For many years I’ve felt there has to be something more. “This” cant be all there is to it. I’ve always had a sense that something was missing, that I needed more. During my 21 years in the U.S. Air Force I always had a sense of belonging, camaraderie, friendship, and maybe most important of all – a feeling of accomplishment only known by those that know what they do matters! Since I retired there has just been an emptiness that’s hard to explain or understand.
I’ve known many military retirees that have had issues coping with ‘being on the outside’. I’ve seen and heard of a lot of marriages failing and even a few people that just went into a deep depression and took their own life. Including my best friend. While working on another project I was researching markings on tombstones trying to catalog all the different symbols you commonly find. One item I found a lot was the Square and Compass and other Masonic symbols. The more I researched the more I got interested in Freemasonry.
I have to admit I had some concerns. Id heard the anti-Masonic propaganda about taking over the world, satanic worship and all the other junk on the web. I had to research to reconcile what I thought and what I was hearing about the Fraternity before I committed.
Through one of my hobbies I started asking around if anyone was a Mason, or if they knew any Masons. Someone I’d chatted with on the Internet in mail lists and newsgroups sent me a private message and told me that yes he was a Mason. Over the next few months I’ve asked him a lot of questions, spent a lot of time online looking for answers and in the public library. It was time to actually start looking for some lodges in my area!
