Never Look at the Empty Seats

by Charlie Daniels

  I wanted to do Dylan’s music but take a far different approach than had ever been attempted before. In other words, I wanted to take his songs and treat them just like we would any other piece of new music we recorded, forgetting his or anybody else’s arrangements, tempos, or performances, and to make it a CDB-sounding album of Bob Dylan compositions.

  We took the songs one by one and stuck with the ones we could do in a unique way. When we came across one we felt we couldn’t do that to, we simply put it aside and moved on to another song. When you’re dealing with the Dylan catalog, you never run out of material.

  We stayed with acoustical instruments and created the first all-acoustic album we had ever done, giving it a different feel from the hard-driving electric recordings we usually did.

  The result was an album we called Off the Grid—Doing It Dylan. I must say that I was very pleased with what we had done. We had accomplished what we had started out to do, playing Bob Dylan’s music in the CDB style.

  We also released a vinyl 33⅓ version of Off the Grid, the first one we’d released in twenty-five years.

  As I approach my golden years, I find that the creative juices still flow bountifully. I’ve got enough album concepts and ideas to take me years down the road, and as long as God gives me the strength, I’ll be writing and recording new music.

  CHAPTER 50

  THE COWARDS CAME BY MORNING AND ATTACKED WITHOUT A WARNING, LEAVING FLAMES AND DEATH AND CHAOS IN OUR STREETS

  I was at the Tennessee driver’s license bureau renewing a permit when Charlie Jr. called and told me that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center.

  Thinking that it was a catastrophic commercial airline accident, I went on about my business until the second plane hit. It became immediately apparent that America was under attack. As the Pentagon was hit and the plane went down in Pennsylvania, we all wondered how far it would go.

  How many more planes had been commandeered by terrorists?

  Were ground attacks coming?

  Did we have sleeper cells among us who were going to come out and start shooting?

  As the day wore on, the government swung into action by grounding air traffic, scrambling fighter planes, moving the president to safety, and enforcing the prescribed protocol.

  America wanted answers as to what was happening to us.

  The news channels had plenty of pictures but were short on explanation. I remember it as being the strangest day of my life.

  Then, as the information trickled in about who the hijackers were, that they were all Muslim, the name Osama bin Laden began to surface. It was a name that most of us were only familiar with because of an interview he had done on 60 Minutes in 1997 when he had talked about shedding the blood of infidels.

  In fact, bin Laden had been shedding the blood of infidels long before 9/11. He was responsible for the destruction of US Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, and had covertly been on the United States’s radar for a long time.

  Our clandestine services knew that he was dangerous and capable, but nobody ever dreamed that he had the ability to sponsor a successful attack on the American homeland.

  The attack was on a Tuesday, and we had concerts scheduled for the weekend.

  As we drove across America, all along the route the marquees outside fast-food restaurants and small businesses had phrases like “God bless America” and “Pray for America.” Cars were flying American flags on radio antennas, and Old Glory was even fluttering off the backs of eighteen wheelers.

  Everybody wanted a flag to proclaim their patriotism, but there were none available. Everybody was sold out.

  At least one newspaper printed a whole-page-sized flag so people could at least have one made out of paper.

  I wrote and recorded a song called “This Ain’t No Rag, It’s a Flag,” which the politically correct bunch immediately started slamming because the lyrics went, “This ain’t no rag. It’s a flag, and we don’t wear it on our heads,” claiming that I was insulting all Muslims.

  I didn’t care because I knew exactly who I was talking about. Muslim or not, if you didn’t have anything to do with those planes crashing into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, it wasn’t about you. Period.

  But of course, the usual gaggle of critics refused to see it that way.

  CMT, Country Music Television, headquartered in Nashville, planned a show featuring country music artists that would honor the victims of 9/11. We were asked to be a part of it. I thought that “This Ain’t No Rag, It’s a Flag” would be the perfect song to do. It touted American patriotism and spoke of avenging the lives lost to terrorism.

  When CMT heard the song, they said that there was no way they’d have such a song on their telecast. They were afraid of offending people.

  Well, what about the families of the almost three thousand people who were murdered on 9/11?

  Were they not already offended? What about the millions of Americans who were aching for retaliation?

  What about the thousands who had already died at the hands of radical Islamic terrorists before 9/11 even happened?

  These were the people I was concerned about. So I told them that if I couldn’t do the song I wanted to, I wouldn’t do the show.

  The upshot was that a lot of people did get offended, but it was not Muslims. It was irate Americans taking exception to CMT’s politically correct attitude and letting them know about it.

  Whatever bin Laden intended to do to America, it resulted in bringing a nation together and infuriating it to the point of wanting and demanding revenge.

  There was an interfaith religious service held at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York featuring Christian, Muslim, and Sikh clerics, and President George W. Bush kept proclaiming, “Islam is a peaceful religion.”

  I could never figure out why President Bush did that, knowing that almost three thousand Americans had died at the hands of this “peaceful religion,” unless he was saying it for the protection of the Muslims living in America, trying to lessen the revengeful emotions Americans were feeling toward the whole Muslim world right then.

  It would be many years before Osama bin Laden would face American justice at the end of a Navy SEAL’s gun, but I wonder if his last thoughts were that there was no place on earth where he could hide from the wrath 9/11 had brought down on his head.

  America has been at war with Islamic terror for a couple of decades now. It appears that it’s a multigenerational fight that will require more drastic action than any of the Western nations are willing to take.

  President Bush deployed troops to Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban and hunt down bin Laden. Then intelligence came to light that Saddam Hussein was acquiring nuclear weapons, and troops were deployed there. And just like that, the United States was engaged in a war on two fronts with people and ideologies we knew very little about.

  It was a world where the enemy and the friendlies looked exactly alike. Any young man approaching you could have a suicide vest strapped to his chest. Homemade explosive devices were laid in highways and innocuous places to be detonated at an opportune time.

  Mothers were willing to let their sons enroll in suicide squads for the supposedly greater glory of Islam and the seventy-two virgins that bloodthirsty clerics promised those who were willing to sacrifice their lives for the cause.

  Not since World War II have US troops fought under rules of engagement that gave them any chance of a clear-cut win. Afghanistan and Iraq were no exception.

  I have often wondered why we would even bother to send US troops into war and saddle them with so many restrictions and rules that they fear retribution from our own side almost as much as from the enemy.

  Split-second decisions are required in combat situations, and collateral damage is inevitable. When an unavoidable incident happens, by the time it’s cycled through the media, innocent soldiers, who were only doing their jobs, are made to appear like bloodthirsty predators and have to fear doing time in Leavenworth.

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sp; These wars would be very different from any the United States had ever fought. With the IEDs, the suicide bombers, and no uniforms or flags, there was no way to designate the enemy from civilians, and the enemy had total disregard for their own people, using them for human shields.

  September 11 would change the very way of life in the United States in a lot of ways, as we are reminded every time we board an airplane, enter a major building, or even attend a sporting event.

  The very freedoms Americans hold so dear make us vulnerable. The freedom of movement and speech and our liberal and lax immigration enforcement policies allow foreigners to overstay their visas and even disappear into society. Our porous southern border, where untold thousands pour across, undocumented, unvetted, and unaccountable: double the danger.

  Because of the reluctance of our government to pursue potential terrorists into the mosques and Muslim neighborhoods, they become invisible among the population.

  The choosing of political correctness above common sense, the fear of offending taking precedence over national interests, and the release of the world’s most dangerous terrorists from Guantanamo Bay to return to the battlefield all put this nation in jeopardy.

  Although I have my own deep personal convictions, I am not here to argue the validity of Saddam Hussein having a nuclear device or the right or wrong of the war in Iraq. But a conviction that I will emphatically state and stand by is that the United States should never go to war without having a clear description of the mission and a declared definition of what victory is.

  We should vigorously pursue those goals. We should avoid but accept whatever collateral damage and whatever media heat and scathing international criticism we are subjected to.

  In my opinion, if we’re not going to try to win, we shouldn’t go in the first place.

  In the case of Iraq, we sacrificed so much blood and treasure securing the biggest part of the country. Under the guise of some political triviality, we turned around and gave it all back, this time to a worse enemy than we were fighting to begin with.

  Against the advice of our leading military advisors, we pulled our troops out of Iraq. It created a vacuum that was quickly filled by ISIS, the cruelest monsters since Genghis Khan. They beheaded Christians, threw homosexuals off the roofs of tall buildings, and locked people in steel cages and set them on fire or drowned them.

  They have zero tolerance for any religious beliefs but their own. They believe that if they can bring the world to global chaos, it will bring about the arrival of the Mahdi or the Islamic messiah, who will turn earth into a Muslim planet and kill all of those who refuse to convert. They even claim that Jesus Christ will return to earth and tell everybody He was wrong the first time that He came and that Islam is the only true faith.

  Unfortunately, there is a general belief among a preponderance of people that the god of Islam and the God of Judaism and Christianity are one and the same. Nothing could be further from the truth.

  If that were the case, the Creator of the universe would constantly be contradicting Himself legitimizing the destruction of Jews, the race He called His chosen people.

  The Holy Bible of the Judeo-Christian world and the Koran of the Muslims can’t possibly refer to the same god.

  The conflict between the different factions of Islam has gone on for more than a millennium and shows no signs of letting up. The mainstream Muslims say that the terrorism is caused by a rogue faction that has hijacked Islam and is misinterpreting the teachings of Mohammed. There is so much inner conflict within the faith itself. Sunnis, Shiites, and Alawites are all Muslims, but all have somewhat different concepts and beliefs.

  We are involved in a conflict with a people we don’t understand, people who for thousands of years lived without a central government. There was an unaffiliated collection of war lords and tribal leaders who formed and disbanded alliances when expedient, claiming no allegiance to any central ruling authority.

  Dar al-Islam, literally the Islam world, always has been and probably always will be an enigma to the Western mind. It’s extremely difficult to imagine that part of the world being at peace, with or without our involvement.

  CHAPTER 51

  A FRIEND WHO AFFECTED MY LIFE

  Being a huge fan of Louis L’Amour back in 1976, I had named our High Lonesome album after one of his books and did a dedication to him in the liner notes.

  When Mr. L’Amour found out about the dedication, he got in touch with me and invited me to have lunch with him when I was in Los Angeles. The next time we played there, we made arrangements to meet him at the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

  David was also a huge fan, and I asked him to go with me. We were a little nervous, to say the least. Now, you have to remember that Louis L’Amour is the bestselling Western writer in the world and the Beverly Hills Hotel is probably the most prestigious address in Hollywood, frequented by movie stars and heavyweight industry people, and it is not the regular stomping ground for a couple of Tennessee country boys decked out in full Western regalia.

  We were asked by the gentleman at the Polo Lounge to remove our hats and were led to Mr. L’Amour’s table, where we were immediately put at ease. Soon we were talking like old friends and developed a friendship that lasted until Louis’s death in 1988.

  I treasure the hours I spent with him over the years. He was one of the most knowledgeable and well-rounded people I’ve ever been around, with expertise in a variety of subjects. But his knowledge of the Old West was unequaled. He knew the facts on every gunfighter, every frontier sheriff, every cattle baron, and every range war. These were not the movie versions but the genuine facts that sometimes made villains out of some of our long-held heroes, or vice versa.

  Hazel and I were honored beyond words when Louis dedicated his Jubal Sackett book to us. Louis L’Amour made a firm impression on my life. Hazel and I still maintain our friendship with his wife, Kathy, and his children, Beau and Angelique. Thanks to Kathy’s efforts and the love Western fans have for Louis, his books are still very much in demand.

  Due to our friendship, our family was introduced to the beautiful Four Corners area of Colorado. Louis and Kathy owned a ranch in the area. When they invited us out one summer, we fell in love with the place.

  The Rocky Mountains are just breathtaking in that part of the world. The people are friendly, and Durango is the most quality small town I’ve ever been to, with great restaurants and all-season outdoor activities.

  While we were there in 1979, we went to look at some land for sale in the La Plata Canyon. We ended up buying a three-acre lot, which just sat until 1994, when we decided to build a small house on it.

  Really, the “we" is a little misleading. It was actually Hazel who undertook the project while I was working. She went out to Colorado, got a builder, designed the house, and furnished it before I ever set foot in it.

  When we went out on vacation right after Christmas that year, it was the first time I’d seen anything but a picture of the place. I absolutely loved it.

  It’s eight thousand seven hundred feet in elevation. The lack of oxygen takes a little getting used to every year when we first get there. We get snow by the foot and spot elk across the canyon. Sometimes eagles perch in the trees close to the back patio.

  It’s the ideal place for me to unwind after a long touring year, and I never get tired of watching the snow storms work their way down the canyon.

  It seems everybody in Colorado is born knowing how to ski. Charlie Jr. took a couple of lessons and loves it when he comes out. I’ve never even been able to stand up on a pair of roller skates and am not about to try to fly down a mountainside on a couple of barrel staves.

  Hazel and I bought some cross-country skis and snowshoes and enjoyed it somewhat, but they’re both an awful lot of work so they basically just hang in the garage.

  One day we decided to try snowmobiling. We rented some sleds and found out it is a lot of fun and something we would want to do on a regular bas
is. Renting snowmobiles, especially as often as we wanted to, is very expensive. So we figured we’d just buy a couple and a trailer to haul them around on.

  I’ll never forget our first attempt at snowmobiling on our own. We hooked up the trailer and drove up to the snow. Knowing absolutely nothing about unloading, I climbed up on the trailer and when I looked down, I may as well have been on top of the house. The thought of driving a snowmobile down a ramp onto the ground, and then having to drive it back up again was not a comforting thought.

  Good sense won out. We decided that before we tried to unload snowmobiles, we at least needed to watch somebody else do it.

  We called the dealer we had bought our rig from and asked him if he knew anybody we could pay to help us out. We needed someone to go along and teach us about loading and unloading and the basics of snowmobiling in the Rockies.

  I soon got a call from a gentleman by the name of Cy Scarborough, who said he’d be willing to take a couple of novice flatlanders into the mountains and help them out with their snowmobiles.

  When I offered to pay him, he refused to take a cent. But he offered to meet us on a day in the near future and begin our snowmobile education.

  Well, as it turned out, Cy was a musician, too, and had operated the Bar D Chuck Wagon for forty years. The Bar D is a Four Corners institution operating seven nights a week from Memorial Day through Labor Day. They serve dinner and feature the Bar D Wranglers, one of the finest and most-entertaining Western bands in the country.

  It turns out Cy plays guitar and does comedy in the show. He works hard for around 120 days in a row. When winter rolls around and they shut the Chuck Wagon down, he’s ready to “go play in the snow,” as he puts it. He and his wife Jeannie do a lot of snowmobiling, and both of them are excellent riders.

  Well, as soon as we had spent a couple of hours together, we knew it was the beginning of a friendship. We probably spend more time with Cy and Jeannie every year in Colorado than anybody else we know there.