Have a Heart

Maybe he's not your cup of tea. That's fine. Maybe he advocated some things during his tenure as vice president with which you disagree. Gotcha. And all one has to say is Haliburton.... Although with gas prices approaching four bucks a gallon aren't you secretly rooting for them to find an enourmous amount of oil?

Yesterday, former VP Dick Cheney underwent heart transplant surgery. Apparently it went well, but on the whole it remains an especially daunting operation. Yet, last night Facebook was alight with comments suggesting their authors were less than sincere about the half-hearted well wishes.

Vice President Cheney was, is, and will be to the end of his life unabashedly, unapologetically pro-American. It has always gone beyond the oaths of office he has taken. Maybe that isn't to everyone's liking. So be it.

Let me just mention (I guess you don't have a choice) a couple of things.
When men and women came home from Iraq and Afghanistan grievously wounded Dick Cheney quietly, without fanfare and often secretly, visited military hospitals and did what he could to communicate America's appreciation for the individual's sacrifice.

At a time when most of us were looking at the sky and wondering when the next attack would come, Dick Cheney, his boss, and an especially angry SecDef were trying to figure out how to stop it from happening. Not every decision was right. But look at the picture of the woman in the dress, the one who jumped from one of the Twin Towers and tell me - if you saw that, had the mightiest military the world has ever known at your fingertips and it was YOUR JOB to keep that from ever happening again.... Both of our daughters have worked in high rise buildings. I am eternally grateful to VP Cheney for keeping them safe.

Finally, he and his wife Lynne have two daughters. Both are loved, cherished, supported and, in VP Cheney's words, "That's it." If you don't know why that's important, maybe you ought to read up on the admirable life of Richard Bruce Cheney of Casper, Wyoming - 46th Vice President of the United States, husband, father and patriot.