Hello,
I am someone who has travelled through life gathering information and forming opinions on issues ranging from religion to politics, birth to death and the afterlife, and everything in between. I love the written and spoken word, and love even more to have conversations with people about difficult subjects that seem to polarize Americans in today's world. People have opinions on every subject. Some opinions are formed because of a specific type of media a person watches, because of tragic life experiences, because of where a person is raised regionally, or even because of the family and friends a person is surrounded with in life. There are so many different reasons opinions and beliefs are formed, and through discussion, I would like to dig into those opinions and beliefs with people and have meaningful discussions about subjects that are vitally important to all of us.
Discussions lead to solutions, and collectively as a nation, we need to start having those hard discussions that will hopefully lead to eventual solutions to the major issues we face as a country right now.
I am going to begin publishing a semi-regular Blog that will discuss these issues and lay out my thoughts on some very difficult, and some not so difficult subjects, and I would like more than anything to have some meaningful discussions on these subjects with others over time.
In this first Blog I will provide to all of you my background to give you some perspective as to why I may have some of the beliefs I have as an individual.
I am 41 years young as of this Blog post. I have been married to the most wonderful woman I have ever met for 18 glorious years as of this August. I met my wife on Christmas of 1999 and was married in August of 2000. I have a 17 year old daughter who is a Junior in High School and who will officially become an adult in December of this year. I also have an 8 year old Daughter who is in 2nd Grade, and who has a very strong personality (that I can only assume she got from her father).
I was in the United States Army for about 8 1/2 years, and am a Veteran of the Iraq War, having served in Iraq from the beginning of the War in 2003 until mid-2004. That experience alone, the experience of War, opened my eyes to many different things in life and changed some of my beliefs.
I work as a Security Training Manager at a Nuclear Power Facility in the United States. I have worked in Nuclear Power now for almost 12 years, and it is a career I am proud of and will remain in for the rest of my working life if I have anything to say about it.
Politically I am an Independent. I hold the belief that the solutions to our country's problems cannot be found on the far right or the far left. The solutions lie somewhere in the center, center-right, and center-left. One of the reasons we are having so many issues in America today is because of the extreme polarization that has occurred over the past decade in politics. In future Blogs I would like to dig into that polarization and identify items that have pushed our political sector in that direction over time.
My oldest daughter is involved in so many different things. She has been in dance since the age of 6, theater for equally as long, speech team, POMS Squad, choir, Madrigals, voice lessons, and more. My youngest daughter also dances, will be in her first theater productions this summer at a regional professional play house, and she loves to ride horses. I take her to weekly lessons, and very recently, was able to go on a day long horseback riding excursion with my daughter on the beach in the Dominican Republic; something she talks about to this day.
My Mother, and I have a feeling I will win this argument with nearly everyone, was extremely young when I was born. She was 13 years old when I was born. The background story is something personal that I will not get into through Blogging, but as a preface to my personality, I wanted to mention it because I spent the vast majority of my childhood through the age of 10 being raised by my Grandmother and Grandfather, and they were essentially my parental figures, as my Mother was so young, and my Father was never in the picture.
My Mother married a man when I was about 10 years old, and we moved from a very small town of 1000 residents to one with about 20,000. It was a culture shock for me, and my life at that point changed forever. Having been raised for the most part by my Grandparents, my Mother had never really been my Mother to that point. She got married, we moved, and the two of them started their life together. I was a latchkey kid almost immediately, and I really did my own thing and felt invisible. I have three half-brothers who I love very much, but through life I was more of an Uncle type figure to them than a brother because of our huge age difference.
This has been an introduction into my life. Obviously there is so much more I can tell you about myself, and much of it will come out in future Blogs, but I wanted to spend the better part of my initial Blog simply introducing myself and providing you a look behind the curtain so-to-speak so you understand where some of my writing may be coming from.
If you are interested in deep conversations about important issues, this is a Blog you will want to frequent, and I urge you to start and jump into discussions. Thank you for taking interest in my Blog, and I plan to post at least a couple of times per week; whatever my career and family life will allow.
Best regards,
Stephen Dunkel (But you can call me Dunk)
I am someone who has travelled through life gathering information and forming opinions on issues ranging from religion to politics, birth to death and the afterlife, and everything in between. I love the written and spoken word, and love even more to have conversations with people about difficult subjects that seem to polarize Americans in today's world. People have opinions on every subject. Some opinions are formed because of a specific type of media a person watches, because of tragic life experiences, because of where a person is raised regionally, or even because of the family and friends a person is surrounded with in life. There are so many different reasons opinions and beliefs are formed, and through discussion, I would like to dig into those opinions and beliefs with people and have meaningful discussions about subjects that are vitally important to all of us.
Discussions lead to solutions, and collectively as a nation, we need to start having those hard discussions that will hopefully lead to eventual solutions to the major issues we face as a country right now.
I am going to begin publishing a semi-regular Blog that will discuss these issues and lay out my thoughts on some very difficult, and some not so difficult subjects, and I would like more than anything to have some meaningful discussions on these subjects with others over time.
In this first Blog I will provide to all of you my background to give you some perspective as to why I may have some of the beliefs I have as an individual.
I am 41 years young as of this Blog post. I have been married to the most wonderful woman I have ever met for 18 glorious years as of this August. I met my wife on Christmas of 1999 and was married in August of 2000. I have a 17 year old daughter who is a Junior in High School and who will officially become an adult in December of this year. I also have an 8 year old Daughter who is in 2nd Grade, and who has a very strong personality (that I can only assume she got from her father).
I was in the United States Army for about 8 1/2 years, and am a Veteran of the Iraq War, having served in Iraq from the beginning of the War in 2003 until mid-2004. That experience alone, the experience of War, opened my eyes to many different things in life and changed some of my beliefs.
I work as a Security Training Manager at a Nuclear Power Facility in the United States. I have worked in Nuclear Power now for almost 12 years, and it is a career I am proud of and will remain in for the rest of my working life if I have anything to say about it.
Politically I am an Independent. I hold the belief that the solutions to our country's problems cannot be found on the far right or the far left. The solutions lie somewhere in the center, center-right, and center-left. One of the reasons we are having so many issues in America today is because of the extreme polarization that has occurred over the past decade in politics. In future Blogs I would like to dig into that polarization and identify items that have pushed our political sector in that direction over time.
My oldest daughter is involved in so many different things. She has been in dance since the age of 6, theater for equally as long, speech team, POMS Squad, choir, Madrigals, voice lessons, and more. My youngest daughter also dances, will be in her first theater productions this summer at a regional professional play house, and she loves to ride horses. I take her to weekly lessons, and very recently, was able to go on a day long horseback riding excursion with my daughter on the beach in the Dominican Republic; something she talks about to this day.
My Mother, and I have a feeling I will win this argument with nearly everyone, was extremely young when I was born. She was 13 years old when I was born. The background story is something personal that I will not get into through Blogging, but as a preface to my personality, I wanted to mention it because I spent the vast majority of my childhood through the age of 10 being raised by my Grandmother and Grandfather, and they were essentially my parental figures, as my Mother was so young, and my Father was never in the picture.
My Mother married a man when I was about 10 years old, and we moved from a very small town of 1000 residents to one with about 20,000. It was a culture shock for me, and my life at that point changed forever. Having been raised for the most part by my Grandparents, my Mother had never really been my Mother to that point. She got married, we moved, and the two of them started their life together. I was a latchkey kid almost immediately, and I really did my own thing and felt invisible. I have three half-brothers who I love very much, but through life I was more of an Uncle type figure to them than a brother because of our huge age difference.
This has been an introduction into my life. Obviously there is so much more I can tell you about myself, and much of it will come out in future Blogs, but I wanted to spend the better part of my initial Blog simply introducing myself and providing you a look behind the curtain so-to-speak so you understand where some of my writing may be coming from.
If you are interested in deep conversations about important issues, this is a Blog you will want to frequent, and I urge you to start and jump into discussions. Thank you for taking interest in my Blog, and I plan to post at least a couple of times per week; whatever my career and family life will allow.
Best regards,
Stephen Dunkel (But you can call me Dunk)
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