We recently celebrated (not sure that is the word for it) the anniversary of the US-led invasion of the territory of a soveriegn nation. The United States led a coalition of allied nations whose common purpose was to effect regime change in a nation that posed a real and present threat to their national interests. The despotic and militaristic leadership of that nation and its allies had been a threat to their neighbors, and were, if not possessing, pursuing weapons of mass destruction. In the process of defeating that nation's army and occupying its territory, we endured suicide bombers intent on destroying our will to fight. Long after major military operations were declared over by our president, we maintain forces on that nation's territory. I'm not referring to the current American Empire police action in Iraq. The nation I'm referring to is Japan.
On the 1st of April, 1945, US Marines and soldiers; supported by over one thousand US and British warships, including thousands of aircraft from scores of aircraft carriers; landed on the beaches of the Japanese island of Okinawa. By the time the brutal fight for Okinawa was over, more than 15,000 American servicemen had given their lives to seize a resource poor, but strategically rich island, the loss of which actually did more to seal the fate of the Japanese Empire than did the use of two atomic weapons a few months later. The Japanese fought our advance with inhumane tactics at every step; and we dished out worse than we got. The US Navy actually suffered more casualties than either the Marines or Army, as suicide pilots flew their aircraft into our ships with relentless fury. Today, the Japanese are staunch and invaluable allies and trading partners. The same companies that built the planes that crashed into our ships, now build the cars with which we crash into each other on our interstates.
Sixty-one years later we still maintain a military presence in Japan. Presence, and all the pain that goes with it, is the price of empire. Make no mistake about it, these re-United States constitute an empire just as surely as did Britain, Spain, the Ottomans, Rome, and a dozen others before them. Don't want the United States to "rule the world?" Fine, name the other country that you would rather be the dominant force in the world.
If you said "Jamaica," someone is on the way to your house with a search warrant.
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Thursday, March 30, 2006
The Road Through Home
This vagabond's official highway is Highway 82--specifically a stretch of road between Greenville, Mississippi and Prattville, Alababma. Some of my earliest childhood memories are of traveling down that road and through towns the sight of whose names on signs still serves to evoke those memories. I have always wondered at the origination of some of the names--Winona, Kilmichael, Eupora, Mathiston, Ethelsville, Reform, Gordo.
The Mississippi portion of Highway 82 is very nearly all four-laned now, bypassing the towns along the route. The trip is faster now, but much less interesting. Passing through a small southern town on what often constituted its Main Street was always a treat. Every little town was different in the details, yet nearly identical in the concept of design. I can remember looking forward to the next town so that I would have new signs to read out loud, an activity that at first pleased my folks, but soon enough caused them to teach me to read silently.
There are still portions of Highway 82 in Alabama that remain two-lane, still passing through the heart of proud southern villages, and hemmed in on either side by towering kudzu-draped pines whose monster shapes scared me as a child. My trips along that highway these days would probably be quicker and safer if they went ahead and four-laned it all.
The little boy in me hopes they don't.
The Mississippi portion of Highway 82 is very nearly all four-laned now, bypassing the towns along the route. The trip is faster now, but much less interesting. Passing through a small southern town on what often constituted its Main Street was always a treat. Every little town was different in the details, yet nearly identical in the concept of design. I can remember looking forward to the next town so that I would have new signs to read out loud, an activity that at first pleased my folks, but soon enough caused them to teach me to read silently.
There are still portions of Highway 82 in Alabama that remain two-lane, still passing through the heart of proud southern villages, and hemmed in on either side by towering kudzu-draped pines whose monster shapes scared me as a child. My trips along that highway these days would probably be quicker and safer if they went ahead and four-laned it all.
The little boy in me hopes they don't.
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Splish, Splash
Sometimes the tiniest of details makes all the difference. Paying attention to detail is not natural for me. I'm more of a "big picture" guy. My knowledge can best be described as "a mile wide and an inch deep." Consequently I have a lot of useless data in my brain housing group, and just enough information stored in the grey matter to get me into trouble. I think I know enough about a certain issue or project, dive in, and then end up doing a lot of "discovery learning." It is the details that make up the predominance of the grey matter wrinkle-making in discovery learning. Case in point: my latest foray into the exciting world of plumbing.
I was visiting #2 son this weekend and saw a list of home projects on his fridge. Number three on the list was "Fix knobs in showers." "How hard can that be?" I said to self. Self answered with a comment that will go unprinted, but included reminders of disastrous attacks on previous "easy" objectives. I ignored self, and pressed ahead.
The hot water handles in both showers were broken off at the base. In the guest bath, I easily unscrewed most of the parts of the multi-part apparatus leading into the hot water pipe and turned to reach for needle nose pliers to extract the remaining parts. First learning opportunity: Did you know that most successful plumbers turn off the water before working on pipes? Water pressure accomplished the remaining part removal task for me. The remaining pieces shot out of the pipe and sprayed in a jumble at the other end of the tub. The water, hot water, sprayed out as well and continued to spray at a surprisingly high pressure. I was, ahem, mildly perplexed at this development and began to, ahem, calmly and quietly search for a solution. Okay, I was shocked speechless (quite rare for me) and went through several iterations of fruitless knob-turning and wet sock-dancing before hollering for help. My son was in another part of the house and later remarked on the long lag time between the report of hardware on porcelain accompanied by the sound of rushing water and my eventual calls for help. That there was not the immediate vocal response to minor calamities, to which my family has long grown accustomed to hearing from me, made him think that perhaps dear old dad had packed off to the happy hunting grounds. Don't start counting your meager inheritance so fast, #2.
Once I got the water turned off, I attempted to assemble the handle parts. There was a lot of them. I had no clue. So, I went to the other shower, carefully unscrewed its handle apparatus, and learned a little bit more about plumbing.
I thought I had it figured out, screwed everything back in place in the second shower, screwed everything back in place in the guest bath, and confidently sauntered out to turn the water back on. Upon my return to the guest bath, the water was no longer spraying out of the pipe in the wall of the shower, but was running out of the faucet. I went through several iterations of knob-turning--less frantic and not accompanied by wet sock-dancing, but no more fruitful than the previous knob-turning episode. I scampered (sauntering was not in order at this juncture) back out to turn the water off, and went back to the shower that was not misbehaving to try to figure out the difference. I took the handle apparatus apart again, and peering into the pipe, noticed that there was a tiny washer (that I didn't have in the misbehaving shower) covering the small spring (that I DID have in the misbehaving shower). "Surely that tiny washer isn't what prevents the water from running," I remarked to self. Self answered, "It's gotta be, you knucklehead. It's the only thing that's different. The one you're missing probably got washed down the drain during your idiotic wet-sock, knob-turning dance. And stop calling me Shirley."
A trip to a not-so local hardware store (Grenada is one of those small country towns that still roll up the sidewalks at 5 PM and over the weekends) was required to acquire the necessary replacement parts. I am proud to report that both broken handles have been replaced and the water behaves as it should in both of #2's bathrooms.
Next trip up, I'll tackle number 4 on his list: Re-wire outside lights. How hard can that be?
I was visiting #2 son this weekend and saw a list of home projects on his fridge. Number three on the list was "Fix knobs in showers." "How hard can that be?" I said to self. Self answered with a comment that will go unprinted, but included reminders of disastrous attacks on previous "easy" objectives. I ignored self, and pressed ahead.
The hot water handles in both showers were broken off at the base. In the guest bath, I easily unscrewed most of the parts of the multi-part apparatus leading into the hot water pipe and turned to reach for needle nose pliers to extract the remaining parts. First learning opportunity: Did you know that most successful plumbers turn off the water before working on pipes? Water pressure accomplished the remaining part removal task for me. The remaining pieces shot out of the pipe and sprayed in a jumble at the other end of the tub. The water, hot water, sprayed out as well and continued to spray at a surprisingly high pressure. I was, ahem, mildly perplexed at this development and began to, ahem, calmly and quietly search for a solution. Okay, I was shocked speechless (quite rare for me) and went through several iterations of fruitless knob-turning and wet sock-dancing before hollering for help. My son was in another part of the house and later remarked on the long lag time between the report of hardware on porcelain accompanied by the sound of rushing water and my eventual calls for help. That there was not the immediate vocal response to minor calamities, to which my family has long grown accustomed to hearing from me, made him think that perhaps dear old dad had packed off to the happy hunting grounds. Don't start counting your meager inheritance so fast, #2.
Once I got the water turned off, I attempted to assemble the handle parts. There was a lot of them. I had no clue. So, I went to the other shower, carefully unscrewed its handle apparatus, and learned a little bit more about plumbing.
I thought I had it figured out, screwed everything back in place in the second shower, screwed everything back in place in the guest bath, and confidently sauntered out to turn the water back on. Upon my return to the guest bath, the water was no longer spraying out of the pipe in the wall of the shower, but was running out of the faucet. I went through several iterations of knob-turning--less frantic and not accompanied by wet sock-dancing, but no more fruitful than the previous knob-turning episode. I scampered (sauntering was not in order at this juncture) back out to turn the water off, and went back to the shower that was not misbehaving to try to figure out the difference. I took the handle apparatus apart again, and peering into the pipe, noticed that there was a tiny washer (that I didn't have in the misbehaving shower) covering the small spring (that I DID have in the misbehaving shower). "Surely that tiny washer isn't what prevents the water from running," I remarked to self. Self answered, "It's gotta be, you knucklehead. It's the only thing that's different. The one you're missing probably got washed down the drain during your idiotic wet-sock, knob-turning dance. And stop calling me Shirley."
A trip to a not-so local hardware store (Grenada is one of those small country towns that still roll up the sidewalks at 5 PM and over the weekends) was required to acquire the necessary replacement parts. I am proud to report that both broken handles have been replaced and the water behaves as it should in both of #2's bathrooms.
Next trip up, I'll tackle number 4 on his list: Re-wire outside lights. How hard can that be?
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Timing is Everything
I served for the better part of three decades as an infantryman. With all of the combat the Marine Corps saw in those years, I never set foot in a combat zone. I had as many operational assignments as any one else. I volunteered for the infantry, and like most Marine infantry officers, fought to get back to infantry assignments whenever I was assigned elsewhere. At the end of my four years of obligated service I considered leaving the Marine Corps for the civilian sector. One of my buddies opined at the time that if I got out I would be sitting at home some day watching him and my other buddies on TV, running across the sand of a combat zone; and I would be sorry I wasn't with them. He was right, and I stayed in.
As my career progressed, my buddies began referring to me as "The Peacemaker." Anytime I checked into an operational unit, peace would reign world-wide. Nearly every time I left an operational unit, headed for a school or some other assignment, that unit would go to war, or some facsimile thereof. Those unfamiliar with the way of the warrior could remark that I led a charmed life. That's not how I viewed it at the time.
I spent four straight years in infantry battalions and expeditionary units when I was a lieutenant. The most combat I saw was the obligatory end-of-liberty call brawl in some port city whose gendarmerie looked forward to cracking the heads of a few unruly Americans. The month after I left for an instructor assignment in January of 1983, my previous unit left its liberty call station in the Pacific, steamed through the Suez Canal, and joined the fray in Lebanon.
Four years later I returned to Camp Lejeune and took command of an infantry company in a battalion that was in the Mediterranean deployment cycle. We trained hard, made two uneventful 6-month deployments and I left for recruiting duty after 3 of the fastest and most fun years of my career. Three weeks after I took command of a recruiting outfit in Georgia, Saddam did the stupid. My old unit, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, was featured on a news special that December as they prepared to leave Camp Lejeune for Saudi Arabia. A few months later I watched a day-old C-Span tape of my battalion as it got ready for its assault of an objective on the outskirts of Kuwait City. I watched as the guy who had succeeded me as Operations Officer issued an attack order to the company commanders--all friends of mine. I had stayed in the Corps and my lieutenant buddy's prophecy had still come true.
I later commanded an infantry battalion through one of the most operationally quiet times in my Corps' history. I left 3rd Marines to go to the Naval War College and then got my follow-on assignment to serve as the Current Operations officer for US Forces Korea. I was in school there in Newport with several of my long-time buddies, and they reprised my "Peacemaker" moniker when, a scant three months before I was to leave for my assignment on the Powder Keg Peninsula, a smiling peace summit between the leaders of North and South Korea was broadcast. The most tense time I experienced during my subsequent tour in Seoul was a snowstorm. I even had a face to face experience with the enemy, but that is grist for another post.
In June of 2001, I assumed command of the Sixth Marine Corps District, essentially a recruiting regiment, responsible for officer and enlisted accessions in the Southeast. Not a full three months later, my nation was at war. I had tried to get out of my recruiting assignment to join the fight in 1990, without success. You only get out of a recruiting assignment early by getting fired--regardless if you are the world's foremost operational expert (as I tried to portray myself at the time). So, stuck on recruiting while the war on terror heated up, I could only watch in frustration as the majority of my Marine Corps slung packs on their shoulders and headed off to fight, without me, again.
One of my oldest and dearest friends served for nearly thirty-five years as a Marine, rising from the enlisted ranks to the rank of lieutenant colonel at his "retirement" two years ago. His heart wasn't in the civilian world, and when the Marine Corps started asking for retired officers to volunteer to come back on active duty, he signed up. He is in Iraq.
Dang it, Scott. I better not see you on TV.
As my career progressed, my buddies began referring to me as "The Peacemaker." Anytime I checked into an operational unit, peace would reign world-wide. Nearly every time I left an operational unit, headed for a school or some other assignment, that unit would go to war, or some facsimile thereof. Those unfamiliar with the way of the warrior could remark that I led a charmed life. That's not how I viewed it at the time.
I spent four straight years in infantry battalions and expeditionary units when I was a lieutenant. The most combat I saw was the obligatory end-of-liberty call brawl in some port city whose gendarmerie looked forward to cracking the heads of a few unruly Americans. The month after I left for an instructor assignment in January of 1983, my previous unit left its liberty call station in the Pacific, steamed through the Suez Canal, and joined the fray in Lebanon.
Four years later I returned to Camp Lejeune and took command of an infantry company in a battalion that was in the Mediterranean deployment cycle. We trained hard, made two uneventful 6-month deployments and I left for recruiting duty after 3 of the fastest and most fun years of my career. Three weeks after I took command of a recruiting outfit in Georgia, Saddam did the stupid. My old unit, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, was featured on a news special that December as they prepared to leave Camp Lejeune for Saudi Arabia. A few months later I watched a day-old C-Span tape of my battalion as it got ready for its assault of an objective on the outskirts of Kuwait City. I watched as the guy who had succeeded me as Operations Officer issued an attack order to the company commanders--all friends of mine. I had stayed in the Corps and my lieutenant buddy's prophecy had still come true.
I later commanded an infantry battalion through one of the most operationally quiet times in my Corps' history. I left 3rd Marines to go to the Naval War College and then got my follow-on assignment to serve as the Current Operations officer for US Forces Korea. I was in school there in Newport with several of my long-time buddies, and they reprised my "Peacemaker" moniker when, a scant three months before I was to leave for my assignment on the Powder Keg Peninsula, a smiling peace summit between the leaders of North and South Korea was broadcast. The most tense time I experienced during my subsequent tour in Seoul was a snowstorm. I even had a face to face experience with the enemy, but that is grist for another post.
In June of 2001, I assumed command of the Sixth Marine Corps District, essentially a recruiting regiment, responsible for officer and enlisted accessions in the Southeast. Not a full three months later, my nation was at war. I had tried to get out of my recruiting assignment to join the fight in 1990, without success. You only get out of a recruiting assignment early by getting fired--regardless if you are the world's foremost operational expert (as I tried to portray myself at the time). So, stuck on recruiting while the war on terror heated up, I could only watch in frustration as the majority of my Marine Corps slung packs on their shoulders and headed off to fight, without me, again.
One of my oldest and dearest friends served for nearly thirty-five years as a Marine, rising from the enlisted ranks to the rank of lieutenant colonel at his "retirement" two years ago. His heart wasn't in the civilian world, and when the Marine Corps started asking for retired officers to volunteer to come back on active duty, he signed up. He is in Iraq.
Dang it, Scott. I better not see you on TV.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Say hello to my leetle friend.
He didn't stay long. The first one to stop here each spring only stays long enough to tank up. After two or three days of rest and refueling, the first hummingbird of the year disappears as suddenly as it appears, headed further north. Last year, the first ruby-throated hummingbird arrived at the feeder in my backyard on the 15th of March. This year it was the 17th. Last year the first bird was an immature male; this year a mature male. Same bird? No way of knowing, but I like to think so. If last year is any indication, I won't see any more hummingbirds for several more weeks.
That first bird is the leader of a migration no less amazing than any on earth. The tiny feathered helicopters that show up here in the middle of the Florida panhandle have probably flown non-stop across the Gulf of Mexico from the Yucatan Peninsula. Living for several years, a hummingbird will return to the same backyard feeders spring after spring and then return to a patch of jungle in Central or South America to spend the winter.
Wonder if the resident Yucatan tucans call the winter whizzers "snow birds."
That first bird is the leader of a migration no less amazing than any on earth. The tiny feathered helicopters that show up here in the middle of the Florida panhandle have probably flown non-stop across the Gulf of Mexico from the Yucatan Peninsula. Living for several years, a hummingbird will return to the same backyard feeders spring after spring and then return to a patch of jungle in Central or South America to spend the winter.
Wonder if the resident Yucatan tucans call the winter whizzers "snow birds."
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Culloden's Descent
Yesterday was a good day at my house, and there was no binge drunk salute to a long-dead Irish monk. In fact, I studiously avoided doing, saying or watching anything connected with the traditional March 17th lunacy. I didn't wear green, although its a favorite color of mine. In years past I have participated on the fringes of this day, but not this year. I'm from Celtic stock, but my ancestors wore highland tartan; and while they drank to celebrate, they didn't celebrate drunkedness.
I once spent a year's free time tracing the grain of my family tree from it's present leafy new growth, back to it's roots in Scotland. Thanks to folks who spent a lot more time researching the family line that I did, I have been able to trace it back to a story of two young brothers, who, shanghaied in Glasgow, jumped ship in Boston in the 1680s. For reasons unknown, but I believe have to do with the fact that the ruling Scottish clan Campbell had "outlawed" clan MacGregor, they changed last names to that of their (possibly) subclan Gregory and started new lives in the new world. Admittedly the ties to my line at that point are a bit tenuous, but I like the tale's timber and I'm sticking with it.
The ties are much clearer to one Thomas B. Gregory (interesting how a name continues to resurface generation after generation in some families), born 1730 in Chatham County, NC and died 1818 in Smith County, TN. His descendents who form my lineage spread across the northern hills of Alabama and Mississippi, and my namesake, greatgrandfather, and Methodist preacher Thomas Edwin Gregory died in Pontotoc, MS, 6 years before my appearance on the scene.
Yesterday was a good day at my house, because my grandson, Caleb Thomas Gregory, the latest in the Gregory line, came for a visit.
Friday, March 17, 2006
"Chaplain, I want a weather prayer."
Lest anyone think that my post yesterday reflected any desire on my part for world-wide conflagaration, or even a lightly armed territorial squabble, I wish to make clear that I sincerely hope that peace will be given a chance for the remainder of my lifetime, as well as the remainder of the lifetime of my grandson. I will admit, as my longest-lived infantry comrades will attest, that as a youngster I itched for a fight to the point that my face could be found in the group picture next to the dictionary definition of warmongers. Not sure I could have done my job correctly (that of preparing combat teams to take the fight to our nation's enemies) if I didn't have a tendency to, as we aggressive ground-pounders put it, "lean into the fire." I like to think, not without a modicum of chagrin, that a gracious and wise Father God kept me out of combat for the reason, among others, that I might actually have been way too good at orchestrating destruction and killing. That sounds terribly, horribly, un-Christian; but there it is.
When your children start having children, however, a transformation takes place in your world view. No, I'm not changing into a liberal--that would require loss of a great deal of grey matter from the confines of my brain housing group. Having a grandchild is like getting a tranquilizer shot. The world's light (what little there is these days) has taken on a different shade with the entry of my son's son on to the stage. My wife says I'm just mellowing with age, but that is not something I want to admit to. Instead, I'm more content to give the credit to my grandson.
But, I am, if nothing else, a realist. My lifelong study of the history of man would not allow me to be anything else. Man may discover new technology and harness new resources to build new machines and edifices, but the nature that God sent with him from the garden will never change. Man may talk in ever loftier terms of the responsibility of men to live in peace with their fellow men, but even the most dedicated and disciplined peacenik has a point beyond which, when pushed, he will react with violence. Even my Lord used force to throw the money changers from the temple.
As an instrument of my nation's "politics by other means," I strived, without complete success I will admit, to be apolitical. My job was to salute smartly, shoot straight, and suffer silently. I was not allowed a public political stance, although I will admit, again, that my private political stance became a little more publicly viewable when my nation's leadership was acting according to my own jingoistic and imperialistic notions of the American place in world affairs.
I have said all of the above to say this: While we are all praying earnestly for peace, let's not forget to pray earnestly for the marksmanship of our defenders of that peace.
When your children start having children, however, a transformation takes place in your world view. No, I'm not changing into a liberal--that would require loss of a great deal of grey matter from the confines of my brain housing group. Having a grandchild is like getting a tranquilizer shot. The world's light (what little there is these days) has taken on a different shade with the entry of my son's son on to the stage. My wife says I'm just mellowing with age, but that is not something I want to admit to. Instead, I'm more content to give the credit to my grandson.
But, I am, if nothing else, a realist. My lifelong study of the history of man would not allow me to be anything else. Man may discover new technology and harness new resources to build new machines and edifices, but the nature that God sent with him from the garden will never change. Man may talk in ever loftier terms of the responsibility of men to live in peace with their fellow men, but even the most dedicated and disciplined peacenik has a point beyond which, when pushed, he will react with violence. Even my Lord used force to throw the money changers from the temple.
As an instrument of my nation's "politics by other means," I strived, without complete success I will admit, to be apolitical. My job was to salute smartly, shoot straight, and suffer silently. I was not allowed a public political stance, although I will admit, again, that my private political stance became a little more publicly viewable when my nation's leadership was acting according to my own jingoistic and imperialistic notions of the American place in world affairs.
I have said all of the above to say this: While we are all praying earnestly for peace, let's not forget to pray earnestly for the marksmanship of our defenders of that peace.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
"Sergeant Major, where's my Farsi phrase book?"
I don't have a crystal ball. But you don't need one, if you are a student of government and history, to see what is coming. The signs are everywhere. The miscalculations on both sides are stacking up in front of them until, soon, the antagonists will not be able to see over them for a clear look at the other. There's gonna be a war with Iran.
This thing is starting to take on the look of inevitability that the last two father/son outings on the shores of the Persian Gulf did in 1990 and 2002. Those who study these things, knew we were going to war the morning we saw Iraqi helicopters in the skies over Kuwait on CNN. We in the battle business, watching the World Trade Center towers fall over and over that night on CNN, had no doubt that business was going to be brisk soon; not just in Afghanistan, but in Iraq, and probably Syria and Iran, before it was all over. And it is a long, long way from being over...no matter who controls the American government over the next half century.
While I'm at it, I'll hang my reputation for predictive accuracy a little further out on the limb. The coming donnybrook with Iran will not be the "drive-by" variety that the last two anti-Saddam campaigns were. Whereas Saddam possessed a third-rate military commanded by trustworthy idiots who were forbidden to communicate with each other (they weren't trustworthy enough to keep Saddam from worrying about a coup), the Iranian Mullahs have a second-rate force, a uniting theology (critical; ours is democracy, theirs is theocracy), and (here comes that geography thing again) geographically strategic position. Iran will not allow us to mass an invasion force in the vicinity for six unmolested months prior to receiving our untoward attentions, as Saddam the Stupid did...TWICE. The Iranian navy and air force is quite capable of contesting us for control of the Strait of Hormuz and the Arabian Sea in proximity of their shores. Said contest will be relatively short-lived, but very bloody on both sides. The Iranian ground forces will not melt away as quickly as the regular Iraqi army did. Most of the resistance our forces encountered on the ride to Baghdad three years ago were fanatical Baathist irregulars. Nearly the entire Iranian military is steeped in the tradition of suicidal, human-wave tactics (see for reference their tactics against Iraq 1980-88), the likes of which American forces have not faced since our mid-twentieth century expeditions on the Asian continent and adjacent islands--when you think Iran, think Japan 1941-45, N. Korea (and China) 1950-53, and N. Vietnam 1965-1973.
My educated guess is that my beloved Marine Corps will get to do something they have not done since Inchon in 1950--a real live, large-scale, amphibious assault on a defended coastline. This will be necessary--despite the protestations of my Air Force friends that they can win it all from the air. I was held captive at the mecca of air power zealotry for three years (Marine rep at the Air Command and Staff College) and easily exposed their strategic attack arguments for the "pie in the sky" theorizing that it was--and if this knuckle-head, Ole Miss-educated Marine can figure out the bankruptcy of your ideas, they ain't good ideas. I'm not saying that the zoomies won't make a vital contribution--American airpower is indispensable to our way of warfighting. But my friends in light blue never could explain to me how they could seize the port facilities necessary to introduce the ground forces needed to place the requisite boot heel on the neck of the enemy.
Oh, we'll play "bust the buried bunker" for a while with our latest air delivered deep penetrating high explosive toys. But then my dirty, sweaty, rifle-lugging kind will have to go in and root the hold-outs from the rubble. If you think that we can just bomb the Iranian nuke facilities for a few days and be satisfied, you are sadly mistaken, and sorely misunderestimating (that's a word, my president says so) the Iranian reaction. The ayatollahs are going to react very badly to our attempt at setting back their jihadic timetable for establishment of their long-sought (a least 1200 years and counting) theocratic domination of the world. They won't just shrug their shoulders and go back to suppressing Persian freedom--they will lash out. Their current mullah-puppet and former American hostage-taking president fervently believes in a Koranic prophecy of a cataclysmic, world-ending Islam v. Infidel conflict (Our president, and I, believe in something similar. But, we don't think man can bring on the final battle, like Amindejawhateverhisnameis believes). He will likely go down in history as one of a long line of lunatics whose fanatic megalomania threatened, and often succeeded, to plunge the known world into conflict pandemic--Nebuchanezar, Alexander, Suleman, Wilhelm, Hitler, Johnson..., et. al.
Better get my boots back in shape. I'm not too old to get called back to active duty and I think this is gonna be a biggun.
This thing is starting to take on the look of inevitability that the last two father/son outings on the shores of the Persian Gulf did in 1990 and 2002. Those who study these things, knew we were going to war the morning we saw Iraqi helicopters in the skies over Kuwait on CNN. We in the battle business, watching the World Trade Center towers fall over and over that night on CNN, had no doubt that business was going to be brisk soon; not just in Afghanistan, but in Iraq, and probably Syria and Iran, before it was all over. And it is a long, long way from being over...no matter who controls the American government over the next half century.
While I'm at it, I'll hang my reputation for predictive accuracy a little further out on the limb. The coming donnybrook with Iran will not be the "drive-by" variety that the last two anti-Saddam campaigns were. Whereas Saddam possessed a third-rate military commanded by trustworthy idiots who were forbidden to communicate with each other (they weren't trustworthy enough to keep Saddam from worrying about a coup), the Iranian Mullahs have a second-rate force, a uniting theology (critical; ours is democracy, theirs is theocracy), and (here comes that geography thing again) geographically strategic position. Iran will not allow us to mass an invasion force in the vicinity for six unmolested months prior to receiving our untoward attentions, as Saddam the Stupid did...TWICE. The Iranian navy and air force is quite capable of contesting us for control of the Strait of Hormuz and the Arabian Sea in proximity of their shores. Said contest will be relatively short-lived, but very bloody on both sides. The Iranian ground forces will not melt away as quickly as the regular Iraqi army did. Most of the resistance our forces encountered on the ride to Baghdad three years ago were fanatical Baathist irregulars. Nearly the entire Iranian military is steeped in the tradition of suicidal, human-wave tactics (see for reference their tactics against Iraq 1980-88), the likes of which American forces have not faced since our mid-twentieth century expeditions on the Asian continent and adjacent islands--when you think Iran, think Japan 1941-45, N. Korea (and China) 1950-53, and N. Vietnam 1965-1973.
My educated guess is that my beloved Marine Corps will get to do something they have not done since Inchon in 1950--a real live, large-scale, amphibious assault on a defended coastline. This will be necessary--despite the protestations of my Air Force friends that they can win it all from the air. I was held captive at the mecca of air power zealotry for three years (Marine rep at the Air Command and Staff College) and easily exposed their strategic attack arguments for the "pie in the sky" theorizing that it was--and if this knuckle-head, Ole Miss-educated Marine can figure out the bankruptcy of your ideas, they ain't good ideas. I'm not saying that the zoomies won't make a vital contribution--American airpower is indispensable to our way of warfighting. But my friends in light blue never could explain to me how they could seize the port facilities necessary to introduce the ground forces needed to place the requisite boot heel on the neck of the enemy.
Oh, we'll play "bust the buried bunker" for a while with our latest air delivered deep penetrating high explosive toys. But then my dirty, sweaty, rifle-lugging kind will have to go in and root the hold-outs from the rubble. If you think that we can just bomb the Iranian nuke facilities for a few days and be satisfied, you are sadly mistaken, and sorely misunderestimating (that's a word, my president says so) the Iranian reaction. The ayatollahs are going to react very badly to our attempt at setting back their jihadic timetable for establishment of their long-sought (a least 1200 years and counting) theocratic domination of the world. They won't just shrug their shoulders and go back to suppressing Persian freedom--they will lash out. Their current mullah-puppet and former American hostage-taking president fervently believes in a Koranic prophecy of a cataclysmic, world-ending Islam v. Infidel conflict (Our president, and I, believe in something similar. But, we don't think man can bring on the final battle, like Amindejawhateverhisnameis believes). He will likely go down in history as one of a long line of lunatics whose fanatic megalomania threatened, and often succeeded, to plunge the known world into conflict pandemic--Nebuchanezar, Alexander, Suleman, Wilhelm, Hitler, Johnson..., et. al.
Better get my boots back in shape. I'm not too old to get called back to active duty and I think this is gonna be a biggun.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Mouse Trap
Took a quick business trip to Orlando, yesterday. Mickeyville always raises my blood pressure. I hate the way the place treats everyone like we are all eight years old. I hate the parks and their interminable lines. I hate fighting the traffic, made all the worse by yankee tourists in rental cars. I hate the kitschy architecture; developers trying for all the world to make Central Florida look like Southern California.
I was born in Orlando, but my family luckily moved on before the Disney invasion. My parents have occasionally mentioned that they would like to move back to Central Florida and I have been quick; perhaps too dream-killing quick; to snap that nothing remains of the orange grove-robed and lake-speckled jewel that they remember. The soothing groves of citrus have given way to seething droves of citizenry drawn to the place not by its former natural beauty but by its cosmetic enhanced promise of ecstasy; like so many johns to a streetwalker.
There is bright-eyed rumoring in my current adopted hometown of the possibility of theme park invasions here. Good for Panama City. If it comes, I'm gone. I'll shake the sand of this place off my white walkers and head for the hills of North Mississippi where I belong. That's the last place anyone would want to build a tourist attraction.
They probably said that about Orlando fifty years ago.
I was born in Orlando, but my family luckily moved on before the Disney invasion. My parents have occasionally mentioned that they would like to move back to Central Florida and I have been quick; perhaps too dream-killing quick; to snap that nothing remains of the orange grove-robed and lake-speckled jewel that they remember. The soothing groves of citrus have given way to seething droves of citizenry drawn to the place not by its former natural beauty but by its cosmetic enhanced promise of ecstasy; like so many johns to a streetwalker.
There is bright-eyed rumoring in my current adopted hometown of the possibility of theme park invasions here. Good for Panama City. If it comes, I'm gone. I'll shake the sand of this place off my white walkers and head for the hills of North Mississippi where I belong. That's the last place anyone would want to build a tourist attraction.
They probably said that about Orlando fifty years ago.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Raise, Don't Lower, the Standards.
A story on a newspaper's website caught my attention this morning, and made me catch my breath. The context for the story is the difficulty of the military's recruiting battle in the midst of the war on terror and facing a shrinking demographic pool from which to recruit. The not-so-subtle subtext in the story is the contention that the US military's standards are too high--non-high school grads, ritalin-takers, tattoo canvasses, drug-users, and criminals need not apply. Maybe I am way too sensitive on this subject, but I can almost smell the reporter's belief that the aforementioned disqualifications would actually make for good cannon-fodder in our long-war against islamo-fascism. To which I would reply for our nation and its military: "Been there, done that, didn't work so well."
At the height of the Vietnam campaign in the War with the Soviet Union, a Defense Secretary, whose qualification for the job was that he had presided over the building of planned-obsolescent automobiles in Detroit, decided it would be just a great idea to lower minimum mental requirements, and other standards, to fill the ranks of the military; under the guise of giving a "hand up" to those less fortunate in our society. The plan failed miserably. The quality and capability of the US military plummeted--a nose dive from which it took nearly two decades to pull out.
There was nothing wrong with the patriotism of those who served at the time--they just weren't smart enough to be soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines. If you laughed out loud at that point, you obviously have never served in the military and never been required to plan and execute even the smallest scale military mission, the normal technological complexity and human resource management requirements for which would daunt any production floor manager at any auto plant. Being a soldier, and leading other soldiers, is not only physically demanding; it is one of the most mentally demanding activities in which man engages.
I always believed, much to the dismay of the recruiters who worked for me, and to the chagrin of my superiors, that our recruiting standards were way too low. I believe that the smarter a man or women is, the better soldier he or she makes--no matter whether that soldier's finger rests on the launch controls of a Patriot missile or a 5.56 round. So, I say, "Raise the standards!"
Don't tell me that the highest quality people in our society won't join the military--that insults my intelligence and their patriotism.
At the height of the Vietnam campaign in the War with the Soviet Union, a Defense Secretary, whose qualification for the job was that he had presided over the building of planned-obsolescent automobiles in Detroit, decided it would be just a great idea to lower minimum mental requirements, and other standards, to fill the ranks of the military; under the guise of giving a "hand up" to those less fortunate in our society. The plan failed miserably. The quality and capability of the US military plummeted--a nose dive from which it took nearly two decades to pull out.
There was nothing wrong with the patriotism of those who served at the time--they just weren't smart enough to be soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines. If you laughed out loud at that point, you obviously have never served in the military and never been required to plan and execute even the smallest scale military mission, the normal technological complexity and human resource management requirements for which would daunt any production floor manager at any auto plant. Being a soldier, and leading other soldiers, is not only physically demanding; it is one of the most mentally demanding activities in which man engages.
I always believed, much to the dismay of the recruiters who worked for me, and to the chagrin of my superiors, that our recruiting standards were way too low. I believe that the smarter a man or women is, the better soldier he or she makes--no matter whether that soldier's finger rests on the launch controls of a Patriot missile or a 5.56 round. So, I say, "Raise the standards!"
Don't tell me that the highest quality people in our society won't join the military--that insults my intelligence and their patriotism.
Friday, March 10, 2006
Isthmian Inkling
The first most significant was in 1966 when he was sent to Vietnam for a long and family-stressing year, during which the Colonel attended the fifth grade in Columbus, Mississippi and got his first real lesson in the lunacy of racial segregation. But that is grist for another post.
In January of 1970 the Colonel's family flew to Howard Air Force Base in the Panama Canal Zone.
That month the Colonel started in the second eighth grade class and third junior high he attended, but his school-hopping days were finally over. The result of the Colonel's previous 9 years of itinerant education, during which he landed briefly on 11 different schools like a confused honey bee visiting different varieties of flowers and returning to the hive with an unusable mixture of pollen clinging to its legs, was a polyglot of disconnected learning, disparate educational philosophies, and classmates known too briefly to be classified as friends. At Balboa High School in the Panama Canal Zone the Colonel got a real education from a first class high school, at which he miraculously stayed for his entire high school career.
We stepped off the plane that early January afternoon into 90 degree temperatures and 90 percent humidity -- a warm, moist embrace that wrapped the Colonel and held him for nearly 5 more years.
The Panama Canal Zone was a slice of time-warped America straddling Teddy Roosevelt's crowning achievement and dividing a banana republic situated on an isthmus stolen from Columbia in a relatively bloodless American sanctioned revolution. Teddy took what he wanted, and he wanted an American canal.
By the time the Colonel got there the Panama Canal Zone was at its zenith. Governed by a US Army general appointed by the US President and ruled by a strict set of regulations called the Canal Zone Code, the Canal Zone was a country club-manicured, and nearly crime-free American oasis in a turbulent and poverty-stricken region. The Zone's permanent residents, American employees of the Panama Canal Company referred to by themselves and others as "Zonians," were proudly American, but undeniably influenced by the Panamanian culture surrounding them. They ran the canal and tolerated the large US military presence that brought a steady stream of temporary residents to their idyllic haven.
Little wonder that the Colonel's Panama experience became such a significant influence on him. It was a wonderful place for a teenage boy -- swimming weather year round, unspoiled beaches, lakes and bays full of fish, and rain forest (we called it jungle) to explore.
In Panama, the Colonel found a scout troop and made Eagle.
In Panama, the Colonel discovered a passion (won't call it talent) for writing and was published for the first time, in the high shool literary journal, "Isthmian Inklings."
In Panama, the Colonel found a group of guys with budding patriotism in their hearts and made plans for military careers that many executed well beyond their wildest dreams.
In Panama, the Colonel found a girl who became his best friend, later wife, and now the joy of his life.
In Panama, the Colonel found faith in a gracious God whose faithfulness, mercy, and provision never ceases to amaze him.
The most idiotic American President of the twentieth century (he will go un-named, but his initials are James Earl Carter), in a fit of never-rewarded international do-good-ism, gave the Canal Zone "back" to Panama (actually, Nixon started the process, but we won't go there).
If you want to be technically legal about it, we should have given the Isthmus of Panama (and the Canal) back to Columbia, from whom we took it at the beginning of the century.
The Canal, one of the technological marvels of the twentieth century (and even the present century), still runs -- Panama had the good sense to keep on many of the Zonians who had the expertise to run it, until they could train their own. But the zone itself, its American affluence once starkly contrasting against the poverty of Panama on either side, has largely fallen into neglect; a line no longer sharply demonstrating the wealth and power of the American Empire.
Just as well. The Canal Zone of the Colonel's youth is brought to his mind every time he looks into his high school sweetheart's eyes.
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Show Me the Money!
A recent e-mail discussion with a college buddy and fellow Marine dredged up some feelings that I am surprised to still be harboring. He retired from the Marine Corps a year after I did and we have shared e-mails and phone calls for the past year regarding our separate and mutual business ventures. I must admit that he seems to have embraced the capitalist spirit with much more gusto than have I.
This "for profit" stuff is still a bit disconcerting to me, even after 2 and 1/2 years as a "money-grubbing civilian." For three decades I paid scant attention to my compensation, and when I did, my feeling was that I was being overpaid for something that was my duty and that I loved doing. I can honestly say that I didn't sign up for the pay check.
During my brief foray into the business world, I have been amazed that someone will pay me so much money for my ideas and some simple decision-making! I almost feel guilty taking their money...almost.
After spending most of my adult life defending the Republic, and the capitalism for which it stands, I find that I'm not a very good capitalist...yet.
This "for profit" stuff is still a bit disconcerting to me, even after 2 and 1/2 years as a "money-grubbing civilian." For three decades I paid scant attention to my compensation, and when I did, my feeling was that I was being overpaid for something that was my duty and that I loved doing. I can honestly say that I didn't sign up for the pay check.
During my brief foray into the business world, I have been amazed that someone will pay me so much money for my ideas and some simple decision-making! I almost feel guilty taking their money...almost.
After spending most of my adult life defending the Republic, and the capitalism for which it stands, I find that I'm not a very good capitalist...yet.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
It's the Geography, Stupid!
A high school geography teacher in Colorado, and the student who taped his anti-Bush rant in class, are getting their "15 minutes of fame" this week. Of course, the whole issue is much ado about nothing, but politicians and the media (liberal and conservative) have seized on the issue as a platform for bellowing their position at the other end of the political spectrum. What is somewhat hidden in all of the hoopla is the fact that American schools are woefully derelict in their responsibility to actually TEACH the BASICS. I have no problem with an elective course, descriptively titled, challenging students to examine issues critically and then to make up their own minds on where they stand on those issues. The problem I have is that you can't participate in a course like that unless you have an educational foundation in the BASICS. Case (somewhat) in point: My daughter's fourth grade class spent the better part of a week studying China and its peoples' writing, food, clothing, and love of the Panda. At the end of the week, she, and the rest of her classmates, could not point to China on a world map.
I have always believed the refrain, "Those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it." To which I would add the corollary, "Those who do not understand geography cannot understand history."
The geography of a place; its location, resources, physical features, and climate, is often the most significant factor in the history of the people who live in that place. Would the British colonies in the New World have developed into the current world's superpower if they had been scattered across the islands of the Caribbean instead of along the edge of one of the most challengingly diverse and resource rich continents on the planet? Arguably, had western Europeans not supplanted the existing native populations in North and South America, those people would have eventually developed technologically to the point that they could have harnessed the full power inherent in the resources of the land. The "Native Americans" were a very adaptive and intelligent people--they took horses brought to the New World by the Spanish in the 1500's and developed a "horse culture" that rivaled Old World horse cultures that had existed for millennia; and they took firearms and gave the expansionist former British colonists fits for nearly a century (just ask Custer how effectively they used that technology). The Maya, Inca, and Aztec in what is now called "Latin America" were even more advanced than their northern cousins, with architecture and culture in some cases more advanced than that of the European nations from whom the conquistadors and their ilk came. And, contrary to "pop culture history," Anglo-American cavalry and cowboys did not "kill all the Indians"--smallpox did most of the dirty work. Smallpox so decimated the Native American populations that they did not have the numbers to resist the Anglo tide sweeping west, and smallpox was so horribly effective because the GEOGRAPHICAL isolation of the New World had prevented development of immunities from this Old World disease. See? Geography is the key!
I could go on and on, as my family will attest. They have long ago learned not to ask any question of me that could possibly give me the excuse to lecture (for the minimum required 30 minutes) on the geographical and historical background necessary to understand the answer.
I have always believed the refrain, "Those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it." To which I would add the corollary, "Those who do not understand geography cannot understand history."
The geography of a place; its location, resources, physical features, and climate, is often the most significant factor in the history of the people who live in that place. Would the British colonies in the New World have developed into the current world's superpower if they had been scattered across the islands of the Caribbean instead of along the edge of one of the most challengingly diverse and resource rich continents on the planet? Arguably, had western Europeans not supplanted the existing native populations in North and South America, those people would have eventually developed technologically to the point that they could have harnessed the full power inherent in the resources of the land. The "Native Americans" were a very adaptive and intelligent people--they took horses brought to the New World by the Spanish in the 1500's and developed a "horse culture" that rivaled Old World horse cultures that had existed for millennia; and they took firearms and gave the expansionist former British colonists fits for nearly a century (just ask Custer how effectively they used that technology). The Maya, Inca, and Aztec in what is now called "Latin America" were even more advanced than their northern cousins, with architecture and culture in some cases more advanced than that of the European nations from whom the conquistadors and their ilk came. And, contrary to "pop culture history," Anglo-American cavalry and cowboys did not "kill all the Indians"--smallpox did most of the dirty work. Smallpox so decimated the Native American populations that they did not have the numbers to resist the Anglo tide sweeping west, and smallpox was so horribly effective because the GEOGRAPHICAL isolation of the New World had prevented development of immunities from this Old World disease. See? Geography is the key!
I could go on and on, as my family will attest. They have long ago learned not to ask any question of me that could possibly give me the excuse to lecture (for the minimum required 30 minutes) on the geographical and historical background necessary to understand the answer.
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Don't Tread on Me
This week the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a ruling on a case brought by a collection of law schools challenging a 1996 act of congress that denied federal funds to any school that denied access to military recruiters. That this case made it all the way to John Roberts and crew is amazing on several different levels. The law schools' argument was that the law forced them, in effect, to associate with someone (in this case, military recruiters conducting the business of the nation on a law school campus) whose views (in this case, DoD's prohibition on homosexual conduct) were repugnant to them. Any normal American (defined in this case as the majority population in "red" states and the minority population in "blue" states) could see the fallacious nature of this argument without the benefit of a law degree or even the benefit of having watched Perry Mason once. I am forced daily to associate with punks, rascals, scoundrels, thieves, reprobates, and other assorted low-lifes (all in a quick trip to Wal-Mart) and I don't believe I have a legal claim to a First Amendment right to require one half of the population of my fair city to get out.
In fact, this farcical suit exposes the litigants for the Home of the Brave-hating hypocrites that they are. They wallow in the rights of this free land and yet refuse to accept the price of its protection. The present ruling generation (of which I am, sadly, a member) has forgotten (maybe never learned in the first place) that "Freedom isn't free."
I am touchy on this subject in general because I served with, and am related to, great Americans who sacrificed comfort and compensation to protect the freedoms most Americans take for granted. I am touchy on this subject in particular because I served for a fifth of my Marine Corps career as a recruiter and saw first hand the lack of a sense of civic and national duty that is prevalent in our society. We have what we euphemistically call an "All Volunteer Force" when, in fact, the vast majority of those who join today's guardians of freedom, do so only after being contacted by a recruiter and sold on the benefits of a vocation for which the idea of pursuing had never previously entered their minds. I'm not knocking the young men and women of our nation here--when finally taught that freedom has a price and presented the call to serve, they do so admirably. I am indicting their parents and influencers (teachers, coaches, and counselors)--my generation--that grew up in the most affluent period in our nation's history and refuse to accept (or teach our children) that service before self is a primary virtue.
And another thing, while the spirit moves me... When the rest of our nation went through a paroxysm of flag-flying, skin-deep patriotism post 9-11, the true life-long patriots looked on with a mixture of wonder and scorn. Where was your flag on 9-10? Where is your flag, now? I will tell you that mine stayed reverently folded in my pack, where it had been for more than two decades, ready to be raised over a captured enemy citadel. It is still reverently folded and lying in a position of honor on my desk. True American patriots don't fly the flag like a banner on the way to a football game--it is way too dear of a symbol for that.
Okay. I'll take a deep breath now, and let the coffee push the curmudgeon back into his hole.
In fact, this farcical suit exposes the litigants for the Home of the Brave-hating hypocrites that they are. They wallow in the rights of this free land and yet refuse to accept the price of its protection. The present ruling generation (of which I am, sadly, a member) has forgotten (maybe never learned in the first place) that "Freedom isn't free."
I am touchy on this subject in general because I served with, and am related to, great Americans who sacrificed comfort and compensation to protect the freedoms most Americans take for granted. I am touchy on this subject in particular because I served for a fifth of my Marine Corps career as a recruiter and saw first hand the lack of a sense of civic and national duty that is prevalent in our society. We have what we euphemistically call an "All Volunteer Force" when, in fact, the vast majority of those who join today's guardians of freedom, do so only after being contacted by a recruiter and sold on the benefits of a vocation for which the idea of pursuing had never previously entered their minds. I'm not knocking the young men and women of our nation here--when finally taught that freedom has a price and presented the call to serve, they do so admirably. I am indicting their parents and influencers (teachers, coaches, and counselors)--my generation--that grew up in the most affluent period in our nation's history and refuse to accept (or teach our children) that service before self is a primary virtue.
And another thing, while the spirit moves me... When the rest of our nation went through a paroxysm of flag-flying, skin-deep patriotism post 9-11, the true life-long patriots looked on with a mixture of wonder and scorn. Where was your flag on 9-10? Where is your flag, now? I will tell you that mine stayed reverently folded in my pack, where it had been for more than two decades, ready to be raised over a captured enemy citadel. It is still reverently folded and lying in a position of honor on my desk. True American patriots don't fly the flag like a banner on the way to a football game--it is way too dear of a symbol for that.
Okay. I'll take a deep breath now, and let the coffee push the curmudgeon back into his hole.
Monday, March 06, 2006
Snoopy's Sub-Orbital Flight
Another February is gone, its page on my calendar flipped unceremoniously, yet thankfully, to reveal one of my favorite months of the year. March may not be such a special month to those of you unfortunates who reside (won't call it "living") in the arctic reaches (anywhere north of Memphis), but for those of us who live in the most blessed portion of these Re-United States, it is a month welcomed with smiling sun-turned faces and happy winter coat-shedding shoulder shrugs. While Spring begins officially in March for everyone, it begins in truth in the South. March brings blooms to forsythia, dogwood, and redbud, and everybody knows that "when the forsythia are bloomin', the crappie are bitin'!"
This month brings back childhood memories of kite-flying. I still remember the first "store-bought" kite I ever had--I think I was 12 or 13. It was acrobatic--its crackling plastic swept-back wings made me feel like I had a fighter plane on a leash. It was so light and aero-dynamic that it would leap from your hand into flight with the slightest breeze. But, as special as buying and flying that marvel by myself was, there was something missing in the experience. Up until that point, every March meant saving the Sunday paper funny pages with which to cover homemade kites the way my daddy had done when he was a kid, and the way he did for my brother and me the first time we ever experienced the wonder of sailing a kite on a warm, windy afternoon.
After a few years of flying small diamond-shaped kites stabilized with rag-strip tails and tethered to us with a few hundred feet of string, Dad decided we were big enough to handle the "manly-man's kite" and he built us a box kite. On a three-dimensional two foot long frame, a box kite's sail surface was four-sided at either end. This produced a dramatic increase in lift compared to the one dimensional kites we had flown. Dad attached the box kite to one of his fishing poles, the reel for which was spooled with several hundred yards of line, and set the drag at its lightest limit. It took both my brother and I running full tilt into the wind to get the behemoth airborne, but once it "slipped the surly bonds of earth" the box kite literally streaked into the sky. The line screamed off the fishing reel and the kite rapidly diminished in apparent size as the March wind drove it upward toward the clouds.
Brother and I stood transfixed and alternately gawked skyward and grinned back at Dad as the kite soared. At the grin point in each slack-jawed gawk and grin sequence, however, I detected a slight change in the look on Dad's face. He was going through his own attention-shifting sequence, grinning at us and then checking the rapidly diminishing line thickness on the level-wind reel at his hands. Dad's look began to take on a hint of concern as he attempted to check the racing line by tightening the reel's drag. Line continued to scream off the reel. Brother and I continued our gawk and grin routine. The box kite was approaching escape velocity at down-range altitude sufficient to turn it into a mere colorful speck.
"Uh, oh. There she goes.", Dad said flatly. Just as I began to try to figure out where Mom was going, the last of the line left the reel and a loud snap announced another Confederate loss. The gawk and grin sequence devolved into an expanding-interval shock and question sequence, the shock portion of which was accompanied by quivering bottom lips caving-in under protruding buck teeth (regular torture sessions at the orthodontist were still underway).
Somewhere east of England Air Force Base, outside of Alexandria, LA, a homemade box kite, bearing the previous Sunday's Charles Shultz creation, crashed to earth--that is if it didn't burn up on re-entry.
This month brings back childhood memories of kite-flying. I still remember the first "store-bought" kite I ever had--I think I was 12 or 13. It was acrobatic--its crackling plastic swept-back wings made me feel like I had a fighter plane on a leash. It was so light and aero-dynamic that it would leap from your hand into flight with the slightest breeze. But, as special as buying and flying that marvel by myself was, there was something missing in the experience. Up until that point, every March meant saving the Sunday paper funny pages with which to cover homemade kites the way my daddy had done when he was a kid, and the way he did for my brother and me the first time we ever experienced the wonder of sailing a kite on a warm, windy afternoon.
After a few years of flying small diamond-shaped kites stabilized with rag-strip tails and tethered to us with a few hundred feet of string, Dad decided we were big enough to handle the "manly-man's kite" and he built us a box kite. On a three-dimensional two foot long frame, a box kite's sail surface was four-sided at either end. This produced a dramatic increase in lift compared to the one dimensional kites we had flown. Dad attached the box kite to one of his fishing poles, the reel for which was spooled with several hundred yards of line, and set the drag at its lightest limit. It took both my brother and I running full tilt into the wind to get the behemoth airborne, but once it "slipped the surly bonds of earth" the box kite literally streaked into the sky. The line screamed off the fishing reel and the kite rapidly diminished in apparent size as the March wind drove it upward toward the clouds.
Brother and I stood transfixed and alternately gawked skyward and grinned back at Dad as the kite soared. At the grin point in each slack-jawed gawk and grin sequence, however, I detected a slight change in the look on Dad's face. He was going through his own attention-shifting sequence, grinning at us and then checking the rapidly diminishing line thickness on the level-wind reel at his hands. Dad's look began to take on a hint of concern as he attempted to check the racing line by tightening the reel's drag. Line continued to scream off the reel. Brother and I continued our gawk and grin routine. The box kite was approaching escape velocity at down-range altitude sufficient to turn it into a mere colorful speck.
"Uh, oh. There she goes.", Dad said flatly. Just as I began to try to figure out where Mom was going, the last of the line left the reel and a loud snap announced another Confederate loss. The gawk and grin sequence devolved into an expanding-interval shock and question sequence, the shock portion of which was accompanied by quivering bottom lips caving-in under protruding buck teeth (regular torture sessions at the orthodontist were still underway).
Somewhere east of England Air Force Base, outside of Alexandria, LA, a homemade box kite, bearing the previous Sunday's Charles Shultz creation, crashed to earth--that is if it didn't burn up on re-entry.
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Ace Low
On the tenth of May, 1972, in the skies over North Vietnam, a Navy fighter pilot and his Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) in a two seat F-4J Phantom became the first ace of the Vietnam War. They had two previous kills, and on this memorable day, they quickly downed two communist MiGs and then engaged in one of the most studied dogfights in aerial combat history with one of North Vietnam's most experienced fighter pilots. After a seesaw aerial ballet which pitted the brute force F-4 Phantom against the nimble MiG-17 Fresco in a series of head-on and climbing engagements, the Americans finally got the advantage and made their fifth kill with a Sidewinder heat-seeking missile at close range. The enemy pilot had the advantage at several points in the fight, but the American pilot refused to follow the safe route and disengage to fight another day. He pushed the envelope, hung it out, and finally prevailed. On their way out of enemy skies, their aircraft was hit by a surface to air missile and they were forced to eject from their fatally crippled ride over the coastal waters of North Vietnam. Plucked from the shark and enemy patrol boat-infested waters by a rescue helicopter, Randy "Duke" Cunningham and his shipmate Willie Driscol became two of the most celebrated and decorated flyers of the war, and went on to train hundreds of other fighter pilots at the Navy's Top Gun school.
Yesterday, former congressman Randy Cunningham was sentenced to 8 years and 4 months in a Federal penitentary as punishment for his conviction on bribery charges. The immediate reaction that most of us have when we see something like this take place in the life of a former hero is to wonder where and why they changed. But Cunningham didn't "change." He lived the rest of his life like he fought enemy fighter pilots--over the edge, pushing the envelope.
The character "strength" that made him an ace was the character "flaw" that made him a felon.
Yesterday, former congressman Randy Cunningham was sentenced to 8 years and 4 months in a Federal penitentary as punishment for his conviction on bribery charges. The immediate reaction that most of us have when we see something like this take place in the life of a former hero is to wonder where and why they changed. But Cunningham didn't "change." He lived the rest of his life like he fought enemy fighter pilots--over the edge, pushing the envelope.
The character "strength" that made him an ace was the character "flaw" that made him a felon.
Friday, March 03, 2006
Checklists and Caffeine
Shortly after I left active duty, my son and his boss asked me to come help them with organizing the operations of their fast-growing construction supply business. I started out part-time at first--I had a lot of hunting and fishing to catch up on. As time went by, I spent more and more time and eventually became the full-time operations manager.
From long training in the Marine Corps, I had learned that the first one to arrive on the battlefield had the advantage. This advantage applies whether the battlefield is an actual fight or a business venture. Getting in to work before everyone else allowed me to be organized and ready to get everyone else organized and ready. I also found, as I got more senior in rank, that my subordinates drew a certain degree of comfort from my predictability, and from the fact that I was ready with a plan for the day when they arrived.
Of course, the first to arrive at the office also had the responsibility for making the coffee. I am a prodigious consumer of coffee. If caffeine is ever out-lawed, I'm changing my name to Jesse James. I took great pleasure in having that first bitter taste of the bean, at my desk, in the quiet before the arrival of the rest of the gang.
Besides making the coffee, my more visible duties as operations manager were generally to issue orders for the day's and week's deliveries and installation jobs, and then record all of the activities accomplished at the end of the day in a series of reports. Although there was a lot to do, my routine and the relative simplicity of the tasks, made it look fairly easy. I also made checklists for everyone else to help keep them on task.
When I left that job last year, the guys presented me with a coffee mug. They told me that, through close observation, they had figured out my duties, and they pointed out the checklist printed on the side of the coffee mug.
1. Make the coffee.
2. Drink the coffee.
3. Tell people what to do.
4. Write it down.
That about sums it up.
From long training in the Marine Corps, I had learned that the first one to arrive on the battlefield had the advantage. This advantage applies whether the battlefield is an actual fight or a business venture. Getting in to work before everyone else allowed me to be organized and ready to get everyone else organized and ready. I also found, as I got more senior in rank, that my subordinates drew a certain degree of comfort from my predictability, and from the fact that I was ready with a plan for the day when they arrived.
Of course, the first to arrive at the office also had the responsibility for making the coffee. I am a prodigious consumer of coffee. If caffeine is ever out-lawed, I'm changing my name to Jesse James. I took great pleasure in having that first bitter taste of the bean, at my desk, in the quiet before the arrival of the rest of the gang.
Besides making the coffee, my more visible duties as operations manager were generally to issue orders for the day's and week's deliveries and installation jobs, and then record all of the activities accomplished at the end of the day in a series of reports. Although there was a lot to do, my routine and the relative simplicity of the tasks, made it look fairly easy. I also made checklists for everyone else to help keep them on task.
When I left that job last year, the guys presented me with a coffee mug. They told me that, through close observation, they had figured out my duties, and they pointed out the checklist printed on the side of the coffee mug.
1. Make the coffee.
2. Drink the coffee.
3. Tell people what to do.
4. Write it down.
That about sums it up.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
The Bounty in the Bramble Patch
My wife's grandfather raised hogs on a small farm in North Mississippi. His was one of the last small-time commercial operations--he never had more than a hundred or so pigs on his place at any one time and he raised them pretty much the way hogs had been raised for thousands of years. He didn't have fancy individual faring pens--just a few scattered three-foot high hog houses on five or six fenced acres. For nearly fifty years he had driven his pick-up each day into Memphis to pick up garbage can loads of restaurant refuse with which to slop his hogs the next morning. He supplemented the slop with feed corn, or vice versa--I could never figure out which. The slop contained every vegetable, meat, and bread imaginable, to which he added water and filled handmade wooden troughs, out of which the hogs greedily and noisily fed. The smells and sounds of a cold, dark winter morning on the Cannon farm is a memory I will likely take to my grave.
After the hogs had cleaned the troughs, an inspection would often uncover forks, spoons, and knives from the restaurants that had inadvertantly made their way into the garbage. The restaurants wouldn't take them back, and while they may have never had many luxuries in their lives, the Cannons never wanted for tableware. The haul over 50 years had yielded numerous complete sets, several of which were given away to families less fortunate.
Of course, every vegetable seed that entered into a hog's confederate end, exited from the yankee end and was deposited in its own mound of the world's best organic fertilizer. The ground in the hog lot stayed bare as the face of the moon, however. Any seed that sprouted was immediately whacked by a porcine weed-eater.
When Mr. Cannon died in the late winter of '91, his family sold off all of his hogs and the well-fertilized hog lot reverted to a bramble patch. Later that summer, one of Mrs. Cannon's granddaughters brought her three children for a visit. After the compulsory hugs and kisses were endured, the boys ran immediately to explore the jungle that had grown up in the hog lot. Not much later they returned, proudly carrying a cornucopia of vegetables--squash, tomatoes, watermelon, peas and beans of several varieties. They were summarily accused of raiding a neighbor's garden and were within a hair's breadth of suffering their daily spanking, for which they had just provided the not-necessarily-required justification, before they finally convinced their mother to come see the "wild garden" in the former hog lot. Without the daily intensive grazing by the hogs, the last of the hog droppings had provided a final gift.
I was always amazed at the care Mr. Cannon took with his hogs. He knew when any one of them was missing at the hog trough and would go to any length to rescue a pig in distress. I like to think of that bounty in the bramble patch as nature's (and the hogs') final tribute to the man.
After the hogs had cleaned the troughs, an inspection would often uncover forks, spoons, and knives from the restaurants that had inadvertantly made their way into the garbage. The restaurants wouldn't take them back, and while they may have never had many luxuries in their lives, the Cannons never wanted for tableware. The haul over 50 years had yielded numerous complete sets, several of which were given away to families less fortunate.
Of course, every vegetable seed that entered into a hog's confederate end, exited from the yankee end and was deposited in its own mound of the world's best organic fertilizer. The ground in the hog lot stayed bare as the face of the moon, however. Any seed that sprouted was immediately whacked by a porcine weed-eater.
When Mr. Cannon died in the late winter of '91, his family sold off all of his hogs and the well-fertilized hog lot reverted to a bramble patch. Later that summer, one of Mrs. Cannon's granddaughters brought her three children for a visit. After the compulsory hugs and kisses were endured, the boys ran immediately to explore the jungle that had grown up in the hog lot. Not much later they returned, proudly carrying a cornucopia of vegetables--squash, tomatoes, watermelon, peas and beans of several varieties. They were summarily accused of raiding a neighbor's garden and were within a hair's breadth of suffering their daily spanking, for which they had just provided the not-necessarily-required justification, before they finally convinced their mother to come see the "wild garden" in the former hog lot. Without the daily intensive grazing by the hogs, the last of the hog droppings had provided a final gift.
I was always amazed at the care Mr. Cannon took with his hogs. He knew when any one of them was missing at the hog trough and would go to any length to rescue a pig in distress. I like to think of that bounty in the bramble patch as nature's (and the hogs') final tribute to the man.
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Goodbye, Dear Friend
She was the grandmother of the love of my life and the matriarchal head of my wife's close family. Last week she went to be with the Lord. She was 94, nearly twice my age, and she was one of my dearest friends. When I first met her I was a freshman in college, and quite convinced I knew more about the world than anyone my age and most everyone else. You see, I was a voracious reader and had traveled--I was a man of the world. Mrs. Cannon was the hard-working wife of a Mississippi hog farmer and I made the mistake of underestimating her at our first meeting. After that first weekend at her breakfast table I never made that mistake again. She was one of the smartest women I have ever known, and she kept her sharp mind until her last breath. In her I found a kindred spirit of sorts. We shared a love for reading and birds.
She and her husband were charter members of the Greatest Generation and I instantly liked them both. They were a study in contrasts. He was taciturn and a focused perfectionist. She was talkative and related family stories that were the definition of free association. By the time I met them they had been a team for over 40 years and had their farming life down to a practiced science. Despite the fact that I hung all over their precious granddaughter like a cheap suit, they accepted me from the start and treated me like another son. I later learned that I was just the latest in a long line of young men and women they had befriended, fed, raised, disciplined, and set-straight. During the Second World War, army units camped near their homestead and Mr. Cannon regularly brought home soldiers (young boys, really, away from their homes for the first time) for a home-cooked meal.
They had raised three sons, the oldest of whom had the twin girls my buddy and I had double-dated through high school. When the girls matriculated at Memphis State they lived their freshman year on their grandparents' farm 20 miles outside of Memphis. I burned up the asphalt between Oxford and Memphis on a regular basis and the price for my room and board on the Cannon farm was some of the hardest work I had ever done, or ever did. The education I received from those southern survivors of the Great Depression was invaluable. They were, frankly, poor in possessions. But they were proud and rich in their self-sufficience. Mr. Cannon died 15 years ago, at the wheel of his truck, hauling slop for his hogs.
Saturday we buried Mrs. Cannon next to her husband of 59 years in a small country cemetery in Northwest Mississippi, near where they were born, reared, and married. A steady down-pour ceased long enough for her family to gather graveside and share. There were tears, but there was also laughter at remembrances of a special couple whose lives continue to influence generations after them. Her three sons, a nephew, my son, and I carried her casket from the hearse to the opened grave across a soggy ground. It was fitting that we toiled in the mud for her--she had done the same for us.
She and her husband were charter members of the Greatest Generation and I instantly liked them both. They were a study in contrasts. He was taciturn and a focused perfectionist. She was talkative and related family stories that were the definition of free association. By the time I met them they had been a team for over 40 years and had their farming life down to a practiced science. Despite the fact that I hung all over their precious granddaughter like a cheap suit, they accepted me from the start and treated me like another son. I later learned that I was just the latest in a long line of young men and women they had befriended, fed, raised, disciplined, and set-straight. During the Second World War, army units camped near their homestead and Mr. Cannon regularly brought home soldiers (young boys, really, away from their homes for the first time) for a home-cooked meal.
They had raised three sons, the oldest of whom had the twin girls my buddy and I had double-dated through high school. When the girls matriculated at Memphis State they lived their freshman year on their grandparents' farm 20 miles outside of Memphis. I burned up the asphalt between Oxford and Memphis on a regular basis and the price for my room and board on the Cannon farm was some of the hardest work I had ever done, or ever did. The education I received from those southern survivors of the Great Depression was invaluable. They were, frankly, poor in possessions. But they were proud and rich in their self-sufficience. Mr. Cannon died 15 years ago, at the wheel of his truck, hauling slop for his hogs.
Saturday we buried Mrs. Cannon next to her husband of 59 years in a small country cemetery in Northwest Mississippi, near where they were born, reared, and married. A steady down-pour ceased long enough for her family to gather graveside and share. There were tears, but there was also laughter at remembrances of a special couple whose lives continue to influence generations after them. Her three sons, a nephew, my son, and I carried her casket from the hearse to the opened grave across a soggy ground. It was fitting that we toiled in the mud for her--she had done the same for us.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Deja Vu, All Over Again
Watched a documentary last night on Reagan's strategy for defeating the Soviet Union and winning the Cold War. Margaret Thatcher said it best when she toasted Reagan for putting freedom "on the offensive." It is interesting to note, in light of current events, that the actions Reagan took (rebuilding our conventional forces, deploying more capable nuclear forces in Europe, SDI, imposing unilateral economic sanctions, and supporting anti-communist insurgencies in Nicaragua, Afghanistan, and Poland), were wildly unpopular at home and abroad. A couple of years into his first term, Reagan's poll numbers made Jimmy Carter's look good. In his second term, there was talk of impeachment. But Reagan, to the chagrin of the Washington Wimps and the Soviets, stuck to his guns. In 1987, Reagan challenged Gorbachev to "tear down this wall." Two years later the Evil Empire crumbled to pieces like the Berlin Wall, hammered to fragments at the hands of millions yearning to live free.
I grew up watching the horizon for bright flashes and mushroom clouds, and learning to duck and cover in my school classrooms. My early training in the military was focused on defending against a tsunami-like Red Army conventional attack. I remember, clearly, sitting in a set of bleachers with fellow new lieutenants in training as a stern captain caused us to envision a Soviet Motorized Rifle Division attacking us from our front in wave after inexorable wave of infantry fighting vehicles and tanks supported by deluges of high explosive and chemical artillery rounds. At the end of his 30-minute imaginary tour de force, he paused and asked, "Any questions?" One of my buddies summed up our collective thoughts with the question, "Sir, how do they treat prisoners?"
In those days nobody believed that the Soviets could be beaten. They had the advantage of a ruthless ideology under totalitarian rule backed by overwhelming force. Heck, I didn't think we could beat them short of an all-out thermo-nuclear exchange that would have bounced each other's rubble pile until Paraguay was the new world super-power. But Reagan, and his faithful core of true believers, placed faith in the righteousness of freedom and in the incredible strength of free people, and bankrupted the Kremlin.
I can't help but think that history is repeating itself. Most of us don't recognize this because we don't care to study history--but that's grist for another post. Today we face an enemy that most commentators and many timid Americans believe is impossible to defeat. Our president's warfighting policies are unpopular. Listen, I'm the most jingoistic and patriotic American Empire-builder on the North American tectonic plate and I have a hard time following W's logic sometimes. But, the alternative to keeping freedom on the offensive is just too frightening to countenance.
And, oh by the way, while we are slapping at pesky islamo-fascist terrorists, we had better keep a fist tightly closed and coiled to strike the rapidly arming totalitarian masters of 1.4 billion Chinese.
I grew up watching the horizon for bright flashes and mushroom clouds, and learning to duck and cover in my school classrooms. My early training in the military was focused on defending against a tsunami-like Red Army conventional attack. I remember, clearly, sitting in a set of bleachers with fellow new lieutenants in training as a stern captain caused us to envision a Soviet Motorized Rifle Division attacking us from our front in wave after inexorable wave of infantry fighting vehicles and tanks supported by deluges of high explosive and chemical artillery rounds. At the end of his 30-minute imaginary tour de force, he paused and asked, "Any questions?" One of my buddies summed up our collective thoughts with the question, "Sir, how do they treat prisoners?"
In those days nobody believed that the Soviets could be beaten. They had the advantage of a ruthless ideology under totalitarian rule backed by overwhelming force. Heck, I didn't think we could beat them short of an all-out thermo-nuclear exchange that would have bounced each other's rubble pile until Paraguay was the new world super-power. But Reagan, and his faithful core of true believers, placed faith in the righteousness of freedom and in the incredible strength of free people, and bankrupted the Kremlin.
I can't help but think that history is repeating itself. Most of us don't recognize this because we don't care to study history--but that's grist for another post. Today we face an enemy that most commentators and many timid Americans believe is impossible to defeat. Our president's warfighting policies are unpopular. Listen, I'm the most jingoistic and patriotic American Empire-builder on the North American tectonic plate and I have a hard time following W's logic sometimes. But, the alternative to keeping freedom on the offensive is just too frightening to countenance.
And, oh by the way, while we are slapping at pesky islamo-fascist terrorists, we had better keep a fist tightly closed and coiled to strike the rapidly arming totalitarian masters of 1.4 billion Chinese.
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Play with Honor
I haven't paid that much attention to the Winter Olympics this year, and from what I hear, I'm not alone. I did catch some news this morning about a women's snowboarder who was so far ahead of her competition that she decided to show off short of the finish line...and fell. She lost the race, and the gold. Thirty years from now, her grandaughter will climb up onto her lap, turn her innocent little eyes toward her grandmother and sweetly ask, "Holy Cow, Grandma, what were you thinking?!?"
I actually take a great deal of not-so-secret delight when an athlete shows off and hurts himself or blows a game. I absolutely hate the in-your-face, showboating that dominates sports today. Not surprisingly, you rarely hear the word "sportsmanship" anymore. Used to be that HOW you played the GAME was as important as winning.
When I was occupying space at Ole Miss thirty years ago, my future Marine officer buddies and I had a team in the intramural softball league. We wore fatigue covers (Marines don't call headgear caps or hats) starched and ironed in the inspection-ready fashion called "highly blocked." So we called our team...Highly Blocked. One game that sticks out in my mind was against a team from the law school. I even remember their name: Paper Chase (for the law school movie out at that time). What I really remember about that game was their foul-mouthed, taunting pitcher. Frankly, I had never experienced anything like it. He ran his filthy, insulting mouth the entire game. I bet the guy is a very successful ambulance chaser or politician today--I don't know and don't care. What I do know is, people like him give the rest of the human race a bad name. His short-term tactic was effective--we were rattled by his ranting and they beat us in a close game. But, and here's the lesson for anyone playing sports today, the long-term strategic effect of his actions can't help but be detrimental to his activities today. I'm quite secure in the belief that anyone who ever PLAYED with that guy, wouldn't WORK with him. If he were the most effective criminal defense lawyer in the land, I wouldn't let him represent me...even pro bono.
It's Saturday morning and I bet the guy is sitting at home wondering why no one ever invites him to play golf anymore.
I actually take a great deal of not-so-secret delight when an athlete shows off and hurts himself or blows a game. I absolutely hate the in-your-face, showboating that dominates sports today. Not surprisingly, you rarely hear the word "sportsmanship" anymore. Used to be that HOW you played the GAME was as important as winning.
When I was occupying space at Ole Miss thirty years ago, my future Marine officer buddies and I had a team in the intramural softball league. We wore fatigue covers (Marines don't call headgear caps or hats) starched and ironed in the inspection-ready fashion called "highly blocked." So we called our team...Highly Blocked. One game that sticks out in my mind was against a team from the law school. I even remember their name: Paper Chase (for the law school movie out at that time). What I really remember about that game was their foul-mouthed, taunting pitcher. Frankly, I had never experienced anything like it. He ran his filthy, insulting mouth the entire game. I bet the guy is a very successful ambulance chaser or politician today--I don't know and don't care. What I do know is, people like him give the rest of the human race a bad name. His short-term tactic was effective--we were rattled by his ranting and they beat us in a close game. But, and here's the lesson for anyone playing sports today, the long-term strategic effect of his actions can't help but be detrimental to his activities today. I'm quite secure in the belief that anyone who ever PLAYED with that guy, wouldn't WORK with him. If he were the most effective criminal defense lawyer in the land, I wouldn't let him represent me...even pro bono.
It's Saturday morning and I bet the guy is sitting at home wondering why no one ever invites him to play golf anymore.
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Shotgun Stupids
I have an opinion about everything. I just make it a point not to share my uninformed ones with others, and thereby avoid looking like an idiot more than I do normally. I'm a hunter, so I have an informed opinion to share regarding what is fast becoming known, by the most unoriginal generation in history, as Quail-gate.
I'll not defend Mr. Cheney here for his hunting accident. Nor will I join the great unwashed who have taken the opportunity to shoot at him in the wake of his unfortunate wounding of a fellow hunter. There, but by the grace of God, go I. But, I will take the opportunity to offer an observation regarding the hyperventilation and uninformed postulation of the fourth estate concerning an activity about which they, nearly to a man, show absolutely no clue.
I am offended by those whose first reaction was to summon and display down-the-nose visaged revulsion at the mere suggestion of anyone hunting to begin with. It galls me no end for anyone who has never experienced the solemnity of an ethical hunt to disdainfully comment on the activity. And for the television news pretty boys (Spiro Agnew's "effete intellectual snobs" descriptor fits well here) to try to "report" on the technical aspects of firearms and ammunition without even the basics of understanding drives me straight up the nearest vertical surface. Of course, I shouldn't be at all suprised by this glaring lack of understanding by the press--I have a long-running frustration with people in general, and news broadcasters in particular, who demonstrate a lack of even the most basic understanding of anything to do with the self-sacrificing military guarantors of their press freedoms. Seems that anything to do with a weapon of any sort is just not worthy of study by civilized intellectuals. Tell that to Leonardo da Vinci.
If a microphone-waving newsy accidentally knocks out an interviewee's tooth someday, I'm gonna be all over him like pokes on a porcupine.
I'll not defend Mr. Cheney here for his hunting accident. Nor will I join the great unwashed who have taken the opportunity to shoot at him in the wake of his unfortunate wounding of a fellow hunter. There, but by the grace of God, go I. But, I will take the opportunity to offer an observation regarding the hyperventilation and uninformed postulation of the fourth estate concerning an activity about which they, nearly to a man, show absolutely no clue.
I am offended by those whose first reaction was to summon and display down-the-nose visaged revulsion at the mere suggestion of anyone hunting to begin with. It galls me no end for anyone who has never experienced the solemnity of an ethical hunt to disdainfully comment on the activity. And for the television news pretty boys (Spiro Agnew's "effete intellectual snobs" descriptor fits well here) to try to "report" on the technical aspects of firearms and ammunition without even the basics of understanding drives me straight up the nearest vertical surface. Of course, I shouldn't be at all suprised by this glaring lack of understanding by the press--I have a long-running frustration with people in general, and news broadcasters in particular, who demonstrate a lack of even the most basic understanding of anything to do with the self-sacrificing military guarantors of their press freedoms. Seems that anything to do with a weapon of any sort is just not worthy of study by civilized intellectuals. Tell that to Leonardo da Vinci.
If a microphone-waving newsy accidentally knocks out an interviewee's tooth someday, I'm gonna be all over him like pokes on a porcupine.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Vagabond
I have been experiencing a strange sensation over the past several weeks. It felt like anticipation--like I was supposed to be expecting something, but I couldn't figure out what. Last night I had a dream about checking in at a new duty station and this morning I know what I have been feeling. I'm expecting my next set of PCS orders. I've been in my present home for two and half years, and I have an overwhelming urge to start packing.
The itinerary of my entire life has been at the whim of the Department of Defense. I was born at McCoy Air Force Base in Orlando during my father's first enlistment. By the time I graduated high school, I had attended 13 different schools and lived in 12 different houses in four different states and two foreign countries. Then, I really started travelling. Eighteen years as an Air Force brat was only preparatory training for the next three decades as a Marine. At the close of my military career, the count of homes in which I had lived during my life was over 40. And that didn't count the dozens of temporary quarters I occupied on deployments and assignments.
When you move as often as I have, you learn not to accumulate possessions. Removing your life's stuff from boxes and setting up household becomes a ritual you can do in your sleep. By the time my wife (she was an Air Force brat, as well) and I were in our 40's, we had packing and unpacking down to a science. Her goal at every new duty station was to break the previous record for time took to set up our new home. Once she went 36 hours straight without sleeping and had our new home set up and decorated like we had been there for years. I was often able to avoid helping her in any meaningful way by claiming "they" wanted me to "get right to work" at my new job.
Our tumbleweed life (and the transient life of our military cohorts) also taught us not to establish too close of a relationship with friends and neighbors. It was painful enough saying goodbye to close acquaintances, and that was a constant exercise.
It is an unfortunate state to which I have been conditioned. As much as I want to put down roots and make close friends, I don't know if it is possible anymore. My vagabond nature is too deeply ingrained.
Where's the newspaper? I need to check out the real estate section.
The itinerary of my entire life has been at the whim of the Department of Defense. I was born at McCoy Air Force Base in Orlando during my father's first enlistment. By the time I graduated high school, I had attended 13 different schools and lived in 12 different houses in four different states and two foreign countries. Then, I really started travelling. Eighteen years as an Air Force brat was only preparatory training for the next three decades as a Marine. At the close of my military career, the count of homes in which I had lived during my life was over 40. And that didn't count the dozens of temporary quarters I occupied on deployments and assignments.
When you move as often as I have, you learn not to accumulate possessions. Removing your life's stuff from boxes and setting up household becomes a ritual you can do in your sleep. By the time my wife (she was an Air Force brat, as well) and I were in our 40's, we had packing and unpacking down to a science. Her goal at every new duty station was to break the previous record for time took to set up our new home. Once she went 36 hours straight without sleeping and had our new home set up and decorated like we had been there for years. I was often able to avoid helping her in any meaningful way by claiming "they" wanted me to "get right to work" at my new job.
Our tumbleweed life (and the transient life of our military cohorts) also taught us not to establish too close of a relationship with friends and neighbors. It was painful enough saying goodbye to close acquaintances, and that was a constant exercise.
It is an unfortunate state to which I have been conditioned. As much as I want to put down roots and make close friends, I don't know if it is possible anymore. My vagabond nature is too deeply ingrained.
Where's the newspaper? I need to check out the real estate section.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Remembering Jimmy
My Uncle Jimmy passed away suddenly this past week. He was 64. His memorial service was held yesterday afternoon in Baton Rouge. Prior to the service I visited with my aunt and my cousins, and listening to those three women remember Jimmy filled me with an overwhelming sense of regret. I hadn't spent more than a few hours with Jimmy over the 45 years that he was in our family--I have always been too busy with own life and career, shamefully, to spend much time with even my own family. I knew I liked him immensely, I just didn't know why. My only solid remembrance of the man was that he treated me as an adult a long time before I deserved it. As I listened to their remembrances I learned that I had missed really knowing a man who shared many of my own passions and viewpoints. I heard about a man whose fascination with nature and love of country surprisingly surpassed my own. I heard about a man whose exellence as a son, a husband, a father, and a teacher would have made him an ideal mentor in my life.
I can only guess how hard this is on my aunt and cousins, and my loss is only a fraction of that felt by them. But, in a way, my loss is greater than theirs. They shared his life, and I missed out.
I can only guess how hard this is on my aunt and cousins, and my loss is only a fraction of that felt by them. But, in a way, my loss is greater than theirs. They shared his life, and I missed out.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Februphobia
Still waiting on my honorary Mensa membership card to arrive in the mail, in recognition of my previous contributions to scientific knowledge. Maybe the fact that I have classified a new malady will get their membership department off their collective duffs. Most of us who live in the northern hemisphere have been aware of the affliction for the majority of our lives. And those of us who live in the northern and western hemisphere are the most acutely susceptible. It isn't as much a sickness as it is a general malaise that creeps into our bones as our bodies are trying to digest the last of the Super Bowl party guacamole dip. I'm referring of course to Februphobia--Fear of the Month of February. The lethargy accompanying the onset of Februphobia has overcome me so intensely this year that it has taken me a full quarter of the month to muster sufficient energy to write about it.
It is fairly obvious that this disease has been recognized for thousands of years. Furthermore, it is obvious that it is genetic. Why else would our calendar only grant 28 days to this month if it were not for the inborn desire to shorten the suffering associated with it?
As a public service, and in recognition that many of you may not fully understand what it is about February that you should fear/hate, I will forthwith posit on the vile month's demerits.
1. There is no real football played in February. "Aha!", you say. "The Super Bowl is played in February." That isn't real football. That's advertising run amok while two nervous football teams play at a level of competence not seen since the beginning of the exhibition season.
2. Duck season is over. I have now entered into the 10 month period of my life known as "Waiting for the next duck season." The last 2 or 3 months of this period find me in a near euphoric state as the weather cools and my eyes begin scanning the sky for signs of migration. The first month of this period plunges me into a depth of despair only fully understood by those of us who spend exorbitant amounts of money and drive ridiculous distances to stand in waist deep freezing water.
3. The season for speckled trout is closed in Florida. When my Number 1 son and I were discussing this fact the other day, he snidely remarked, "Like you catch any trout big enough to keep when the season is open." Immediately following the posting of this blog, I have an appointment with my lawyer to discuss changing my will.
4. Basketball. Nuff said.
5. Hockey. Ditto.
6. Valentines Day. I once remarked at a social gathering around this time of the year that my lovely bride and I didn't pay much attention to Valentines Day, because in our home "we treat every day like Valentines Day." Uproarious and near insane laughter ensued and I was beginning to think that I might have a future as a stand-up comic, until I noticed that my wife was the one doing all the laughing.
7. The weather. Now, I know that living in Florida does not give me the same right to complain about the weather as those of you living in the arctic reaches (anywhere north of Interstate 10) of our great land, but I reserve the right to grumble nonetheless. It is just so doggone inconvenient to have to wear long-sleeved shirts!
There is just one thing I like about February. Baseball season has not started yet, and it is too cold to actually have to watch paint dry.
It is fairly obvious that this disease has been recognized for thousands of years. Furthermore, it is obvious that it is genetic. Why else would our calendar only grant 28 days to this month if it were not for the inborn desire to shorten the suffering associated with it?
As a public service, and in recognition that many of you may not fully understand what it is about February that you should fear/hate, I will forthwith posit on the vile month's demerits.
1. There is no real football played in February. "Aha!", you say. "The Super Bowl is played in February." That isn't real football. That's advertising run amok while two nervous football teams play at a level of competence not seen since the beginning of the exhibition season.
2. Duck season is over. I have now entered into the 10 month period of my life known as "Waiting for the next duck season." The last 2 or 3 months of this period find me in a near euphoric state as the weather cools and my eyes begin scanning the sky for signs of migration. The first month of this period plunges me into a depth of despair only fully understood by those of us who spend exorbitant amounts of money and drive ridiculous distances to stand in waist deep freezing water.
3. The season for speckled trout is closed in Florida. When my Number 1 son and I were discussing this fact the other day, he snidely remarked, "Like you catch any trout big enough to keep when the season is open." Immediately following the posting of this blog, I have an appointment with my lawyer to discuss changing my will.
4. Basketball. Nuff said.
5. Hockey. Ditto.
6. Valentines Day. I once remarked at a social gathering around this time of the year that my lovely bride and I didn't pay much attention to Valentines Day, because in our home "we treat every day like Valentines Day." Uproarious and near insane laughter ensued and I was beginning to think that I might have a future as a stand-up comic, until I noticed that my wife was the one doing all the laughing.
7. The weather. Now, I know that living in Florida does not give me the same right to complain about the weather as those of you living in the arctic reaches (anywhere north of Interstate 10) of our great land, but I reserve the right to grumble nonetheless. It is just so doggone inconvenient to have to wear long-sleeved shirts!
There is just one thing I like about February. Baseball season has not started yet, and it is too cold to actually have to watch paint dry.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
The Beast of Bishop's Bottom
I was channel surfing the other night and caught about 45 seconds of a program about "Big Foot." I have traditionally made it a point not to watch these kinds of programs for the same reason I don't watch horror films. I have an active imagination and don't need any of that kind of stuff stuck in the folds of my grey matter. I spent a lot of time in the infantry, by myself, in unfamiliar territory, in the dark. Even now, as a hunter, I am in the woods a lot pre-sunup and post-sundown. The last thing I need is a memory of some movie's maniacal monster fueling my imagination. Anyway, the Big Foot story prompted a memory of a story my Dad once told me.
As I remember the story, near my folks' hometown was a particularly inpenetrable tract of land called Bishop's Bottom. A local legend of sorts had persisted about a bigfoot type creature that lived in Bishop's Bottom, and was the grist for conversation at the regular meeting of my Dad's breakfast group, the Liars' Club. Several members of the Liars' Club hatched a plan to play a practical joke on a mutual friend who lived in a subdivision not far from Bishop's Bottom. They scrounged an old paint can and attached a length of horsehair to the bottom. When pulled between thumb and forefinger, the horsehair produced a blood-curdling screech that was amplified by the open end of the paint can.
One evening after dark, they crept into the woods between the subdivision and Bishop's Bottom and, after a giggling fit at the thought of the probable consequences of the action, commenced to give voice to the Beast of Bishop's Bottom. After completing a sufficient number of screeches and another round of giggling, they began to pick their way back out of the woods. Their careful creep became a panicked rout when from behind them, deeper in Bishop's Bottom, came a screeching answer to their calls.
Suffice it to say, debate still rages as to whether the screech that they heard was the Beast, or produced by someone playing a prank on the pranksters.
As I remember the story, near my folks' hometown was a particularly inpenetrable tract of land called Bishop's Bottom. A local legend of sorts had persisted about a bigfoot type creature that lived in Bishop's Bottom, and was the grist for conversation at the regular meeting of my Dad's breakfast group, the Liars' Club. Several members of the Liars' Club hatched a plan to play a practical joke on a mutual friend who lived in a subdivision not far from Bishop's Bottom. They scrounged an old paint can and attached a length of horsehair to the bottom. When pulled between thumb and forefinger, the horsehair produced a blood-curdling screech that was amplified by the open end of the paint can.
One evening after dark, they crept into the woods between the subdivision and Bishop's Bottom and, after a giggling fit at the thought of the probable consequences of the action, commenced to give voice to the Beast of Bishop's Bottom. After completing a sufficient number of screeches and another round of giggling, they began to pick their way back out of the woods. Their careful creep became a panicked rout when from behind them, deeper in Bishop's Bottom, came a screeching answer to their calls.
Suffice it to say, debate still rages as to whether the screech that they heard was the Beast, or produced by someone playing a prank on the pranksters.
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Bird-brained
Yesterday, a pair of bluebirds began building a nest in one of the two boxes on our back privacy fence. That may seem a trivial thing to you, and a waste of precious blog space, but to me it ranks up there with the more traditionally celebrated events in my life.
I have been fascinated by birds my whole life. Sometimes I think I missed my true life's calling--I could have been a very happy, if not prosperous, ornithologist. Some of my earliest childhood memories are of illustrated books on birds. My parents still have some of those books. One in particular, a book on ducks and geese, is probably my earliest book memory.
I'm not a rabid birder, mind you. I have way too many other interests and pursuits that demand my time and energy, so you won't find me on bird-watching outings, binoculars pressed to my eyes and notebook at the ready. But, I have feeders in my backyard and a bird identification book with which I classify my invited guests.
In the spring I put up hummingbird feeders and delight in the antics of nature's helicopters. Where we live is on the edge of the main flyways for bird migration, so we don't get the clouds of hummers at our feeders like my parents in Mississippi do. I have counted as many as 75 of the little buzzers at one time visiting their feeders. It's a banner day at my house if we get 3.
There is something special about bluebirds, though. They don't seem to mind being more public about their nesting than most birds. Being insectivores (for the benefit of you LSU and Mississippi State grads, that word means "bug eaters"), bluebirds are great birds to have around.
Cats like them, too, and I have an ongoing war against the strays in our neighborhood. It is a strong, well-supported insurgency, and I may have to resort to some drastic, undemocratic tactics to prevail.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Move over, Methusalah
A few months ago I turned 40. Well, okay, it was exactly 120 months ago today.
When I was a battalion commander, I used to tell young Marines who were in my office for some transgression or other that they needed to think about where they wanted to be in 20 years, because the decisions they were making today would have impact on the rest of their lives. I would try to impress upon them how fast time goes by in one's life, "Marine, when I went to bed last night I was 21. I woke up this morning and I was 42." Well, my words always come back to haunt me. I dreamed last night that I was sprinting (well, trying to anyway) down the sidelines of a college flag football game and couldn't figure out why the defensive back was just walking along beside me. I woke up, and dang it, I'm fifty.
I have tried to prepare myself for this day. For the past several months, I have been telling myself that I'm already fifty--kind of like the stock market factoring in an expected hike of interests rates by the Federal Reserve Board. I'll have to stay alert today, though. If a wayward wrinkle in the technology sector of my brain starts to panic despite the preparation, I might have to temporarily shut down trading (take a nap) to prevent a crash.
My younger brother expressed great glee in an e-mail the other day, pointing out that I was now offically an old man. I reminded him that "revenge hath no match like a brother whose taunting sibling has just joined him at the half century mark." To which he countered that was three years off, and being so old, I would probably have forgotten the whole thing by then. Not so, little bro--I have the archives of this blog to remind me!
My wife's 50th is still 8 months off, so for the better part of this year, I'll be able to brag about being married to a younger woman.
When I was a battalion commander, I used to tell young Marines who were in my office for some transgression or other that they needed to think about where they wanted to be in 20 years, because the decisions they were making today would have impact on the rest of their lives. I would try to impress upon them how fast time goes by in one's life, "Marine, when I went to bed last night I was 21. I woke up this morning and I was 42." Well, my words always come back to haunt me. I dreamed last night that I was sprinting (well, trying to anyway) down the sidelines of a college flag football game and couldn't figure out why the defensive back was just walking along beside me. I woke up, and dang it, I'm fifty.
I have tried to prepare myself for this day. For the past several months, I have been telling myself that I'm already fifty--kind of like the stock market factoring in an expected hike of interests rates by the Federal Reserve Board. I'll have to stay alert today, though. If a wayward wrinkle in the technology sector of my brain starts to panic despite the preparation, I might have to temporarily shut down trading (take a nap) to prevent a crash.
My younger brother expressed great glee in an e-mail the other day, pointing out that I was now offically an old man. I reminded him that "revenge hath no match like a brother whose taunting sibling has just joined him at the half century mark." To which he countered that was three years off, and being so old, I would probably have forgotten the whole thing by then. Not so, little bro--I have the archives of this blog to remind me!
My wife's 50th is still 8 months off, so for the better part of this year, I'll be able to brag about being married to a younger woman.
A Definite First Round Pick
Big news from the the mother and father of my grandson! He rolled over several times yesterday! My son called last night to share this exciting breakthrough in the development of my second favorite person on the planet. (I won't tell you who number 1 is--that could possibly cause world-wide depression as so many people believe that they hold that spot.)
Why should you care about the fact that my grandson (THE Grandson) has reached this inevitable milestone in child development (a little early, I think)? Well, let's just say that in about 25 years, many of you will watch him (probably via a chip implanted behind your ear) as he quarterbacks his team to victory in Super Bowl LXV. Listen, a three-month old kid that can master multiple daily back-to-front flips is on track to pick apart pass defenses and heave 70 yard bombs.
As soon as he can stand on his own, we'll start working on his three and five step drops.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Quacking Up
The e-mail traffic between my younger son (Jeremy), his best friend (Jason), and me (the Colonel) yesterday crowded out all other rational thinking for the day. It began innocuously with a message from Jason noting that he and Jeremy had seen a lot of ducks at their hunting spot last weekend and that the water levels required to attract and hold ducks were improving. He concluded with the observation that, and I quote verbatim, "THIS IS THE LAST WEEKEND OF THE SEASON," and the suggestion that I drive 8 hours north on Friday, hunt with them on Saturday, and then drive 8 hours south on Sunday. The ensuing replies-to-all devolved into some totally inappropriate references to my advanced age and innability to shoot and then was capped with a message containing some drivel from my son about the duck hunting trip being an opportunity to spend quality time with him.
It is worth noting at this point, that from a true duck hunters perspective, driving a 16 hour round trip to spend several hours standing in waste deep freezing water, makes perfect sense. Despite the fact that I can in no way rationalize the trip--it would require canceling several other obligations and enduring several rounds of spousal frowns and scowls--I am seriously planning to go.
Just so you understand the height of idiocy this trip, and the whole idea of hunting ducks, evokes, let me add some data from my duck-hunting trip with Jeremy the week after Christmas. I drove the 8 hours to his home in Mississippi. We then drove an hour to Jason's house to spend the night. Actually we only spent half the night, because we were up and pulling on long johns at 3 the next morning. We drove another hour to a boat ramp on the Little Tallahatchee River, launched our boat, and motored upstream a couple miles in fog so thick you choked on it. Reaching the furthest point navigable by boat, we loaded several dozen decoys on our backs, carried shotguns and enough ammunition to sustain a military coup in a banana republic under our arms, and hiked what Jeremy promised was only a couple hundred yards (I believe it was more like 5 miles) to his "honey hole." Upon arrival at said "honey hole," we discovered no honey, and more importantly, no water. Our excursion was extended by "just another 100 yards, or so" (I believe it was another 5 miles) to find a beaver pond that held enough water to attract ducks. We placed decoys out, didn't do it to satisfy my perfectionist son (he gets that from his mother), took them all up and moved them, and then gathered brush to conceal ourselves. Mind you, all of this took place in the dark. We hunted ALL DAY, saw a total of 6 ducks close enough to shoot, and then repeated the decoy/gun/ammo-lugging hike, in reverse, in the dark. I don't remember anything after arriving at the boat--I passed out from exhaustion and remained comatose until we got home.
Well, better start loading the truck.
It is worth noting at this point, that from a true duck hunters perspective, driving a 16 hour round trip to spend several hours standing in waste deep freezing water, makes perfect sense. Despite the fact that I can in no way rationalize the trip--it would require canceling several other obligations and enduring several rounds of spousal frowns and scowls--I am seriously planning to go.
Just so you understand the height of idiocy this trip, and the whole idea of hunting ducks, evokes, let me add some data from my duck-hunting trip with Jeremy the week after Christmas. I drove the 8 hours to his home in Mississippi. We then drove an hour to Jason's house to spend the night. Actually we only spent half the night, because we were up and pulling on long johns at 3 the next morning. We drove another hour to a boat ramp on the Little Tallahatchee River, launched our boat, and motored upstream a couple miles in fog so thick you choked on it. Reaching the furthest point navigable by boat, we loaded several dozen decoys on our backs, carried shotguns and enough ammunition to sustain a military coup in a banana republic under our arms, and hiked what Jeremy promised was only a couple hundred yards (I believe it was more like 5 miles) to his "honey hole." Upon arrival at said "honey hole," we discovered no honey, and more importantly, no water. Our excursion was extended by "just another 100 yards, or so" (I believe it was another 5 miles) to find a beaver pond that held enough water to attract ducks. We placed decoys out, didn't do it to satisfy my perfectionist son (he gets that from his mother), took them all up and moved them, and then gathered brush to conceal ourselves. Mind you, all of this took place in the dark. We hunted ALL DAY, saw a total of 6 ducks close enough to shoot, and then repeated the decoy/gun/ammo-lugging hike, in reverse, in the dark. I don't remember anything after arriving at the boat--I passed out from exhaustion and remained comatose until we got home.
Well, better start loading the truck.
Monday, January 23, 2006
Shuffleboard, Anyone?
Like some sort of harmonic convergence, the number, 50, has cropped up in the lives of my in-laws, my wife and her twin sister, and me, all within the span of nine months. My in-laws celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary last month. This month I celebrate (not quite the right word, actually) my 50th birthday, and my wife and her sister will be celebrating their 50th birthday later (but not much later, I keep reminding them) this year. So, my beautiful bride and her homely twin sister (we love to hate each other) have hatched a plan to lump all of our celebrations together on, and I am loathe to write the word, a cruise.
You see, to my way of thinking, cruises are what yankees take as reward for their having made the decision to live in a part of the country that really only has two seasons--winter and the 4th of July. I'm no yankee, and we live in Florida for crying out loud! The weather is beautiful all year round--it's the end of January and the temperature outside as I write this is 72 degrees! Why would I need to go on a cruise?
If you go in the bathroom right now, look in the mirror, and place a combination of "Why did I marry this idiot" scorn, and "You never take me any place nice" scowl on your face, you will in fact be looking at the face my wife gave me when I raised the above objection to taking said cruise.
Undeterred by the scowl (I see it so often that it has lost most of its effect on me), I launched into my "been there, done that" argument. I've been on ships. I've sailed the seven seas. I've visited exotic ports. And, I got paid to do it!
"Oh, but a cruise liner is so different than one of the Navy's BUGS (Big Ugly Grey Ship)", my son injects uninvited and drawing one of my practiced "Whose side are you on, Son?" looks. Despite the look (he's seen it so often it has lost most of its effect on him) he continues with, "The food is fabulous and you can eat as much as you want whenever you want..." I cut him off at his description of the 24/7 soft ice cream machine, "Does the phrase 'diabetic coma' mean anything to you? Do you think I check my blood sugar all the time because I enjoy pain and the sight of my own blood?"
Okay, I'm only a borderline diabetic and I don't check my blood sugar very often, but it is a nifty debating ploy, don't you think?
So, I'm going on a cruise. They better have good coffee.
You see, to my way of thinking, cruises are what yankees take as reward for their having made the decision to live in a part of the country that really only has two seasons--winter and the 4th of July. I'm no yankee, and we live in Florida for crying out loud! The weather is beautiful all year round--it's the end of January and the temperature outside as I write this is 72 degrees! Why would I need to go on a cruise?
If you go in the bathroom right now, look in the mirror, and place a combination of "Why did I marry this idiot" scorn, and "You never take me any place nice" scowl on your face, you will in fact be looking at the face my wife gave me when I raised the above objection to taking said cruise.
Undeterred by the scowl (I see it so often that it has lost most of its effect on me), I launched into my "been there, done that" argument. I've been on ships. I've sailed the seven seas. I've visited exotic ports. And, I got paid to do it!
"Oh, but a cruise liner is so different than one of the Navy's BUGS (Big Ugly Grey Ship)", my son injects uninvited and drawing one of my practiced "Whose side are you on, Son?" looks. Despite the look (he's seen it so often it has lost most of its effect on him) he continues with, "The food is fabulous and you can eat as much as you want whenever you want..." I cut him off at his description of the 24/7 soft ice cream machine, "Does the phrase 'diabetic coma' mean anything to you? Do you think I check my blood sugar all the time because I enjoy pain and the sight of my own blood?"
Okay, I'm only a borderline diabetic and I don't check my blood sugar very often, but it is a nifty debating ploy, don't you think?
So, I'm going on a cruise. They better have good coffee.
Move over, Einstein.
I'm sure there is a scientific name for the natural law I will herein describe. Maybe it's a corollary to the law of diminishing returns. Or maybe, just maybe, I will hereafter join the ranks of Gallileo, Newton, Einstein, and company, as the scientific world collectively slaps foreheads and exclaims, "Eureka", or whatever secret phrase is uttered when the Mensa crowd inducts a new member.
When I was a brand new second lieutenant leading a rifle platoon in an infantry battalion, I slept on the ground with my men. I had no other expectation. In fact, the leadership training that we new lieutenants had received prior to being entrusted with our own Marines had stressed the leadership practice of sharing the privations of your men. They slept on the ground, so I slept on the ground. But it did not escape my notice, and deep contemplation, that my company commander slept on a cot when we were in the field. "Aha!", I said to myself. "Rank has its privileges, and when I become a captain and a company commander someday, I'll get to sleep on a cot, too."
When I became a company commander, there was no cot. I slept on the ground with my men. But..., the battalion commander had a cot. So I said to myself, "My old company commander must have jumped the gun on the cot thing--probably didn't rate one and was claiming cot privileges not commensurate with his rank."
When I became a battalion commander, there was no cot. I slept on the ground with my men. But..., the regimental commander had a cot. Now, I didn't go to a real college (I went to Ole Miss), so my education is not exactly what you would call a personal strength, but it was at this point that I concluded that some irrefutable natural law was at work. My conviction that this law existed concreted itself in my pea-sized brain when upon being placed in command of a regiment I discovered that there was no cot.
I now live in the smartest state in the union (Floriduh) and my association with these brilliant folks has had the benefit of increasing my scientific knowledge considerably. I can now hereby claim, without fear of contradiction, that a heretofore undiscovered natural law exists, and do, by right of discovery, hereby name that law. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Gregory's Corollary to the Law of Diminishing Returns--The Cot Condition. I will leave it to my new Mensa brethren to describe this law in scientific detail--I'm too busy trying to figure out the natural law regarding the inverse relationship between number of casts and fish caught.
When I was a brand new second lieutenant leading a rifle platoon in an infantry battalion, I slept on the ground with my men. I had no other expectation. In fact, the leadership training that we new lieutenants had received prior to being entrusted with our own Marines had stressed the leadership practice of sharing the privations of your men. They slept on the ground, so I slept on the ground. But it did not escape my notice, and deep contemplation, that my company commander slept on a cot when we were in the field. "Aha!", I said to myself. "Rank has its privileges, and when I become a captain and a company commander someday, I'll get to sleep on a cot, too."
When I became a company commander, there was no cot. I slept on the ground with my men. But..., the battalion commander had a cot. So I said to myself, "My old company commander must have jumped the gun on the cot thing--probably didn't rate one and was claiming cot privileges not commensurate with his rank."
When I became a battalion commander, there was no cot. I slept on the ground with my men. But..., the regimental commander had a cot. Now, I didn't go to a real college (I went to Ole Miss), so my education is not exactly what you would call a personal strength, but it was at this point that I concluded that some irrefutable natural law was at work. My conviction that this law existed concreted itself in my pea-sized brain when upon being placed in command of a regiment I discovered that there was no cot.
I now live in the smartest state in the union (Floriduh) and my association with these brilliant folks has had the benefit of increasing my scientific knowledge considerably. I can now hereby claim, without fear of contradiction, that a heretofore undiscovered natural law exists, and do, by right of discovery, hereby name that law. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Gregory's Corollary to the Law of Diminishing Returns--The Cot Condition. I will leave it to my new Mensa brethren to describe this law in scientific detail--I'm too busy trying to figure out the natural law regarding the inverse relationship between number of casts and fish caught.
Friday, January 20, 2006
The Reagan Difference
Twenty-five years ago this week I was sitting in a tent in Minnesota. The temperature was below zero outside the tent and not much above it inside. I was with the 1st Battalion, 6th Marines and we were in the middle of a training deployment to prepare us for an exercise in North Norway. Below zero temperatures for this rebel are a memorable thing. But, the temperature is not what cements this memory in my mind like the ubiquitous small southern town square confederate memorial statue, interesting, but anachronistic. Half a dozen of us were huddled around a battery powered transistor radio straining to hear the voice of a man we could tell was strong and confident even though the AM station's signal was weak and tremulous. A new American president was taking office and even the most cynical among us had hope that a new American spirit would come with him.
Nearly two years to the day before Reagan took office, I was lying on the ground in a pine barren at Camp Lejeune, NC, trying to sleep, but too excited about my first field exercise with my first command as a second lieutenant. The Marines of 3rd Platoon, Company G, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines (yep, I was at very near the bottom of the chain of command) were probably sleepless that night as well, worrying about how bad they were going to suffer under their new lieutenant. They hadn't had a lieutenant for nearly a year and the corporal from whom I took over the reins of the platoon had been just one in a succession of young NCOs who had been designated platoon commander of 3rd Platoon. It had been an eye-opening first day for me as I had scanned the platoon roster. To say that my platoon was undermanned was true, but was the least of its weaknesses. The year was 1979 and the Marine Corps was reeling from aftershocks of the Vietnam experience. One of our recruiting slogans of the day was, "Quality, not quantity," but you couldn't prove that theory with my platoon. There were only three high school graduates in my platoon...and I was one of them. As a Naval Academy graduate and card carrying "smart guy" (he was smart enough to get through Navy nuke school) Mr. Carter wasn't quite astute enough to figure out that the military for which he was nominally commander in chief, was in actuality a brittle shell of the force portrayed on paper. But, back to my story...
Around 0200 (2 AM, for my civilian acquaintances) I finally fell asleep. At 0205, I awoke to the sound of a hand cranked siren and the voice of our company gunnery sergeant, "Get up Marines, and pack your trash! Platoon commanders report to the CP!" We were the lead company that week for the battalion assigned alert status--known officially as Air Contingency Battalion, but called simply "Air Alert" by the Marines. As I walked up to my company commander, his first sergeant was sagely reassuring him that this was most likely just a drill called by a bored duty officer at Division HQ and would give us all the opportunity to take an air conditioned crap before we headed back to the field.
We had hiked ten miles out to the field the day before, but as we stuffed our gear into our packs, a rare and wonderful sight miraculously manifested itself on the dirt road 100 yards from our bivouac--trucks! We clambered aboard and half an hour later unloaded at our barracks. After staging our gear and giving detailed instructions on who, what, where, when, and how to my platoon sergeant (I was a new lieutenant, remember, and hadn't learned to just say "take charge" to my subordinate NCOs.) I shuffled down to the company commander's office, stepped uninvited through his door and asked, loudly, "What's the scoop, Skipper." I stopped cold in my tracks when I saw that standing behind the desk with the company commander was our battalion commander (LtCol Billy M. Summerlin--a great American, God rest his soul) our regimental commander, and another colonel I didn't recognize, but later found out was the Operations Officer for the 2nd Marine Division. My company commander looked up and scowled, but I was already back-pedalling, thinking to myself, "that's a lot of brass for a drill in the middle of the night."
Colonel Summerlin, the great leader that he was, saw fit to include me in the pow wow--for some reason I'll never figure out, he seemed to take a shine to me from the day I reported into his office. "Lieutenant Gregory," he commanded in his North Carolina accent, "join us." The colonel from division had a city map spread across the desk. As I oriented myself to it, I quickly noticed that the street and neighborhood names were not American. Then I saw the word that I'm sure made my eyes go round as dinner plates--Teheran.
What most people forget about the Iranian hostage crisis is that we were given a golden opportunity to prevent it. In February of 1979, several months before they took it for good, a large group of heavily armed and well organized "students" overran the US Embassy in Teheran. A day or two later, certainly responding to howls of International protest (yeah, right) they abruptly packed up and left. In the meantime, as the Iranian revolution festered, Mr. Carter had the option of reinforcing the embassy in Iran with a full battalion of Marines, or at the very least, a reinforced company of around 200 (the bare minimum that could have effectively defended the embassy compound). But, true to form, he demurred, and the requirement that reached us at the bottom of the food chain was, "Send 60 Marines."
The plan, as the colonel from Division explained, was to launch a reinforced rifle platoon aboard a C-141 from our air station at Cherry Point, NC, and fly to our Air Force base in Incirlic, Turkey. There, the Marines would board Air Force CH-53 heavy lift helicopters and fly to an airfield in Teheran, and then go by bus or truck to the embassy. The platoon would be leaving from Cherry Point in just 6 hours, the colonel explained to my company commander, who looked up and barked, "First Sergeant, give me a company roster!"
It just so happened that while there were two other lieutenants in our company at the time, they were both away at schools and I was the only officer platoon commander available. Naturally, I quickly surmised that my platoon would be the one to be reinforced and sent. I volunteered, "Third platoon will be ready to go in an hour." Ignoring my input, the company commander turned to Colonel Summerlin and said, "I'll pick 60 of the most experienced Marines from the company and lead the force myself." I was stunned, and very disappointed. Here was the opportunity that all brand new lieutenants in training are told might come in the middle of the night--the reason to train hard and learn and prepare. Colonel Summerlin must have seen the look on my face, because he paused on the way out the door and quickly assured me, "Stay ready. The rest of the battalion will probably follow--this is too big for just a platoon."
Golf Company's reinforced platoon left on the second Air Force C-141 to arrive at Cherry Point that next day. The first one broke on arrival--the Marine Corps wasn't the only service suffering from post-Vietnam maintenance maladies. While they were in the air, the Carter administration announced the plan to the world. Never mind the fact that was a huge operational security blunder--the biggest mistake was that the Carter administration had not asked the Turkish government's permission to use their territory for this expedition, and they balked. The aircraft and its 60 combat-ready Marines diverted to our Air Force base at Lajes in the Azores and my company commander and his hand-picked unit spent the next couple of weeks playing softball in what was officially and euphemistically called a "Pos Check," whatever that meant.
No Marines reinforced the embassy in Teheran that late winter and spring of 1979 and when the ayatollahs leading the Iranian revolution saw America's weakness in the world they gave the green light to the well-armed and organized "students" who stormed the embassy gates a second time and took the embassy staff "hostage." So began a national nightmare, marked each evening on network news broadcasts as "Day..., America Held Hostage." When Mr. Carter did finally relent to attempting a military rescue operation, it ended disastrously mid-way through one of the most complicated operational schemes ever devised by American military planners. I once heard a veteran of the Israeli commando raid to free their hostages at Entebbe remark that "America tried to copy our concept too closely. If it were my operation, with over a year to plan, I would have smuggled the people and equipment into Teheran required to tunnel into the embassy compound from across the street." Gotta love Israeli commando common sense...
I actually heard Mrs. Carter in an interview a few days ago, say that she was proud that her husband finally got the hostages back all alive. That's not the way this Marine remembers it. I remember hearing, on that AM radio, in a tent in Minnesota, immediately following Ronald Reagan's first inauguration speech, that the ayatollahs had released the hostages. The distinct impression that we Marines, and the rest of the attention-paying world, had was that the prospect of the new conservative American "cowboy president" unleashing an all-out attack on Iran was real enough in their minds to encourage them to get rid of the motive. In retrospect, 25 years later, it probably was a matter of the ayatollahs having gotten all of the America-shaming mileage they could get out of the situation and they waited until Carter was no longer president to get one last parting shot at the weakling.
Reagan followed through on his inaugural rhetoric. By the end of his second term in office, the change in the spirit and capability of Americans in general, and the American military in particular, was striking. The Marine rifle company (180 of America's finest young men) I took command of as a captain in the summer of 1987 could have run circles around the entire regiment (2000 Marines) to which I had belonged in 1979. Most historians and commentators focus on the material side of the "Reagan Military Build-up." The real difference was in the young people, who, inspired by Reagan's optimism and pride in America, committed, in unprecedented quantity and quality, to serve our nation as soldiers, sailors, airmen,...and Marines.
Despite my fondness for the exploits and accomplishments of Teddy Roosevelt, and in defiance of the Democrats' insistence on the greatness of FDR and JFK, this Marine will always consider Ronald Reagan the greatest American president of the 20th Century.
Nearly two years to the day before Reagan took office, I was lying on the ground in a pine barren at Camp Lejeune, NC, trying to sleep, but too excited about my first field exercise with my first command as a second lieutenant. The Marines of 3rd Platoon, Company G, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines (yep, I was at very near the bottom of the chain of command) were probably sleepless that night as well, worrying about how bad they were going to suffer under their new lieutenant. They hadn't had a lieutenant for nearly a year and the corporal from whom I took over the reins of the platoon had been just one in a succession of young NCOs who had been designated platoon commander of 3rd Platoon. It had been an eye-opening first day for me as I had scanned the platoon roster. To say that my platoon was undermanned was true, but was the least of its weaknesses. The year was 1979 and the Marine Corps was reeling from aftershocks of the Vietnam experience. One of our recruiting slogans of the day was, "Quality, not quantity," but you couldn't prove that theory with my platoon. There were only three high school graduates in my platoon...and I was one of them. As a Naval Academy graduate and card carrying "smart guy" (he was smart enough to get through Navy nuke school) Mr. Carter wasn't quite astute enough to figure out that the military for which he was nominally commander in chief, was in actuality a brittle shell of the force portrayed on paper. But, back to my story...
Around 0200 (2 AM, for my civilian acquaintances) I finally fell asleep. At 0205, I awoke to the sound of a hand cranked siren and the voice of our company gunnery sergeant, "Get up Marines, and pack your trash! Platoon commanders report to the CP!" We were the lead company that week for the battalion assigned alert status--known officially as Air Contingency Battalion, but called simply "Air Alert" by the Marines. As I walked up to my company commander, his first sergeant was sagely reassuring him that this was most likely just a drill called by a bored duty officer at Division HQ and would give us all the opportunity to take an air conditioned crap before we headed back to the field.
We had hiked ten miles out to the field the day before, but as we stuffed our gear into our packs, a rare and wonderful sight miraculously manifested itself on the dirt road 100 yards from our bivouac--trucks! We clambered aboard and half an hour later unloaded at our barracks. After staging our gear and giving detailed instructions on who, what, where, when, and how to my platoon sergeant (I was a new lieutenant, remember, and hadn't learned to just say "take charge" to my subordinate NCOs.) I shuffled down to the company commander's office, stepped uninvited through his door and asked, loudly, "What's the scoop, Skipper." I stopped cold in my tracks when I saw that standing behind the desk with the company commander was our battalion commander (LtCol Billy M. Summerlin--a great American, God rest his soul) our regimental commander, and another colonel I didn't recognize, but later found out was the Operations Officer for the 2nd Marine Division. My company commander looked up and scowled, but I was already back-pedalling, thinking to myself, "that's a lot of brass for a drill in the middle of the night."
Colonel Summerlin, the great leader that he was, saw fit to include me in the pow wow--for some reason I'll never figure out, he seemed to take a shine to me from the day I reported into his office. "Lieutenant Gregory," he commanded in his North Carolina accent, "join us." The colonel from division had a city map spread across the desk. As I oriented myself to it, I quickly noticed that the street and neighborhood names were not American. Then I saw the word that I'm sure made my eyes go round as dinner plates--Teheran.
What most people forget about the Iranian hostage crisis is that we were given a golden opportunity to prevent it. In February of 1979, several months before they took it for good, a large group of heavily armed and well organized "students" overran the US Embassy in Teheran. A day or two later, certainly responding to howls of International protest (yeah, right) they abruptly packed up and left. In the meantime, as the Iranian revolution festered, Mr. Carter had the option of reinforcing the embassy in Iran with a full battalion of Marines, or at the very least, a reinforced company of around 200 (the bare minimum that could have effectively defended the embassy compound). But, true to form, he demurred, and the requirement that reached us at the bottom of the food chain was, "Send 60 Marines."
The plan, as the colonel from Division explained, was to launch a reinforced rifle platoon aboard a C-141 from our air station at Cherry Point, NC, and fly to our Air Force base in Incirlic, Turkey. There, the Marines would board Air Force CH-53 heavy lift helicopters and fly to an airfield in Teheran, and then go by bus or truck to the embassy. The platoon would be leaving from Cherry Point in just 6 hours, the colonel explained to my company commander, who looked up and barked, "First Sergeant, give me a company roster!"
It just so happened that while there were two other lieutenants in our company at the time, they were both away at schools and I was the only officer platoon commander available. Naturally, I quickly surmised that my platoon would be the one to be reinforced and sent. I volunteered, "Third platoon will be ready to go in an hour." Ignoring my input, the company commander turned to Colonel Summerlin and said, "I'll pick 60 of the most experienced Marines from the company and lead the force myself." I was stunned, and very disappointed. Here was the opportunity that all brand new lieutenants in training are told might come in the middle of the night--the reason to train hard and learn and prepare. Colonel Summerlin must have seen the look on my face, because he paused on the way out the door and quickly assured me, "Stay ready. The rest of the battalion will probably follow--this is too big for just a platoon."
Golf Company's reinforced platoon left on the second Air Force C-141 to arrive at Cherry Point that next day. The first one broke on arrival--the Marine Corps wasn't the only service suffering from post-Vietnam maintenance maladies. While they were in the air, the Carter administration announced the plan to the world. Never mind the fact that was a huge operational security blunder--the biggest mistake was that the Carter administration had not asked the Turkish government's permission to use their territory for this expedition, and they balked. The aircraft and its 60 combat-ready Marines diverted to our Air Force base at Lajes in the Azores and my company commander and his hand-picked unit spent the next couple of weeks playing softball in what was officially and euphemistically called a "Pos Check," whatever that meant.
No Marines reinforced the embassy in Teheran that late winter and spring of 1979 and when the ayatollahs leading the Iranian revolution saw America's weakness in the world they gave the green light to the well-armed and organized "students" who stormed the embassy gates a second time and took the embassy staff "hostage." So began a national nightmare, marked each evening on network news broadcasts as "Day..., America Held Hostage." When Mr. Carter did finally relent to attempting a military rescue operation, it ended disastrously mid-way through one of the most complicated operational schemes ever devised by American military planners. I once heard a veteran of the Israeli commando raid to free their hostages at Entebbe remark that "America tried to copy our concept too closely. If it were my operation, with over a year to plan, I would have smuggled the people and equipment into Teheran required to tunnel into the embassy compound from across the street." Gotta love Israeli commando common sense...
I actually heard Mrs. Carter in an interview a few days ago, say that she was proud that her husband finally got the hostages back all alive. That's not the way this Marine remembers it. I remember hearing, on that AM radio, in a tent in Minnesota, immediately following Ronald Reagan's first inauguration speech, that the ayatollahs had released the hostages. The distinct impression that we Marines, and the rest of the attention-paying world, had was that the prospect of the new conservative American "cowboy president" unleashing an all-out attack on Iran was real enough in their minds to encourage them to get rid of the motive. In retrospect, 25 years later, it probably was a matter of the ayatollahs having gotten all of the America-shaming mileage they could get out of the situation and they waited until Carter was no longer president to get one last parting shot at the weakling.
Reagan followed through on his inaugural rhetoric. By the end of his second term in office, the change in the spirit and capability of Americans in general, and the American military in particular, was striking. The Marine rifle company (180 of America's finest young men) I took command of as a captain in the summer of 1987 could have run circles around the entire regiment (2000 Marines) to which I had belonged in 1979. Most historians and commentators focus on the material side of the "Reagan Military Build-up." The real difference was in the young people, who, inspired by Reagan's optimism and pride in America, committed, in unprecedented quantity and quality, to serve our nation as soldiers, sailors, airmen,...and Marines.
Despite my fondness for the exploits and accomplishments of Teddy Roosevelt, and in defiance of the Democrats' insistence on the greatness of FDR and JFK, this Marine will always consider Ronald Reagan the greatest American president of the 20th Century.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Recon by Fire
A tactic employed by military forces with confidence in their battlefield superiority, but possessing poor tactical intelligence, is to fire at likely enemy positions to evoke a response, upon which concentrated fire and action can be focused. It's called "recon by fire." Since I find myself wondering if anyone ever reads what I write here, I'm going to place a few choice ideas down range to see if I can elicit a response. Don't plan on attacking any respondents...unless of course they need to be attacked. You know who: yankees, liberals, Leftcoastians... the usual enemy combatants. So, here goes:
1. Although I'm not a big fan of the state of Texas (Texans are good people--just a bit too full of themselves), I tip my cap to UT for putting USC and all of the LA-loving sports commentators in their place (that's SECOND place) with the win in the Rose Bowl. All the comparisons of USC to previous great teams didn't faze Vince and company! USC was overrated all year long. There were at least five other teams in the college ranks and at least two in the high school ranks that could have beaten USC last night, or any other night.
2. As one retired Marine colonel to another: Jack Murtha, SHUT UP! You are an embarrassment. Not because you took a stand--you have the right, and obligation, to take it. You are an embarrassment because your stand doesn't make sense militarily, strategically, or even logically. It does seem to make sense politically--scored some big points for Pelosi and her gang. And, oh, by the way, from one Marine who fought the recruiting wars on two different tours: thanks a heap for your latest comments about not joining if given the choice today. That will set back recruiting quite well and give plenty of aid and comfort to our enemies. I used to think you were a great American...I don't anymore. Jack, go see Sen. Lieberman for some Real Man training.
3. Christmas, I believe. Hanukkah, I get. Ramadan, I understand. But, Kwanza? Give me a break! I will submit that the first three holidays above were originally man-made, but the men who instituted them were guided by their belief in God. Kwanza was dreamed up by a marxist--big difference.
4. And speaking of holidays, I, for one, am pleased to have the season behind us. Now, on to the unspeakable joys of the dead of winter. Well, I live in Florida, so the dead of winter isn't exactly dead--more like a bad cold. Sometime around the middle of February we'll have day or two that feels like a mild case of the flu. By the middle of March the temps and humidity will be soaring back into the unbearable range.
5. Hillary Clinton for President. The way I figure it, that administration would hasten the end of the world and the return of my Lord faster than anything else I could imagine man (or, in this case, woman) doing on God's green earth. At the very least, another Clinton administration would wake up the fence-straddlers to the dangers of marxism.
6. If I were King: All members of PETA would be given 40 acres in the most pristine wilderness left. One stipulation: no protection against large carnivores allowed. It would not be ethical to prevent carnivores from being carnivores.
7. China and Japan are challenging us to a race to the moon. I've actually heard people say, "So what? They can't claim the moon." To which I would like to respond: "Ever heard of Columbus?" He claimed an already inhabited land for Spain in 1492. And, the Spanish looted the western hemisphere unabated for nearly two centuries. Then the English and the French took over. I say, let's go claim the moon--we have as much a right to it as anyone.
8. Rebuild New Orleans. The rest of the major cities in the country need to have a city to keep their cops from the top of the "Most Corrupt" list.
1. Although I'm not a big fan of the state of Texas (Texans are good people--just a bit too full of themselves), I tip my cap to UT for putting USC and all of the LA-loving sports commentators in their place (that's SECOND place) with the win in the Rose Bowl. All the comparisons of USC to previous great teams didn't faze Vince and company! USC was overrated all year long. There were at least five other teams in the college ranks and at least two in the high school ranks that could have beaten USC last night, or any other night.
2. As one retired Marine colonel to another: Jack Murtha, SHUT UP! You are an embarrassment. Not because you took a stand--you have the right, and obligation, to take it. You are an embarrassment because your stand doesn't make sense militarily, strategically, or even logically. It does seem to make sense politically--scored some big points for Pelosi and her gang. And, oh, by the way, from one Marine who fought the recruiting wars on two different tours: thanks a heap for your latest comments about not joining if given the choice today. That will set back recruiting quite well and give plenty of aid and comfort to our enemies. I used to think you were a great American...I don't anymore. Jack, go see Sen. Lieberman for some Real Man training.
3. Christmas, I believe. Hanukkah, I get. Ramadan, I understand. But, Kwanza? Give me a break! I will submit that the first three holidays above were originally man-made, but the men who instituted them were guided by their belief in God. Kwanza was dreamed up by a marxist--big difference.
4. And speaking of holidays, I, for one, am pleased to have the season behind us. Now, on to the unspeakable joys of the dead of winter. Well, I live in Florida, so the dead of winter isn't exactly dead--more like a bad cold. Sometime around the middle of February we'll have day or two that feels like a mild case of the flu. By the middle of March the temps and humidity will be soaring back into the unbearable range.
5. Hillary Clinton for President. The way I figure it, that administration would hasten the end of the world and the return of my Lord faster than anything else I could imagine man (or, in this case, woman) doing on God's green earth. At the very least, another Clinton administration would wake up the fence-straddlers to the dangers of marxism.
6. If I were King: All members of PETA would be given 40 acres in the most pristine wilderness left. One stipulation: no protection against large carnivores allowed. It would not be ethical to prevent carnivores from being carnivores.
7. China and Japan are challenging us to a race to the moon. I've actually heard people say, "So what? They can't claim the moon." To which I would like to respond: "Ever heard of Columbus?" He claimed an already inhabited land for Spain in 1492. And, the Spanish looted the western hemisphere unabated for nearly two centuries. Then the English and the French took over. I say, let's go claim the moon--we have as much a right to it as anyone.
8. Rebuild New Orleans. The rest of the major cities in the country need to have a city to keep their cops from the top of the "Most Corrupt" list.
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