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Mike Moore: Catching up with chaplain, catching heat from readers
Catching up
with chaplain,
catching heat
from readers
That was in November of 2004, and he was calling from outside the war-zone hotspot of Fallujah, Iraq. I wrote about his job as an Army chaplain, which included helping to coordinate a new orphanage in Baghdad.
When I called last week to catch up, now that his voice only had to travel from Fort Hood in Texas, I picked up on a slight twang that crept into his native Racine tongue.
So far, the requirements he has to meet in exchange for his schooling have kept the 45-year-old immune from a return to the Middle East. Though being able to stick around as a husband and father of four is obviously a good thing, there's still a magnetic pull the other way.
"It's hard watching folks deploy and not raising the hand and saying, 'Can I go with?'" Sorenson said.
Military buddies often form a second family. The flip side, he learned, is the original one can be shorted.
"I just visited my family," Sorenson said of the time between his two war stints. "I didn't come home to them."
This time, he made it a point to make the mental trip home. Life adds its own missions, like making time to attend the kids' youth activities.
That military gene is permanently embedded in the family. Even trips to Racine - they last visited before Thanksgiving - are scheduled with military precision.
That's the updates portion of this "monthly" column. Today you get reader feedback, too. No 2-for-1 coupon required.
Not-so-mass transit
After a letter to the editor alerted me to the bus service from Racine to the Metra train station, I checked it out for myself. Much like the proposed commuter rail extension, it lets people switch to the Illinois-bound train in Kenosha.
Others can look at the train issue from the big picture. I was trying to see through a commuter's eyes.
Though it was cheap and it seemed fairly convenient, the bus was mostly empty. That led me to believe we've got a ways to go to change the mindset toward mass transit.
Tony Ferraro of Racine responded in an e-mail that my column, and the letter that first caught my eye, had derailed.
"I take the bus to Milwaukee (airport) about two times per month," he wrote. "If you would have taken the morning North bus, you would have seen a bus about 60 percent full (minimum). And the statement that buses aren't late in traffic is completely wrong. I waited almost an hour one time due to traffic delays in Milwaukee."
Bill Goulding of Burlington, who once served elsewhere on a commission looking at commuter rail, sees Amtrak as a better option. He wrote: "Your column was the first (somewhat honest) look at what I am calling Imaginarium II."
Ouch. That refers to the failed children's museum project on Monument Square.
He continued: "When I worked downtown (Chicago) it was professional/managerial people that could work with their schedules that were on long commutes like this one would be. People making six- and seven-figure incomes. Do they really think Racine is going to attract those kind of people?"
We all hope so. But the distance between hope and certainty is why we ask the questions.
Mike Moore's column will return March 2. He can be reached at (262) 631-1724 or mike.moore@lee.net
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