6/5/2024

My Dear POTUS, JRB,

            Was the Congressional Picnic fun, yesterday. I got a smile out of Jill’s floral dress & her comment that she has the “best lawn in America.” I rolled my eyes when you called yourself, “Jill’s husband.” Not funny! What’s up with the women’s health research initiative she mentioned?

            How is Paris? Are your ready for your visit to Normandy?

            Have you read any of my uncle’s (SEA) books? SEA fancied himself to be a story-teller, using facts of history to inform & entertain. He specialized in eliciting first-hand accounts from veterans, which he then wove together to recount the minutia of the various battles. To add texture to his D-Day book, he repeatedly visited Normandy so he could have a visceral feel for the place as he imagined what it would have been like to navigate the waves, hit the beach & traverse the sand while carrying 60-100 pounds of equipment. He swam in the ocean, slogged through bogs, & broke through hedgerows.

            He’s got some great quotes which you could use on Friday in your remarks at Pointe du Hoc which SEA called “one of the premiere battlefields of WWII”. SEA tried to scale the cliffs there as Rudder’s Rangers did, but “chickened out.”

            Here’s a quote from Citizen Soldier that might work well in your speech:

“At the core, the American citizen soldiers knew the difference between right and wrong, & they didn’t want to live in a world in which wrong prevailed. So they fought, & won, & we all of us, living & yet to be born, must be forever profoundly grateful.”

            I fantasize that you could include in your remarks that WINTA. Even better would be to mention all the places in the world suffering from violence, including Burma. Evoke Isaiah 11:6–9 & invite folks to imagine a peaceable kingdom.

            BYBS,