Depression Test

I began keeping notes of possible signs of depression a year ago. A year before that, I had emailed Leif links to some online depression screening tests, and he insisted he wasn't depressed . . . until a couple of months later, when he admitted he was. he took the tests and insisted he scored great, no depression, and as I've said before, he was a psychology student and he knew how to "fool the test." Either he was fooling the test, fooling himself, trying to fool me, or all three. sometimes we hide things even from ourselves.

i wasn't satisfied with the screening tests, either. To me (another psychology student), they seem to be too narrow and some seem to leave out ways that men experience depression. On top of that, popular notions about depression seem to emphasize that a depressed person SEEMS depressed to those around him or her, which often is not true. They often cover it up very well. Leif certainly did. And the idea that a depressed person always seems sad, cries a lot, or can't function, isn't true, either, although there ARE depressed people who express it this way, who truly can't function.

My father was an organic chemistry professor who worked with doctoral graduate students and had many patents in his name. he was teaching classes at Kansas State University and working every day, known on campus as happy-go-lucky "Doc Kundiger," and yet he came home the night of February 9, 1960 with cyanide, told my mother he was going to sleep late the next morning, got up at about 2 a.m. and took the cyanide, apparently thinking he would have time to get back into bed and he'd be found later, as though he had died in bed. The cyanide worked too fast. He never made it to the bed. Only my mother knew he was depressed. He put on a good front for everyone else and only confided in her. Some people don't confide in anyone.

There are numerous stories in the news now about soldiers and veterans committing suicide, and how the military and the Veterans Administration are trying to find ways to help before they die, but it is very difficult and complex. Those with PTSD, depression or bipolar disorder (all at high risk for suicide) don't always confide their problems in anyone, many for the same reasons Leif didn't: pride, a desire to appear strong, and for many, probably a lack of understanding about what they are going through.

Depression is an insidious disease. It doesn't manifest itself the same way in everyone. I am not a licensed psychologist and this is not any kind of official screening test. However, if you take it, or answer it on behalf of someone you are worried about, and you find yourself answering "yes" to even five of these forty-five questions, then I beseech you to seek some professional help. Do not fear the stigma of mental illness. Depression is a physical disease due to chemical imbalances in the brain. There are treatments available, though they are not quick cures that remove all your problems.

As one who has survived the suicide of both my father and my son, and who found both of them when they died, believe me when I tell you that if you are thinking of suicide, you are not thinking clearly and need help, (with the possible exception of a terminal illness or unbearable pain). Your death will devastate your family and friends. Do not leave them that way.

Not all of the things on this test are always signs of depression. There may be other factors involved, other reasons for them. However, each of these is a possible and powerful sign of potential depression, and the more of them you answer yes to, the more you are likely to be depressed.

There may be external causes for your depression, financial problems, relationship problems, job problems, unemployment, health problems, stress, but that doesn't mean that depression is "okay" or doesn't need treatment. You may need to treat the causes AND the depression, before the depression destroys your relationships or kills you.

1. Do you find yourself making excuses not to get together with your friends?

2. Do you drink alone to make yourself feel better?

3. Do you often drink to put yourself to sleep?

4. Do you avoid people and social situations that you used to enjoy?

5. Do you find yourself getting angry or frustrated more easily?

6. Do you go shopping and spend money you shouldn't or can't afford to spend to make yourself feel better?

7. Are you gaining or losing weight without trying?

8. Are you taking less care of yourself physically, your health and appearance?

9. Are you engaging in more risky behaviors in order to make yourself feel something?

10. Do you feel less pleasure in activities you used to enjoy?

11. Do you have trouble becoming sexually aroused?

12. Are you tempted to try, or have you tried, illegal substances to try to make yourself happier?

13. Do you have trouble sleeping?

14. Do you have trouble concentrating?

15. Do you have road rage?

16. Do you drive recklessly?

17. Do you have reckless, unprotected sex?

18. Do you compulsively overwork to avoid dealing with other issues?

19. Do you try to isolate yourself from others?

20. Do you feel like lashing out violently against someone or something?

21. Are you exhausted much of the time?

22. Do you misuse prescription medications?

23. Do you have thoughts of killing yourself?

24. Do you have frequent headaches, stomach problems or other chronic pain?

25. Are you stressed out about your job?

26. Are you thinking about buying a gun, or have you recently bought one?

27. Do you feel inadequate?

28. Do you feel like a failure or believe you are worthless?

29. Do you think people, your family, your friends, would be better off without you?

30. Do you see no way out of your problems?

31. Do you feel that whatever you do, things are always going to go wrong for you?

32. Are you being honest with your answers to these questions, or trying to fudge the results?

33. Do you feel empty, unable to feel normal emotions?

34. Do you procrastinate and not get important things done?

35. Do you think about trying, or have you tried, illegal drugs in an effort to feel better, or to feel at all?

36. Does death seem like an escape from your problems or pain?

37. Are you moody and have emotions that are exaggerated, overreactions?

38. Are you lonely?

39. Do you often feel sad?

40. Do you often find yourself listening to angry or sad music?

41. Does music make you feel sad or cry?

42. Do you feel separated from those around you, unconnected emotionally?

43. Is it hard to motivate yourself to do anything?

44. Have you forgotten how to laugh and never feel like smiling?

45. Do you have recurring thoughts of death?

If you need more information on depression or suicide for yourself or someone else, there are helpful links on the main page of this blog.

Leif Celebrates his Third Birthday at Happy Time Montessori School - January 26, 1978

When I did a whole series on Leif's birthdays back in January, since his birthday is January 28th, I hadn't found these photos, and I didn't have them when I wrote about him attending the Happy Time Montessori School in Fuerth, Germany, either. It amazes me to see them now, how small he looks, how little and vulnerable. At the time, although all three-year-olds are small, he looked so large compared to the other kids in his class that it was hard to realize that he really WAS small, just a little boy. The thing that really touches me about the second photo is how carefully he is serving the drink to one of his classmates. We were celebrating his birthday in his classroom, and the kids were all sitting in a circle on the floor. Rather than having the adults pass out cupcakes and serve the drinks, his teacher had Leif do it. It would have been challenge enough for most three-year-olds to set cups down on a table, but getting them safely all the way to the floor was a bigger feat. Leif accomplished it without spilling a drop, and you can see in the photo how carefully he is setting the cup down.

In the first photo, he sits neatly cross-legged, eating his cupcake, and he appears to have some frosting on his mouth. I think he helped make the cupcakes and frost them, too, standing on a chair in our quarters in Fuerth.

He only went to the Happy Time Montessori School for one year, the school year during which he turned three. The following summer, we moved to the village of Sachsen bei Ansbach.

Leif at Fourteen - The Sudden Change From Boy to Young Man

When Leif was thirteen, he shot up in height to 6' 1", towering over his classmates, and thinned out to a slim figure that was striking. Unlike most boys, he was already shaving by that time, and his sudden puberty also brought with it a terrible case of acne. He was a handsome kid, even with the acne, and he seemed to take everything in stride. He never talked to us about any difficulties of growing up so fast physically, or mentioned worrying about the acne. It wasn't until years after he was a grown man that he told me that some of the kids in his junior high called him "pizza face," and that had hurt him and his self esteem to the point where, even all those years later, he felt women wouldn't be interested in him because of it. He was shy about approaching girls and women, and as an adult he would try to get to know women well by email, phone and texting before meeting them in person, to try to form a relationship before they would see him. And yet, he also professed to have good self-esteem and did have a high opinion of his mental abilities.

I read once that for most of us, our self-image is formed in high school, and that we have a hard time changing it or shaking it off long years after it is no longer appropriate. I don't know whether it is true, but I do think there is certainly a residual undercurrent of that, of what we thought we were at that time as we were coming into young adulthood, and it probably was true for Leif, too.

This photo, taken in the living room of our quarters at Fort Sheridan, Illinois is one of very few that show Leif's acne, and yet look at that glowing, dazzling smile! Leif had the greatest smile, if you could get him to let it go. He contained his emotions very carefully, and of often you'd get a half smile, a bemused look, not the full force smile that was so wonderful. I don't know who took this photo. It might have been me, but I don't recall having seen it until I found it in his photo album after he died. It was taken with his camera. I wish I knew the occasion on which it was taken. I wish I could see that smile again.

What would he think of this?

Last night after I went to bed and wasn't falling asleep, it suddenly occurred to me to wonder what Leif would think of this blog. Of course, I wouldn't be doing this if he were alive, so he would never be confronted with it in that way, but if he were to know about it somehow, after death, what would he think of it?

Would he be surprised? Touched? Pleased? Would he appreciate my memories and monument to him? Would he be glad to see so many people visiting the blog and reading about him and us?

Or would he be upset that his life was set before the world in detail for anyone to read?

Would he think I was an obsessed mother who couldn't let go of her son? Or would he see me as a loving mother who wants to keep his memory alive?

Would he wish he could tell me more, so that the picture of him would be more accurate and well-rounded? Or would he wish to keep things private?

I try not to post things that would be hurtful or embarrassing to others, or even to Leif, were he able to read them, but I wonder whether he would agree with my judgement.

I also wonder how I, a person who never wanted a gun in my house and who drank alcohol sparingly, managed to raise a son so deeply interested in and devoted to guns and beer, and though he never "converted" me to his beliefs, he taught me a great deal about them.

It is in the nature of death, especially a sudden death, that those left behind are destined to find out a lot of things about their deceased loved one they may not have known, or known fully, before. And that there will also always be many mysteries for which there will never be answers. The blog allows me to explore both sides of Leif's life and death.

For me, just knowing I have posted something is important, and I regret each day that I miss. I never knew when I started this on April 10, 2008 that I would still be writing it sixteen months later, would still have more to say, would find it so meaningful and necessary to my day.

As I was driving home tonight I was thinking about this again, thinking how when Leif was alive I spent so much time with him and helping him with problems in his life, and now I am still spending time, only I don't get to spend it WITH him or to help him any longer.

Yet he does not seem distant, not yet. Peter W. said the other day that it doesn't seem real that Leif is dead, that it seems like we should still be able to just meet him in Tampa for dinner or stop by his apartment. Intellectually we know we can't, but emotionally, it seems as though he should still be there. I know just what he means.

Probably the blog helps us keep that kind of feeling, for we see his pictures daily, and I write about him. The memories are refreshed, new again, savored. I am thankful for ever one of them.
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This photo of Leif was taken sometime in 1989. I'm not sure where, perhaps on a playground at Fort Sheridan, though I don;t remember one like this there. It's one that captures his vulnerable side, as few do. I don't know who took the photo. It was in his album and must have been taken with his camera by someone else in the family, most likely me . . . and yet I don't remember ever having seen this photo until I acquired Leif's albums after his death. He was fourteen years old.

New York Times Article "After Combat, Victims of an Inner War"

This is an excellent article in the August 1 New York Times, about soldiers who commit suicide, and the factors behind it. I know Leif would have found it significant, but with him as with some of those profiled in this article, pride and a belief they should be stoic and "take like a man" probably kept them from being honest enough about their problems to get the kind of help they needed.

"After Combat Victims of an Inner War"

Leif on the Drinking Age, Gun Laws, the Patriot Act, and American Freedoms

Leif received an email reply to his passionate letter about the drinking age to Senator Brownback. He immediately sent it out, with this even longer and more impassioned reply, to most of the people in his email address book. After dismissing the drinking age views in a couple of paragraphs, he addressed gun control, American freedoms and the Patriot Act.

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From: "Leif Garretson"
Date: Thu Feb 12, 2004 23:16:59 US/Central
Subject: correspondence with Senator Brownback.

Below is a letter I received from our Senator Brownback (Republican) of Kansas. What follows is my response. Please read.

February 12, 2004

Mr. Leif Garretson
804 Moro
Manhattan, KS 66502

Dear Leif:

Thank you for your letter regarding lowering the drinking age. I genuinely appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts on this important issue. There is no better guide to making tough decisions than hearing from the people whom I serve.

Safety should be the first priority when it comes to alcohol. It frustrates me to hear stories involving irresponsible drinking, especially when it involves driving.

As a father of five I am personally concerned about safety; not only the safety of my children, but the safety of all children and all others using our streets and highways. I strongly support educating all citizens about the dangers associated with consuming and abusing alcohol. Education is the key to stopping underage drinking and driving.

In addition to fears for the safety of passengers and pedestrians, I have to say that the drinking age has had a positive impact on the number of teens drinking. According to the U.S. Census, in 1974, thirty-four percent of teens between twelve and seventeen reported being regular users of alcohol. In 1994, only sixteen percent reported using it regularly. Death rates from alcohol-related accidents have decreased by almost two percent. Drinking has serious consequences for young people.

That having been said, the rules and regulations governing the drinking age are under the jurisdiction of the state of Kansas. I recommend you contact your representatives in the Kansas State Legislature with your concerns. They would best be able to help you.

Thank you for giving me the chance to explain my position on the drinking age and underage drinking and driving. I know this question is on a lot of young people's minds. Please do not hesitate to contact me again in the future.

Sincerely,

Sam Brownback
United States Senator
SB:jc
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Leif's reply:

Dear Senator Brownback,

Aside from various arguments I could make about the injustice of allowing men and women to serve and die overseas when they are not trusted to drink, I will make 2 points.

First is that any good scientist knows that correlation does no equal causation. Simply put, that means that just becuase the number of teens drinking has decreased since the drinking age was raised does NOT mean they are drinking less BECAUSE of the drinking age. It is quite likely that the factors you mentioned such as education and societal attitude had more impact on teens drinking than the legal age did.

Also the drinking age may be 21, but society clearly tolerates drinking at 18 -- but not at 17 or younger. I would be challenged to find a student at K-State or KU that had made it though their freshman year without having a drink at a party or two. The activity is going on regardless of its legality and honestly I think it is a misdirection of resources. I found it a bit insulting when after my car had been burglarized for the second time, I was again told that the police did not have the time or money to investigate such a minor matter. Yet they do have the time and money pay a cop $35,000 a year to write speeding tickets and to break up college parties so they can issue M.I.Ps. I think the resources used to stop underage drinking could be better spent. How many of my tax dollars have been wasted on the enforcement of this law, I wonder?

Secondly, your point that the drinking age is set by the Kansas State Legislature is an interesting one, isn't it? I am well aware of the fact that this is a state law. What I am also aware of, which many are not, is that the state governments were coerced into compliance with the federal mandate for a drinking age of 21. How were they coerced? With money, of course, or rather the threat of losing it. Specifically, federal funds for highways. Any state that did not raise its drinking age lost 40% of its highway funding. Not surprisingly it wasn't long before every state was in compliance. The only place that did not was Puerto Rico. I used to live in Puerto Rico and I must say the roads are terrible as a result.

So while you are right that the law is set at the state level, if the states are blackmailed into making that law by the federal
government, as they were, it becomes a federal issue. In fact, it actually bring us to an ever larger and more offensive issue; the
issue of the corruption or errosion of federalism. The separation of state and federal governments is a great thing. The fact that if you don't care for the laws in one state, you may move to another that better suits you is a good thing. But if those states are coerced by the federal goverment into compliance then federalism is in jeopardy.

I must say that in the last year or two I have become extremely troubled by the amount of power that the federal government has been grabbing up. I grew up always thinking that I was mostly Republican, though lately I am finding less and less in common with the GOP. I have always believed that the less government interference in our lives there was, was the better, and the Republican party was the most likely to guarantee that. Particular issues like gun control which particularly should be left to state or even municipal governments kept me away from the Democratic Party. In particular I was very troubled by the 1994 crime bill and the included ban on assault weapons which is one of the most ill-conceived and poorly written pieces of legislation there is, directed at the wrong weapons for the wrong reasons with definitions that can be easily circumvented.

For example, an AK-47 is considered an "assault weapon" becasue it has a large magazine, a pistol grip, and a bayonet lug. If it has only 2 of these features, it is not an "assault weapon," so all one must do to sell the very same weapon legally under the ban is to remove the two pieces of wood that make up the stock and pistol grip and replace them with one piece of wood that forms a thumb hole stock. It is now NOT an "assault weapon."

Similarly, I own an AR-15 rifle that I bought legally with my driver's license at a local gun store. This is a civilian model of the M-16 I carried in the army, which I purchased to keep my skills up. The only difference between the two rifles, other than the lack of full auto fire capability, is that my rifle does not have the flash suppressor, bayonet lug, or the optional telesoping stock. Now lets look at these one by one.

The bayonet lug: I challenge anyone to tell me when the last time was that an America civilian was killed in a drive by bayoneting. I didn't spend $1400 on a rfile to use it as a spear. Could have gotten a spear alot cheaper. Nevertheless, this has been made illegal and required the redesign of hundreds of weapons costing the consumer more money.

The Flash Supressor: Flash supressors serve only one function; to obscure the position of a camouflaged soldier from enemy view by preventing a muzzle flash. This is of little or no concern to crime. Not many criminals are sneaking around camouflaged in the woods like Rambo, killing civilians.

The Pistol grip: This was added to the list because it supposedly made it easier to operate the weapon by shooting from the hip, which supposedly criminals like to do. This is completley inaccurate. As a former armorer and expert marksman I can speak as an expert on the subject and tell you that the addition of the pistol grip by Eugene Stoner, who designed the M-16, was done to make the weapon easier to fire from the prone positon, not the hip. Firing a pistol grip weapon from the hip is more difficult and less comfortable than firing a conventional stocked rifle or shotgun. And firing from the hip is the least desireable, least accurate, and therefore least lethal method, so this makes no sense.

Lastly the folding or telescoping stock: This is the only one that has any bearing on crime, and only because it speaks to the idea of concealability. However, this is a useless and uneeded law. It takes less then 5 minutes to swap a stock on a rifle like an AR-15, so a criminal can simply remove the folding stock when not in use and the weapon is perfectly legal. It is an uneeded law because the concealment of a weapon is already a crime. Whether it is an illegal "assault weapon" or a perfectly legal revolver, carrying a concealed firearm without a permit is a felony. If one is already willfully commiting a felony by carrying the weapon, do you really think they are going to care if the weapon they are carrying is legal or not? Whether they are carrying a revolver or a folded AK-47 the charge is the same. So what good does this law do? All it does is restrict the freedoms of those that obey the law.

Bottom line is, If I am going to use a gun to commit a felony such as robbery or murder, and am already risking 30 years to life, do you really think I am gonna care if the weapon is illegal or not? What is 2 years tacked onto 20 or 50? In fact, in most cases, these offenses are not even bothered with as establishing the crime of carry is a waste of time that only bores the juries, so few prosecutors bother with them unless it is all they have.

These gun control measures are ineffective for the simple reason that criminals by definition don't obey the law. Only non-criminals obey the law and non-criminals having guns is not a problem.

Another thing that really irritates me is politicians making comments such as, "I don't think you need an AK-47 to hunt deer." That is true; you don't. But that is not why we have those weapons or have the right to such weapons. Also, laws which ban weapons that "do not have a legitimate sporting or hunting use" are misguided. We don't have the Second Amendment so that we can go out on the weekends and shoot Bambi and beer cans. We have the Second Amendment because this country won its independance from tyranny because we had armed citizens that used their own weapons against their oppressors and the wise men that wrote the Constitution realized that despite their best efforts the Constitution might fail to prevent tyranny. The Second Amendment is the final check and balance in the Constitution, ensuring that should our worst nightmares come true and our government becomes a tyranny, the people have the means to fight that tyranny.

We don't have the right to bear arms so that we can shoot dear. We have the right to bear arms so that if necessary, as an absolute last resort, we can wage war against our own government.

Now I am no radical militant. I am no anarchist. I believe in the Constitution and in our government. I belive that the system will ultimately work and come back into balance. However, I also believe that nothing can be trusted or taken for granted. So if someone asks me, "Why do you need and assault rifle?" I answer, "Because the soldiers and policemen that are the instruments of our government have assault rifles and worse. And should the day ever come that those men no longer serve us, but rather serve to oppress us, then the men and women of this country will meet them with equal force and superior conviction. That is why I need and assault rifle."

I hope with all my heart that that day never comes. But I am a student of history and I also believe the saying that, "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."

Now I am not suggesting that there should be no control what so ever. I have no problem with the idea of the County of Los Angeles passing a law making it lllegal to have such weapons within the city limits to prevent crime. That is reasonable. But why should a person in Manhattan, Kansas have his rights restricted and infringed because of a situation in Los Angeles? Federal gun control laws are inappropriate and unconstitutional. If California thinks they need a BAN to keep LA safe, let them ban it and leave me alone. There are no drive-bys in my neighborhood. No drug turf wars. So why must I live under legislation that was passed solely to address an isolated and local problem? The federal government has no business putting its nose in this issue. It is a Local issue and should be handled locally.

But I digress.

However while I am venting my opinons to you, I may as well continue on to the thing that scares me and many Americans more than anything since the threat of Nuclear War. And that is the Patriot Act. I think "The Facist Act" would have been a more appropriate name. America, the land of the free, is in danger of becoming America, the land of the surveilled and held without due process. We have gone TOO far in the wake of 9/11 and are now treading hard on the very freedoms we sought to protect.

A great American once said, "Give me liberty or give me death." Now it seems more like, "to hell with liberty as long as we have safety." This trend is very disturbing and must be turned around NOW. I am not afraid of terrorists. An enemy without is not nearly as dangerous as an enemy within, and the enemy within is our own fear and paranoia. As the memory of 9/11 fades, I find myself and many other Americans fearing less and less about the terrorists and more an more about our government.

We do not worry about terrorists attacks. They don't keep me up at night. What makes me worry at night is the day that I have to fear the police. That getting pulled over night might mean 60 days in jail without being charged instead of a $60 fine. What makes me afraid is the day when I can't voice my opinions without risking interrogation and imprisonment by agents of the Office of Homeland Security without access to a lawyer or even being charged. What I fear is that we are on a trend that will make concepts like "Big Brother" and the Gestapo seem all to familiar.

Closer to home, I worry about the ability of the Executive Branch to influence our Senators and Congressman with information that they can now obtain legally through surveillance. Say, for example, that surveillance tools like the "carnivore program" dug up some skeleton from your closet. Something that could cost you reelection, and you were threatened with the release of that information if you did not vote for the President's legislation. Now I might be concerned or upset by whatever scandal about you might be exposed, but I am MUCH more concerned that my senator might NOT vote his conscience and NOT represent my interests because he knew his career was on the line.

I am not suggesting that you have any such skeleton in your closet nor that this President would abuse this power this way. However, laws must never be written under the assumption that only good men will hold the reigns of power, and if we do not have the foresight to see how they could be abused then that hypothetical scenario I described might not be so hyothetical.

We are not there yet and some say it will never go that far. That may be true, but that will be because we stop it right here and now by repealing the Patriot Act in favor of more sober and less panicked legislation that does not endanger our rights as free citizens. Enemies of the death penalty have the saying that it is better to let 10 murderers go free than to kill one innocent man. I would make the same argument. Better to let 10 terrorists escape justice than to abuse the civil rights of one American.

Benjamin Franklin once said that, "A man that trades a piece of his liberty for safety deserves neither." I, for one, am a man that will never willingly trade away my liberty, and I would appreciate it if you and your colleagues did not trade it away on my behalf.

Sincerely
Leif A. Garretson
Manhattan Kansas

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The photo of Leif was taken July 29, 2004 in Manhattan, Kansas. five months after he wrote this. He was 29 years old.

Leif Fighting for the Right of Young Soldiers to Drink

Leif rarely wrote long emails or sent letters to politicians, but there were occasions when he was sufficiently aroused and incensed to do so. The day after his 29th birthday was one of those occasions when he was moved to send a long, passionate letter to Kansas Senator Brownback.

Anyone who knew Leif knows how much he enjoyed beer and Leif well knew how much his soldier comrades in arms enjoyed them, too. It was his passion about what they enjoyed, and what he felt was a demeaning injustice that moved him to write.

The photo of him with the beer stein was taken at a family gathering on July 29, 2004, exactly six months after he wrote this.
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From: "Leif Garretson"
Date: Thu Jan 29, 2004 23:56:07 US/Central
Subject: 18 old enough?

Dear Senator Brownback,

I am writing to you after years of stewing but have been driven by a moment of livid inspiration. I will admit that at the time I am writing this I am a bit intoxicated. However, that should have little bearing on the validity of my claim, a claim that has to do with the very right of certain Americans to enjoy such pleasures. I am Veteran. I served in the US Army infantry, 2nd batallion, 87th INF, out of Ft Drum New York. I spent time in Bosnia and the Middle East. I served my coutry with pride until I was medically retired for asthma in 2001. I still have several friends on active duty. Many of whom are being sent to Iraq.

Another important fact is that Yesterday was my 29th Birthday. This is significant in my mind because many people petition for laws or policies that affect them but few campaign for others. In this case I do campaign for others and I do so out of a matter of principal and justice not out of a desire for self gain.

So what has me writing to you tonight? Well, I was at my father's house tonight, who is also a 24 year veteran of the US ARMY and we were watching the Channel 11 News Hour with Jim Lehrer, or whatever it is. I am not sure. The point being that they displayed the Honor Roll of servicemen that died in Iraq today.

The first man listed, whose name I regrettably do not remember, yet who I Salute none the less, was 20 years old. This upset me and I will not equivocate when I say that I felt a flush of emotion that frankly pissed me off.

This was a MAN!! With a capital M. A service MAN!!! A MAN that volunteered to serve his country. A MAN that was sent to war by his president. A MAN that was old enough to VOTE for that president. A MAN that was considered old enough to carry an automatic weapon. A MAN that was entrusted with the lives of his fellow soldiers. A MAN that was trusted with thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars of equipment. Yet this MAN could not be trusted to have a beer at the local pub with his squad mates.

HOW WRONG IS THAT????

Our country considers him enough of a man to enlist. Enough of a man to fight for his country. Enough of a man to leave his loved ones behind at the will of our president. Enough of a man to carry a machinegun. Enough of a man to kill in the name of America. Enough of a man to DIE!!! in the name of America.!!!! Yet we do not consider him enough of a man to decide if he can have a drink? We trust him to decide if a living human being lives or dies in Iraq per the Rules of Engagement but we do not trust him to decide if he can have a Budweiser after work.

I am well of age to drink myself. This no longer affects me. But nevertheless I find this morally objectionable to think that MEN have died for this country that could not even have beer with their unit before they deployed. That there are men today that are lying wounded in VA hospitals that are not old enough to have a drink when they are released. But they were old enough to take a bullet for the good ole' USA.

I find it hypocritical and morally reprehensible for us to allow these men to go to war, to their deaths, for a country that claims they are not mature enough to buy themselves a beer when they are old enough to die to protect your freedom and mine. These MEN defend our freedoms to enjoy ourselves and the idea that these MEN should not enjoy the very freedoms that they purchase for us at the cost of their very lives is morally reprehensible.

Therefore I ask that you, Senator, propose a bill that would lower the drinking age to 18 years of age. If a Man or woman is old enough to go to war and to kill and die for this country, they certainly should be old enought to enjoy a drink before they do so. Those of us "of Age" that sit here safe in America can do so when we choose, thankful that we are not across an ocean sweating in the sand. Yet no small number of men over there defending our right to do so do not share that same right. And that, Dear Senator, is Wrong.

Thank You,

Leif Garretson