Classroom in Baghdad

Admittedly, NOBODY visits this blog to mentally digest the author's various rhetorical rants and raves. Politically, this small corner of cyberspace will never challenge the likes of a The Huffington Post or Politico. It is what it is. A majority of this blog's daily traffic comes from folks searching for a specific image on Google or Bing.

Yesterday, someone in Spain did a Google search looking for an image of a classroom in Baghdad. Unfortunately, in terms of what I've already posted on this blog, this anonymous person's search only yielded classroom photos from China.

That's is until today...

In April 2004, this blogger tagged along for a week with a U.S. Army Civil Affairs team working in downtown Baghdad. The above images were captured on a mission which delivered supplies to a special school for the deaf and blind.

Vintage Photos from a Family Album

Thomas A. Worrall (seated right) on a business trip to Shanghai, China (Circa October 1926)

Two important world events shaped the destiny of the Rimar Family. Shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, Thomas Worrall helped smuggle Peter's grandfather and great-grandmother out of Russia. After leaving Russia, he married my great-grandmother. Later, sometime during the short period before the Nazis crossed the border into France (April 1940), he relocated the Rimar family out of Europe.

"The Hall of Supreme Harmony" 太和殿

Original photograph taken by Thomas A. Worrall

(Peter's Step- Great Grandfather)

Circa October 1926

The Forbidden City, Beijing (Peking), China

French Army

Medical Evacuation Exercise

Circa 1935

Original Vintage Photo by Eugene Rimar

(My Grandfather)

What if F.D.R. wasn't elected President? It's amazing how certain moments in history impact the destiny of the common man. In the summer of 1934, Peter's Grandfather (George Mullenix) traveled to Panther, West Virgina as a member of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). It was during this period that he met and eventually married a young college student named Darcus Bailey (my grandmother).

This week in American History?

Poor Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann. Who actually remembers the Presidential Election of 1936? Alf Landon? Or his running mate Frank Knox? The latter of which went on to serve under FDR as Secretary of the Navy during World War II, but I'll leave this feel good political story for another bipartisanship kind of day.

So, what else happened THIS WEEK? The approval rating for the U.S. Congress, the bedrock of this country's democratic principals and ideals, is now in single digits. According to the latest CBS News/New York Times poll, only 9% of the American people think our representatives are actually doing a decent j-o-b. While GOP voters are still searching for a Presidential candidate to support, Congressional incumbents from both parties are wondering if they'll still have a j-o-b after the next election. Read More...

Beyond Lindsay Lohan posing nude for Playboy, the #Occupy Wall Street Movement and the ongoing trial of Dr. Conrad Murray, one story got this Blogger's attention. While it's a story which will never appear as some future newspaper sidebar highlighting this week in American History, it's a story which reminds us all, that during this specific week, the United States is still a country at war:

CBS News
Soldier in Afghanistan killed during
14th deployment
October 25, 2011
Read More...

...reflections...

IUC Nurse at the bedside of Medal of Honor Recipient 
Marine Corporal Jason Dunham 

Ibn Sina Hospital, Baghdad, Iraq

April 2004

Photos by Peter Rimar.

Mission Complete?

It appears the Obama Administration has decided to pull out the last combat brigade from Iraq on or near the original December 31st deadline. IF true, this country is preparing to close another important chapter in its history. It still may take another generation of economists to calculate the final human cost of this 7 plus year war and military occupation. At the end of the day, it will be the Iraqi people themselves who hold the keys to rebuilding their own destiny. Read More...

Farmers at School

Somewhere Near Balad Air Base

April 2005

"No man should escape our universities without knowing how little he knows." ~ Robert Oppenheimer

Photo by Peter Rimar.

Blogger's Room at the Baghdad Hilton?

Victory Base, Baghdad, Iraq (March 2005)

Army Sgt. Osvaldo Ortiz sleeps next to the transfer case and gear of his fallen friend aboard a C-17 Globemaster III aircraft bound for Dover Air Force Base, Del. Ortiz is accompanying the remains to the base and eventually back to the fallen soldier's home in Puerto Rico (June 2003). Photo by Peter Rimar.

Operation Restore Hope

American Soldier, Mogadishu, Somalia (January 1994)

"Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future." ~ John F. Kennedy