Short update

I've got tons to do, so I'll just give a quick boring update on what I've been doing in my work time.

I bombed a statistics test. The stat professor wouldn't allow any notes, and there are like a million different probability distributions and means and variances for them. Not only did I forget a few, but I couldn't remember where to use the appropriate one. Frankly, it sucked.

On the other hand, I just nailed a signals test. Engineering professors are smart. Open book tests, formula sheet, and calculator. In the real world, we'll get to look everything up we need to know. We just need to study how to use it.

I'm going back home to Ft. Smith to spend some time with my family. My sagely history advisor lent me his copy of the Academy Award winning documentary "The Fog of War". It's about the Vietnam War, so it'll be interesting to see how much it synchs up with what I've studied so far.

Thank God it's Friday.

My random thoughts on "The Fog of War"

For those of you who don't know, "The Fog of War" is a documentary featuring former Secretary of State Robert McNamara. The director, Errol Flynn, won a 2003 Academy Award for Best Documentary with it. Maybe it's just because my sagely history research advisor wanted me to watch it for my history research on Vietnam, but I thought it was pretty entertaining. The juxtaposition of newspaper headlines and magazine covers as McNamara is talking captivated my mind.

I heartily recommend it. Sure, it's not exciting but if you're looking for something to think about then I suggest renting this some time.

I don't want to spoil too much of the documentary, but I was surprised to learn that McNamara had been the President of Ford (the first non-Ford family member to be put in that position) when the Kennedys called him up to be their Secretary of Defense. He had been a graduate of Harvard's Officer Training Program. In the words of David Halberstam, McNamara was one of the "best and the brightest" running America.

Robert McNamra has eleven lessons to teach, each time choosing a different aspect of his life or his time as Secretary of Defense to illustrate his point. He loves talking about the Cuban Missile Crisis because that was the shining point of his career. We (America) empathized with the Russians, so we knew how to work a solution that benefited both sides. On the other hand, we didn't know the Vietnamese well enough to know what they wanted. He doesn't like talking about Vietnam, which he obviously thinks was a mistake (and people don't like talking about their mistakes).

This jives with my history research. During the Cold War, America thought Communist Vietnam was a puppet of China and Russia. America had never read a history book on Vietnam. For if they did, they would have found out that Vietnam had been fighting for its independence from China for one thousand years. The North Vietnamese viewed American efforts in Vietnam as an extension of French imperialism, so they would have fought to the last man for Vietnam's independence.

Interestingly, McNamara believes rationality has limits. You can't change human nature, so we will always be at war.

I disagreed with McNamara on one point. It has to do with the controversial topic whether JFK would have pulled America out of Vietnam if he hadn't been assassinated. The starry eyed McNamara emphatically says that Kennedy told him he would have done so...before the military coup of the first South Vietnamese President, Ngo Dinh Diem. Diem was assassinated by his own generals, and Kennedy was affected by it. While McNamra believes Kennedy would have pulled the troops out, I think Diem's assassination put Kennedy in the mindset that America was responsible for Vietnam's actions. That's because America knew beforehand about the coup.

In the end, McNamara admits he made errors. Why can he look at everything so clearly now? Hindsight. I hate using cliches, but hindsight is twenty-twenty.

Random sadness

So I went back home to the quiet town of Ft. Smith, Arkansas (the second largest city in the home of Bill Clinton). Usually, it's a nice relaxing time.

But then my Mom showed me a death notice.

I saw the picture and knew I recognized him from somewhere. No, he was too old to be in my graduating class. Wait a minute...he's the brother of my friend who was my roommate the first semester of my sophomore year. I've met this guy in person less than a year ago.

I needed something to take my mind off of it, so I watched the Fog of War documentary. Everytime McNamara mentioned a death toll, be it fifty eight thousand or three million, it hit home. It sure made me see it in a different light, especially when McNamara talked about having the deaths of men on your hands.

I rapidly called up some of the Fort people, but nobody knows exactly what happened. All the obitiuary says is that it was an "unexpected" death.

Unfortunately, my friend left Tulsa and never stayed in contact with me. All I could do for him was sign an online guestbook at the website of the funeral home. Maybe he'll see it and email me.

I really can't understand the pain. All I can do is send condolences.