Return To Honor

I recently saw a trailer for a new movie, “The Visitor.” I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I’m certainly going to because the tag line hooked me: You can live your whole life and never know who you are…until you’ve seen the world through others’ eyes.

The trailer went on to show a man bored with his life who, by chance, is exposed to the lives of people less fortunate than him. In a few short minutes, I was swept up into his new outlook as he began to reach out to others and use his professional skills and insights to make life a little better and more meaningful for them.

Have you looked at the world through others’ eyes? I have…and now I can hardly do anything but that. I was born into a fairly respectable family…a career Army officer and mother who raised us as morally as anyone in the Midwest, where we were all from. But he bailed out early in my life for reasons known only to his soul, and I was left to make crucial decisions way too early for that busy little mind of mine to handle. As a result, what should have been a pretty decent future became for a while a series of jail and prison cells.

I was forced to discover that life was very different for a whole lot of people outside of my protected military upbringing. Those people had lived through outrageous challenges that most people can only imagine through graphic portrayals of prison life in movies, books and television programs.

What I experienced, once I got over the initial fears and posturing that goes on between ethnic groups and different cultures, was a common human thread…men who were struggling with the same fears, angers and remorse…albeit often hidden…that I was.

Once I began to use my education and communication skills to help them better understand their behavior and how to change their attitudes and their outlook, I discovered a whole world of men who could overcome anything…and many who actually wanted to. They just didn’t know how…nor had anyone on the outside willing to help them make the lasting changes needed. More often than you might believe, I had hardened criminals with tattoos and scars all over their bodies in tears as they told me stories of their childhoods and how much they wanted to be respected and cared about by society.

Whether you’re dealing with prisoners or former prisoners, or people who are merely prisoners of their own minds and negative attitudes, the willingness on your part to see the world through their eyes can and will make the biggest difference in bringing about deep and lasting changes in the way we live our lives and build toward a more meaningful future. If you will pause from time to time and be willing to see the world through others’ eyes, your world will change for the better…guaranteed.

Don Kirchner

http://ReturnToHonor.org

Senator Jim Webb, Virginia

This country puts too many people behind bars for too long. Most elected officials, afraid of being tarred as soft on crime, ignore these problems. Sen. Jim Webb, a Democrat of Virginia, is now courageously stepping into the void, calling for a national commission to re-assess criminal justice policy. Other members of Congress should show the same courage and rally to the cause.

The United States has the world’s highest reported incarceration rate. Although it has less than 5 percent of the world’s population, it has almost one-quarter of the world’s prisoners. And for the first time in history, more than 1 in 100 American adults are behind bars.

Many inmates are serving long sentences for nonviolent crimes, including minor drug offenses. It also is extraordinarily expensive. Billions of dollars now being spent on prisons each year could be used in far more socially productive ways.

Senator Webb — a former Marine and secretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration — is in many ways an unlikely person to champion criminal justice reform. But his background makes him an especially effective advocate for a cause that has often been associated with liberals and academics.

In his two years in the Senate, Mr. Webb has held hearings on the cost of mass incarceration and on the criminal justice system’s response to the problems of illegal drugs. He also has called attention to the challenges of prisoner re-entry and of the need to provide released inmates, who have paid their debts to society, more help getting jobs and resuming productive lives.

Mr. Webb says he intends to introduce legislation to create a national commission to investigate these issues. With Barack Obama in the White House, and strong Democratic majorities in Congress, the political climate should be more favorable than it has been in years. And the economic downturn should make both federal and state lawmakers receptive to the idea of reforming a prison system that is as wasteful as it is inhumane.

SOURCE: NEW YORK TIMES

Who is Jim Webb?

# Senator from Virginia
# Former Secretary of the Navy
# Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs
# Platoon leader with the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, Vietnam
# Awarded the Navy Cross
# Awarded a Silver Star
# Awarded two Bronze Stars
# Awarded two Purple Hearts
# Emmy Award winning war reporter
# Author of six best selling novels

This website is dedicated to the hundreds of thousands of men and women who are facing one of the scariest moments in their lives — one of those forks in the road that can determine the course of the rest of your life. You have to find a job coming from difficult circumstances. You can use all the help you can get, but how to find it?

First, I want everyone to know that we have all the tools you will need to put you on an even playing field with your competition. With the economy losing millions of jobs under the incompetence of our almost former President, you’ve got an uphill battle ahead, but you do have an organization on your side. We will be providing resources you can use online, NOW. This website is not only to help you in adjusting to the cold cruel world, but to give you a place to express yourselves as this blog grows.

In the song, “Wish You Were Here”, by Pink Floyd (and how many haven’t uttered those words in their minds over and over again?), Roger Waters really gets to the heart of the “caged” experience and his music conveys the kind of feeling I’d like visitors to this site to have as you become comfortable with TCF (The Cost of Freedom). He talks about experiencing the “same old fears, year after year”. Pink Floyd:

I often tell people I’ve counseled to consider leaving incarceration for “freedom” similar to a death. The old you is dead. The past is history. Your challenge is to focus on what lies ahead, your future. You are very lucky. Because the death you are experiencing is in no way like a real death experience. For instance, rock star Eric Clapton lost his beloved 4 year-old son, Conor, in a fall from a building in New York. For almost a year, he couldn’t sing, perform, or function. Then, he overcame it by facing it head-on, and writing a song for his son, “Tears in Heaven”. Enjoy the song and make sure to bookmark this site.

Posted by: The Candid Blogger

Don Kirchner's True Story - "A Matter of Time"

Don Kirchner's newest book "Return To Honor"

As I watch the political debates and the news about the candidates on both sides, I’m surprised not to see or hear mention of crime prevention as a part of anyone’s campaign platform…even though our good senator from Arizona, John McCain, is an endorser of our Re-Entry efforts. Why not? They all know that proper “re-entry” programs for released offenders is an essential component of crime reduction because the U.S. Congress just recently passed the Second Chance Act and sent it to the President…who introduced it to Congress last year.

In response to the two previous comments posted, I invite them as well as new readers to ongoing dialog about something very simple yet profound in this process I have come to call “a return to honor.” This isn’t just about former inmates. It’s about all of us “returning” to a state of mind and heart that allows for changes to be made in the way things have come to be. It means returning to what made this country truly great, and what most of us secretly, if not openly, yearn for…which is people caring about one another again. It’s a about r-e-s-p-e-c-t…at its most basic and fundamental level.

By respecting another person’s point of view, or their right to exist on this planet as a human being, does not mean tolerating or condoning bad behavior. It means simply to treat them as you would have them treat you. If they’ve committed a crime, they deserve to be punished…but only according to the nature and seriousness of the crime. They need to feel the shock of being removed from society and left alone to consider their crimes…even to endure harsh punishment, if need be…but along the way, they also need to know that there is a way out. They must know that for them there is a way back to society, with honor, if they are willing to make changes. In order for them to make changes, most of them need to be educated and re-directed…and then welcomed back into their communities with a chance to give back to society in proportion to what they took from it.