Seedy Sitcom

The Colonel ain't a farmer... but, he plays one on the sitcom that is his life here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere.

He has a tractor.

He has farming implements for that tractor.

He has lots of dirt.

The similarities end there.  Just like sitcoms and real life.

It is a very good thing that the Colonel's livelihood and the standard of living at which the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda expects the Colonel to maintain her don't depend on his ability to market a crop.

The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda, nevertheless, provides plenty of encouragement for the Colonel's agricultural efforts.  Just the other day...

"Hey, knucklehead," the Colonel's bride asked in her most endearing way, "where have you been all day?"

"Riding Semper Field."

"Semper what?"

"Semper Field. The Colonel's tractor."

"You mean that smelly, old, diesel-guzzling, eyesore of a monument to your stupidity that spends most of its time parked out behind my rose bushes in the backyard?"

"Semper Field is not an eyesore!  Oh, and by the way, been meaning to talk to you about those rose bushes.  They block my view of Semper Field.  Thinking about whacking those boogers back a bit."

"Knucklehead, if you start whacking on my plants, they won't be the last thing that gets whacked!"

The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda had assumed the dreaded hands-on-hips, eyes-on-fire, pre-attack position with which the Colonel has grown very wary.  Bad things follow.

"Yes, dear.  The Colonel understands, dear.  He won't touch your rose bushes."

"You better steer clear, Knucklehead.  And, stop referring to yourself in the third person.  Seriously!  Creeps me out."

"Yes, ma'am!"

"So?"

"So, what, dear?"

"So, what have you accomplished riding that smelly, old tractor all day today?"

"Semper Field.  The tractor's name is Semper Field."

"Give it up, Knucklehead.  I am not going to call that wreck by some stupid name.  And, why are you pronouncing the end of the word 'field' so funny?"

"Emphasizing the italics."

"You are seriously the strangest man on the planet."

"But, you love me..."

"Don't push the issue, knucklehead!"

The Colonel loves these heart-connecting conversations with the love of his life, but he knows when there's been enough of a good thing and when it's time to move on.  He proudly provided the answer to her question, "been planting soybeans in the Middle Field."

"Knucklehead, when did we start eating soybeans?"

"We don't, dear.  The deer and the turkeys love 'em, though."

"Deer and turkeys?"  You planted a couple of acres of soybeans just for deer and turkeys?"

"Four acres, to be exact!"

"Quit emphasizing the italics!  Makes you sound like a yankee." 

The Colonel tolerates a lot of things.  Being called a yankee ain't one of 'em.  "Now, see here Miss Brenda, there's no need for name-calling..."

"Yankee, yankee, yankee!"

"That's just plain hurtful, Miss Brenda!"

"Hurtful?  What's hurtful is all the money you spend on diesel, herbicide, fertilizer, and seed, just to feed a bunch of critters.  And, don't get me started on all the money you spend on sugar for those stupid hummingbirds!"

The Colonel fairly recoiled in horror at the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's seeming suggestion that feeding his beloved birds was wasteful.  "Heresy!," he cried.

"Get a grip, knucklehead!"


See?  The Colonel's life is a sitcom.

        

       

    

A Noble and Right Republic

One hundred and seventy years ago, this week, an American army, under the command of General Winfield Scott, marched westward out of the Mexican coastal town of Vera Cruz.  Their destination: Mexico City.  

The American siege of Vera Cruz included the first large scale amphibious operation ever conducted by United States military forces and reduction of what was considered the strongest coastal fortress in the Western Hemisphere at the time.  Vera Cruz thereafter provided the vital port, opposite the Mexican capital, through which U.S. military forces flowed men and material for the campaign that culminated in the capture of the "Halls of Montezuma" and the capitulation of Mexican forces nearly six months later.

The war with Mexico had commenced officially nearly a year before.  The war was a culmination of years of tensions with Mexico over expansion of the American Republic westward on the North American continent.  The war has been portrayed, by the most vehement of its detractors, as naked American imperialism against a hapless neighbor.  The truth is that the War with Mexico was closer to a war of liberation than a war of expansion.

Mexico's leader, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, a former brigadier in the Mexican army who had been instrumental in the overthrow of the constitutional monarchy established following Mexico's independence from Spain in 1821, had repealed Mexico's constitution of 1824 and declared himself dictator.  The 1824 Constitution of the United States of Mexico, while not a completely faithful copy of the governing document of the nation to their north, did in fact include protections of the natural rights of man similar to those included in the U.S. Constitution.  The 1824 Constitution had created a hybrid confederation/federation that allowed considerable governing autonomy to Mexico's twenty or so states and territories.

Settlers moving west into the Mexican territory of Texas took advantage of this governing autonomy and basically thumbed their noses at the relatively weak central government in Mexico City.   Furthermore, Mexico had actually invited settlers to immigrate into Mexican lands -- specifically to areas that would provide a buffer between Mexico and hostile "native" American tribes.  The emigrating "Anglos" weren't stupid and they settled in great numbers in safer and more fertile eastern parts of the Texas territory.

In response to what Mexicans began increasingly to perceive as a threat to Mexican control of their northern territories, Santa Anna's setting aside (in May of 1834) of the 1824 Constitution, on the surface, was designed to help bring those immigrants to heel.  In practice, it also stripped Mexican citizens south of the Rio Grande of protections of their natural rights.  Santa Anna's dictatorship became what all dictatorships become -- the accumulation of power in the hands of one man to the detriment of the lot of all others.

The most untold part of this is that not only did Anglo Texans rebel against Santa Anna's dictatorship, but several Mexican states south of the Rio Grande did, as well.  Santa Anna put down the rebellion in the latter and, then, in 1836, marched on Texas.  The defeat of a wing of the Mexican army (commanded by Santa Anna), at San Jacinto, resulted in a treaty (later repudiated by the Mexican congress) recognizing Texas' independence.     

But, Texas and Mexico continued to differ over the boundary between the two.  In fact, Mexico persisted in the assertion that all of Texas was still Mexican territory and Santa Anna was determined to reclaim it.  Tensions continue to fester, particularly following formal admission of the Republic of Texas as a state in the United States of America in December of 1845.  Both sides increased forces and fortifications along the intervening frontier amid Mexican threats to invade and reclaim Texas territory.

The spark that finally lit the fuse to war was the ambush and destruction, in late April of 1846, of a small U.S. Cavalry patrol, under the command of Captain Seth Thorton, by a large Mexican force in the disputed territory north of the Rio Grande. Newly inaugurated President James K. Polk seized on the "Thorton Affair," declaring to Congress that, "American blood has been shed on American soil."  Polk asked for and a received a formal declaration of war from Congress.  A flood of volunteers swelled the relatively small American Army over the next several months, and by summer's end enough forces were available to begin offensive operations to seize territory south of the Rio Grande.

By late winter in 1847, Mexican forces had been defeated in Northern Mexico, and the campaign to carry the fight to the Mexican capital began at Vera Cruz.

While far more volunteered to fight than could be enlisted, the war did have its political detractors.  It should be noted, however, that most of the war's dissenters were far more worried about the acquisition of southern agricultural land that would strengthen the power of southern "slave-holding" states, than they were against a war to free their neighbors from dictatorship.

Perhaps most disappointing to the Colonel is that while the treaty that ended the war did cede the United States territory that would become California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming (half of the total territory then claimed by Mexico), the United States could have very easily taken ALL of Mexico and admitted ALL Mexican states into the Union.  The latter course of action was favored by Polk's political party, the Democrats.  Opposition to annexation of all of Mexico by the other party -- the Whigs -- was primarily based on the concern for tilting the scale decidedly in favor of then "slave-holding" states (all states had slaves).  So, President Polk compromised and took only the northern half of Mexico.

Consider, for a moment, the ramifications of that compromise.

It certainly forestalled, and perhaps pre-ordained the ultimate result of, the cataclysmic civil war that engulfed the nation within a generation.

But, imagine the strength of an American Republic that, by the end of the 19th Century, had not only stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific north of the Rio Grande, but included territory stretching far into the tropics of Central America.

And, imagine the millions who would be living in freedom, safety, and prosperity far above the standard in which they find themselves today -- many of them living in failed states so unable to provide even the most basic of those natural human rights that mothers in those crime-ridden states are desperately sending their children, often unescorted, north to the United States.

Expansion of a republic to provide freedom, safety, and prosperity to millions is the most noble, and right, of intentions by which a republic can be motivated, and by which it can be measured.   
     

Hope on a Rope

The Colonel can't get into this time of year without remembering where he was during one of the best times of his life.

In the early Spring of 1988, the Colonel, then a captain of Marines, was in command of a 200-man reinforced infantry company designated the dedicated "heli-borne" force of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit -- Special Operations Capable (26th MEU-SOC).  That unit, trained to execute sea-based raids, was embarked on LPH-2, USS Iwo Jima.

The Iwo was a storied ship, named for the most storied battle in the Corps' history.  She was an accomplished ship, as well, having participated in combat operations during Vietnam, as well as wide-ranging forward deployments throughout the Western Pacific. Perhaps her most famous mission was recovery of the Apollo 13 crew at the splashdown completion of their jinxed mission.

By the time the Colonel and his company went aboard her, the Iwo was also getting a bit long in the tooth.  She had been the first of her kind -- an amphibious assault ship built from the keel up to carry and launch aircraft in support of the Marine Corps' vertical assault modus operandi.  Launched in 1960, the Iwo Jima was showing its age; but, was manned by a great crew and fully capable of getting it's embarked Marines to the fight. 

Those were heady days for the Colonel.  He was at the head of 200 of the most hard-charging young men you could imagine.  The Colonel spent a lot of energy telling them just how great they were and just how important their mission was as forward deployed representatives of the greatest Republic on earth, but they were largely self-motivated, and, if truth be told, actually motivated the Colonel far more than he motivated them.

As the "heli-borne force" for the 26th MEU-SOC, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines was trained and ready to receive a mission, plan its conduct, and launch in a mix of CH-46E and CH-53E helicopters within 6 hours.  Raid missions for which they were prepared ranged from airfield seizure to in extremis hostage rescue.

One mission in particular sparks synapses in the Colonel's brain-housing group more and more these days -- Long-Range Ship Reinforcement.  

On station in the Mediterranean Sea area of operations, wherein the Colonel and his merry band of brothers were deployed, the United States maintained a small fleet of civilian-crewed, un-armed, RORO (roll-on, roll-off) ships crammed to the gunnels with vehicles, gear, and supplies to outfit and support a large Marine force that would fly into a friendly or captured airfield (thus the "airfield seizure" mission referenced above) and marry-up with that equipment.  The powers that be were, rightly, concerned that those unarmed ships were plum targets for enemies of US interests.  So, in the event of a credible threat to those ships, a small force of Marines (armed to the teeth) would fly in air-refuelable CH-53E Super Stallions for several hours, over empty ocean, and reinforce the threatened ship.  
There was teeny tiny problem, however.  Those ships didn't have any place for that great big helicopter to land.

So, the Marines, ever-adaptable, came up with a solution to getting a helicopter-load of Marines, and their weapons and gear, out of the helicopter when there was no way to land.

They called it "fast rope."  

"Fast-roping" is not rappelling -- where the one "on rappel" is attached by a snap-link or carabiner to a slender line.  Instead, fast-roping can be likened to sliding down a pole in a fire station.  Except the pole is a thick rope attached to a hovering helicopter; and, the helicopter, while hovering, ain't exactly stationary.  Neither is the deck onto which the fast-ropee is fast-roping. 

Oh, and because ships have all kinds of stuff sticking up on them well above the deck, the helicopter dumping its load of Marines via fast rope has to hover several stories (sometimes 60 feet or more) above the ship.  

The ship continues to sail.

The helicopter continues to hover/fly in concert with the ship.

The ship rocks, pitches, and rolls like a..., well..., like a drunken sailor still on sea legs.

The fast-roping few, with gear and weapons slung on shoulders and backs, grasp the thick rope in gloved hands, clench their boots on the rope, and slide down.

Fast.

The life-expectancy of gloves and boots in a fast-roping outfit is quite short.

Sometimes shorter than a single slide.

In the picture above, a Marine is fast-roping out of the "hell hole" of a CH-53E helicopter.  

Shuffle up to the gaping square opening in the floor of a helo hovering over a moving, rolling, pitching ship onto which you will now slide down a rope, with 80 pounds of gear on your back, and you will understand the appellation, "hell hole."

In fact, you will probably have several other four letter names on your lips.  The Colonel will leave that to your imagination.

Helicopter pilots, while justifiably proud of their ability to hover over, and maintain station with, a moving, rolling, pitching ship, are not overly fond of doing it for extended periods of time.

Thus the "fast" in fast-rope.

At, say, 60 feet, and with a frantic helo crew-chief yelling, "go!, go!, go!," because a frantic pilot is screaming into his headset, "get 'em out!, get 'em out!, get 'em out!," the fast-roping Marines are literally leaping into thin air with often the most tenuous grasps on the rope.  

And, there's a Marine right below them, still on the rope.

Now, imagine the scene at the bottom of the rope.  

There will be heapage, and great, curse-filled, scrambling.

Oh..., and the rotor wash of a CH-53E Super Stallion hovering at 60 feet approaches the wind speed of a Category 4 hurricane... 


Man, the Colonel misses those days!       

   

Ten Years in Mississippi

This week marks a very important anniversary for the Colonel and his Lady.  It was ten years ago, this week, that they closed on the sale of their home in Florida and closed on the purchase of the sweetest plot of land on the planet.

What makes it so sweet?

Well, for starters, it belongs to the Colonel and the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda.  That makes it special all by itself.

They put their names on the place.  They call their little slice of heaven on earth, situated at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere, Egeebeegee.

Nope.  That's not an Anglicized spelling of a word in the language of the former temporary tenants on the land.  

There might be more of a nod than not to the fierce Chickasaws, who displaced the mound-building Mississippians, who themselves displaced some other previous temporary tenants.  But, the name Egeebeegee has no real indigenous roots.  

It's just the Colonel's and the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's initials -- spelled somewhat phonetically.

The Colonel stresses the word "somewhat" because he believes several of his former English teachers surveil posts hereon and he hopes that qualifier will insulate him from the heat of their correction in case he has used the word "phonetically" incorrectly or has used passive voice when he should be using active voice or is failing to punctuate correctly or is abusing conjunctions and gerunds or is Faulknerizing his writing with run-on sentences that stretch for pages and cover more information in a single sentence, while the sun arcs slowly to rest, than most writers pen into a plethora of paragraphs, and, with no thought of the payment for the crime, breaks rules set down by ancestral English teachers, whose authority, like the passage of minutes on a clock whose keeper is a monk with the sole job of winding the clock, is unquestioned, even by the most questioning soul on his journey under that arcing sun, measuring his steps in cadence with the clock whose monk never fails to rise with the sun and attend to his clock-winding duty, and...           
(There, that should keep Mrs. Corbett busy for a while!)

This week, the Colonel and the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda have been reminiscing regarding the changes they've seen aboard Egeebeegee since their arrival.  Ten years in one place is an amazing achievement for a couple who together and between them have nearly three score domiciliary stops on this globe before coming to rest at long last here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere.  

In ten year's time, one can actually watch a tree grow -- amazing!

In ten year's time, one can mark the seasonal arcs of the sun, by the same landmark, enough times to finally prove the theory.

In ten year's time, acquaintances can become friends.

In ten year's time, an abode can become home.

In ten year's time, one can accumulate, without worry that one's accumulation will exceed the limits on one's PCS orders.

In ten year's time, one can build, repair, (note Oxford comma -- and it ain't the Tuscaloosa comma for good reason) and rebuild the bridge across the stream that divides the Colonel's vast holdings in half. 

In ten year's time, one can plant, and feast on the fruit of, an orchard.  

So, here's to the Colonel's ten years in Mississippi.  Ten more, please.

Moving On

A week spent packing up his in-laws' belongings and preparing their home of over four decades for sale stirred up a little dust and a lot of memories for the Colonel -- both of which made his eyes water more than just a little. 

The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda, her twin sister -- the beautiful and brash Miss Linda, and their mother -- the wise and courageous Miss Martha, lovingly and tearfully boxed up clothing and treasures representing six decades of the Jack and Martha Cannon Show.

As far as he is concerned that show was a hit, deserving of recognition and praise far beyond the capability of the Colonel's feeble phraseology.  So, he'll dispense with any further attempt at laudatory language.

Suffice to say, last week was hard, both physically and emotionally.

Two -- count 'em, two -- 26 foot U-haul trucks were rented and packed to the gills; one headed for Texas and the other to the Colonel's vast holdings here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere.  Per the Colonel's direction, every box had either "TX" or "MS" marked on it and every piece of furniture had a similarly marked strip of tape.  As helpers carried a box or piece of furniture out of the house, the Colonel and his brother-law ensured each went on the right truck.  

With more than a score of personal household moves under his belt, the Colonel has more than a little practice at packing boxes and packing trucks.  There are two cardinal rules to follow.  

    1. Heavy stuff goes in little boxes.    

    2. Boxes are loaded on the truck first -- floor to ceiling.  

Failure to faithfully follow the foregoing fails the faithful fellows filing in and out filling the truck. 

Packing a truck is a lot like working a giant, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle -- once the boxes are loaded, all the stuff that didn't go in a box is stacked and packed in place, in layers, front to back and floor to ceiling.  Toward the end of this operation it is handy to have a fearless pre-teen to climb up on the pile and fill nooks and crannies with stuff.  

If you don't have a fearless pre-teen handy, a crotchety little Marine colonel with a fully-checked bucket list will do. 

At the end of the week, late in the night the day before the planned departure for the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere, the Colonel and his bride stood at the back of the truck marvelling at the job the Colonel had done packing one half of his in-laws' worldly possessions on a truck half as big as needed.

"Good grief, Knucklehead, is that a refrigerator up there on top?"

"Why, yes. Yes it is."

"How did you get it up there?"

"Not real sure.  The shooting pains in the Colonel's back are clouding his memory somewhat."

"How in the world are we going to get all of this unloaded back home?"

"The Colonel has been thinking about that all week, and he thinks he has a plan."

"Does your plan involve high speed in reverse and slamming on the brakes?"

"Um, yeah.  How did you know?"

"Knucklehead, this isn't my first move with you."


The Colonel is happy to report that no refrigerators or grandfather clocks were harmed in the making of this move.

Farm Surveillance

The Colonel thinks his phone has been tapped.

He also thinks someone is following his participation in FaceBook posts and discussions.

The worst part is the Colonel has strong suspicions that this surveillance is being conducted at the behest of, if not in-person by, someone very close to him.

Yep.  The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda is spying on the Colonel.

The evidence is just too clear and voluminous for the Colonel to come to any other conclusion.  He wants to believe that his bride of four decades would not trample on his rights so egregiously, but there's just no other way to interpret the evidence.   At least no other way the Colonel can cobble together enough brain cells to conclude.

He's said it before, and it bears repeating, the Colonel ain't smart and you can't make him.  But, it don't take a whole heap of smarts, nor a very sharp crayon, to connect the dots in this case.   

For example, every time the Colonel posts something on FaceBook about the commencement of a labor-intensive infrastructure project aboard the Colonel's vast holdings here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere, the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda suddenly makes herself scarcer than a government worker at an ethics rally.  How does she know that the Colonel's keen supervisory skills are about to be brought to bear?

The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda is spying on the Colonel.

Further, the Colonel thinks the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda is employing some sort of advanced smart-phone application that alerts her whenever the Colonel accesses the camera application on his phone.  The Colonel would like to document the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda in action, but the second he even momentarily diverts his supervisory attention to thumb open the camera application on his phone, she drops her tools and vanishes faster than a conventioner's morals in Vegas.

Look, the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda is no less intuitive than the average member of her fair gender, but intuition alone is not enough to provide complete situational awareness of the Colonel's very intentions before he even knows them.  The Colonel is predictable, for sure, but this kind of prescience begs credulity. 

It's just too obvious.
  
The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda is spying on the Colonel, and the NSA only wishes they were as effective.

The Colonel is even starting to believe that the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda has developed her own version of predictive software that allows her to see the future with regard to the Colonel's actions.  The Colonel submits the following regular interrogation conducted by the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda whenever the Colonel leaves the Big House.

"Where do you think you're going, knucklehead?"

"Oh, just out to ride Semper Field for a while."

"Semper what?  You mean the smelly old tractor you get stuck in a mud hole every other time you take it out?"

"Uh, yes, dear.  And, the Colonel hasn't gotten it stuck since last week."

"You haven't ridden it since last week, knucklehead.  What field are you going to?"

"North field."

"Be careful."

Did you catch that last remark, dear reader?  That whole 'be careful' thing smacks of a combination lack of confidence in her man and pre cognizance of his actions.

Seriously, how does she know that the Colonel is going to throw any semblance of caution to the winds and drive his rusty red tractor with less situational awareness and more immature idiocy than a college coed in a daddy-bought SUV.  

The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda is spying on the Colonel.

She probably sees him walking back from the field and knows what he's gonna say.

"Hey, Babe.  Watcha doin'?"

"Cleaning up after you, as usual, knucklehead.  Where's your tractor?  Did you get it stuck again?"

How does she know?  The Colonel rests his case.

The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda is spying on the Colonel.        

        

Rebellion is Brewing

The Colonel delivered his annual address to the citizens and legal residents of the Tallahatchie Republic (a virtual nation state established with tongue in cheek and hand on wallet) yesterday.  It was neither televised nor recorded in any fashion, save indelible imprint on the very psyche of each and everyone in attendance.

The address was delivered in the cavernous family room of the Big House, sited on a ridge overlooking Eegeebeegee -- the Colonel's vast holdings at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere.

Excerpts, and description of the speech's reception, follow:

"Citizens, residents, and friends of our great enterprise: the Colonel bids you well and wishes to bring you up to date on the progress of projects and future plans to keep Eegeebeegee great.  Please hold your applause until the end."

The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda sighed and interjected, "Are you going to do this, now?  Wheel of Fortune is on."  

The Colonel leveled his steely-eyed gaze on his bride, "What part of 'hold your applause until the end' did you not understand?"

The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda returned the Colonel's steely-eyed gaze with her patented look that can cook a steak well-done, "Wasn't applauding, knucklehead.  Take your incoherent babbling to another room, willya."

"Who you callin' incoherent?" the Colonel retorted indignantly.  "Be careful that the Colonel doesn't declare you 'an enemy of the people' and have you deported."

"Deported?!"  The wattage of the Colonel's Lady's gaze increased exponentially, approaching temperatures suitable for welding steel. "Who do you think you are?  And, stop referring to yourself in the third person -- it's seriously getting on my nerves."

The Colonel comported himself, shuffled the ream of papers in his hands, and resumed his address, albeit in a lower tone and from a position out of the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's line of sight to Vanna flipping letters.

"The long dreary days of the month whose name will not be spoken come to an end this evening.  Tomorrow will dawn with the promise of brighter, warmer days.  And, the Colonel assures you the tempo of infrastructure projects will increase with the lengthening daylight and rising warmth.  There is no project too tough for us to tackle."

"Huh!," the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda huffed.  "What is this 'us' business?  You mean 'no project is too tough' for ME to tackle!"  

Sensing an opportunity to deviate from his prepared text in response to the crowd's enthusiastic reception, the Colonel ad libbed, "The Colonel pledges a redoubling of his supervisory effort to ensure that our republic's workforce stays on task."

"Workforce?!  So, now I'm just 'the workforce!'  Listen hear, knucklehead," the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda intoned, using her favorite term of endearment for her man, your 'workforce' is hereby on strike!"

The Colonel deviated further from his prepared remarks, "Strikes, slow-downs, stoppages, and other forms of workforce rebellion will be dealt with swiftly and severely..."

"Rebellion?!  I'll show you 'rebellion!'  I'll stomp a mudhole in your Manassas!"

Sensing an undercurrent of discontent in the crowd, the Colonel summarily adjourned the joint session of the Congress of the Tallahatchie Republic and beat an organized, if hasty, withdrawal to the friendlier confines of the Oblong Office, formerly known as the Colonel's Knotty Room, to revise and extend the contents of his remarks for the record.

The Colonel hopes the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda cools off soon.  It'll be time to plant and tend the garden before too long, and the Colonel is loathe to bring in migrant labor.               
  

Lava Dog Days

A memory milestone passed without mention a couple of weeks ago; not mentioned, but reflected upon with great fondness and profound nostalgia.

The Colonel, admittedly arriving at the conclusion solely through self-analysis, has led an amazing life, replete with opportunities and adventures of which most can only dream.  

He's travelled the globe, setting foot on every continent save Antarctica and visiting far more nation states than he has states in the republic of which he is a lucky citizen.

He's sailed "the seven seas," crossing lines to become both a shellback (Equator) and a bluenose (Arctic Circle).  

The Colonel graduated from the best high school in the world -- Balboa High in the Panama Canal Zone.

He graduated from the Harvard of the South -- Ole Miss.

The Colonel commanded the best rifle company in the Marine Corps -- Company C, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines; the best recruiting battalion in the Marine Corps -- Recruiting Station Macon/Atlanta; and the best recruiting regiment in the Marine Corps -- the Sixth Marine Corps District.   

And, along the happy and lucky way, the Colonel commanded the best infantry battalion in the Marine Corps -- 1st Battalion, 3d Marines -- of which he took command twenty years ago on Saint Valentine's Day.

The 1st Battalion of the Marine Corps' Third Marine Regiment was then, and is now, homeported in Hawaii aboard a tiny base on the windward side of Oahu.  Home for 1/3 (in the Corps' shorthand for its infantry battalions) may have been a constricted stretch of coral and sand between Kaneohe Bay and the extinct Ulupa'u volcanic crater, but the operating range for 1/3 was half the globe.

In the scant eighteen months (14 February 1997 to 14 August 1998) during which the Colonel had the high honor and privilege to command 1/3, the Marines and sailors (nicknamed "Lava Dogs") of the best battalion in the Marine Corps deployed across the Hawaiian islands and then across the Western Pacific.  

In January of 1998, 1/3 deployed to Okinawa, Japan for a seven-month rotation, "chopping" (operational slang for change of operational control) from the 3d Marine Regiment on Hawaii to the 4th Marine Regiment on Okinawa; going, in self-identification, from the 1st Battalion, Third Marines to the "Best Battalion, 4th Marines."

During those seven months on Okinawa, Marines and sailors from 1/3 further deployed (in battalion or company strength) to Australia, Hokkaido, South Korea, Fujiyama, and Indonesia.  One reinforced platoon went aboard the USS Independence (as a security force) for its final operational deployment to the Persian Gulf as part of Operation Southern Watch.

Throughout the Colonel's tenure as commanding officer, the professionalism and can-do spirit of the officers and men of the 1st Battalion never ceased to amaze.  The Colonel takes no credit for their amazing performance except that he was at least cognizant enough to recognize the enormous pool of talent and initiative upon which he was afloat, and that he was at least bright enough to give them free rein.

Many of the young officers and men of 1/3 during the peace-time of the late '90's have gone on to distinguished service in combat over the last decade and a half -- a half dozen in battalion-level or higher command.

The Colonel has many appellations by which he is proud to be referred -- among the best is "Lava Dog."               

Diaper Bowl

The Colonel heard a story this morning about a man named Brady, whose bunch pulled off the most improbable of comebacks to win a football game that occasionally interrupted the debuts of specially designed commercials.

The Colonel wouldn't know.  He didn't watch.

The most important football game in his year occurred the day before:  The Annual First Baptist Church of Abbeville Youth Versus Adult Flag Football Classic. 

Ordinarily, the Colonel makes an appearance, plugs in for a few plays, and then provides moral support from the sidelines for the balance of the game. In case you missed it, the Colonel is now officially "old," having recently marked the completion of his 61st air-breathing lap around the sun.  So, the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda has not-so gently placed restrictions on the Colonel's gridiron glory-seeking.

The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda had a near-catastrophic lapse in her supervisory effort Saturday morning, however.  Well, actually, her mistake was trusting the Colonel to go to the game by himself with his assurances to her that he would not play but a couple of series of downs at the most.

See, the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda knows that if the Colonel completely gives up playing football due to his physical age, he'll shortly thereafter start using his advanced age as an excuse and completely give up just about every other physical activity (to include putting on trousers in the morning).

Believe him when he tells you, "the Colonel's legs ain't for show."

The Colonel fully intended to keep his promise of minimal participation.  He did.  Honest.

The problem was, not enough youth showed up and the "Diaper Rule" was invoked.

The "Diaper Rule," stipulates that in the event one team or another is short players, either as a result of no-shows or mid-game emergency room trips, the teams' numbers will be balanced enough to continue play by shifting to the under-loaded team the player(s) on the over-loaded team closest to diaper-wearing age.

The Colonel played on the Youth Team.    

Every play of the game.  

Both ways.

The Colonel made several mental notes for future reference during the course of the game.

1.  Pursuit angles require age adjustment.

2.  Finding the fourth gear is a lot harder when you can't find the third gear to begin with.

3.  Climate Change seems to have reduced the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere.

4.  Spirals are overrated.

The main reason the Colonel didn't watch the Super Bowl on Sunday evening was the severe lactic acid build-up in his quadriceps made even reaching for the remote painful beyond description.  The Colonel's leg muscles were on strike and every other muscle in his body refused to cross the picket line.

The Colonel needs to brush up on his Morse Code.  The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda was having a hard time deciphering the Colonel's blinks and we watched her shows instead of the football game.   

    

  

Tides of Guff

The Colonel gets a lot of guff for promoting expansion of the Republic.

In complete disclosure, the Colonel gets a lot of guff for a lot of things he says and does.  If guff were gold, the Colonel would plaster his name on big buildings, host a reality TV show, and run for president.

He would be yuuuge!

Alas, guff ain't gold -- the Colonel will remain big ideas trapped in a diminutive physique.  

The biggest idea, the one that has bounced around in his brain-housing group for most of his life, is that the destiny of the American Republic is expansion.

The history of the American Republic was expansion.  The Colonel fervently believes the future of the American Republic is expansion.

Look, the Colonel admits that the Republic's previous two centuries of expansion have not been pretty.  Glorious, sure.  But, not squeaky clean.  To be sure, the indigenous populations extant on the North American continent five centuries ago suffered a terrible cultural inundation and physical loss.  A cottage industry of sorts has been established on the portrayal of the noble Native American as a victim of European racism.

The Colonel can relate.  His ancestors, Clan MacGregor, were in possession of lands, in the northern reaches of Britain, wanted by others.  The struggle for those lands did not go well for the MacGregors.  In fact, the name MacGregor was actually outlawed at one point.  The MacGregors lost nearly all of the lands they had originally controlled.  Lots of MacGregors left Britain and landed in America.

The truth is that had Clan MacGregor, and not their enemies the Campbells, been in the good graces of the English king instead, the MacGregors would have driven out and supplanted the Campbells.

It is the way of man.

And, if one takes an honest and clear-eyed look at the history of the inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere in general, and the North American Continent in particular, one will see that the "Native" Americans extant on lands at the arrival of Europeans, had themselves supplanted previous inhabitants, often violently.  So much for victimhood.

Widen one's scope of view worldwide, and millenniums long, and tides of humanity can be seen sweeping back and forth across the major continents, supplanting and/or assimilating the previous inhabitants.  

It is the way of man.

Focus forward centuries into the future, and one will see the trend continue -- tides of humanity sweeping back and forth, inundating and replacing. 

Given the way of man, the inexorable sweeping tides of humanity and cultures replacing and assimilating, there is no static option.  No standing still.  It's either grow or shrink.  Expand or wither.

The Colonel believes there has never been an empire in history possessed with a greater degree of altruism than the American Empire.  It has warts, certainly.  It has scars -- fading reminders of mistakes.  But, warts and scars are superficial.  Our Empire's heart -- our Constitution -- more than makes up, with beautiful protections and promises, for any superficial imperfections.

The Colonel further believes that the Constitution of the United States -- the beautiful beating heart of our Republic -- has no peer on the planet. 

It is the United States' Constitution, not our "culture," that makes us the greatest nation on the globe.

It is the United States' Constitution, not our military power, that makes us the strongest nation.

It is the United States' Constitution, not our economic power, that makes us the most prosperous nation.

Above and beyond the obvious cultural, security, and economic benefits of expanding the Republic, there shines the most brilliant reason for inclusion of greater territory -- the people.

The Colonel would have you reflect back to a point in our history when the United States annexed the northern half of the territory held by the Mexican government.  You can argue, effectively, the "legality" of that action.  It was a naked act of aggression. 

What you cannot argue is which half of that former Mexican empire has done the best for its inhabitants since.  The difference is not "culture."  That is a thinly-cloaked racist position.

The difference is our Constitution.  We should share it with more people.           

        

  

Timber!

It's tree-felling season here aboard the Colonel's vast holdings at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere.

Not since the Colonel completed the mission of preparing a unit for deployment, and brought them all home safe again, has he found something so satisfying as building something with wood harvested and milled on his own property.

When the Colonel first purchased his sawmill -- SemperFilet -- he believed he was doing so to free himself of the grip of the local lumber yard.  He even thought he might save some money in the process.

Did he?  Eh..., probably not. Chainsaws and sawmills don't run on air...

But he did fill his days with a really cool hobby.

The Colonel has always loved trees.  He was a tree-climber when he was a kid -- loving the semi-escape of earthboundedness that hauling oneself up a ladder of branches to a lofty perch provided.   In the top of a tree, the Colonel gained a vantage from which his imagination could run wild.

No telling how many enemy planes he shot down, mountains he climbed, or whales he spotted spouting.  

But, nowadays his admiration of a tree takes on a wholly different aspect.  The Colonel can't look at a sizable tree without estimating its yield in board feet.

Now, before any of the half dozen of you who the Colonel counts as his readership get the idea that the Colonel is engaged in some wanton timber wastage, slashing and burning through his forest in a way that would make a passel of hippie-offspring snowflakes picket his operation, let the Colonel assure you that his is an entirely sustainable operation.

In point of fact, the Colonel's personal forest is growing far faster than his harvesting. He has even allowed former pasture land to return to woodlot.

Some might sarcastically observe that trees are now growing in his former pastures because the Colonel is slovenly in his bush-hogging.  They would be right.  But, there is a method to his laziness. In a couple of fields where once flat prairies of grass grew, small oaks now dot.  They are less than a decade old, but someday the Colonel's great, great grand progeny will lounge under their expansive canopies.

Back to the reason for the season.

Felling large trees is hot, dangerous work.  Mostly dangerous.  But, that's the kind of guy the Colonel is.

The mature trees on the Colonel's hit list are protected in the warmer months but hordes of Colonel-hating insects and fork-tongued folks with no shoulders.  So, the Colonel waits until the winter months, when all of the Colonel-hating denizens are underground, to do his lumber-jacking.

If you have never felled a large tree with a chainsaw, you just haven't lived.  Nothing gets the blood pumping like cheating death and dismemberment at close range.

A large tree is a living thing that doesn't die easily.  One doesn't just march up to a tree and quickly slice it off at the base.  The tree fights back.  And, if you are careless with it -- underestimate its strength and heft -- it'll kill you.

The Colonel approaches tree-felling like a military operation.  There's a planning phase in which the following questions are answered:  A) In which direction do you want the tree to fall?  2) In which direction do you want unimpeded rapid escape?  

Answering question A helps answer the second.  Once you decide in which direction you want the tree to fall, you must plot primary and alternate rapid escape azimuths.  (* Important safety tip:  Ensure that rapid escape azimuths do no coincide with direction of tree fall.)

Once planning is complete, the Colonel conducts a preparatory phase wherein he clears paths for both tree fall and rapid escape.  (* Another important safety tip:  Avoid roads and power lines as tree-fall directions.  Cars and electricity don't mix well with tons of falling timber.)

Rapid escape azimuth planning must also include primary and alternate chainsaw flinging positions.  Rapid escapes from the death throes of a mighty tree are hard enough as it is.  Attempting a rapid escape from the death throes of a mighty tree while still lugging a running chainsaw only complicates the matter, unnecessarily.  

Felling a mighty tree in a desired direction takes several cutting steps.  First, a horizontal cut less than halfway through is made at the base of the tree facing the azimuth of desired fall.  A second, diagonal, cut is made connecting to the first cut, resulting in a cake-slice (tree-felling always makes the Colonel hungry) piece that should, if you have cut precisely enough, fall out easily. (The Colonel is never precise, so he always carries a sledge with which to beat out the slice.)

Remembering a mighty tree is a living thing that will fight him to the death, the Colonel conducts each of the steps above and below in a modified sprinter's crouch.  There are often false starts in the escape azimuth race -- a mighty tree will complain at your assault, issuing starter's pistol cracks.  The Colonel usually gets in a pretty good country crossfit workout when felling a mighty tree, replete with upper body chainsaw flings and false start sprints for life.

Once the tree fall direction cut is made, the real fun begins.  When you start the felling cut on its back side, a mighty tree gets the message that you aren't just whittling your initials and, indeed, intend to kill it.  A mighty tree will endeavor to return the favor.  Ergo, the need for primary and alternate chainsaw flinging positions, and primary and alternate escape routes.  A mighty tree will fall, but it will fight to the end, striking back at you with one or more death throe nods to Newtonian Physics. 

Oh, and when a mighty tree gives up its structural integrity to the vertical, its fall is irreversible.  There is no pause button to mash so that one can quickly move one's pick-up truck.  Don't ask how the Colonel knows this.   

There aren't many feelings the Colonel has had in his feelings-full life that compare to the sight (and survival) of a mighty tree crashing to the horizontal.  Unfortunately, because the Colonel's keen appreciation of the latter most often results in a chainsaw fling and 100 yard dash (and because the Colonel's 100 yard dash time has slowed significantly over the years) he often misses the former. 

There's no mistaking the sound, however.

Particularly, if you forgot to move the truck.   

Different Year; Same Old Song

The Colonel has never been one to ascribe particular emphasis to the concept of a "new year."  Adding a sequential numeral to the current calendar track of Earth's revolution around the Sun -- arbitrarily offset as it is from the seasonal planetary wobble track -- just seems such an inane reason for hope, let alone celebration.  

Ebullient wishes of "Happy New Year" and solemn signatory to revolutionary personal resolutions based on the beginning of a dozen segments of an archaic numeration of the passage of planetary rotations, each loosely connected to the cyclical passage of the largest satellite through Earth's shadow, seems -- dare the Colonel say it -- idiotic. 

Seriously.  Why do we do it?

It really is just an arbitrary cause celebre.  But, the Colonel guesses that if you need a reason to party, the beginning of a new calendar year is as good a reason as any.

Still, if one is hard up for a reason to party, why not celebrate New Month?  Why wait a whole year to wish others health and prosperity, to resolve change of behavior, or to countdown in eager anticipation of something entirely new than the moment before.

Heck, why not celebrate New Week?  Well, the Colonel guesses many people do -- partying on New Week's Eve (Saturday night).

But, the Colonel's original point is that there is placed, in his not so humble opinion, far too much import to the midnight demarcation between the last day of December and the first of January. 

Now, the Colonel will admit in this year's case that there is ample motivation to place it firmly in the soon-forgotten rear-view.  The year 2016 hasn't been a banner year as far as years go.  Oh, it started off rosely enough -- the Colonel's Ole Miss Football Rebels appeared in (and won) the Sugar Bowl for the first time since Eli's  and Peyton's (aka Traitor Manning) daddy was slinging the pigskin in red and blue.  But, shortly thereafter the year took a nosedive.

There were a few personal mountain tops -- chief among them celebration (with a two-week Mediterranean cruise) of the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's 40th anniversary of wedded bliss with the Colonel -- but, the lows far outweighed the highs.

Actually, it's better said to say "the losses far outweighed the gains."

By the time the year began to wane, the Colonel had lost a promising young grand nephew, one of his domino playing buddies, and the finest father-in-law for which a man could ask.  And more potential personal losses are mounting up.

But, to look to a new calendar year for relief of the grief of the old is empty-headed at best.  

Grief is a constant in the condition of man.  There will always be losses, until the day one becomes the loss of another.  A new calendar year will not bring back lost joy. 

So, party hardy this coming Saturday night, if it brings you happiness.  The next day will not bring you any more joy than the previous.  Neither days, weeks, months, nor years -- cold calendar calculations at best -- bring joy.  

One's spiritual condition is not calendar dependant.  It is foolhardy to place hope for happiness in the mere passage of time. 

Sometime toward the end of the next calendar month the Colonel will complete yet another air-breathing trip around the sun.  Don't get him started on the inanity of celebrating birthdays...     
     

       

No Regulation without Representation

Included in the foundational document of our great nation -- the Declaration of Independence -- is a long list of grievances which provided the reasons on which the Continental Congress based its declaration 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."

Midway through that list of grievances is the following:

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

Were the great men who affixed their signatures to that document -- mutually pledging their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor -- to see the huge and onerous regulatory apparatus that today sends hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance, they would no doubt exclaim in unanimous exasperation something along the lines of:

"We thought we won the war!  Nothing has changed!  In fact, things are much worse than under King George!"  

Or words to that effect.  The Colonel imagines the Founders would use far more colorful and impactful language than his meager attempt at channeling -- as was their genius.  

No doubt those great men would be apoplectically appalled at the overbearing governmental (Federal, state, and local) bureaucracy that controls every aspect of the American citizens' lives today, no matter how well-meaning the bureaucrats' intentions.  

Bureaucracies nearly always begin with the best of intentions -- to save us from ourselves.  Bureaucrats nearly always end up expanding their power and justifying their existence with more and more regulations.  Bureaucracies become principalities in and of themselves, answerable to none but themselves.

Our elected representatives, at all levels of government, create and empower these bureaucratic principalities, and then allow them to run roughshod over the rights of those they are elected to represent -- in effect, abdicating their responsibilities and betraying their oaths. 

Were the great men who affixed their signatures to the Declaration of Independence -- mutually pledging their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor -- to speak to our situation today, the Colonel fervently believes they would say,

"No regulation without representation!" 

Those great classical liberals (not to be confused with today's statist socialist progressives we call "liberals"), upon seeing the state of regulatory affairs in their United States, would no doubt tear the powdered wigs from their heads and wail in mourning, reprising Charlton Heston's final line in the cinematic classic "Planet of the Apes,"  

"You maniacs!  You blew it up!  Damn them!  Damn them all to hell!"

Or words to that effect.  The Founders were far more eloquent and far less profane than 20th Century movie script writers.

It should be pointed out at this juncture that objective historians note that the standard of living and range of rights enjoyed by mid 18th Century Colonial Americans were, in fact, far higher and more expansive than those of the average Londoner at the time.  Current demographers and social scientists make a similar claim about the standard of living and rights of American citizens vis-à-vis the rest of the world.  But one should never confuse the cleanliness and security of one's cage with the blessings of freedom and self-determination.

It was personal and commercial freedom, relatively unfettered by bureaucratic regulation, that catapulted a colonial back-water to hemispheric dominance in little more than four generations and to world power in little more than four more generations. 

For the last four generations, the American Republic has stagnated under a blanket of bureaucratic control that keeps it warm and safe, but stifles the growth that comes only from rising to challenges. 

Truly making America great again will mean sacrificing the Republic's social security (not be confused with the agency of the same name) in the short term, for the sake of long-term growth-inducing challenge.  Therefore, the first action of the new Presidential Administration and the Congress, must be, not just token regulatory reform, but full-scale bureaucratic house-cleaning.  Strip it down to the bare bones.  Eliminate any regulation, and its parent bureaucracy, that sacrifices individual and commercial freedom at the alter of transitory security. 

Then, watch the American Republic soar.   

Misunderestimation

Allow the Colonel to make this crystal clear right up front:

When he voted in the Republican Primary, Donald Trump was the Colonel's 17th choice.

That's right -- the Colonel would have voted for Gilmore over Trump. To be brutally honest, the Colonel has never liked Trump.  Never have been a big fan of ostentatious narcissistic bullies.

And, the Colonel will freely admit that he way underestimated Donald Trump's ability to mount a winning presidential campaign -- even against the most flawed Democrat Party candidate in history.  The Colonel, as many of you who frequently waste precious rod and cone time perusing posts hereon will remember, early on endorsed a Rubio/Kasich ticket that he believed had the best chance of both defeating Hillary Clinton (in the Electoral College count) and effectively governing over the next four years.  And, after watching Trump's performance in the "debates" (a term defined, in the current American lexicon, with less firmament than a newborn's diaper deposit), and his inability to resist spending political capital on defending himself against attacks designed to do just that, the Colonel was convinced the polls were all wrong.  The Colonel didn't believe that the race was going to be any closer than about 15 points.  

The Colonel was wr...

The Colonel was wwrr...

The Colonel was wroooo...

The Colonel misunderestimated.  (It's a word -- just ask W)

Look, the Colonel gets it.  The Donald tapped into a seething reservoir of discontent.  He said what 60+ million American citizens wanted to hear. But, that doesn't make the Colonel trust him any more than he trusts a threatened copperhead not to strike.

And, while the Colonel is decidedly not a practitioner of the unmanly art of political correctness, he is uncomfortable with Trump's rhetoric.  Just as uncomfortable as he is with the divisive rhetoric, and tenuous grasp on the truth, of the current temp help in the Oval Office.

For the Colonel's many friends who are currently toasting with tankards of Trumpade: he hopes you are right.  He hopes President Trump will restore Constitutional governance to our great Republic.

But, the Colonel has learned from painful experience that "hope" is not an effective strategy, nor even a satisfactory operational or tactical course of action.  The Colonel fervently believes that the future greatness of our Republic lies not in the hands of an extra-Constitutional strongman, but in a chief executive whose every action is bound by a strict interpretation of the Constitution to which he or she solemnly swears his allegiance and defense.  The Colonel is not ready to place complete trust in Trump's willingness to abide strictly by the Constitution while he endeavors to deliver on his promise to "make America great again;" whatever that means.  The Colonel fears that Trump's narcissism and the counsel of sycophants will win out over strict Constitutional governance just as surely as it has in Obama's case.

But, we could have been in far more worse hands come January.  A Hillary Clinton presidency, with certain attendant corruption the likes of which have not been seen since the Grant administration, was a prospect too horrible to entertain, even for a plurality of the voters in several states that went for Obama two elections in a row.   

For that reason, he will admit, the Colonel was a sniff short of giddy as the elections results trickled in last Tuesday.  He may not have been on the Trump Train, but the Colonel was for dang sure not looking forward to the certain full-scale assault on the Constitution that would have continued under a Clinton administration.  

Bottom line:  The Colonel's actual declaration of the Tallahatchie Republic is on hold.  But, Trump had better watch his... actions.