Buckeyes, Bula and Battling On
I was in Arizona for a few days to see my husband’s family and root on our beloved Ohio State Buckeyes. The trip was all we could hope for, except for the Fiesta Bowl. The Buckeyes had an embarrassing shut out, losing 31 to 0. I felt as I did wrong somehow. The night before the game, my father-in-law, Keith Williams, took Jason and me to dinner at the Princess Fairmount. It was a treat I will never forget. Not only were we treated to some the best melt-in-your-mouth steak, we walked around after dinner and stumbled upon a gift. The Buckeyes had just finished a team meeting and were told to head to their rooms. They were walking out as we passed by.
Anyone who knows me will not be surprised to learn I took it upon myself to wish the players luck – each and every one of them. I walked up to everyone one that I could and offered a Howie-Mandel fist bump, and in my own Ashtabula-way told them to kick some butt tomorrow. (For those of you who don’t know, Ashtabula, Ohio, is my hometown. It’s also the home of the Buckeyes head coach, Urban Meyer. It is a northeastern Ohio town full of grit and love and definitely a part of who I am.) The players who are young enough to be my sons, took my support in great stride. They humored me and gave me a fist bump back. One even passed by laughing “Did she say kick some ass?” Yes, boys, I did. So, when things didn’t gel at the game, I wanted to get down on the field with you and provide a little pep talk. Somehow I guessed they wouldn’t let me on the field. So, I watched in misery from the stands instead.
Oddly, I found similarities between the book and the game. We both laid out a game plan on how we thought we should attack it. We studied, we researched and we learned all that we can. Ultimately on this day, Clemson University was the better adversary. Anyone who dares to try, knows the pain of stumbling, and that a game is just one battle. I have struggled for months trying to determine how far entrenched John Donald Cody was in national intelligence community and how far his connections go. Trying to pierce that truth has felt like getting sacked many times.
When U.S. veterans are robbed of more than $100 million in donations, do you focus on being initially denied information by the CIA and FBI or do you stay focused on the bigger picture? When a game is done, does the winning team really stand around talking about the sacks allowed? Or is the focus on having found a way to pull through?
American intelligence has every right to be protective of its agents and their families. But when a man wanted for espionage is allowed into the White House to meet with the President, should we move on and forget and or learn from it?
There is a lot for the country to learn from Cody. How can an imposter betray U.S. veterans and get close to an American president? How can we all not want to know more?
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