PATTIE MOSURE EULOGY

PATTIE MOSURE EULOGY

By Steve Patten

          Our Lady of Lourdes Church                                                                             Tujunga, California

8 April 2017

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.  My name is Steve Patten.  For the last 30 years I have been Pattie’s business partner.  And, in the greatest honor of my life, for the last 20 days I have been her husband.  Pattie’s daughters, Lona and Gay, have asked me to share some thoughts with you about their mother.

(At this point I introduced my brother, Rev. Skip Bushee, and said that he would offer a reading from the Bible.  Skip got up and addressed the audience, telling them he officiated at Pattie’s and my wedding.  He then mentioned that he thought it would be appropriate to read a passage from first Corinthians that he had read at our wedding, which he did and then sat down.  He was great.     I continued:)

Lona, Gay, Bev, Kathy, Karen, Franco, Darren, Ryan, Daniel, Patrick, Carina, Joe, Eddie, Mickey, Father Rolly, . . . . . Father Rolly, thank you for another beautiful service.  I hope you know how much the Mosure, Barone, and Silversparre families love and respect you. . . . . . . . Ladies and gentlemen.

I would give anything in the world not to be standing here today.  But I am.  If I had my druthers, my inclination would be to go somewhere and curl up and cry.  But I don’t have that option today, for I am operating under strict instructions from Pattie.  And I always follow Pattie’s strict instructions . . . . . . .

What’s that, Pattie?  Okaaaay . . . . . I sometimes follow Pattie’s strict instructions.

And those instructions were – she told me this many times -  she wanted any memorial for her to be a happy one, with smiles and laughter.  So, my job today is to make you smile, to make you laugh.

She Meant So Much to So Many

The 19^th century German poet, Heinrich Heine, once wrote:  “Every woman is the gift of a world to me.”  Pattie was my life’s most precious gift and, I know, a gift to many others in the roles she played in her life.

Loving, attentive, supportive wife to Keith Mosure, known as “Mo,” through their years together in the U.S. Army, then in the Automobile Club of Southern California, and in the many years she nursed Mo through his long illness.

Incredible mother to her two daughters, Lona and Gay, and their almost adopted daughters, Bev, Kathy, and Karen.  Wonderful mother to the two great guys who married Lona and Gay, Franco, who always called Pattie, Gramalamadingdong, and Darren.  Franco and Darren were not sons-in­-law to Pattie.  They were sons.

And in the role she cherished so, that of grandmother, or “Grammie,” to her grandchildren.  To her Golden Grandson, Ryan.  She thrilled Ryan recently when she told him she knew what a “wraparound” is in hockey.  She was studying hockey because Gay was going to take her to a game.  And she told Ryan he could wear jeans to any memorial for her.  I hope you are wearing jeans, Ryan.

Her grandson, Daniel, the boy, she always, always said, who hurt her heart.  To her Irish Protectonator, Patrick.  And to her Little Princess, Carina.  Pattie loved her role as “Grammie,” to her grandchildren and “Grammie Pattie” to so many others.

Sister to Joe, Eddie, who passed away just after Pattie, and Mickey, who has been gone for awhile.  Joe, who still lives in Florida, deserves special recognition.  As a teenager, he worked hard to support his brothers and little sister, Pattie.  You deserve a lot of credit for that, Joe.

Businesswoman, as insurance agent for the Automobile Club of Southern California and later as president of our company, Lee & Grant.

Then in that role about which she was so passionate, the one Kenny Rogers sang about.  What role am I talking about? Yes, the Gambler.  You all know the song, you know the lyrics.  Sing along with me:

                                                             You got to know when to hold ‘em,                                                                                                   Know when to fold ‘em,                                                                                                                             Know when to walk away,                                                                                                             Know when to run.

Stop!!!  No, she didn’t.  She didn’t know when to walk away.  She didn’t know when to run.  25-cent video poker at the slot machine was her game.  And she could sit at that machine for hours!!!  It was a gift for Pattie.  We all should be so lucky.  When she was at her slot machine, she could forget everything else, not a care in the world, just enjoy herself.  The only people who had near her staying power at the machines were her daughters, Lona and Gay.  When we all went to a casino, those three were three peas in a pod.  And also her good friend, Judy Walker.

Pattie always joked, in reference to her devotion to 25-cent video poker, that when she passed away and her casket came by you, all she wanted was for you to throw quarters on her casket.  That would delight her.

Pattie was a fighter.  Diagnosed with lung cancer in 2003, she underwent a tough operation, at the hands of her superb surgeon, Dr. Raymond Schaerf.  Then nine months of grueling chemotherapy and radiation under the watchful and expert eye of her wonderful oncologist, Dr. John Gunnell.  And she came out on top.  On top!!

Pattie stayed in touch with her great heart doctor, Dr. Hugo Riffel-Dalinger, who always told her, “You have a happy heart, a happy heart.”

One time she was in the office of her internist, Dr. Leon Partamian, another great doctor.  
Dr. Partamian asked her if she knew why she beat lung cancer, why she survived.  Pattie replied that she had great doctors, wonderful support from her family.  Dr. Partamian allowed as all that was true.  But, he emphasized, the most important thing was her attitude, her attitude that she could survive, that she could beat lung cancer.

Pattie was a fighter, Lona and Gay.  Your mother was a fighter.  She was not a hospice type.  I tried to tell you both that.  I tried to reason with you.  But neither one of you would listen to me. The purpose of life is not to let go, as you both kept urging your mother.  The purpose of life is not to die.  The purpose of life is to live.

I am not blaming anyone for Pattie’s death but myself.  Pattie did not have to die when she did.  I am responsible for that.  She always relied upon me to protect her.  Always.  I tried the best I could over the years.  But when she needed me the most, I let her down.

She had a great pulmonologist, Dr. Robin Solymanijam, who did everything he could to help her breathe better.  And a wonderful respiratory therapist, Veronica or Victoria or Monica.  Pattie loved Veronica but often did not get her name quite right.  Veronica spent hours with Pattie, making sure her oxygen was right, giving her breathing treatments, checking her equipment.  She even on her own time went to Gay’s house where Pattie was staying to look over her breathing aides at home.

Are any of the medical professionals who helped Pattie here today?  (Veronica raises her hand.)  Veronica, stand up please.  (Veronica gets up.)  That is the face of heroism, ladies and gentlemen.  The face of heroism.  (Applause from the audience and Veronica sits down.)  I almost hope some day, Veronica, I have heart trouble, so I can go to you as my heart surgeon.  You are going to be a great doctor.

A Lady Who Loved Life

Pattie loved to laugh.  And, like many people with a great sense of humor, she could laugh at herself.  We were at the Casino Magic in Biloxi, Mississippi, about to leave our room to go downstairs to gamble.  She looked terrific, as always, but I noticed she was missing one item from her ensemble.  So, I said to her, “Pattie, are we forgetting anything?”  Slightly annoyed, she looked at me puzzled and said that she didn’t think so and suggested we get downstairs to start gambling.

I pointed downward.  She was dressed to the nines from head to almost toe.  What she had forgotten and what she saw when she looked down was she was not wearing any shoes.  She was beautifully coiffured and elegantly dressed, but barefoot.  She just put her head back and laughed.

Funny things happened to Pattie.  There was the time a wild, ravenous goose chased Pattie, her good friend, Mimi, and Ryan when he was two or three all across Descanso Gardens.  They barely escaped by diving into their car and driving off.

Once she told her girls she could do a headstand.  And she proceeded to do a perfect one with head on the floor, feet straight up in the air, body against the wall.  Then she announced to her girls, still in that position, that she remembered how to get into a headstand but couldn’t remember how to get out of the headstand.

And the time she was at the airport – I forget which one – rushing to catch her flight.  We normally flew together, but this time I wasn’t with her.  She stopped briefly in the bathroom and then headed to her gate.   Suddenly a lady got in her path, got right in her face.  Almost simultaneously a man, who turned out to be the lady’s husband, stood right behind Pattie.

“Dear, the woman said to Pattie, “you have toilet paper stuck in the back of your pants and you are dragging a trail of toilet paper behind you.” Pattie would often tell that story on herself.  She said when she got to the gate she could overhear people say, “Isn’t that the funniest thing you have ever seen?!?!”

She often called herself “Ms. Malaprop.”  Yes, she could misspeak, but when she wanted to make a point she could zone right in.  Several weeks ago we were in her room at Verdugo Hills Hospital.  I think Tony and Karen were there.  I was boasting about my stable of young women I maintain on the side, an apocryphal stable.  Pattie listened for a bit, then sat up, looked at me and said, “Yeah right, you old buzzard.”  You old buzzard.  Now that has a memorable ring to it, doesn’t it?

Pattie loved to play jokes on others.   Like the time she told the girls she had to get back to Atlanta.  The truth was she had a few days still to go before she had to leave, but she wanted to have a little fun with her daughters.  She asked they drive her to the Burbank airport and when they got there she asked that they walk her to the gate, in the days when people not flying out could accompany passengers to their gate.

Pattie had taken Lona into her confidence but not Gay.  Now, Gay had broken her ankle and was walking on crutches.  But she, the dutiful daughter, agreed to walk her mother to the gate as she hobbled along.  Pattie chose the farthest gate she could and when they got to that gate, of course, there was no airplane, there were no passengers or airline personnel. 

Pattie feigned panic.  “What am I going to do?  I have got to get back to Atlanta and back to work.  I can’t miss this plane.”

Gay, always the logical one, assured her mother they would find out what happened and get her on a plane for Atlanta.  Pattie said, “Oh, that’s okay.  I think I’ll just stay a couple of extra days.”  Gay got it immediately and looked at her mother and said, “You pain in the ___________.”  Then Gay hobbled off.

Pattie had quite a startle pattern.  If you surprised her, she could react dramatically.  Ladies and gentlemen, for those of you who attended our memorial last November I apologize, for I am going to repeat a story I told then.  Many people here today have not heard it and also it is so revealing of Pattie.  But, again, I apologize to those who will be sitting through this story a second time.

Pattie and her two little girls were walking down a street in Bangkok, when they were all stationed in Thailand.  Bangkok is a big, bustling, noisy, crowded city.  The girls were nine or ten and they looked soooooo cute as Pattie held Lona in one hand and Gay in the other.  Suddenly a scary looking Thai man appeared out of nowhere and lunged at the three ladies.

Pattie’s startle pattern went in to high gear.  She screamed and ran into a nearby shop, through the shop, into an alleyway, and then raced up the alleyway.  If I were covering this story, I would have said, “Look at that woman go.  In my 80 years of news reporting I have never seen such blazing speed in man, woman, or beast. . . . . . . ." Is anyone going to say anything?  Someone could stop me, you know, when I said “80 years.”  Yeah, he looks about an even 100 . . . . . .

That’s all right.  I was on my morning jog just the other day.  I guess I wasn’t looking very good, for a young man in a car, slowed down alongside me, rolled down his window, and said, “Excuse me, sir, how old are you?”  I answered, “102.”  "Oh," he said.  I am going to have to start looking more in the mirror. . . . . .

Back to Pattie.  She is on the main thoroughfare, running at breakneck speed and closing in on her home compound, which is surrounded by a 20-foot high security fence.  She leaps over the security fence in a single bound and races for her apartment building!!!!  Forget  the elevator!  She sprints up multiple flights of stairs, taking 10, 15, 20 steps at a time!!!!

Up to her apartment, she crashes through the door, then smashes it closed behind her, and rests against the door.  Safe, safe at last.

Then she looks to her left.  She looks to her right.  Arrrrrrrrgh.  My daughters!!  I forgot my daughters!!!

Don’t worry, ladies and gentlemen.  Some kindly Thai ladies back at the scene, who worked at a nearby beauty shop where Pattie got her hair done, saw the whole thing.  They brought Lona and Gay into their shop and entertained them until their mother came back to reclaim the girls Pattie had earlier abandoned.

Anyone meeting Pattie for the first time liked her right away.  We went to Dallas, Texas in 1998 to cover the 25-year reunion of Operation Homecoming, when our prisoners-of-war came home from communist prison camps in North and South Vietnam in 1973 near the end of the Vietnam War.  Ross Perot had invited the former POWs to his ranch outside Dallas and we went to the hotel where the POWs were staying.  They were a great bunch of guys.

Also arriving there was superstar entertainer Tony Orlando.  Tony is a wonderful supporter of veterans, especially POWs.  He will forever be associated with his most famous song, “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree,” the yellow ribbon being a symbol of Welcome Home to our troops from overseas.  I am wearing a yellow ribbon on my lapel, a gift from Pattie.

We were all enjoying ourselves one afternoon in a meeting room at that Dallas hotel when I realized I didn’t know where Pattie was.  If we are in a group or in a crowd I try to keep an eye on her.  I looked around and then I saw them.  Pattie and Tony Orlando were arm-in-arm, laughing, joking, singing, hugging, kissing.  I might as well have been a fly on the wall.

To know Pattie was to love her.

Getting to Know Pattie

In 1985 I came back to the U.S. from overseas, having served for a number of years as a journalist in various foreign posts.  I landed in Los Angeles and wanted to get back into American society after 10 years or so working out of the country.  

I didn’t have a car and I didn’t have car insurance.  So, I called up AAA and reached a pleasant insurance agent, Bill Gorby.  Bill was very nice, but after a few telephone conversations he told me he had to turn me over to another agent.  He said it was just office rules.  I told him I was sorry because he had been very helpful.

He said not to worry because she was a very good agent and that her name was Pattie Mosure and that she would help me.  The problem was I had been gone, out of the country, so long that I really didn’t have any record to check, driving or credit history, and that it might be difficult to get underwriting to approve me for insurance.  So, we arranged for me to come in to the office to talk with Pattie.

At the appointed date and time I arrived at the office of the Automobile Club of Southern California in Montrose on Montrose Avenue to meet with Pattie.  I checked in and waited to meet Pattie Mosure.  As I was waiting I noticed the other guys in the office also waiting to be helped were staring at something.  When you see men staring like that you know that means only one thing:  they are looking at a woman.

I like to look at women.  So, I wanted to see what they were staring at.  Then, I spotted her.  And I started staring as well.

She was weaving around several desks trying to get to the counter where we were all waiting.  Suddenly, she took a sharp left turn and started walking directly towards me!!  I panicked.  What was I going to do?  What was I going to say?

Here was this gorgeous woman smiling, looking at me, and coming straight at me.  I felt like the Peanuts comic strip character, Charlie Brown, who is in love with the little red-haired girl but can never get up the courage to talk with her.  Every time she comes near him he puts a paper bag over his head.  If I had had a paper bag I would have put it over my head!!

I started talking to myself, trying to get a hold of the situation.  “Steve, you have been in high pressure situations before.  You served with the Marine Corps in South Vietnam.  You were a CBS News reporter covering wars around the world.  You have been shot at, bombed, shelled, punched, captured by enemy combatants and held as a prisoner-of-war in the Middle East.  You can handle this, Steve.  Right??  Get a grip on yourself.  Man up.  Man up!!!!!

She was wearing a royal blue dress with a little cinch belt.  She looked like a million bucks.

She walked up to me, extended her hand, and said, “Hi, Steve.  I’m Pattie.”

In spite of all my preparations to stay cool I immediately lapsed into a catatonic state, finally managing to blurt out a few unintelligible sounds.  Pattie walked me over to one side and calmed me down.  We talked about getting me the automobile insurance, which she was eventually able to do after a long explanation to underwriting.

We became friends and would occasionally have lunch together.  We talked a lot.  We discovered that we had very similar, eerily similar, backgrounds.  Pattie was an Irish Catholic girl from Massachusetts.  The only time I had been married to that point I married a lovely young lady who was an Irish Catholic girl from Massachusetts.  My dad’s family was from Massachusetts and he was a graduate of MIT.

We both had military backgrounds, she in the Army, I in the Marine Corps.

Our paths had actually almost crossed years before.  In the fall of 1961 I was a freshman at the University of California at Berkeley.  During that time a young, 18-year-old mother  with her two little daughters came through the San Francisco Bay area on their way to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines.  They had to stay overnight in Burlingame, a city just south of San Francisco where the airport was located and across the bay from where I was in Berkeley.

I often joked with Pattie that she should have put her two little urchins in urchin daycare or urchin nightcare or whatever you do with urchins and called me.  I would have showed her the town.  She always gave me the same answer:  Fat chance, fella!!!

We found we both had broken, unhappy childhoods.  I dealt with that by becoming embittered.  I let it affect much of my life.  That was the coward’s way of dealing with it.

On the other hand, Pattie as a little eight-year-old little girl sat on the outside steps of a Catholic church in Lowell, Massachusetts.  She had just attended the funeral of her mother.  There was no father around.  Only some brothers and grandparents.

This little girl – Pattie Lee Doyle - vowed that someday she would have a happy family.  Someday, if God gave her children, she would give her children the happy childhood she never had.  And that is what she did.  She married a remarkable man, Keith Mosure, who served in the U.S. Army for 20 years protecting this country as a military intelligence expert.  God did give her children and she gave them the happy childhood she never had.

I would suggest to you, ladies and gentlemen, that little girl showed courage, strength, commitment to ideals.  Traits Pattie Mosure maintained throughout her life.

We later formed our own company, Lee & Grant.  We agreed she should be president of the company.  Pattie worked tirelessly recruiting students for our classes.  She spent countless hours on the telephone.  When we drove to a location to give a class, she would be sitting in the passenger seat typing out mailing labels.  Every so often she asked that we stop at a gas station so that she could go to the phone booth – this was before cell phones -and call our 800 number to see if any students wanted to enroll in our classes.

At one point we felt we needed a computer for our company.  So, we went to Office Depot and bought a small, back and white, IBM, laptop computer for $2,300.  We got back to our office, pulled the computer out of the box, and looked for the instructions.  There were none.  So, Pattie taught herself how to use the computer.

Not comfortable as a public speaker, she forced herself to come into our classes, usually after the noon break as the students were coming back from lunch.  She joked with them, would have a raffle and give away a prize, and thank the students for their business.  The students ate it up.  They loved it.

She continued in this public speaking role after we co-authored our books.  For our book, “Learning Iraqi Arabic,” she was the English speaking voice of the lady in Baghdad, Iraq on the CDs that accompanied the book.  

When we were promoting our book, “Foreign Correspondent,” a memoir of my career as a journalist, we went to the valley to the studio of LATalk Radio for an interview on the book.  As we were driving there Pattie allowed as how she preferred they would just interview me and leave her out of it.  But when we got there and the radio announcer took one look at her, he insisted we both do the interview.  And she was fabulous on air.

She was a great president.  She was a great woman.

Pattie had a favorite expression:  Good always comes from bad.  The “good” we have today, ladies and gentlemen, is the memories she leaves us all.                                                            

Lastly, Pattie and I enjoyed music together.  We loved many songs, but didn’t really have “our song,” as many couples do.  One song, though, we particularly enjoyed - I believe it was the theme song for a James Bond movie – was “Nobody Does It Better.”  You’ll recognize it when you hear it:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Nobody does it better.                                                                                                  Makes me feel sad for the rest.                                                                                          Nobody does it half as good as you.                                                                                            Baby, you’re the best.                            

Sweetheart, I think everyone here today would agree, honey, when I tell you:  Baby, you’re the best.

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The following textbooks of the Lee & Grant library that focus on various subjects within the real estate appraisal profession are available for your professional library as well.  Instructions for purchasing the textbooks are shown after the title and description for each book.  Some of the books are available on Amazon, as indicated below.  Cost per textbook is $45.  Please call us for bulk pricing should you wish to purchase multiple copies.

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CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR NEW PRESIDENT

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HOW TO START WINNING THE WAR ON TERROR

HOW TO START WINNING THE WAR ON TERROR

By

Patricia L. Mosure and Stephen G. Patten

We would like to make a point at the outset of this article and will repeat it at the end and that is:

We do not have a lot of time until the terrorists get their hands on some very nasty weapons that are going to change this world in a way we are not going to like.  What we will talk about in this article is not theory.  It is now.

Foreign Correspondent

When the United States sends its young men and women overseas to war, those Americans must know that if they are captured, if they falter, if they fall behind, America will come back to get them and bring them home.  The United States of America does not leave its troops behind.

We have co-authored a book, “Foreign Correspondent,” about a CBS News journalist, Steve, co-author of this article, striving to maintain that pledge.  It runs over 40 years from before Steve was a journalist and served with the United States Marine Corps in South Vietnam to his years reporting for CBS News in wars around the world, in the Far East, the Middle East, and Central America.  It also includes our current reporting for our company, Lee & Grant International, on the War on Terror.

This book is intended to inform our readers, our viewers, our listeners, on efforts to bring lost Americans home and the role of a journalist in those efforts who became a target himself when CBS News accused Steve of being a CIA agent using journalism as a cover.  Most of all, this book is intended to keep faith with our heroes and our heroines.

Three Missions

One of the major topics we address in “Foreign Correspondent” is the War on Terror.   It is actually the concluding chapter of the book. 

If we are going to start winning this war – and we are not now -  there are three missions we must accomplish immediately.  First, the obvious one, confront and defeat ISIS.  Second, stabilize Afghanistan.  Third, refocus on Iraq.

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The First Mission:  Destroy ISIS

Let’s start with ISIS, also called ISIL or the Islamic State, or Daesh, an acronym for its name in Arabic.  We must put a standing army in the field, for ISIS is an army that has used a good deal of skill and expertise in achieving the victories it has in Syria and Iraq over the last several years.  So, we must put an army in the field supported by air power, find ISIS’ army, and destroy it.  And we must kill all of its combatants.  The wanton cruelty these people have amply demonstrated shows they have far beyond redemption.

And let this be a warning to young people who have a somehow skewed romantic notion of adventure – and their parents – that if we catch them with ISIS we will kill them too.

This army we put in the field can be American, Middle Eastern, Arab, South Asian, European with our NATO allies.  It could come from China, Japan, Venus or Mars.  We don’t care.  Or, as journalist Bill O’Reilly of Fox News suggests, it could be a mercenary army.  There are plenty of mercenaries in this world – Steve has run across a few of them in his day – who would be more than willing to fight anytime, anywhere, for any side, as long as the money is right.

But, in addition to defeating ISIS militarily, we must knock it out politically.  That means separating from it the Sunni support it now enjoys.  Sunni, the major sect of Islam, accounts for 80% or so of the more than a billion and a half Muslims around the world.  So, while we are wiping out ISIS combatants we must send a day contingent down to Damascus, the capital of Syria, and escort that murderous despot, Bashar al-Assad, and all of his family out of town.  You can’t leave any family there, for they will engender loyalty.

Or, if you prefer, exile his family somewhere in the world and take Bashar al-Assad himself and hang him from the nearest lamppost.  But get rid of him!!  Only the most obtuse who follow the Middle East can fail to see this man should have been gone a long time ago. 

The al-Assads are Alawites, an offshoot of the Shia, the principal minority sect of Islam and the sworn enemies of the Sunnis.  Prior to the massive emigration from Syria during its civil war the Alawites likely accounted for no more than 15% of Syria’s population that was 23-24 million, while Sunnis were probably 75%.  We put a Sunni leader or group of Sunni leaders in al-Assad’s place.

We do the same thing in Iraq, except here the situation is reversed, for Iraq is a majority Shia country, about two thirds Shia and a third Sunni in a population similar to Syria.  We go to Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, and ask our ally, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, a Shia, to bring more Sunnis into government.  He is doing this somewhat, but he has to do it a lot more.

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The idea of all of this is that if the Sunnis can see they are fairly represented in the halls of power in Damascus and Baghdad and they feel protected, they will no longer feel the need to support ISIS.  We destroy ISIS militarily, we knock it out politically, we defeat ISIS.  Now, we will have to monitor it for years to come, but it will no longer pose the dire threat to America and the world that it does today.

Second Mission:  Stabilize Afghanistan

We must maintain a residual military force in Afghanistan, whatever our generals and admirals feel we need.  The U.S. has some 8,000-9,000 troops there now and we applaud our Government for doing so.

The purpose of these troops is threefold.  First, they are there to shore up the Afghan military so that it doesn’t collapse in the face of enemy pressure as the Iraqi military did after we stupidly pulled all our troops out of Iraq at the end of 2011.

Second, our troops are there to train the Afghan military as best as they can.   And, third, importantly, our forces are in Afghanistan to ensure the supplies we ship into Afghanistan get where they are intended to go, for graft and corruption, of course, in Afghanistan are rampant.

We should encourage other countries such as our NATO allies who have been helping in Afghanistan to continue their support.  And we should encourage more countries who have not been in Afghanistan to come in and help out as well.

All this is in the hope that one day Afghanistan can become, in the words of prominent Afghan-American author Tamim Ansary, the Switzerland of Asia.

But we should warn the current and any future Afghan government that we reserve the right to come back temporarily into Afghanistan in military force and wipe out any nest of terrorists plotting to kill Americans and seeking safe haven in Afghanistan, as the Taliban afforded Osama bin Laden in the 1990s and early 2000s.

As Dr. Michael Scheuer, the former head of the Osama bin Laden unit of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1996 to 1999 said in his book, “Marching Toward Hell,” the terrorists can say and think what they want about America.  But they must realize the cost to them of actually killing Americans will be horrendous.

Third Mission:  Refocus on Iraq

The U. S. invasion of Iraq in March, 2003 ordered by former President George W. Bush was a response to 9/11.  The message was we were not going to sit back and wait to be attacked again.  If we see danger lurking on the horizon, we will act first to knock it out before it has a chance to hit us.  That, in essence, became known as the Bush Doctrine.

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This flatten-Sadaam-Hussein attention-getter was aimed generally at the Middle East and in particular at Iraq’s immediate southern neighbor, Saudi Arabia.   Why Saudi Arabia?  One word:  Wahhabism.

Wahhabism is the brutal brand of so-called (we will explain in a bit the use of the term, “so-called”) Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia.

Mohammed ibn abd al-Wahhab was a fanatical 18^th century religious zealot on the Arabian Peninsula who believed in the severest form of society:  cutting off the hands of thieves, subjugation of women, and the like.  He would be long forgotten in this world – which he richly deserved  - had he not allied with a family fighting for control of the Arabian Peninsula, the as-Sauds.  In this alliance al-Wahhab was the spiritual head, the as-Sauds were the muscle.

Some 140 years after al-Wahhab’s death – that is, early 20^th century – the descendants of the as-Saud family that had allied with al-Wahhab won their battle for control of the Arabian Peninsula.

Do you recall the late 1960’s movie, “Lawrence of Arabia,” starring and introducing in the title role a fine, young British actor named Peter O’Toole?  There was another character in that movie, Prince Feisal, portrayed by the great British actor, Sir Alec Guinness.

Feisal was a real life character.  At the time of what became known as World War I with the British and the French and later the Americans fighting the Germans and their allies of the Central Powers on the European mainland Feisal was fighting to unite Arabs under his leadership on the Arabian Peninsula. 

The British and the French saw an opportunity in Feisal and approached him with a proposition.  Help us, they told Feisal, fight the Germans and specifically their Turkish allies of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East and we will in turn at the victorious conclusion of the war support your efforts to unite Arabs under your flag on the Arabian Peninsula.  That’s a deal, said Feisal enthusiastically.

This is how a young British military officer named T.E. Lawrence got to the Middle East. The British sent him as a military adviser to Feisal.

But the British and the French, even before the end of the war, betrayed Feisal.  In a secret accord named for a diplomat from each of their countries, the Sykes-Picot Agreement, they agreed to divide up the Middle East, the remnants of the Ottoman Empire, into what they called their “Mandates,” which in reality were just colonies.

And indeed that is what they did when the war ended.  Feisal, seeing that he had been betrayed, went out to fight on his own after the war for control of the Arabian Peninsula and got whupped by the as-Sauds.

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So, in 1932 the Saudis declared their kingdom of Saudi Arabia, attaching their family name to that of the Peninsula.  And they made clear their brand of what they considered to be Islam was Wahhabism.

Not content to foster it only with their own borders, since 1932 to this very day the Saudis have spread, proselytized, promoted, promulgated Wahhabism around the world.  You may have only slightly heard of Wahhabism before reading this or maybe you never had heard of Wahhabism.  But let us give you three achievements of Wahhabism and we bet you are intimately familiar with all three.

First, the world’s most infamous, notorious, nefarious terrorist of the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries, Osama bin Laden.  How did this nutcase ever happen? 

Listen to Professor Walid Phares in his book, “Future Jihad.”  Writes Dr. Phares:  “Osama bin Laden did not create al Qaeda.  It created him.”  He is referring to the Wahhabist culture in which little Osama bin Laden grew up in Wahhabist Saudi Arabia.

Second achievement of the Wahhabists, the Taliban, those folks we have been fighting in Afghanistan since the U.S. invaded the country in October 2001.  The word, “Taliban,” comes from an Arabic word, “talib,” which means “student.”  Taliban is simply the plural.  They call themselves the “Students.”  Isn’t that quaint? 

Why?  It goes back to the Afghan civil wars of the 1990s.  Brutal.  Afghan warlords showing how tough they were, would surround population centers and bomb them to smithereens, killing thousands of men, women, and children.  The Afghan populace fled en masse, many going to the western border with Iran.  But Iran is Shia and most Afghans are Sunni.

So, many more Afghans fled to the eastern border with Sunni Pakistan.  Along the latter border, the eastern Afghan border with Pakistan, there were at any one time millions of Afghans sitting in squalid, fetid refugee camps.  Into these camps came the Wahhabists from Saudi Arabia and their surrogates. 

They set up “madrasas,” which are schools, and invited young Afghan males only, of course, to come to school.  Well, here is a young Afghan man, 18 or 19 years old, sitting in rags, little to eat, and, worst of all, cooped up, bored to tears, with nothing to do.  You picture an 18 or 19-year-old you know cooped up with nothing to do and you know that spells trouble.

Hearing the siren call of going to school, these young Afghan men shrugged and said, Heck, why not?  So, by the tens and then the hundreds and then the thousands they went to these Wahhabist madrasas, where they got a clean set of clothes, three square meals a day, and where they got inculcated, they got indoctrinated with the hatred and the violence of Wahhabism.

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Out from these madrasas marched the students.  Out from these camps marched the Taliban.

Third crowning achievement of the Wahhabists, those charming gentlemen who stole four planes and killed 3,000 people on 9/11.  Of the 19 hijackers, two came from United Arab Emirates, one was from Egypt, and another from Lebanon.  Do you want to take a wild guess where the other 15 hijackers came from?  Of course, they were Saudis, having grown up in the same Wahhabist culture as little Osama bin Laden in Wahhabist Saudi Arabia.

And how does ISIS characterize itself?  Naturally, it calls itself Wahhabist.

Still not convinced of the evil of Wahhabism?  Then come with us to Mecca, the religious capital of the Islamic world located within Saudi Arabia.  There in Mecca stands the Grand Mosque, the largest mosque in the world, that encloses the Kaaba, Islam’s most sacred shrine that Muslims believe Ibrahim, whom they call Abraham, built centuries ago.

In the city of Mecca little girls – 13, 14, 15 years old - are going to school.   They are dressed in their hijabs, their head coverings, and their abayas or burkhas, their body coverings.  Once they get into the school building they take off their hijabs, they take off their abayas or their burkhas, which is tradition, as they are wearing their school uniforms underneath.  And they go to class.

The date is March 11^th, 2002.  A fire breaks out in the school building.  Just like you and we would do if we were trapped in a burning building, they panic and run for the exits.  Chaos ensues.  There is a stampede. Some of the girls are being trampled.  Some make it through the exit doors and out into the safety of the open air.

At that very moment the Wahhabist religious police arrive.  Yes, there is such a thing as the Wahhabist religious police.

They grab the young girls who have escaped to the outside and throw them back into the burning building!!  Other young girls are still inside the building but have made it to the exit doors and are scratching to get out.  The Wahhabist police block the exits so that these girls cannot escape.

Why?  Why would these police do this?  Because in their panic the girls forgot to put back on their hijabs, their head coverings.  They forgot to put back on their abayas or burkhas, their body coverings.  In the eyes of the Wahhabist religious police these girls would have gone out into the world naked, a mortal sin.

Fifteen of these beautiful little children with their wondrous lives all ahead of them die.  Over 50 are injured. 

We would suggest to you this is not Islam.  This is madness, pure, unadulterated madness.

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Solving Saudi Arabia

We were both born in America.  We are both Christians.  Neither one of us has a drop of Arab blood in us.  Every night after Steve reads the Bible he reads the Quran, the holy book of Islam.  He reads it in English and he reads it in Arabic. 

And there is nothing he has ever read in the Quran, in either language, nor seen in the Sunna, a collective term for the ways, traditions, customs of the Prophet Mohammed, Peace and Blessings Be Upon Him, and his companions of the 7th century that serves as a role model for Muslims of the 21st century that justifies the barbarity and the savagery of Osama bin Laden, of the Taliban, of the 9/11 hijackers.  Nor of those two losers as their uncle called them on television who perpetrated the Boston Marathon bombings.  Nor of those murderous freaks who massacred people in Paris, France, Brussels, Belgium, San Bernardino, California, Orlando, Florida, Chattanooga, Tennessee, Nice, France, and in many other places around the world.

What is Islam, for example, that we would suggest to you is the Suratul Fatihah.  That is the first surah, meaning chapter, of the Quran, and a Muslim prayer similar to the Christians’ Lord’s Prayer in that every Muslim knows it and can recite it.

Let us share just part of it, about the first half, with you:

Bismillahi arhammani arrahiim,

Almamdu lillah rabbi alamiin,

Arhammani arrahiim,

Maliki yowma diin.

In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful,

Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds,

The Compassionate, the Merciful,

Master of Judgment Day.

Compassion.  Mercy.  Judgment Day.  These are Judeo-Christian concepts as well, are they not?

The message to Saudi Arabia is:  Stop spreading your vicious, violent, virulent, vulgar version of Islam around the world!  Stop in your role as the prime sponsor, facilitator, and financier of terrorism on this planet!

To Win the War on Terror

There is a saying regarding the battlefields in which America has found itself for most of the 21^st century that has been quoted many times before but bears repeating:

"Change Afghanistan and you change Afghanistan.  Change Iraq and you change the Middle East."

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Changing the Middle East was one of the prime rationales for the much maligned U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 ordered by former President George W. Bush.

We would suggest to you that we must change the Middle East if we are to win this War on Terror.

As promised, allow us to say once again:

We do not have a lot of time until the terrorists get their hands on some very nasty weapons that are going to change this world in a way we are not going to like. 

What we have written about here is not theory.  It is now.

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Pattie Mosure is the president and Steve Patten the editor of Lee & Grant International, an educational and informational company that reports on national security issues and the War on Terror.  They are co-authors of "Foreign Correspondent" - www.facebook.com/the bookforeigncorrespondent - a book on Steve's career as a journalist for CBS News, as mentioned above, who reported on wars around the world, in the Far East, Middle East, and Central America.
Pattie is the wife of a 20-year U.S. Army veteran who was awarded the Bronze Star for his service in the Vietnam War.  Steve served with the U.S. Marine Corps in South Vietnam. 

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VIETNAM VETERANS REVIEW OF FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT

Thank you to Senior Writer and Arts Editor Marc Leepson and Reviewer Mark Miller of Vietnam Veterans of America for their review of our book, Foreign Correspondent.  Click on the following to read the review:

https://vvabooks.wordpress.com/2016/12/28/foreign-correspondent-by-patricia-l-mosure-and-stephen-g-patten/

STOPPING PROTESTS AT MONTROSE VIETNAM WAR MEMORIAL

Steve Patten is launching a campaign to stop the anti-war protests staged at the Vietnam War Memorial in Montrose, California at the corner of Honolulu and Ocean View honoring our troops who never came home.

Steve believes in and defends Americans’ rights of free speech, to assemble peaceably, and to petition government for redress of grievances – all clearly guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution.  While Steve would have no problem with these protests at other locations, protests at the Memorial, in his view, show disrespect for the sacrifice of our fallen heroes. 

If you agree with Steve, would you kindly consider making a donation to help defray any legal, public relations, fundraising costs for our effort.  Please mail donations to:

Lee & Grant International – please make checks out to “Lee & Grant”

2029 Verdugo Blvd #210, Montrose CA 91020

Website:  www.leeandgrantinternational.com

Telephone:  1-800-533-4726 – please call if you want to donate by credit card

E-mail:  leeandgrant@leeandgrant.com

Text: (770) 402-2948

About Steve Patten:  Steve served with the U.S. Marine Corps in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War.  As a CBS News journalist after the war he spent years searching for POWs and MIAs believed to have been left behind while Steve also covered wars for CBS News in the Far East, Middle East, and Central America.  Today he is the editor of Lee & Grant International that reports on the Middle East, South Asia, and the War on Terror.

In appreciation for donations: To individual donors of at least $100., the president of Lee & Grant International, Pattie Mosure, and Steve will send an inscribed copy of “Foreign Correspondent” (www.facebook.com/thebookforeigncorrespondent), the book they co-authored on Steve’s career as a journalist around the world.

For any organization donating at least $2,500., Pattie and Steve would be pleased to have Steve deliver his 30-minute talk with no speaker’s fee on “How to Start Winning the War on Terror” at a meeting of the organization’s choosing. 

But any size donation is greatly appreciated.  Thank you all.  God Bless America.