"When we have mastered these tactics, we will use them to seek out and confront the forces of evil."

Discipline is about doing what you don't want to do.  Self-discipline means that you don't need Staff Sergeant Purcell in your face telling you that you are, and I quote, "An insult to all of the hard working maggots in my great country."  We give the concept a lot of different names and try to make it a nuanced sort of thing, but at the end of the day something is either done or it isn't and that fact is determined by whether or not you did it, and you did (or did not do it) because either you, or someone else, made you.

There are times where that's easy - like eating cake - or hard - like not eating cake.  Sometimes we are asked to be something other than who we really are.  I believe that if you become that thing through self discipline you will not become lost, that you will be able to return to you when the job is finished.   Maybe haunted, maybe with a different perspective on the world, but still you.  Folks who are forced into the discipline are more likely to become lost.  Maybe that's hogwash - I don't have any credentials in the field, just experience with several different institutions.

When I was in high school I had a handful of very good teachers.  One of them (I'll call him Mr. Plumley) flew Hueys in Vietnam.  Slicks.  The ones that zipped into combat to drop or pick up troops but didn't have any weapons.  You didn't know he did that, at first.  Then you would hear stories, first from kids, and then maybe something as an example for a lesson.  But the lesson examples were very tame and more likely than not had nothing to do with the army.  By the end of the year we all knew he'd flown helicopters "back then" but not much else about it - certainly not what flying those helicopters really meant.  I did get him to talk about it a little bit - the movie "Firebirds" came out one of the years I had him and he went to see it.  Thought is was crazy.  "They flew loops.  If we went off level by more than 15% we were in trouble."

What a horrible movie.

Vietnam was something our parents didn't talk about.  All we knew was from watching the A-Team and Rambo.  I had met people who wore the war like a badge, but Mr. Plumley wasn't like that.  I was fortunate to have him more than once.  During my senior year, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and we went to war to avoid a repeat of Hitler's march on Europe.  He didn't say much about it.  Never said we should be more involved. Never said we should stay away.  I had other teachers who were much more vocal.  One of them took us to see "Born on the 4th of July" and then insisted we write an essay supporting Ron Kovic's position.

That same senior year I was able get Mr. Plumley to tell a couple of stories one on one.  I was fascinated by flying and was keen to hear about what it was like.  (My Grandfather flew in B-17s and I peppered him for years to tell me about it.  He did - once.  I get that now, but didn't then.)  Mr. Plumley and I had gotten to know each other a bit by then (when I turned in a test then took the meter stick next to the desk, turned sideways holding it between him and me, and said, "Mr. Plumly, if I were a ninja, would you be able to see me?"  his straight faced, immediate response was, "No, Jon.  I wouldn't.")

He told me about flying from a forward location back to a main base over enemy controlled jungle at night when the low oil pressure warning light came on for the engine.  Everything else looked normal, but that warning light was unnerving.  The three of them conferred and decided to press on - "Must be a short" - but that light haunted them so finally the crew chief covered it with tape.

He told me about a British helicopter that was struck by an artillery shell shortly after take off.  The Americans never fired artillery during flight ops, but the Brits, well they followed the "big sky doctrine".  Mr. Plumley did not subscribe to "big sky" and I don't think I do either.

He told us about rotor failure training.  We'd never heard of such a thing.  On TV when the rotor stopped you died.  He said that "since a Huey had the glide ratio of a safe in free-fall, you didn't really get to pick a good place to land, you just sort of fell out of the sky and tried to time the feathering of the collective just right so you didn't break your back on impact."  After class I asked if he ever had to crash-land his bird.  He said, "No.  I didn't."  There was a pause and he looked out the window.  I still remember that conversation like it was yesterday.  Then he said, "There was one time we were coming in and it was really hot."  The pause again.  "We were just above the trees, maybe 20 or 30 feet.  The gunship in front of us was shooting like crazy, enemy was everywhere.  They took a direct hit that cut out the rear rotor.  They didn't have time to do anything, everything was so cranked up they spun around almost three times before crashing."

There was a lot he left out of that story.  He answered my question and I heard something amazing but didn't have any life experience for context.  He must have been terrified.  He must have been taking fire too.  He knew the guys on the bird that went down.  Probably saw them burn to death, or getting shot.  He was over there for a long time, I'm sure he flew into the fight like that many times.

But you'd never know it to talk to him.  Mr. Plumley wasn't a war hero, he was a teacher.  A good one.  Most of what I remember had nothing to do with his time in the service.  I hope that now, retired and safe with his family, most of what he remembers has nothing to do with it either.

The "Greatest American Hero" was a teacher.

I used to watch "The Greatest American Hero" when I was a kid.  I had very fond memories.  A couple of years ago (after finding "Sledgehammer") I queued it up on Netflix.  It came.  Memories were shattered.  If only it was as good as campy.  It was so bad my children wouldn't even watch it.  No matter, I still have [some of] my memories.

One of things I remember is Robert Culp as the FBI agent.  He was cool.  Since I couldn't fly (not just because the instruction book was lost) I would often either be him when we all were playing, or I would be working with him or out to rescue him when it was just me and my over-developed imagination.  Whichever way it went, being an FBI agent was where it was at.  If you had told me

 then that I would feel the way I do today about having to go to a meeting in the J. Edgar Hoover building, I'd have laughed at you.  Until you told me how early I would have to get up to catch the series of trains that would get me there on time for it.  I suspect that if it was scheduled for two hours later I'd have a completely attitude.  Then again, maybe not.  Getting through security is always a pain in the neck.

Of course this "Must See TV Thursday" isn't about "The Greatest American Hero".  Nope, it's about "Castle".  Sorry, you are probably sick of it but I saw the niftiest trick last night in the episode titled "A Rose for Everafter".  It was a total character piece; Richard meets up with "the one who got away" because one of her bridesmaids is murdered just before the wedding.  There is still a lot of chemistry so the bulk of the show is about why he is so shallow most of the time now - the depth of feeling he is capable of and the reason why he doesn't bother with it.

The perspective changes a bit, but I really felt that the perspective of the narrative was primarily that of Kate Beckett - the plot drive was her discovering him and her feelings for him through this woman that comes out of nowhere and shakes up her world.  The scenes with Beckett and the Bride are very well done.  Kate is clearly learning about herself and trying desperately to control her emotions.

The episode was written very well - there's a rule in TV that goes something like, "Keep Mulder and Scully apart for as long as possible".  This tale brought Castle and Beckett so close together that it was clear to anyone watching she is falling for him in a big way BUT the writers still managed to keep them apart.  That's not the trick though.

The trick was how they closed up the mystery.  Since the bulk of the episode was about love, not murder, there wasn't much time spent on the case itself.  We got clues but they were ambiguous and mostly about whom the victim was.  When it came time for the big reveal, you had no chance to get it - just luck - so they introduced the last bit with Detective Ryan announcing, "I've got the surveillance tape and you are never going to guess who it is."

That clear, that on-the-nose.  "You'll never guess."  I'm about to give you a big, unsatisfying reveal that essentially ties up all of the loose ends with coincidence (huge no-no) and I'm drawing attention to that fact.  Yet it worked.  Exceedingly well.  Totally believable.  The line was delivered in the right way by the right character and although it was a bit Scooby-Dooish, the explanation of the crime was reasonable and fit the clues of the story.  You could say they got away with it DESPITE the meddling kids and their mangy dog.

It isn't the sort of thing you can get away with every week, but here it worked.  I think it's part of the other rule of all fiction writing - "You get one gimmie".  You can have one totally far-fetched, impossible, no-way thing in your story.  As long as you execute it well.  In this episode, running into the ex-girlfriend at her high-society wedding was completely believable - no coincidence involved - and just to make sure, we get bonus dialogue with Rick and the bride's mother (after her character has already been established) showing how she and Castle feel about each other.

I'm a little worried about where this is going though - with so many seasons ahead, there’s the hint that this will turn into a "Hart to Hart" and that will completely change the show's [very high performance] engine.