Time to Stand for Freedom

President Obama has so far responded to the events in Iran with what one commentator has called a "nuanced approach." Presumably, the concern within the corridors of the White House is that the perception of American "meddling" in the internal affairs of the Islamic Republic will be counterproductive to the cause of reform. If that is indeed the motive in the Obama administration's muted announcements, then the Colonel is willing to give the President the benefit of the doubt and patience to allow his strategy to play out.

The Colonel, however, would ask you, gentle reader, to entertain and critically examine another possible motive in the refusal of President Obama to unequivocally stand with those who have taken to the streets in opposition to the one of the most repressive regimes on the planet--a regime that publicly stones women caught in adultery; a regime that actively finances terrorist organizations; a regime that provided arms and training to insurgents who fought against our forces in Iraq; a regime whose stated policy is that the State of Israel should be destroyed; a regime that believes that the entire world should eventually be encompassed in a grand caliphate governed by the Shia version of Sharia Law. The Colonel would have you consider that perhaps President Obama and his cadre of naive socialist progressives really believe that, just as they sweet-talked their way into the White House, they can convince the mad mullahs in Teheran to acquiesce to the Obama world order. It seems to the Colonel that the Obama administration is taking great pains to maintain a position conducive to open dialogue with the Islamic dictatorship in order that they might have the best opportunity to reach an accord with ayatollahs. This odd mixture of foreign policy naivete and hubris on the part of the Obama administration makes the odd mixture of foreign policy naivete and hubris displayed by the neocons in the previous administration look downright pragmatic by comparison.

Let's be clear--the leadership in Iran is fanatically committed to its world view and its goal of a region-wide and, ultimately, world-wide Islamic caliphate. The Colonel feels rather comfortable in his assessment of this fanaticism, being a fanatical believer in his positions on faith and politics. The dictatorship in Iran will no more back down and grant the reforms demanded in the street than would the Nazi, Stalinist, Baathist, and Maoist regimes with whom their grip on the Iranian population can be most closely compared.

To believe that the Iranian Islamic dictatorship can be negotiated with is the height of idiocy. To refuse to stand publicly with the people yearning for freedom and self-determination, and instead worry about offending the criminal dictatorship repressing those people, is, dare we say it, an impeachable offense.

"So, you say you want a revolution..."

Revolutions have a way of yanking the reins out of the hands of the riders who first leapt upon the back of the change steed. The men who first put spurs to the mount are often thrown and trampled. To remain in the saddle, a revolutionary leader must often adapt to the evolving strength and movement of the beast beneath him. Revolutions are also subject to horse-thievery--a masked pretender usurps the rightful rider's place or steps into a leadership vacuum created by a revolution's thrown and trampled rider.

For the sake of this discussion, we will forsake study of the so-called American Revolution as it was more a civil war than a revolution. But, the French Revolution, inspired by the American experience, is a great case in point. The French monarchy lost touch with the plight of the people and fell prey to an uprising initially led by members of the aristocracy. The guillotine, whose appetite was whetted by royal blood, soon thirsted for the blood of the aristocracy and finally devoured most of those who were at the forefront of the initial insurrection. Even Lafayette, a hero of France for his role in the defeat of the hated English in the American colonies, narrowly escaped with his head. As the French Revolution feasted upon itself, and exhausted its supply of civilian leadership, it ripened for martial harvest. Into this power vacuum stepped a 30 year-old military genius who plunged the world into what many historians have called the true first World War. Ironically, Napoleon, on his deathbed in exile, lamented that "they wanted me to be another Washington."

Revolutions often play themselves out in a series of acts, the scenes in which feature the best and worst of men, and differ radically from opening to closing. The final scenes of the French revolution saw a Bourbon monarch back on the throne, but at the head of a political system that was to continue to evolve over the next century into a true democratic republic.

Exhausted by years of the Czar's war against Germany, the Russian people overthrew their monarch in 1917 and installed a "provisional government" intended to bridge the gap to a democratic republic. The Marxists had a different idea and hijacked the Russian Revolution to create the socialist dictatorial "workers' paradise" (a copy of which American progressives today believe they have the opportunity to establish). The "workers' paradise" model neither worked nor was Eden-like by any stretch of the wildest imagination. The Soviet Union survived as long as it did, thanks to ruthless repression accepted by the Russian people as the cost of surviving the Great Depression and the Second World War, victory in which served until the 1980's as enough of a rallying memory to dull the popular pangs of hunger for freedom. But, as increasingly pervasive and uncontrollable information technology displayed the discrepancy between the freedoms and standard of living enjoyed by the West and the people of the Soviet Union, the pressure for reform became too much for the Kremlin to ignore. When Gorbachev began to respond with changes aimed at satisfying the people, the lid came off of the steam kettle. Boris Yeltsin, a rising star in the Communist Party, shrewdly detected the direction of the popular movement and adopted the mantle of populist reformer. When communist hardliners attempted a coup to oust Gorbachev, with the intent of putting the lid back on, Yeltsin vaulted to popular prominence by standing up against and putting down the reactionaries. Unfortunately, Yeltsin failed (one wonders whether on purpose) to prevent the drift back to Russian dictatorship represented by his hand-picked successor, Putin. The Russian Revolution may yet have an act or two to play out.

Which brings us to the mid-play act whose scenes are enfolding on the streets of Teheran. A 1979 popular uprising against the American-installed (circa 1953) Shah Reza Pahlavi's repressive, if rapidly modernizing and pro-western, regime was hijacked by the Ayatollah Khomeini, who installed an Islamic Republic over which the clergy maintain "supreme leadership" and power via Sharia Law (the law of Allah). The Iranian mullahs managed to maintain their grip on power while sacrificing a generation in human wave attacks on Saddam's forces during the eight year Iraq-Iran war which began in 1980. The Iranian people have only recently recovered from the exhaustion of that conflict. The Iranian population is very young and hungry for the tastes of western modernity discouraged and denied them by Sharia Law. They are also tired of being represented to the world by the likes of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad--the front man for the ayatollahs. Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former front man for the ayatollahs, seems to be pulling "a Yeltsin," riding the popular movement galloping toward ultimate confrontation with the Islamic Republic's ruling clergy. Mousavi has claimed that the election he lost to Ahmedinejad was "rigged." And he should know, having rigged a few in his past. "Supreme Leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has drawn his line in the sand, declaring Ahmedinejad's election the final will of Allah and threatening to crush any further street demonstrations.

It remains to be seen whether the Iranian military will side with the Ayatollah or the people. The Colonel's assessment is that if the people do return to the streets in disobedience to the Ayatollah, the mad mullah will have no choice but to respond with force fearing eventual loss of power. The Ayatollah will attempt to "Tiananmen" the uprising with military units and security forces most loyal to him. My guess is that if he tries this, there are moderate elements of the military that will not stay in their barracks, and a civil war may ensue.

Revolutions are such messy affairs--fun to watch; dangerous to join; predictably unpredicatable.

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the..."

In Shakespeare's "Henry VI," several shady characters opine upon the state of the world and one, Jack Cade, waxes eloquently, to the increasing appreciation of his gang, on the timeless set-up "if I were king,":

JACK CADE: Be brave, then; for your captain is brave, and vows reformation. There shall be in England seven half-penny loaves sold for a penny: the three-hoop'd pot shall have ten hoops; and I will make it felony to drink small beer: all the realm shall be in common; and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to grass: and when I am king,- as king I will be,-

ALL: God save your majesty!

JACK CADE: I thank you, good people:- there shall be no money; all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree like brothers, and worship me their lord.

At this point one of his felonious fellows, Dick, leaps on the bandwagon and interjects with, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."

Little did he know, Shakespeare, via the mouth of one of his characters, had provided us one of the three key actions required to heal our health care "crisis" in particular and many of our societal ills in general. A proliferation of litigation, spurred by greedy, unethical, advertising ambulance-chasers, has contributed to the skyrocketing cost of our health care system. But, lawyers would have little to profit from were it not for an even more unethical gang of ne'er-do-wells--Insurance salesmen.

Insurance companies are the cash cows to which injury lawyers run bleating like hungry calves. The cash cows are grazing our best fields, yet providing the best milk only to the more unscrupulous milk maids. Were William penning poetically today, he would most certainly aim skewering lines at insurance salesmen as well as litigators.

And while we're at this litigicide, let's slip in a little journalicide to clear the air, shall we.

Social Event Horizon

The Colonel has decided that Facebook is the event horizon of the Universe's single greatest, super-massive, time-sucking black hole. The temporal distortions observed while caught in it's gravitational pull are truly mind-boggling.

For instance, the other day I connected with a friend from high school. The last time I saw her was 35 years ago. In my mind's eye she and the rest of our gang, contact with the vast majority of whom I lost almost immediately upon graduation, remained frozen in a late teenage stasis reinforced from long time to time by glances at their faces in our yearbook. Her profile comments on her FB (I feel so hip) page mention that she is an empty-nester. Whoa! I told the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda at lunch today that I was having a hard time getting my head around the fact that our high school chums could be empty-nesters. She, not so kindly, reminded me that we have been empty-nesters for nearly a decade. That really spun my gyros!

The Colonel has also decided that the virtual mini-reunions made possible by social networking programs on Al Gore's invention are in many ways preferable to a traditional gathering. You get to show your best face on-line. You have plenty of time to think up that witty repartee that never came quick enough all those years ago (and still doesn't). You don't have to worry about trying to remember names. You can ignore those who you really never liked and blame it on power outages.

Thirty-five years since high school graduation--amazing.

Economic Dust-up

The Colonel's sacrificial service to our great nation continues apace. Recognizing that the muddy economic sty in which our country continues to wallow will not be soon rectified by the pandering swine bellied up to the public trough, the Colonel has taken it upon himself to do what he can to stimulate the economy.

Fearing that a depressing trade imbalance had been created by Eegeebeegee's sawmill sired independence from local lumber yards, the Colonel responsibly responded yesterday with yet another capital acquisition to fill the spacious void, and contribute to the effectiveness, of the Man Toy Storage and Sawdust Production Facility. While the Colonel's recently acquired sawmill has performed admirably, even surpassing all expectations of sawdust production capabilities and providing prodigious boardage for conversion to sawdust by the recently commissioned radial arm saw, there yet existed a certain degree of production inefficiency in the timber to lumber to sawdust system here at the northern end of southern nowhere. During a recent protracted strategic planning session, replete with appropriate metaphorical log-sawing, the Colonel's heat addled and lack of education atrophied (I didn't go to college--I went to Ole Miss) synapses managed to bridge the widening divide between the few remaining cognitive cells lying fallow in the recesses of my bald-pated skull, and an efficiency in my sawdust production system gained a beachhead on the well-defended shore of my consciousness. A (I dare not assume, the) missing link in the system was obviously a planer.

The operative word in the final sentence of the preceding paragraph is, was. Ensconced prominently within the confines of the Eegeebeegee Man Toy Storage and Sawdust Production Facility is now a (trumpet fanfare) Rigid R4330 13 inch Thickness Planer. A review in the most important periodical of our time, Popular Mechanics, describes the tool thusly: "The Ridgid R4330 Planer uses a three-blade, 96-cut-per-inch cutterhead to shave down to a deli-slice-thin 1/8 in.—veneer thickness. It’s versatile, portable and surprisingly affordable." While the review glaringly fails to address the sawdust production capability of the R4330, I trust that I will soon be able to comment on the tool's effectiveness in that regard.

I'm going to need a dump truck with which to haul away the produce.

The Year the Music Died

Looking back through the historical haze and geopolitical gunsmoke of the last twenty years, the events at the close of the ninth decade of the twentieth century seem to gain gravitas at each glance.

Not a week into the year 1989, the United Sates Navy provided the exclamation point to the long-running feud between Ronald Reagan and Muamar Qaddafi, when two Libyan MiG-23 fighter-bombers ventured just a tad bit too close to a U.S. carrier battle group operating in the Gulf of Sidra north of the Libyan coast and were summarily shot down by two U.S. F-14 fighters. The Colonel remembers thinking at the time that "this could be an interesting year..." That would turn out to be an under-thought that would have qualified me for award of a Colonel's Monday Morning MOTO Gold Medal had this blog been extant at the time.

The Sidra Smackdown was of particular interest to those of us in the First Battalion, Eighth Marines at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. We would shortly be redesignated Battalion Landing Team 1/8 (BLT 1/8) and were beginning a grueling training regimen with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (24th MEU) to earn our Special Operations Capable (SOC) designation prior to our upcoming deployment to the Mediterranean. Operations against Libya were among a plethora of contingencies for which we were preparing as the forward deployed military expression of American foreign policy. We were scheduled to sail from the East Coast in October.

Two weeks later, the greatest American President of the 20th Century (a moment of reverent silence, please) left office and left his former political rival and Vice President, George the Elder, holding the reins.

Two weeks later, February the 2nd, the Kremlin announced the departure of the last column of Soviet troops from Kabul, ending nearly a decade of disastrous military adventurism in Afghanistan; said disastrous decade exacerbated by U.S. aid to the Afghan Mujaheddin fighting the Soviets, in return for the Soviet exacerbation of a disastrous decade of American military adventurism in Vietnam.

Two weeks later, February the 14th, the first Global Positioning Satellite was launched--the first in a constellation of satellites whose measurement of elapsed time has revolutionized our civilization in peace and war. By the time we Marines of the 24th MEU (SOC) arrived in the Mediterranean with rudimentary GPS receivers to experiment with, there was a small handful of satellites available for limited hours. The Colonel remembers thinking at the time, "this GPS stuff could be big..." Monday Morning MOTO medal stuff.

Five and half weeks later, March the 24th, the captain of the Exxon Valdez exclaimed to his First Mate, "I said 'Tanqeray on the rocks,' not 'Take her in on the rocks!'" Eleven million gallons of oil spilled into Prince William Sound. Sometime later a sea otter, "saved," cleaned of oil, and rehabilitated, was promptly eaten by a killer whale immediately upon its release, as its releasers watched.

A month later, April the 21st, student democracy demonstrations began in Beijing's Tianamen Square--opposite the gate to the ancient imperial palace, the Forbidden City, over which a huge portrait of Mao anachronistically hangs. As the demonstrations swelled and gained public support, Mao's totalitarian successors finally declared Martial Law--as if Martial Law had not already existed since 1949. (Ironically, the Chinese communist totalitarians had lionized a similar student uprising against an ineffectual and cruel Chinese government on May 4th, 1919.) The students responded to the threats of the Chinese Politboro by unveiling the "Goddess of Democracy," a plaster of paris statue mimicking the Statue of Liberty. Five nights later, 20 years ago today, while the world watched on live television, Chicom tanks and armored personnel carriers rolled over the demonstrators. The western world expressed its outrage by increasing our orders of cheap Chinese-made shirts and tennis shoes.

Ten and a half years after the Tianamen Square Massacre, on a cold, blustery Thanksgiving Day, the Colonel walked the length of the square from Mao's mausoleum to his monstrous mien mounted over the Gate of Heavenly Peace, and marveled that, still on active duty, there I was, strolling unnoticed by a sworn enemy against whom I was still preparing (and am still expecting my nation some day) to go to war.

A month after the Chicoms silenced the students' cry for freedom and a day after America celebrated its freedom and independence, American culture continued its plunge into meaningless with Seinfeld's premiere of his show about nothing.

The year 1989 saw a major hurricane, Hugo, ravage a southern coastal city, Charleston, on the 21st of September, preluding an era of storms savaging southern coastal cities, the cost of recovery from which will pale in comparison following the Cat 3 that someday will sweep the streets of Manhattan.

On the 13th of October, Friday the 13th, the 24th MEU (SOC) and its ground combat element, BLT 1/8, sailed from the East Coast. Commanding BLT 1/8 was, then, Colonel, later Commandant of the Marine Corps, Mike Hagee. I was his Operations Officer. We were ready, willing, and able to go toe-to-toe with the Warsaw Pact or any of its clients ringing the Mediterranean. The knowledge of this struck fear in the hearts of the socialist totalitarians behind Churchill's Iron Curtain, and the East Germans were the first to crack under the strain. On November the 9th, the East German government opened checkpoints in the Berlin Wall allowing their captive citizens freedom to travel to the Western sectors of the city. Jubilant Berliners began tearing down the wall the next evening. As Colonel Hagee and his staff watched this unfold on CNN in the Rota, Spain Naval Base Officers' Club, one of my buddies turned to our battalion commander and asked, "Does this mean we can go home, now?"

A month later, on Malta, at a summit for which one of our rifle companies, trained and equipped to conduct raids from small boats, provided security, President Bush and Premier Gorbachev concluded with the announcement that the Cold War was beginning to end.

The year concluded, while I was, as always seemed to happen, on the other side of the planet, with U.S. combat operations against the government of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. Seemed fitting to me--we helped put him in power; we took him out. The Colonel remembers being frustrated that Marines were fighting their way through some of my old high school days' stomping grounds and a Marine (me), who knew his way around those jungles and had high school classmates fighting against us as part of the Panamanian army, couldn't get into the fight for which I was probably most prepared.

It was a most momentous year and I had a ringside seat. Uncle Sam has been a great travel agent.

Engage the Tractor Beam

Light leaked through the Colonel's eyeball covers and woke me early this morning and as I stumbled kitchen-ward to push the biggest cup button on my new early Father's Day gift--a high speed, low drag, single-serving, caffeine delivery system--it occurred to me that I just might be experiencing the same technological marvel-filled life span that 30 years ago made me envy my grandparents.

My grandparents were born before the Wright Brothers cobbled together an innovation and ushered in an epoch. They lived to see man sprint into space in less than sixty years from that first break with the surly bonds of earth. They grew up during an age in which radio was the height of mass communication, witnessed the introduction of television, and marveled at the the first remote controlled channel changers.

Last night, as I watched my Ole Miss Rebels baseball team, playing in a ball park that would have amazed Ruth, on a field which 35 years ago had been a kudzu-ringed flat spot on the edge of campus upon which I stood in ROTC formations, win their NCAA Regional, live, on my computer's display, I realized that someday my grandchildren will marvel at the historically significant span of MY life. It is startling to know that my grandparents would envy the breadth of technological advance with which my life has been coincident.

The thought occurs, as the caffeine courses blessedly through my system and super-charges the few remaining cognitive cells lying in an amorphous pool of goo in a deep recess of my brain-housing group, that, if my gracious God allows, I may yet witness things only dreamt of today become reality in the next 35 years of my existence on this big blue marble.

A mud-free hover tractor would be nice.

Sharing a Need

Normality, or a close facsimile thereof, has returned to Eegeebeegee, capital of the Tallahatchie Free State, a virtual republic at the northern end of southern nowhere. For the past three weeks, the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda and I have shared the grounds, gardens, and guest rooms of the Big House with a procession of friends and family, and, while we thoroughly enjoyed the company, it is good to just have each other around. Particularly for me, the attention and affections of the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda are indulgences I care not to share with others. In fact, as childish as it is, I don't like sharing my best friend with others at all--never have, probably never will.

My unwillingness to share the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda runs diametrically counter to her psychological make-up and God-given gifts. I've mentioned before in previous posts to this wordy wasteland that she has earned the nick-name "Twelve" for her propensity to "tend to" (ten-two) others--often others she doesn't even know but who have given off some signal inaudible and indistinguishable to the Colonel. She tends to people who otherwise would be, in this curmudgeon's not so humble opinion, perfectly able to fend for themselves. Not only is the attention wasted on those not-needy persons, but that attention is effort diverted from the really needy person in her life--ME.

So, having the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda all to myself this week has put me in one of those rare moods the Colonel gets into where no matter what goes wrong with whatever project I happen to be enmeshed in, the smile (another rarity not often found on the Colonel's visage) never leaves my mug. She's there when I need her. I needed her this morning.

The Colonel was taking advantage of the rainfall respite--it is June after all; the skies will scarcely yield a drop of precipitation for another couple of months, barring remnants of some tropical system sloshing up from the coast--and Semper Field (my trusty red tractor; not to be confused with Semper Fillit, my rusty red truck) and I were moving pine logs down from a ridge on which the tornado dropped them last year. After several round-about trips, Semper Field's ease of traverse across what a week ago had been boggy bottom caused the Colonel to significantly underestimate the drying capability of an even boggier shortcut. The shortcut turned out to be the Mississippi version of the La Brea Tar Pits, threatening to suck the Colonel's steed from beneath him and dragging it downward into a viscous ooze which eons from this epoch would turn to Confederate Concrete and yield fossilized tractor remains to some off-planet archeologist's pick and shovel. When the Colonel sticks something, it is stuck good.

The hike back up to the Big House gave me time to come up with a really witty way of explaining to the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda why, while I had left the immediate environs of the Eegeebeegee Man Toy Storage and Sawdust Production Facility mounted, I was returning afoot. As I approached, Miss Brenda looked up from one of her flowery projects aimed at softening the rough edges of Eegeebeegee and asked, "You okay?"

"Sure, never better. Why do you ask?"

"Where's the tractor?"

"Tractor? What tractor? Oh, my trusty red tractor Semper Field--it's stuck. I need you to pull it out with the truck."

Yep, a fifteen minute walk and that was as much wit as I could come up. Dang it, Jim, I'm a Marine, not a stand-up comedian!

But, the smile never left my face, because I knew that having to stop the flowery project aimed at putting a softer edge on Eegeebeegee to help someone really in need was just what Miss Brenda needed. I'm just too good to her.

Memorial Day Memo

Obama's speech writer didn't get the memo. I'm certain there's a Department of Homeland Insecurity briefing circulated daily in D.C. that warns about the dangerous activities and treasonous thought expressed in the content of the regularly irregular posts to this blog. Had Obama's speech writer seen that briefing, he would have learned the difference between Armed Forces Day, Veterans Day, and Memorial Day, and would have saved his boss the embarrassment of confusing the three in his radio address today.

While he, at least, said some good things about how to support currently deployed servicemen and women and how to thank and honor veterans, his use of a Memorial Day address to do so demonstrated the most glaring lack of respect for America's history and traditions the Colonel has ever witnessed in a Commander in Chief. The ONLY purpose of Memorial Day is the remembrance of those men and women who gave THEIR LIVES in service to our nation during time of war. Surely we should honor those who have served and currently serve, but Veterans Day and Armed Forces Day, respectively, are the two days set aside by Congress for that purpose--not Memorial Day.

The Colonel knows this is beginning to sound like a broken record. But, like the preacher said, whose chairman of deacon's complained of the same sermon preached four Sundays in a row, "when people get the message, I'll move on to the next topic."

Get Your Days Right

When it comes to honoring those whose service has, and continues to, defend our nation, its people and their Constitution, and our nation's interests, there are three distinct days set aside for three distinctly different groups of honorees. Two of them occur in May.

The first, this Saturday, is Armed Forces Day. Prior to the reorganization and establishment of a unified Department of Defense following the end of the Second World War, the people of the United States honored those currently serving in the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps (the Air Force did not exist as a separate entity) on separate Federally recognized Service Days. In 1949, following the 1947 establishment of the Department of Defense (and the creation of the Air Force) Congress established one Day, Armed Forces Day, on which to honor all serving members of all of our military branches. The operative phrase the Colonel wants you to remember, for future reference in this missive, is "serving members."

The second, and to the Colonel's mind most important, opportunity in May to honor a distinct class of military men and women is Memorial Day. Formerly known as Decoration Day, and begun by the kind ladies of Columbus, Mississippi who placed flowers on the graves of both Confederate and Union soldiers buried in Friendship Cemetery (the resting place of the mortal remains of many of the Colonel's forebears, as well), Memorial Day was established by yankee politicians and credited to some northern city's womenfolk whose grave decoration activities post-dated that of the belles of Columbus (pardon the Dixie defensive digression). Memorial Day's sole purpose, rooted firmly in the grave decoration activities of ladies on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line (if Dixie describes the south, should Masie describe the north?), is the honoring of those who died in all of the wars in which this nation has participated since its founding. The operative phrase the Colonel would have you recognize is "those who died." It is one of the Colonel's petest of peeves that well-meaning, yet none-the-less ignorant, folks insist on applauding all serving and veteran military men and women on Memorial Day. The memory of war dead is the ONLY reason to celebrate, as inappropriate as that word sounds, Memorial Day. The Colonel appreciates those who wish to honor serving military men and women--this Sunday, Armed Forces Day is the day to do that.

Finally, Armed Forces Day and Memorial Day are not the days set aside by our nation to salute those who have honorably served (yet, did not give the ultimate sacrifice in time of war) in the uniformed services of our great country. Veterans Day, (which subsumed Armistice Day, celebrating the end of World War I) in November, is the day for that.

To recap:

This Sunday, Armed Forces Day, honor those currently serving.

On Memorial Day, honor those who died during our wars.

On Veterans Day, honor veterans who served.

Don't be a disrepectful boob and try to lump them all in together--give honor to whom each day is dedicated and none other. Each, but particularly our war dead, deserve that much at least.

First Congress of the Tallahatchie Free State

The 1st Congress of the Tallahatchie Free State, a government in opposition formed as much hand on wallet as tongue in cheek (disclaimer provided to deflect the attention of agents from the Department of Homeland Insecurity), met yesterday evening on the front porch of the Big House at Eegeebeegee. The following legislative matters were addressed and resolutions regarding passed rapidly and unanimously--an accomplishment made possible by the fact that due to the measured (read: slow) population growth of the TFS, the Colonel remains the sole voting representative of the people.

Resolved: Nullus Liberum Prandium (No Free Lunch) is hereby and forthwith established as the motto, and operating principle, of the Tallahatchie Free State. Said motto shall be displayed prominently on the great seal, currency, proclamations, and all official correspondence.

Resolved: The Gadsden "Don't Tread on Me" Flag is hereby adopted as the interim official standard of the Tallahatchie Free State, pending design and production of an original and appropriately representative flag. It is further resolved that any proposed official flag shall not include the following: a flower; a color other than red, white, gold, or blue; a bulldog; a tiger; a pig; an alligator; or an elephant.

Resolved: The speed limit within the confines of the boundaries of the Tallahatchie Free State's capital, Eegeebeegee, shall be at the discretion of vehicle operators and shall be consistent with the operator's skill and appropriate to surface conditions. The Minister for Safety (in Perpetuity), the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda, shall exercise sole authority for determination that operators have exceeded their skill and/or demonstrated disregard for surface conditions, and shall issue warnings, stern, regarding same.

Resolved: The taking of fish and game within the confines of the boundaries of the Tallahatchie Free State's capital, Eegeebeegee, shall be allowed only with the approval of the Colonel. Lake Brenda is hereby established as a "catch and release" inpoundment--if the Colonel catches you fishing without permission, he shall release the hounds on you.

Resolved: Gun control being critical for accurate target engagement, the people of the Tallahatchie Free State shall be required to own and demonstrate proficiency with a firearm(s) of their choice.

Resolved: The freedom of speech within the confines of the boundaries of the Tallahatchie Free State's capital, Eegeebeegee, shall be limited only by the stricture that any profane language within earshot of the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda will not be tolerated.

Resolved: The definition of marriage shall be the life-long union of one man and one woman.

Resolved: The definition of life-long shall not be at the discretion of either partner in the above defined union.

Resolved: In recognition of the inviolable natural order of things, the definition and privileges of union partnership shall be at the discretion of the woman.

Resolved: Congresses of the Tallahatchie Free State shall be convened at the discretion of the Colonel and representatives shall not be compensated beyond the provision of food and drink.

Resolved: No taxation of any kind (monetary, goods, or services) shall ever be allowed by the people of the Tallahatchie Free State.

Resolved: Complete enfranchisement as a citizen of the Tallahatchie Free State shall only be enjoyed as a right earned by honorable military, law enforcement, or firefighter service. As their job is universally recognized as tougher, spouses of citizens shall be so enfranchised.

The First Congress of the Tallahatchie Free State was adjourned and disbanded immediately upon the Colonel's detection of the microwave alarm signifying that the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda had completed preparation of the evening meal.

Mill Manhandling

The sawdust production capability aboard Eegeebeegee, capital of the Tallahatchie Free State--a government in opposition, established as much hand on wallet as tongue in cheek--increased exponentially this week. A Wood-Mizer LT15 sawmill has joined the Colonel's collection of retirement enriching man toys and provides the heretofore missing link in the timber to fine sawdust production system here at the northern end of southern nowhere.

The Wood-Mizer LT15 is advertised as "portable," a description with which the Colonel's infantry-abused back takes no small amount of umbrage. The entire sawmill package was shipped from the Wood-Mizer plant in Indiana on one "pallet." I've had more than a modicum of experience with pallets over the years and if the edifice-in-it's-own-right shipping foundation on which my sawmill came is a "pallet," it is the Mother of All Pallets. FedEx was even intimidated by this monster and sub-contracted a heavier-haul freight company to deliver it. When the freight driver contacted me and told me he was headed my way with an eighteen wheeler, I waved him off and vectored him to downtown Abbeville--the road infrastructure aboard Eegeebeegee, despite my best efforts moving gravel with Semper Field and a box blade, was not up to that sort of traffic.

Downtown Abbeville on a Friday afternoon is a hopping place. While the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda and I sat at the side of the road, city center, waiting for the freight truck to arrive, we observed a veritable parade of traffic--"parade" defined, for the purpose of this post, as five pick-up trucks and two four-wheelers passing by in the space of 15 minutes. When the trucker arrived, he parked on the side of "Main Street," took a quick look at my Toyota Tacoma (aka: Semper Fillit) and utility trailer, cocked his head to the side to clear Marlboro smoke from his good eye, and asked, "Where's yore forklift?"

"Forklift" has now been added to the lengthening list of "gotta get me one of those."

"I was told you were bring a lift-gate truck," I countered.

"Yessir, ah did. But this pallet weighs near a ton. We ain't gonna move it by hand. The bad news is it's eight feet long and ah ain't sure it'll fit on the lift gate."

An hour and a half, and a trip to a friend's for a "come along" (another item added to the "gotta get me one of the those" list) later, we managed to coax the behemoth off the truck and onto my utility trailer. At a timid ten miles per hour, all the while expecting the tiny tires on my trailer to give up the ghost, it took us nearly another hour to drive from Abbeville back to Eegeebeegee. The long trip gave the Colonel ample time to consider and discard several courses of action regarding the unloading phase of Operation Sawmill. In the end, getting the mill pallet off of the trailer was infinitely easier than loading it had been. I backed the beast-burdened trailer up to a sturdy pine tree in the vicinity of my planned mill location, chained the pallet to the tree, and pulled the abused trailer out from under the pallet.

It took the Colonel the better part of this past week to break down the pallet and assemble the new sawmill. Yesterday, three pine logs surrendered a treasure trove of lumber--the whine of blade through timber declaring my independence from local lumber yards at which Eegeebeegee building projects have heretofore been materially supported at considerable expense.

As the sun beat down on the Colonel at the helm of the mill, a new edifice's concept took shape in the flimsy cognitive connections in the paltry collection of grey matter cells in my heat-addled noggin and rapidly ascended to prominence on the Eegeebeegee building project list--my new mill needs a sun and rain shielding roof. The Colonel's near-term lumber needs are growing faster than the Google campus bandwith requirement. Lucky for me, there's plenty of large, mature pine trees ripe for harvest on the property.

I think I need a bigger chainsaw...

Sunspots

It was one of those comments that a young man makes and instantly regrets when he sees the reaction on his mother's face.

Thirty or so years ago, I was a hot-blooded, jingoistic lieutenant of Marines, convinced that, sometime soon, I would be sent into combat by and for my nation. I was leaning forward in that expectation--ready, willing, and able. There was not much else on my mind--certainly not any real concern for the distant future. My mother, one of those women for whom a special place in heaven is reserved for having raised nothing but sons, noticed that her fair-skinned first-born was getting way too much sun and commented that if I wasn't careful, I would get skin cancer.

My response, to my mother, stand by to cringe, was: "I'm going to be killed on some battlefield before I'm thirty; skin cancer is the least of my worries."

Yep, I'm an insensitive idiot.

She was right and I was wrong. Big surprise there. If I could give one tiny bit of advice to all of the young men in the 15 to 25 age bracket it would be, "Listen to your mother and keep your mouth shut!" Unfortunately, my quite extensive experience leading young men has convinced me that most suffer reversible brain damage beginning at about age 15 and don't begin to enjoy complete use of their faculties again until they near the 30 year mark. Some of us take even longer...

I've now reached the age at which the only prospect of any more battlefield experience is Armageddon. I've also reached the age at which men become acquainted with a whole new cast of characters with ologist at the end of their job titles--proct, ur, optham, and... derma.

A couple of months ago, I asked my family doctor for a referral to a skin doctor who could take a look at some rough spots on my scalp. My newest ologist friend diagnosed the problem as actinic keratosis and prescribed a cream to be applied three times weekly at beddy bye time. Said cream, he promised, would, in six weeks time, give me a new headbone covering "as smooth as a baby's butt." Oh, and by the way, he warned that this cream would cause the pre-cancerous spots on my scalp to inflame angrily before leaving me with my new baby butt head--both prospects not to be found on my list of things I necessarily want to have happen to my hat rack. But, the alternative was an even less desirable outcome.

Yesterday, the Colonel reported dutifully back to the dermatologist for my after-treatment check-up. I had faithfully followed the prescription to the letter for four weeks, but it turns out that the Colonel (and I take some perverse pride in this) is a tough skinned ole bird whose system is more robust than the cream. The Colonel does not yet have the doctor-desired baby butt head. I now must apply the noxious chemo cream every night for the next six weeks.

If my head melts, I'm not gonna be happy.

It Ain't About You

The Colonel is fed up to about a micron short of my overflow valve with politicians who don't "get it." They don't get that "it" ain't about them. Three prominent pols provide my cases in point.

Our Apologist in Chief leads the hit parade of politicians whose comments and actions demonstrate that they are keenly in tune with the needs of their own narcissism and completely out of touch with the fact that they represent something much, much larger than themselves. President Obama's need to self-aggrandize via the device of bad-mouthing his own nation is perhaps the most disappointing attribute of the man. To be sure, these re-United States have not always operated faultlessly in our activities around the globe, but I defy anyone to pick any other country in the history of man that has done as much good for the rest of the globe. We have nothing to apologize for! We have sacrificed an unmatched measure of blood and treasure for the well-being and freedom of oppressed people starting at almost the beginning of our trek through history as a nation. What H doesn't get is that when he says he is glad not to be blamed for things America did when he was four years old, he is trashing the memory of American soldiers who died, giving their all with the best of freedom-loving intentions, in those actions. What's next Mr. President, making yourself look good by apologizing for our bombing Dresden and Tokyo? It ain't about you!!

Not to be outdone in the self-aggrandizement effort, Obama's Vice President for Blowhard Blathering demonstrated this past week (seems to do so weekly) that it is more important for him to make himself sound important and smart by running his mouth, regardless the impact his words have on the rest of us. I happen to agree that if there were an epidemic of a virulent influenza (such as the current version of the H1N1 virus percolating down ole Mexico way) extant in our general population, cramming oneself into cramped public transportation along with the snot-nosed, sneezy great unwashed would be a course of action I would personally decide against and vociferously recommend that my friends and loved ones avoid as well. But I'm not Vice President! Even the Colonel, relying on the scant collection of atrophied cells passing for brain matter in my skull, knows that when you're the boss (or vice boss) your every word carries the weight of all the authority of your office. But Joe Biden obviously feels the need to make up for some self-perceived inadequacy by offering advice as if he were only a well-respected sage on a street corner and not the second-most important (well, maybe third, behind Rahm Emanuel) voice in the executive branch of the most important nation on the planet. He doesn't get it--it ain't about him!

Rounding out our trio of self-proclaiming trumpeters, is the paragon of self-service himself, Senator Arlen Specter, whose justification for switching political party affiliation was (and I have to wonder if he was really listening to what he was saying) that he was not willing to put HIS career in the Senate in the hands of the people who put him there to begin with. Senator, it ain't about you! It is about the people whose constitution you took an oath to support and defend.

Think I'll move to Pennsylvania, register Democrat, and vote against him in the primary.

Piratical Precedents

On a wall in the Colonel's study an oddly-handled sword and its scabbard hang crossed beneath a wood carving of the Marine Corps' eagle, globe, and anchor. The uniquely designed sword has been the exclusive ceremonial accoutrement of U. S. Marine officers for nearly two centuries, but its history is far longer than that.

In the 9th Century, the leaders of the Islamic Abbisid caliphate headquartered in Baghdad, worried that their military strength was not sufficient to maintain their regional dominance, created a caste of slave warriors the predominance of which were initially acquired from slave-holding nomadic Turks. Over the next century, these Mamelukes, from the Arabic word mamluk, meaning "owned," distinguished themselves in military service to their masters and began to assume positions of great responsibility in their armies.  

In the early 870s, one of these slave generals staged a coup, seized power from the weak representative of the caliphate in Egypt, and rapidly brought the region stretching from Egypt to Syria under his control. This first Mameluke dynasty ended in 905 when another slave army from Baghdad invaded and regained control of Egypt and Palestine.

A succession of different dynastic caliphs continued to maintain their military supremacy in the Mediterranean and Middle East regions with their elite Mameluke armies, continually replenished by recruits and slaves acquired from Central Asia. By the middle of the 13th Century, the Mamelukes are at the height of their power and influence and a Mameluke general once again seized power in Egypt, this time from a weakened descendant of the great Saladin. 

Coincident with this uprising to the West, the successors of Genghis Khan expanded the Mongol Empire from the East into Europe and the Middle East. Mameluke armies over the next century are among a minority of military forces able to withstand the Mongol tide and win significant battles against them. From the Mongols, the Mamelukes adopted effective battlefield tactics and weapons, among them a slightly curved, simply-handled, broad-bladed sabre descended from a common weapon of the Ming dynasty. The Mamelukes combined features of this sword with features of the scimitar carried by their Central Asian ancestors and the result was the samshir, from the Persian word for a lion's claw.

Mameluke warlord rule, with caliphate figure heads, continued in North Africa and the Middle East until finally snuffed out by the expanding Ottoman Empire in the early 19th Century. Mameluke military influence, particularly mostly-ceremonial weaponry, continued to predominate throughout the region.

In 1801, Thomas Jefferson, the gun-owning, former anti-government extremist author of the treasonous Anglo-American colonial declaration of secession from the British crown, assumed the office of President of the United States. One of the first foreign policy challenges of his administration was the prevalence of piracy taking its toll on American shipping in the Mediterranean. Corsairs, based in what is today Libya, continued a tradition that dated back thousands of years in the Mediterranean -- seizing merchant shipping cargoes and holding the ships and their crews for ransom. 

Consumed by war on the continent, European nations found it more practical to pay the ransoms and "protection tribute" than to divert military resources to deal with the states (the Kingdom of Morocco and the Barbary States--Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis) sanctioning the piracy. 

American administrations under Washington and Adams also paid ransom and tribute. 

When Jefferson refused to pay an increased tribute demanded by the Pasha of Tripoli, the Barbary despot declared war on the United States and seized several American merchant ships and crews. Jefferson sent a U. S. Navy squadron to deal with the situation, but a blockade of the port of Tripoli and anti-piracy patrols in the Mediterranean were ineffective.

Realizing that regime change was required to remedy the situation, the Americans sided with the deposed former ruler of Tripoli, Hamet Karamanli, and a small contingent of Marines joined a company of mercenaries hired by Hamet in an expedition to retake the Tripolitanian throne. Led by American Marine First Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon, the force trekked 600 miles across the Libyan desert, stormed the citadel at Derne, Tripoli, and raised the American flag over the city on April 27, 1805. 

It was the first United States land operation on foreign soil. 

Gratified, Hamet presented O'Bannon with a Mameluke sword.

Proclaimed an American Hero on his return, O'Bannon left military service and although a native of Virginia, entered politics in Kentucky, serving in the state house and senate.

Ever vigilant to add laurel and lore to our tradition, the Marine Corps immortalized O'Bannon's feat in the Marines' Hymn, and adopted a facsimile of O'Bannon's Mameluke sword gift as the ceremonial side-arm of its officers.

From Baghdad to Somalia -- what goes around, comes around. Want to deal most effectively with a particularly thorny problem? Dig it out by the root.

Enemies Emboldened

Any day now it is going to happen. Joe Biden, Vice President for Blowhard Blathering, will not be able to keep from saying, "I told you so."

Back during the halcyon days of national euphoria between the election and inauguration of the false messiah, the vast majority of Americans dared believe that the incoming "Can't we all just get along?" administration would change the world's opinion of us and change the hearts of our enemies just by smiling, bowing, apologizing, and talking nice. And, they were right. All over the world, the opinion that America is to be respected (even if also feared) has evaporated almost over night. We are, to paraphrase what our president has been telling leaders the world over, no longer the leader of the world--we are just equal partners.

Give H and his crew credit, they have accomplished more in the first 100 days in office than any nascent U.S. administration in the history of the republic. The Appeaser in Chief has emboldened more enemies around the world with his actions over the last three months than any America-hater could dare hope. North Korea and Iran have increased the pace of their respective marches toward nuclear weapons delivery capability, Castro and Castro-lite are gleefully counting the increased revenues to their repressive regimes, Somali pirates attacked U.S. flagged merchant ships for the first time, the Taliban are on the move in Pakistan (the fate of which has been described by the Obama administration as the most important in the world) and have just taken control of a region only 60 miles from the capital, and the drug money-fueled warlords in the nation on our southern border are threatening to take over and establish the world's largest narco-state.

Enemies across the globe are testing our new president, and so far he is failing to meet the challenges with anything more than smiles, handshakes, and bows. Back just after the election, Joe Biden told us that the new president would be tested early on. Come on, Joe, say it--you told us so.

No Water for Info

There are some American principles so important that the welfare of no citizen, or even a large group of citizens, is more important than adherence to them. Our treatment of prisoners is one of them. Our nation was born and grown to maturity under the over-arching principle that our light was different--exceptional--in the pantheon of national lamps around the globe. We were the light that outshone all others, and set the standard for others to emulate.

When a government incarcerates a citizen or an enemy, that government takes complete responsibility for the welfare of that prisoner. This is not to say that prisoners incarcerated as punishment for crimes against our society should be mollycoddled. But prisoners are, by definition, as helpless and dependent on the grace of the state as any, and their punishment should be no more, nor less, than the loss of personal freedom intended by the imprisonment.

When our government detains an enemy combatant, regardless whether that combatant's sanctioning nation or organization is a signatory to any treaties or conventions governing the treatment of prisoners of war, our government has a higher standard, by the very nature of our American Exceptionalism, by which to measure our treatment of that captive, regardless the atrocious nature of that captive's former activities against us or our allies. Further, and this is the meat of the matter, the safety of no American or American city, is more important than maintenance of our principles and the exceptional brightness of our light to the rest of the world.

When we, as a nation, begin to believe that our safety and comfort is so important that the torture of helpless prisoners to gain important information with which to disrupt and prevent future attacks against us is justified, then we relinquish our standing as the exceptional lamp to the world. To put this in perspective, when a US military force detains an enemy combatant of any sort on the battlefield, our soldiers are prohibited, on pain of significant punishment, from mistreatment of that prisoner beyond reasonable means of detention and security, even if "aggressive" interrogation might very well reveal impending attacks on our soldiers against which they would otherwise not be prepared. In other words, American soldiers cannot torture or mistreat a prisoner to save the lives of other American or allied soldiers.

It bothers the Colonel more than just a little bit that there are Americans who would justify waterboarding and other means of torture--in effect sacrificing our principles--to protect ourselves. It bothers me even more that self-described patriots would take up the defense of these un-American acts. Want to know who the real patriots are? They are the men and women who have placed their lives on the line for the rest of us. Interestingly, you will not find many veterans defending torture. They understand.

Cheney doesn't.

Minuteman Manifesto

Two hundred and thirty-three years ago, a gun-owning, anti-government extremist drafted a manifesto by which he and his rebellious, rabble-rousing compatriots (some of whom were disgruntled veterans of the French and Indian War) displayed disagreement with their government, refused to submit to its authority, and ushered in a civil war that brought death, destruction, misery...and freedom, to those on whose side the French finally interceded. That document is reprinted in its entirety, below. Warning: Treasonous language follows. Any correlation of grievances, then and now, is purely intentional. Reading this post may subject you to surveillance by agents of the Department of Homeland Insecurity.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

If you have read the Declaration above in its entirety, you have the Colonel's admiration and respect. We are in a minority.

Homeland Insecurity

Just read the Department of Homeland Security report on right-wing extremism. The Colonel prefers to get the facts first hand whenever possible and my spidey sense was telling me that the reportage on the subject report was a bit hyperbolic. I have to admit that, taken out of context, some of the passages in the report make this Marine's fightin' blood flush.

Taken as a whole, the report is...how do I say this so as not to hurt the feelings of the bureaucrat(s) who penned it?... embarrassing. If it was a high school term paper, the Colonel would give it a "D"--credit given for correct spelling and sentence structure keeping it from receiving a failing grade. If I had submitted such a factless compilation of conjecture as a threat assessment to any of the commanders on whose staffs I served during my career in the Corps, I would have been rewarded by the sight of seeing my work torn in two and dumped in the nearest circular file. What bothers me about the report is that it is an egregious waste of our money and absolutely of no use to the law enforcement officials to whom it was addressed. Even more distressing is the realization that this amateurish amalgamation of adverbs passing for an assessment is indicative of the effectiveness of the federal department responsible for the defense of our homeland.

I feel safe--how 'bout you?

Milling About Smartly

There are two things you can bank on with regards to the man curmudgeoned before his time: the Colonel don't paint and the Colonel don't dance. He would rather take a prolonged beating than wrap his hands around a paintbrush. And, as much as the Colonel likes holding the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda close, tripping to the light fantastic ain't in the genes. That said, the pitter-patter you may be hearing in the background is the Colonel breaking into a secretive anticipatory happy dance. The Colonel's latest man toy will be delivered this week.

In a previous post the Colonel opined that, given the vast and renewable timber resources extant aboard Eegeebeegee, the capital of the Tallahatchie Free State--a government in opposition formed as much hand on wallet as tongue in cheek, and given that the Eegeebeegee Man Toy Storage and Sawdust Production Facility has a steadily increasing population of toolage designed to turn lumber into sawdust (with the occasional useful or ornamental by-product), the missing piece in the system is a machine for turning my timber into lumber.

In short, the Colonel needs -- okay, wants-- a saw mill. And, what the Colonel needs -- okay, wants -- (and for which the Colonel effectively and unashamedly begs the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda permission to stimulate the economy), the Colonel gets.

Enroute to the northern end of southern nowhere from a factory in Indiana, is a Wood-Mizer LT 15 personal saw mill, with which the Colonel will dramatically reduce the amount of cash spent regularly at local lumber yards to feed my sawdust production habit.

As is the Colonel's tradition with regard to large expensive man toys, he will assign an appropriate appellation to the newest addition, as soon as he can cobble together enough cognitive cells in the amorphous grey goo lying fallow in the recesses of his brain housing group to apply to the task of moniker making.

The Colonel invites the three of you, who regularly display a lack of anything better to do with your time than to submit yourselves to this drivel, to recommend an appropriate name for consideration by the Eegeebeegee Man Toy Naming Committee, chaired by the man curmudgeoned before his time, subject to final approval by the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda--chair of the Committee on Tallahatchie Free State Silliness Reduction.

The chosen entry will entitle the winner to an all-expense-paid day of operating the mill--an experience that the Colonel is certain occupies an elevated position on the bucket list of many of you.

My Beliefs

I had planned not to post on my blog this week. I have tried to focus on the significance of this week in my faith and felt that writing about anything else would distract me from that endeavor. But, there is so much for the man curmudgeoned before his time to comment on and I need to vent so that I can resume the quiet and sincere contemplation of the divine death sentence for my sinful nature and my salvation through the atoning blood of the Lamb.

I am, like every other, save one, who has or will ever walk this orb, a black-hearted sinner. My hope is in Jesus, without whose voluntary blood sacrifice I would be doomed to the eternal separation from my Creator that is the wage for my sin. My omniscient and holy God could require nothing less--to do so would diminish His holiness. This is my rock solid belief.

The Colonel also believes, unlike H, that America WAS founded as a Christian nation. I understand the philosophical point that our President was making when he told a mostly Muslim audience last week that "America is not a Christian nation...," but rather, "...a nation of citizens..." I also understand the tact he is taking with regard to making peace with mostly Muslim nations. But, while I understand his methods, I categorically disagree with them. Appeasement, complete with the unprecedented bowing and scraping demonstrated by our President a week ago, will only embolden our enemies. His bow before the Saudi king will, in fact, do more to recruit jihadists to the Islamic extremists' cause than anything the bungling Bush administration did or for which they were held responsible by their detractors.

The Colonel also believes that the scourge of piracy in the Indian Ocean can be relatively easily eradicated. The bungling Bush administration failed to take effective action. The H administration is displaying the same dithering approach to the menace. The solution is simple. Destroy the bases from which the pirates are launching. Instead, we are wrapped completely around the axle of our concern for the safety of a few (in this case, ONE) hostage. Were I President, I would order the immediate destruction of the lifeboat in which the pirates are holding the Maersk Alabama's skipper. Callous as it sounds, the action would send the immediate signal that messing with American flagged shipping is a death sentence. I believe Captain Phillips would give the order himself, if given the choice.

The Colonel also believes that market capitalism, regulated only to the extent that prevents fraud, is the most effective societal means of exchanging and acquiring goods and services. It is amazing to me that the very liberal progressives whose religion is Darwinism would prefer the anti-Darwinistic concept of market socialism. Survival of the fittest applies universally or not at all.

The Colonel also believes that Vice President Joe Biden is the most entertaining buffoon to occupy the office since Al Gore. What a kidder!

Finally, the Colonel believes that it's time to wake the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda and tell her that she loves me.

Launching an Extortion Fit

The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, the perpetually petulant adolescent personality cult masquerading as a nation, got the world's attention again this weekend by acting up in class and launching a spit wad across the room.

Kim and his clan of sycophantic generals and governmental administrators know that the only way to maintain their hold on power is to maintain a state of fear. This they do through a combination of hyper xenophobia and hysterical introspection. A million-man army (armed with enough chemical weapons to make a thousand Saddams happy) is justified by maintaining tension with the United States and the Republic of Korea. The populace is controlled, at the edge of starvation, by a sadistically sinister and systematic program in which everyone participates in daily group meetings for the purpose of (and you could only make this up if you were George Orwell) criticising each other. In the Korean culture, sense of self esteem and one's place in society is paramount--these criticism clatches serve to unsettle each individual in the population to the point that he or she is literally too introspective to care about the crises continuum that has been their country for generations. Of course, maintaining your nation in a near absolute news vacuum helps to keep your message in the headlines as well.

The all-controlling command economy of North Korea makes the old Soviet Union's look like rampant capitalism by comparison. It is ten times more inefficient and unproductive as well. The North Korean countryside is barely arable and resource poor. So, Kim needs help from outside to maintain his stranglehold on the 23 million people inside the borders of the world's largest concentration camp. He doesn't want aid for his people. He needs money to buy food and luxury goods to keep his army fed and his bureaucrats bought off.

This weekend's missile launch, the anticipation of which captured headlines for weeks, and was in contravention of agreements Kim made in exchange for money from the international community, was an operational failure. Reportedly, the second and third stages malfunctioned and the missile failed to accomplish its mission of putting a satellite into orbit. But, we (the rest of the world) will beg Kim to stop his intercontinental ballistic missile program and he will--in exchange for more money.

Don't know how you deal with adolescents pitching extortionary fits in your household. I ignored mine. They've since grown to maturity and entered society as productive, non-threatening adults. Time to turn our backs on Kim. What's the worst that can happen? He could resume full-scale combat operations against the Republic of Korea in the war that has simmered under an armistice since 1953. He has nothing to gain except suicidal notoriety with that course of action. The ROKs would crush him eventually, probably without too much of our help.

Will be interesting to see what H does with this one.

Living the Dream

An anniversary of some import passed quietly earlier this week here at the northern end of southern nowhere and the Colonel didn't get in trouble with the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda for not remembering it.

Two trips around Sol ago, on March 31st of 2007 to be exact, the Colonel and Miss Brenda spent the first evening on the property that had existed in our life dreams since we were, ahem, teenagers in love. As sappy as it may seem to a world that no longer seems to believe in life-long love and commitment, I have been in love with my best friend since I was a pimply-faced, squeaky-voiced adolescent. Amazingly, the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda has returned the favor, with interest, for the same almost four decades since our first date. Two or three of you reading this, may even remember, as participants in what can only be described as a "gang date," (our whole, mostly good, gang of church youth mostly paired off and attended a Saturday matinee of that tender love story: "Lawrence of Arabia") that inaugural episode of the implausibly long running "Ed and Brenda Show," and recall the great improbability that I would ever have a second date with the better-looking half of the Cannon twins.

But, against odds longer than that of my Rebels winning this year's National Championship, we endured. And, as we endeavored to endure in those early years, we dreamed. By the time we married, nearly five years after the first date, we had our lives together dream-planned out. We dream-planned our family--two boys and a girl. Mission accomplished. Check. We dream-planned my career as a Marine. Mission accomplished. Check. We dream-planned our retirement place in the country.

Living that dream. God is good.

The Graveyard of Empires; Episode I

In 336 B.C. a 20 year-old Macedonian from the royal line of a nation numbering not more than 1.5 million people, assumed the kingship of the Greek world from his assassinated father. Alexander had been educated by one of history's greatest teachers, Aristotle. Along with the throne, his father Philip bequeathed him the finest fighting force the world had yet seen. Philip himself had built the Macedonian army, organized and equipped in a highly flexible combined arms manner that had easily crushed the other monolithic phalanxes of the Greek city states and their colonies, as well as irregular formations of barbarian tribes to the far north of Macedon.

Immediately upon the young Alexander's accession to the dominating Macedonian throne, the Greek city states and the barbarians whom his father had subdued tested his mettle and attempted to throw off Macedonian rule. Alexander first solidified his authority as leader of the Hellenic League (alliance of all the Greek states, save Sparta) established by his father by marching on Athens at the head of a Macedonian army and rapidly crushing, by a demonstration of strength alone, the opposition. That done, he turned north and put down the restive barbarian tribes.

While campaigning in the north, Alexander received word that Thebes and Athens, at the instigation of Darius II of Persia, had revolted against Macedonian rule. Alexander immediately marched on Thebes and all but destroyed the city to subdue it. Athens got the message and surrendered peacefully to Alexander's rule, for which the young king returned kindness and no retribution for their errant behavior.

With the Greek world solidly behind him, and two years of successful campaigning against disparate enemy formations under his belt, Alexander crossed the Hellespont into Persian dominated Asia (what is today, Turkey), not just to accomplish his father's dream of punishing the world power to the East for their repeated transgressions against the Greeks, but with his own plan of conquering Persian, AND the rest of the known world. Alexander first defeated a mixed army of Persians and Greek mercenaries at the Battle of the Granicus and liberated the Greek coastal cities of Asia. Lacking a navy with which to maintain his sea lines of communication with his home base back across the Hellespont, Alexander next sought to negate the Persian navy's ability to interdict him, by sweeping down the Mediterranean coastline and capturing all of the ports from which the Persian navy operated.

A third of the way through this coastal campaign, as Alexander was marching southward into modern-day Syria, the Persian king had attempted to cut off his lines of communication back to Macedon by placing a 100,000 man army to Alexander's rear. Alexander had turned around with 30,000 men, and, despite being outnumbered three to one against an enemy well fortified on the other side of the Pinarus River, routed and destroyed half of the Persian army with the loss of less than 500 of his own men. Following this victory, remembered as the Battle of Issus, Alexander completed his anti-Persian Navy campaign by seizing the island port of Tyre (by means of the herculean engineering feat of building a causeway out to the city), the city of Gaza (by means of another great engineering feat: the construction of a 250 foot high mound a quarter mile in circumference at the base from which the Greeks bombarded the defenders with siege engines), and the occupation of Egypt where the young conqueror established the first of many Alexandrias.

Having effectively destroyed the greatest navy in the world at the time, by way of brilliant stratagem, Alexander now turned his attention to the mighty Persian Army assembling in Mesopotamia. With his trademark rapid march, Alexander sped from Egypt back to Tyre, turned east and crossed the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers. The Persians, numbering about 200,000, were drawn up in battle array on the Plain of Gaugemela waiting for Alexander. Outnumbered nearly four to one, the Greeks nonetheless attacked straightaway and Alexander's tactical genius shown clearly in his adaptation of a battlefield formation that created, then exploited, a gap in the center of the massive Persian line. The Persian king, Darius, was suddenly in a relatively exposed position and he beat a hasty retreat. His grand army disintegrated with his ignominious retirement from the battlefield, and, after being pursued by Alexander for the next eleven days, Darius was assassinated by a group of his Persian nobles, leaving the young Macedonian strategic, operational, and tactical genius the ruler of Persia--a feat the most ambitious Greek leader before him could never have dreamed attempting.

No warrior king had ever before nor has ever since accomplished so much conquest at any age and level of experience, let alone Alexander's tender age of 25. He was clearly the world's most brilliant battlefield leader and destined to cruise to world domination, including the lands that were later to encompass the western Roman Empire--what is now Italy, Mediterranean North Africa, Spain, France, and the British Isles. He could count on vigor that would keep him in the fight for at least another 25 years. He had consolidated control of the Greek world, occupied Egypt, and conquered the Persian Empire in less than five years--one could scarcely fathom what he should accomplish given five more like periods of time...

But, then he marched into Afghanistan.

Monday Morning MOTOs, Not-so Special Wednesday Edition

The Colonel knows that this is Wednesday and that he has been regularly irregular in his fitfully faithful posting of the Monday Mastery of the Obvious (MOTO) medal awards, to those whose public comments demonstrate their steel trap grasp of the obvious, on..., well, on Mondays.

Several colliding and colluding factors have created a not-so perfect storm preventing the Colonel from publishing the Monday Morning MOTOs until later in the week. First, the Colonel's bubble of relatively irrelevant relativity has been particularly persistent this week.

Second, Grandson #1, the Hope of 21st Century Civilization, has been on an inspection tour of the grounds of the Tallahatchie Free State, a government in opposition formed with hand-on-wallet as much as tongue-in-cheek, and has commanded a bit more of the Colonel's and the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's time.

Third, there has been a distinct dearth of public comments by anyone demonstrating any kind of grasp on reality.

The Colonel's Not-so Special Wednesday Edition of the Monday Morning MOTOs Bronze Medal goes to the Colonel, for his mastery of the calendar, as demonstrated by the lead sentence in this pernicious post.

The Colonel's Not-so Special Wednesday Edition Monday Morning MOTO Silver Medal goes to President O'Bama (he did claim some Irish ancestry didn't he?) for his realistic, if blatantly obvious, remark that, with regard to our economy, "There are no quick fixes, and there are no silver bullets." Hmmm, seems to the not-so bright Colonel, that's exactly what he and the socialist spendapaths in Congress have been attempting to do with trillion dollar bandaids and shotgun blasts, all of which will, in the Colonel's not-so humble opinion, result in nothing more than hastening the complete economic collapse of these re-United States into hyper-inflation and depression.

The Colonel's Not-so Special Wednesday Edition of the Monday Morning MOTOs Gold Medal goes to President Obama for his explanation for his delay in joining the hypocritically populist outrage over the revelation that the same effete, Gucci-wearing, limo-riding, penthouse-living, money-grubbing, Yankee Wall Street crooks who came hat in hand to the American taxpayer for financial rescue after they literally mismanaged their institutions into bankruptcy, channeled millions of OUR MONEY into their own pockets as bonuses for doing such a splendid job of destroying our wealth, "It took us a couple days because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak."

What?!? Was the teleprompter broke?