John generously offered me a spot on the Balloon Juice roster as the group blog I had been writing for, the late great Rumproast, was disbanding in 2012. I was a lurker here and knew John was smart and funny.

 

 

I’ve since learned he is one of the most fair-minded, kind-hearted and clear-eyed humans on the planet. I’ve come to admire him immensely over the past dozen years.

We all deserve love and happiness, but especially John. It’s wonderful that he’s finding that in his new life with Joelle.

Mazel tov, you crazy kids!

Love,

BC

***

Next up – Major Major Major Major, with bonus Momo & Samwise:

I first started commenting on the blog in, I think, 2012 or so? And I’d been reading for who knows how much longer. It was great to find not just a blog full of diverse insights, but a community full of diverse voices, some of them even polite. Eventually I started working on the site itself with Alain, which meant giving me the keys, and now here we are.

It’s been so nice to have a retreat in this blog, and it goes without saying that we wouldn’t have that without Cole. The community here has been with me through some real rough patches, and I hope I’ve been able to return the favor for a few of you. So a big thank-you to Cole for all of that! You’ve had a big effect on my life–most of it even good!

***

Adam Silverman has quite the story, I bet the most unique of all:

I’ve posted this story before on both the front page and in comments, but here’s how I came to meet Cole. I had been reading Balloon Juice for a bit when I deployed to Iraq. While there, in August of 2008, you all might recall the news reporting that US military did an operation in southern Diyala province. That was my brigade combat team.

 

While it was going on, I was assisting with a different mission in our area of responsibility (AOR) in the Jisr Diyala area. I was working with our armor battalion -1st Battalion/35th Armor Regiment, 1-35AR, Task Force (TF) Iron Knights (or just Knights for short) – and that meant working off their combat outpost (COP). That was COP Cashe South, which was the Tuwaitha Nuclear Facility, which is where the not-yet operational Osirak reactor was located before the Israelis blowed it up real good. I have a picture of the ruins somewhere.

I get back from doing engagements all day with sheikhs and imams, they’re usually the same person, drop my kit, go grab chow, come back and get cleaned up, fired up the personal laptop, email my mom to let her know I’m doing okay, start IMing with the woman I was involved with at the time, and bring up Balloon Juice.

What’s on the front page? A post by Cole. That was NOT the shocking thing. What was shocking is he was describing a Wall Street Journal article about one of the Soldiers in 1-35. The reporter was in Iraq to embed with my team and do ride alongside while we did our non-lethal, non-kinetic operations.

We had laid on a whole bunch of engagements and humanitarian assistance and medical ops, the latter two with the Civil Affairs Teams Alpha (CAT-As). This was all being done at the reporters request and that of my higher headquarters/the program office back in the US. As soon as the reporter got on the Command Forward Operating Base (FOB) he started sniffing about for something more interesting, found out about the named op up in Diyala, and ditched us to go embed on that. And this is where things went south.

While embedded with the echelons at and below brigade that were going to do that named op in Diyala Province, he thought he found a juicy human interest story. Specifically, a story about a small town Soldier who handles the money paid to the Iraqis for contract work on behalf of his company. I know the Soldier. I’d been on missions with him and his company many times. He wore a mask and a sterile uniform while outside the wire/off post to protect himself and his family. The worry being the bad guys would try to threaten his family back home if they knew who he was.

Cole’s post was all about how weird and dangerous this WSJ reporting was. I texted my friend that I had to go, there was something that had just come up, but I was safe. Pulled my boots on, grabbed my ID lanyard and my personal laptop, and went running across the post from my quarters to the Tactical Operations Center (TOC) screaming for the XO the entire way.

I get into the TOC, make a beeline for the XO who is in command while the battalion commander is forward on the named op, and start pointing at my laptop screen and trying to explain the problem: the WSJ just outed a Soldier whose identity we are protecting for operational security (OPSEC) reasons.

Now keep in mind the following: 1) the XO has no idea what a “Balloon Juice” was and 2) had no idea who this reporter was or that he was embedded with the forward echelons. After a few minutes of explanation, I got the point across that the Soldier was now in enhanced danger and we needed to get him secured. This led to a call to the FOB, where I went through it all with the brigade Deputy Commander (DCOM) and the XO, who I worked with very closely, understood the issue, and got on the horn to the forward echelons to secure the Soldier. And the reporter.

At some point after returning from Iraq, for one reason or another, I emailed Cole about something and recounted the above. We stayed in touch over the years, which led him to asking me to do some guest posts. He then offered me a front pager position, which I accepted in 2015. The rest is history.

And that, once again, is the story about how John Cole and Balloon Juice helped me make sure a Soldier’s life was protected while I, and the Soldier, were deployed in Iraq in 2008. Balloon Juice: the blog with geostrategic effect!

Now that story time is over, I want to wish Joelle and John a wonderful wedding day and all the happiness that they both so richly deserve.

We’ll leave the last words, as best wishes to Joelle and Cole, to Gibran:

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.”
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstacy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.
Then Almitra spoke again and said, And what of Marriage master?
And he answered saying:
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

 

***

And of course, WaterGirl, with Henry and Sweet Tucker:

John Cole created a community.

Not a blog, not a website, not a news aggregation site. A true community. Where people share their hopes, their concerns, their triumphs, their setbacks. And their opinions. So many opinions! As we used to say in the tech world, put 10 tech people in a room and you’ll get 11 different opinions.

Cole has created a space where members of the community can put their values into action:  donating to political causes and candidates, supporting democracy through post-carding, rescuing pets. And sometimes rescuing each other.

I lurked for years, really only starting to comment during the 4 months when my beloved kitty soul mate was dying.

Mr. Rogers said to look for the helpers; I think it’s fair to say that Balloon Juice is filled with them.

It’s a place for politics, of course, and a place for pets and cooking and pop culture; travelogues, gardening, and war reporting; pandemic monitoring, insurance demystifying, and West Virginia-explaining.  And the list goes on.

John has made Balloon Juice a safe space to talk about mental health and addiction concerns, and, well, pretty much everything.

Cole is the curmudgeonly glue that holds it all together:  He polices our worst instincts and judiciously drives trolls back to the space beneath their bridge. But he has also managed the art of benign neglect; generally stepping back, trusting the front pagers, and letting the magic unfold.

Oh, and pet pictures! Can’t forget the pet pictures!

 

***

My turn:

I had to wrack my brain to remember how I started posting recipes. As best as I can remember, I was doing a “Men Who Cook” segment on my cooking blog, and a few of our regular commenters had contributed. I asked John if he wanted to send me a recipe, and he said, “no, but why don’t you post recipes on my blog?”

From there, Anne Laurie started posting my recipes, and then eventually, Cole said, you should post them yourself. And that was the start. I took those keys and never looked back.

Willow and me, just a couple of childless cat ladies, hanging out

I will forever be grateful for the friends I’ve added to my life from the blog, including John, who has called me on the worst days – when Bailey and Bixby died, when Covid came my way that first week of the lockdown, and none of us were sure what that actually meant, or just to harass me about not sending him enough ducks photos.

I think he and Joelle deserve all the happiness and I’m excited for them as they continue on this adventure.

***

Now it’s your turn! Use the comments to tell Cole how you came to the blog and convey your well wishes to the happy couple. If you would like to give them a gift, we are suggesting using Zelle and Venmo links, add that it’s a shower/wedding gift in the memo. Anyone who needs Cole’s PO Box instead, email WaterGirl, she has that info for you.

Happy Wedding Shower John and Joelle!!

 

Zelle Link   jgriffincole at gmail.com  (in proper email address format, of course)

Venmo Link  @john-cole-94  | 4-digits for confirmation: 5483‬

(If I messed those up, click here for the original info)

 

JUST A FEW QUICK UPDATES:

One – please continue to comment; you’re not too late. I know J&J are planning on reading this post when things quiet down.

Two – In case you missed it, we got the perfect response from John here

Three – I don’t want you to miss Joelle’s comment deep in this thread; it’s here. 

And again, thank you for all your comments, it’s better than I ever imagined. xo – TaMara