GUG August 19, 2022

 

     Friday morning has arrived, and as usual the Davis Sunrise Rotary members are gathered for a regular morning meeting. But wait, where is our fearless leader, President Meaghan? Away on travels, so Mack Walker is filling in for a short stint and rings the bell promptly at 7:05 am. Chuck Snipe starts our club singing Smile and America the Beautiful, and our meeting is launched.

 

                                                                                                              

    

     President Mack asks for Visiting Rotarians and Sue Westwood from Woodland in introduced, as is Gloria from Uganda; Cliff Shepard and David Murphy introduced Erwan, our visiting high school exchange student from France; Matt Best was in attendance once again; and Vanessa introduced Antonio Hurtado (and Ella).

                                                       

 

     Announcements: Brodie Hamilton – Oktoberfest will be on Sunday, October 16^th from 2 to 5:45 pm. Mark your calendars and get ready to sell those tickets. And the Yolo Crisis Nursery will have a Barn Dance the week before, on Saturday, October 8^th.

     

     President Mack then entertained us with some Texas trivia. Draw of the Day raffle tickets were pulled to randomly select a participant, and the winning number 465 belonged to Ray Solomon. Q: What does the name Texas mean? a) Make my day; b) Friends; c) Steak and Plains; d) Hold your horses. Ray correctly answered with b) Friends.  

 

     But wait, there is a bonus trivia question, and ticket 464 was randomly pulled. Ray was the holder of this ticket as well! Q: Where was Buddy Holly born? Ray correctly answered Lubbock and won a tasty pecan treat.

     

     After Texas Trivia, Mack introduced our Sergeant of the Day, Andrew Newman.

 

                                                                                                      

     

     A round of Happy Bucks ensued. Don Winters for Mack taking a short spin as President and for a recent golf game where his score was fortunately lower than the day’s temperature of 105 degrees. Andrew N. thanking Carolyn for a golf outing with the Chamber of Commerce. Ray S. for a very lucky Friday. David Murphy for three of his four daughters visiting with their families including dogs. Brian Sway for a nice trip to Maui and safe return. Cliff for Erwan’s attendance. Chuck Snipes is preemptively happy for the Georgia home opener on September 3^rd against the Oregon Ducks. Vanessa E. is happy that Ella is starting school (and so is Ella!). Mark Thompson is happy to be back from an exciting road trip to Colorado and successfully completing the Highway 50 challenge.

     Andrew had Mark Barston’s hat via Lori, and Mark successfully won it back during an auction with the high bid of $20. All liberal arts majors were fined $5, since their degrees can be put to good use now that the IRS is hiring.

 

                                                                                                                       

     Jacques Franco introduced our speaker, Craig McNamara. Craig is a local farmer. He is president and owner of Sierra Orchards, a farming operation that encompasses field and processing. McNamara founded and is president of the Center for Land-Based Learning. Recently, he wrote a memoir of his life with his father, defense secretary Robert McNamara: Because Our Fathers Lied: A Memoir of Truth and Family, from Vietnam to Today. Although Jacques has a personal rule to not read memoirs of living people, he does make exceptions for people he knows, including today’s speaker.

 

                                                                                                     

   

     Craig spoke on his memoir and portions of his life journey that led to writing the memoir. Craig was very interested in hearing the experience of our members during the Vietnam war.

    

     He shared with us that the memoir title, ‘Because our Fathers Lied,” comes from a line out of Rudyard Kipling collection of short poems, Epitaphs of War, published 1919. Rudyard’s only son, John, had tragically perished during World War I. John had not been allowed to join the British Army due to failing the eye test, but, after Rudyard used his influence to get his son a commission, John was able to join the Army.

     

     Craig highly recommended the documentary “Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara,” which, based on extensive interviews with Robert McNamara, provides a thorough perspective of the war from his father.

   

      In 2018, Craig spent a year studying at Stanford University. It was during this time that Craig had time away from his farming business to compose his memoir.

     

     He left us with several facts from the war years, one that I captured was “During the Vietnam war, the US dropped over three times the tons of bombs on Vietnam than the US dropped on Germany during WWII.”

     

      Many members had questions and comments following Craig’s presentation. 

 

     Ray S. commented that Robert McNamara was equally opposed by people of the left and on the right. Craig shared that his father was thought to be too hawkish by the left and not hawkish enough by the right. Robert McNamara had been brought into the Kennedy administration from the Ford Motor Company. He had been President of the company for six months prior to becoming Secretary of Defense.

     

     Did Craig believe this memoir and talks are an apology for his father? Not at all. This effort was a necessary story for Craig to share from his perspective and life. He has been able to visit Vietnam and commented that the people he met were some of the most friendly people in the world. One of them shared with him, when discussing the war and its aftermath, that “We don’t forget the horrors of war, but we do forgive.”

     

     Brian Sway asked if given the anger at his father that is presented in the book, are you able to forgive him? Craig shared the poignant last paragraph from his book. If you missed it, find a copy of the memoir (or ask Jacques to share his copy.)

                                                  

 

     Draw of the day surprisingly was not a ticket held by Ray S., but by Ella. Free breakfast for her on her next visit.