The Best and Brightest

Earlier this week, I posted shameless plugs regarding my present business ventures. I closed with a two-fold moral. There is actually a third related moral to that post. To those of you with current or recent military service to your credit the third moral is MOTO (mastery of the obvious). Unfortunately, my experience over the last few years has been that the vast majority of American citizens haven't the slightest inkling of the quality of the force that has been keeping the wolf away from the door recently. I see voluminous evidence of this every day as I deal with the private sector, and an inordinate amount of my time is spent educating business leaders regarding the quality of the young men and women leaving the US military after 4 to 30 years of honorable service to their great nation. There are a lot of nearly universally held misconceptions out there, many born in the Vietnam War era and come of age in the current day, mountains of evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

The first misconception that must be dispelled is the idea that the US military is an all volunteer force made up of young men and women who have no other vocational option. The US military is not an all "volunteer" force. It is an all "recruited" force. And therein lies the quality difference not grasped by most. US military recruiters screen hundreds of young men and women to find one qualified for enlisted service. The truth is the vast majority of young Americans are DISQUALIFIED for enlisted service due to educational and aptitude (read: trainable) deficiencies, as well as physical (fighting wars is a physical business, even in the age of smart bombs) and moral (police record) factors.

Once a recruiter screens a young person as qualified for enlistment, that recruiter must sell the young person on the idea of delaying going to college in order to serve his or her country (and thereby gain some discipline, maturity, and money to make for a more successful college matriculation). Frankly, most young men and women who join today never even considered enlisting until approached by a recruiter. Conversely, nearly every young person who walks into a recruiting office of his own volition is not qualified for military service--no matter how sincerely he wants to serve his nation.

Thankfully, the old days of a judge telling a young man that he either enlist in the Marine Corps or go to jail are long gone. In fact, if a judge does tell a young man that, the Marine Corps (or any other service) is legally prohibited from enlisting him. If a young person has unpaid traffic tickets, he is ineligible for enlistment. If he tests positive on a mandatory drug test, he is ineligible for enlistment. The list of disqualifying factors is stupefyingly long. Waivers are given, to be sure, but they are not easy to come by and must be approved by authorities far up the chain of command from the recruiter.

The screening process to enlist is very thorough and possesses several sets of high quality filters. However, enlisting is only 1/3 of the screening process a young person goes through during his or her US military experience. The next third is basic training. But, even before a recruit boards the bus for boot camp, and during an up to one year delay between enlistment and start of basic training, the recruit is continuously screened by his recruiter and prepared for entry level training success. An average of 20% of all recruits who enter the Delayed Enlistment Program don't honor their commitment and refuse to go to basic training. They are not forced to go--that's the "volunteer" part of the process. An average of 15% of all recruits fail to complete basic training, for a variety of reasons. So, a total of nearly 1/3 of those high quality, cream of the American crop, young citizens who initially qualified for and agreed to serve their nation as a soldier, sailor, airman or Marine, don't make the cut to actually serve in an active duty, Guard, or reserve unit.

The final 1/3 of the screening process occurs over the duration of the first enlistment. More than 10% of the young men and women who honored their commitment to serve and successfully completed basic training, fail to serve their first enlistment honorably and are released before completing their first tour of duty.

The whole point to this narrative is this: The young American coming out of the military after 4 years' honorable service to his nation is of inestimable value to virtually any private or public sector endeavor. He is mature, disciplined, and trainable. He is punctual, industrious, and possesses a level of initiative and sense of responsibility rare in his population cohort. He is a finisher. He is a team-player, steeped in the necessity and righteousness of equal opportunity and the respect for diversity. Give him some training and responsibility and he will run circles around everyone else in your organization--I see this in action nearly everywhere we place a transitioning military member.

I won't even start to make the case that he's been laying his promising young life on the line for the rights, privileges, and liberties you and I take for granted and enjoy every day, and deserves, therefore, every consideration and benefit of the doubt we can possibly give him.

Shameless Plugs

A short 5 or 6 years ago, if you had asked me to what end the education and training of my adult life had led me, I would have told you that I was equipped to do nothing more than command a Marine Air-Ground Task Force or Joint Task Force into battle against an enemy of my great nation. My political science and history undergraduate work grounded me with an understanding of the tides of human history under the influence of the natural forces of political ambition and resource need. As a Marine infantry officer I was taught to survey the battlefield for enemy weaknesses and use my forces and supporting arms to exploit those weaknesses in order to achieve tactical, operational, and even strategic effects. An assignment with the airpower zealots of the US Air Force taught me to look for critical nodes against which to apply relatively small, but highly accurate, packages of combat power in order to achieve strategic effects. While on assignments with the Marine Corps Recruiting Command at two different points in my career, I learned the recruiting tactic of "need satisfaction selling." Post graduate work leading to masters degrees in human resource management and strategic planning seemed to cap a life of preparation for moving a large amount of people and things against the will of an enemy. When I finally hung up my active duty spurs, I had an inkling that, although I had not had the opportunity to participate in the destruction of enemy of my nation, I might be able to apply a combination of two or more of the above and scratch out enough of a living to keep gas in my boat and bait in the live well.

When an acquaintance from my Marine Corps recruiting and marketing days asked me to help him form a company to provide consulting services to a major US truck and engine corporation, I wasn't sure I had the private sector savvy to make it work. Turns out combat is combat is combat, whether with the aim to crush an armed enemy, a political opponent, or an economic competitor. The planning, communication, and execution templates are remarkably interchangeable.

We called our company Performance Military Group, (shameless plug #1: www.performancemilitarygroup.com) and my partner told me to go find a few of my "retired colonel buddies" to fill out the field positions. After a quick survey of the battlefield, I told him that he was going to get just one colonel--me--and that the rest of the team would be made up of tough, savvy, fearless folks who knew how to take colonels' bright ideas and translate them into effective action on the battlefield. I started calling senior Marine NCOs. And not just any NCO. The ones I called were arguably the best salesmen in the world--Marines trained in the fine art of recruiting. As I often tell clients, anyone who can convince 17 year-old Johnny, and his momma, that it is in Johnny's best interest not to go immediately to college, but to join the United States Marine Corps, in time of war, and, oh, by the way, take his graduation trip to Baghdad--that's a great salesman.

When we presented our market research findings to our first client and outlined what we thought the opportunities were, they wanted us to immediately launch a national program to service their 700 dealership locations. I told them no, we would phase this operation, prove concept and develop procedures in a pilot program, and then roll a mature program out to what I was sure was going to be very skeptical dealership management teams. No genius--just doing what I was trained to do. Three years later we have a very viable national program that is guiding a major corporation back into a military market that it abandoned, for reasons lost to anyone still in the organization, four decades ago.

I was taught, by men who know, that the first successful engagement on the battlefield will be your last successful engagement if you stop and smell the roses of success. They taught me to never stop looking for the next opportunity to exploit an enemy weakness. Not long after we started linking our client's dealerships up with military customers in their AORs, we discovered that those dealerships were all hurting for technicians/mechanics. And not just a little bit--nationally our client had a need for thousands. I started asking if they had ever looked at hiring transitioning military personnel. Enough negative replies and "deer in the headlights" looks convinced me that there was a huge gap open on the battlefield through which to drive our organization. We were already on the bases and in the motor pools helping our client sell repair parts and maintenance consumables--it was an easy next step to start asking young warriors what they were going to do once they slung their shields over their shoulders and headed for home. Most had no idea, and the military transition assistance bureaucracy was failing them badly. Long story short, recruiting and placement was a natural core competency, given the military recruiting backgrounds of the majority of our team, and we expanded our offerings and organization to help young enlisted men and women leaving the service of their nation to find jobs.

When our client's dealerships could not, or would not, provide a repair part solution to a military customer, our aggressive field team members started sourcing those needs on their own in order to make a sale that would cement the new relationship with the customer. It didn't take long for some of the smart guys in our group to start recommending that we get into the business ourselves. We formed Force Ready Military (Shameless Plug #2: www.forcereadymilitary.com ) to source and sell "hard to find," legacy system parts and vehicle maintenance kits. In the short time that division has been active, we have sold everything from tank wheel sprockets to concertina wire to military customers in need. And we do it at low margins--I'm a tax payer, too.

The moral of this story is two fold. First, never underestimate the ability of a Marine to brag on his team's successes. Second, some combination of two or more of every thing you have ever learned will be useful in the future.

Super Tuesday Tornado

On business in Salt Lake City, the call on my cell from my home security company was fightening. "Mr. Gregory, we have a fire alarm at your residence. Your fire department has been alerted."

I had been on the phone with Miss Brenda less than an hour before. She told me that she had been invited over to a friend's house to play cards. I had seen reports of bad weather brewing along the Mississippi valley and I asked her if there had been any bad weather at the northern end of southern nowhere. She said no, but then, just before we hung up, she mentioned she could see lightning flashing out to the west.

Thinking that my house had taken a lightning strike and was now ablaze, I frantically dialed Miss Brenda's cell number. I got her voice mail. As I hung up, I noticed a new voice mail on my phone. It was Brenda, "Ed, answer your phone!"

We played phone tag for several frustrating minutes until we finally connected. As soon as I heard her live voice I blurted out, "The house is on fire, get home!"

"I am home," she said. "We've been hit by a tornado!"

Turns out Miss Brenda had second thoughts about going out at night in stormy weather, and stayed home. The Weather Channel told her that tornadoes were headed her way, and when the power went off and the pressure changed, she grabbed a pillow and jumped into a bathtub.

An F1 when it demolished the Caterpillar plant in the industrial park just north of Oxford, the storm headed NNE on a beeline for our community just 7 or 8 miles away. By the time it reached the beginning of County Road 291, it was an F3. The storm roared straight up our road, and ten homes exploded or blew away in less time that it took to write this paragraph.

County Road 291 runs pretty much straight north until it gets to about a quarter mile south of Eegeebeegee, where it jogs west about 400 meters before turning due north again. Our house is a little under 300 meters west of the road. That total 700 meters meant all the difference. Our home suffered significant roof damage and lots of cosmetic dings, but it is still standing. The stretch of National Forest opposite my road frontage looks just like the results of a "daisy cutter" bomb used to clear helicopter landing zones in jungle terrain.

Nearly a hundred trees were knocked down across the road a quarter mile in each direction from my gate. It took friends and rescue workers from our volunteer fire department several hours to cut through that abatis, in the dark, to get to Miss Brenda. Friends told me that they were cutting trees with chainsaws by the light of cell phones at one point. That none of that rescue crew was injured that night is amazing.

That the only significant injury in all of the homes destroyed on our road was a broken leg is miraculous. One young lady, seven months pregnant, had the presence of mind to scoop up her twin 2-year olds, and with the strength of a mother's love, hang on to them as they were picked up out of their living room and blown across the road from their exploding home. One of the twins needed stitches on his foot. Momma went into premature labor, but the doctors were able to stop it. If someone wrote that story in a book, no one would believe it was possible.

Miss Brenda and I drove down the road toward town this evening and past the homesites of our neighbors. Great bonfires of life's treasures turned to debris burned, tended by crowds of family members and friends. These are tough people, these Mississippians. Tough as shoe leather. They are caring and giving by the same measure.

For the past few days, a steady stream of friends and church family has driven up our drive to help clean up, to assist in hooking up a generator, to bring a jug of precious cold water, to drop off a sack of sausage biscuits. Half a dozen youth from our church showed up this afternoon and helped me cut up and haul off several trees down around my property.

I love this place. Not even a tornado can blow me away from here.

So much for inevitability...

Watched the game with a bunch of my new Mississippi friends yesterday afternoon. Pro football, like politics, makes strange bedfellows. It was odd to be sitting around with a bunch of Mississippians cheering for a team from New York City. But then again, it was Eli...

I kept waiting all game for the Patriots to wake up and turn it into a rout. When they marched down and went up by four with less than three minutes left, I was ready to recognize the inevitability of perfection. But then Archie and Olivia's baby boy scrambled out of the pocket and made the play of the decade... He never eluded sacks like that at Ole Miss--don't think I ever saw him leave the pocket.

I was a Dolphins fan in the early 70's. We were stationed in Panama and the Miami Herald was the only stateside paper we could get--so we all followed Csonka, Kiick, and Warfield. They didn't lose any ball games, but they weren't "perfect." They were very good and very lucky and had a great back-up quarterback in Earl Morrall.

Inevitability ain't so inevitable.

Patriot's Dream

Two hundred and thirty years ago the remnants of an army huddled in abject misery outside of Philadelphia. Their commanding general, George Washington, had been unable to prevent the British army's capture of the rebel capital, and as the British and Hessian mercenary troops had settled into relatively comfortable winter quarters, Washington occupied a defensive position in a series of low hills a day's march northwest of the city. There in that heretofore unknown corner of the wilderness called Valley Forge, Washington's men built a village of dirt-floored shacks, and endured a winter hardship that ranks with those suffered in Russia by Napoleon's army and the Wermacht in succeeding centuries.

The Continental Army in the winter of 1777--78 was an army in name only. Numbering scarcely more than ten thousand men when they arrived in Valley Forge just before Christmas of 1777, Washington's command was shoeless, clothed in little more than rags, and short-supplied to the point of starvation. At any one time during that winter, the sick and ineffective outnumbered the soldiers who could have responded to a British attack on their position. Nearly a quarter of the army died of disease, exposure, or starvation that winter. Nearly that many simply walked away from camp and went home. That the vastly superior British army did not march out of Philadelphia and end the American Revolution with one sharp, decisive fight is one of the greatest missed opportunities in the history of armed conflict. Truth be told, that missed opportunity was but the latest in a three year series of inexplicable failures by the British to press home a number of attacks, any one of which would have surely resulted in the destruction of the rebel army and the capture and hanging of George Washington.

Had the British destroyed the insurgent force encamped at Valley Forge, the second civil war fought in by Europeans on the continent of North America would have sputtered to an end like a flame consuming the last bit of wax at the nub of a candle.

Wait..., "second civil war?" Yes, and last (to date). The war we refer to as the American Civil War was in fact a seccessionist war--fought between states. Probably the most accurate name for the 1861--65 conflict would be the War for Southern Independence. I make no judgement here as to the justness of the Southern Cause--I merely argue for a more accurate definition. The war we refer to as the American Revolution was more truly a civil war, fought between colonial factions for and against British rule. The first civil war (Prince Phillip's War), fought a century earlier, pitted British-American colonists and allied Native American tribes against a coalition of other Native American tribes attempting to throw the European invasion of North America back into the sea apon whence it had come. Confused? You should be. History is not an easy subject like, say, astro-physics. But, I digress...

Here's the rest of the story. Later in the Spring of 1778, meddling by arm-chair generals in Parliament resulted in, not a war-ending offensive to crush the reeling rebel remnant, but a British retreat from Philadelphia back to a defensive position in New York. The opportunistic French, at the lobby of the American emmissary in Paris, Benjamin Franklin, had entered into the war with a formal alliance against their long-time British adversaries. The British were now reacting instead of acting. Bolstered by a French army, and, more importantly, a French fleet, Washington was finally strong enough to take advantage of another British miscue--this time at Yorktown in 1781--and defeated the bulk of the British army in America. The rest is, as they say, history.

The moral of this story is clear to anyone with an appreciation of the moments of historical opportunity upon which nations have acted, or failed to act. The United States is at one of those so-called strategic inflection points just now. Do we have the will to press home our advantage, or shall we fritter away strategic opportunity in the name of political expediency and at the whim of hucksters wrapped in the amorphous and undefined cloth of "Change."

When you think about the course you would have our nation take, bring to mind the image of a young patriot standing barefoot in the snow on a Pennsylvania hillside. For what and for whom did he believe he was fighting and sacrificing? Why did he stay at Valley Forge, and endure hardship unimaginable to most of us today, when so many of his fellow citizen soldiers had given up on the fight and gone home?

When you honestly reach your own answer to that question, you will know what to do.

Limiting the Lactic Acid

My return to the gridiron almost ended on the first play from scrimmage. Wide right, I faked to the sideline, planted my right foot, and cut back across the middle underneath the coverage. A split second later I was lying flat on my back seeing more stars than I have seen in a long time. Felt like someone had hit me on my left temple with a sledgehammer.

This morning our little country church held its annual Youth vs. Adult flag football game. I haven't tried to play in an organized football game since #2 son's Hawaiian buddies used me for a tackling dummy ten years ago on the beach at Kailua. But, when the youth pastor asked the congregation for a show of hands from the adults who would come Saturday to play, my twenty-two year old hand shot up before my fifty-two year old brain could catch up. Miss Brenda didn't let me forget about the commitment, and with reluctance made even greater by the sight of twenty teenagers zipping around the field at the speed of youth, I trotted out on to the field and lined up.

When the stars faded, I got to my feet and stumbled over to our sideline. When I got there, I noticed a teammate with a bloody nose. "They're playing rough aren't they--who busted your nose?" He reached out and tapped my head where a large knot was welling up nicely. "You did."

On the next series, I went back in to see if I could salvage a little bit of my self-respect, figuring that I'd at least run a couple of routes for appearances sake and then act my age on the sideline for the rest of the game. On the first play, I ran a short route underneath and the pass went deep and incomplete. On the way back to the huddle the flat-belly playing quarterback asked if anyone was covering me. I shook my head and he said, "Run it again." On the snap, I gave a head fake left to no one in particular and cut across the middle. The ball hit me in the gut at about the same time I turned my head to look for it. I was only ten yards from the quarterback and the ball had enough zip on it to cause me to wrap my arms around it purely on kinetic reflex. I turned up field and turned up the speed. Miss Brenda said she had never seen me run so fast. Truth is I was so open that there was no one running anywhere near me with whom to compare speed. My furiously pumping arms and legs gave the impression of a velocity much higher than actual. Several minutes later I reached the end zone, pitched the ball to the ref, and headed for the sidelines.

At my age, one sprint per game is all they're getting out of me.

We Get What We Vote For

At dinner the other night, a client asked me about my preferences in the 2008 presidential election. I told him that in my seldom humble opinion there hasn't been anyone worth voting for since 1984--that last time Ronald Reagan stood for office.

Unfortunately for us, the most capable leaders on both sides of the political aisle have been sitting out the presidential elections for the past couple of decades. Instead, we have been given the choice between charismatic charlatans, old men who have "paid their dues," or liars practicing the art of "tell 'em what they want to hear."

When the Philanderer in Chief won re-election in 1996, I lamented to a friend that his win meant that we would have the Clintons in our faces for the rest of our lives. That Clinton won in 1992 (with less than 50% of the vote) can be blamed on George H. W. Bush and Ross Perot. That he won re-election in 1996 is the fault of the American people. That those two snake oil salesmen (Bill and Hillary) have so dominated the political landscape in this country is a national shame.

I am afraid we are being set up for a repeat of the 1992 and 1996 Clinton victories combined, this year. In 1996, the Republican party so misjudged the popularity and political skill of Bill Clinton, that Bob Dole (a great American, but not the best leader available on the right) was given the opportunity stand against him. Dole was such an ineffective campaigner that he actually caused his local poll numbers to drop following each stop on the campaign trail.

I have the utmost respect for the wartime valor and sacrifice of John McCain (as I also do for Bob Dole), but McCain is no match for the Clinton political machine. Nor is Barrack Obama. In all likelihood, Hillary Clinton will be the Democrat nominee. McCain will probably stand for the Republicans. With those choices (or any of the others still standing at present), a third party ticket is almost inevitable--probably Bloomberg. A third party ticket splits the vote on the right--Hillary wins with less than 50% of the vote.

A Hillary Clinton presidency (or even an Obama presidency), combined with a very probable much stronger Democratic majority in the Congress, will mean a lurch toward socialism not seen since FDR. Standby for tax rates that will rival any this country has ever seen. Roosevelt packed the Supreme Court with liberal justices who would not strike down his clearly unconstitutional laws and programs. Clinton will do the same.

In 1980, Reagan proclaimed "a new day" was "dawning in America." I am afraid that we will awake to a much darker dawn this time a year from now.

Fifty-two and Counting

Sometime on Saturday, the 26th of January, I will complete my 52nd orbit of the sun. For the past half century +2 I have been traveling, along with several billion other souls, at 67,062 miles per hour around the tight little race track at the inner edge of our solar system. Depending on your stance on life's timeline, fifty-two years of age may not seem like all that advanced of an age. But, as one of my Marine Corps mentors once told me, "it's not the mileage, but the roads traveled," that determines the wear and tear on our chassis and engine.

Some days, I feel considerably older than my actual age--a career of too many hikes with too many pounds on my back often reminds me with too much stiffness on early cold mornings. But more often than not, my mind tells me I'm still a youngster, still able to leap the challenging chasms of life without effort. And I still catch myself trying.

Frankly, I still enjoy adding a year to my age at the end of each January. It's not because the alternative is less attractive. I'm not worried about that final heartbeat--I know where I'll be shortly thereafter. I guess I am just competitive enough to consider advancing age like accumulated points in the game of life.

Eli's Going

I haven't watched a full NFL game all season, or in the last several seasons for that matter. But I had a lot of interest in the NFC title game last night, and watched, kick-off to overtime win. I didn't have a favorite. Both teams are lead by quarterbacks with Mississippi ties. I've always liked Mississippi native and University of Southern Mississippi grad Brett Favre--a gutsy, salt-of-the-earth country boy who is the kind of guy who you just know would take time to admire the nice buck in the back of your pick-up even if he didn't know you.

I've followed Archie and Olivia's youngest football prodigy for the past seven or eight years. Eli, unlike his older brother Peyton, followed oldest brother Cooper and their father's golden footsteps to Ole Miss. The name, Manning, is revered at Ole Miss. One of the main thoroughfares on campus is named Manning Way. The speed limit, campus-wide, is 18--Archie Manning's number when he played for the Rebels. Eli Manning brought back the on-the-field football magic missing at Ole Miss since his daddy left the hallowed hills of the northern end of southern nowhere for the NFL, thirty years previous. But, when I watch Eli play, I can't help but think that he reminds me of the character played by Tom Hanks in the movie "Big" -- a little boy in a man's body.

I could not have been prouder of the two Mississippi boys playing the games of their lives in sub-zero weather way up there behind enemy lines. It's hard to do things with your hands when the temperature is minus something and the wind chill is minus something more. I know--three winters spent training in Norway, 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle, still gives me icy nightmares, and can still be felt in the tips of my fingers when it gets cold. That they were able to pass that frozen football so often and with such accuracy amazed me. If only their receivers' hands were as little affected by the cold--lots of dropped balls that would have made a difference for either team.

Truth be told, I was kind of hoping for a Green Bay win--would have liked to see Brett Favre retire with a Super Bowl win. But, I'll root for Eli and the Giants on Super Sunday and hope for an improbable end to the most improbable seasons anyone could have imagined for New England and New York this year.

Stupid is as Stupid Wades

Stupid. That's what it is. Just plain stupid.

No, I'm not referring to the pedantic punditry surrounding the current political liars' club personality contests (cauci and primaries). I'm talking about the exercise in idiocy I succumb to this time each year--duck hunting.

Case in stupidity point: This morning my alarm woke me at a few minutes past four. 0400. 4 A.M. Dark, and going to be that way for several more hours. By 5, #2 son and I have donned 4 layers of clothing, swilled two cups of coffee (an act we will regret three hours later encased in chest waders) and prepped his boat. Although the boat ramp is less than five minutes from the house, and the slough to which we are heading is only a five minute boat ride upriver, we calculate that we need to be at the boat ramp way before anyone else in order to beat the boat launch gaggle and any other hunters who may intend to hunt our favorite spot. This means that we will wait in total darkness in knee deep water for nearly an hour waiting for sunrise and legal shooting time. Did I mention the two cups of coffee?

The boat ride itself is a windchill adventure. The river is shallow, and the most expedient way to prevent the boat motor from dragging the bottom in places is to ram the throttle forward and plane the boat out at top speed. Narrow river. Twisty river. Stump-filled river. Did I mention it was dark? #2 son claims to know this river like the back of his hand. Comforting, until you realize he is wearing gloves.

Just before I succumb to hypothermic sleep (not easy to do while fearing for your life), we reach the stretch of river adjacent to our slough and #2 noses the boat into the bank. We clamber out, climb into chest waders, sling shotguns, enough ammunition to wage an insurgency, and two tons of decoys over our shoulders and push into the brush. Walking through the woods carrying heavy loads in chest waders is second in difficulty only to the next phase of the trek--wading though thigh deep water carrying heavy loads.

We were duck hunting this morning, but it was more like bird-watching. All of the ducks we saw were flying at an altitude for which oxygen masks are normally required. The plaintive quacks, chuckles and highballs from our duck calls made little impression, and evidently the two tons of decoys we hauled in on our backs and scattered on the water around us made even less of an impression. We stayed in the swamp for 5 hours and never even fired a shot.

The most incriminating evidence to our insanity--we went back this afternoon.

Bobcat Boo

One late afternoon a few days ago, as the sun began to set, I grabbed my rifle and headed for the back forty. I have a makeshift ground blind on the edge of one of my fields tucked in amongst some small pines and set up so that I can scan a fairly large sector of the field. The blind itself is mostly limbs scavenged from a blowdown, and thatched with branches and grass. One side of the blind, the right side, has some camouflage burlap cloth draped across. My visibility out that side is restricted, but my reckoning is that anything that steps out of the pines on that side has to walk into my field of view if it comes across the field from right to left or if it moves away from me down the line of pines.

Since I have already harvested all the bucks (one) I am allowing myself to shoot off the property this year, and that one deer being all I need to put in the freezer (Miss Brenda is not a big fan of venison), I intended to see if I could call a pesky coyote up and put the final entry in his health record. I slipped into the blind, sat down on a small stool, and pulled out a call. This particular varmint call makes the squealing sound of a rabbit getting caught by a predator, and will normally cause any coyotes in ear shot to come investigate who is having what for dinner. I blew on the call intermittently for 10 of 15 minutes. The coyotes have either gotten wise to the call or weren't hungry. I didn't see a thing moving.

So, I contented my self with watching a nice red/orange sunset and listening to the sounds of birds making their way to roost. Several small birds flitted around my position and after mistaking their sounds for larger animal footsteps a few times, I quit paying close attention to the sounds around me and sat drowsing as the sun set.

But then a sound of a heavier, slow, step to my right jolted me awake. The first step was followed by a couple more crunches in the grass, and now I was on full alert. I bent down slowly and peeked through a slit in the burlap, my face not a foot from the cloth. As my eyes focused, I realized that I was eye to eye with a very interested bobcat. She knew there was a hurt rabbit nearby and she had crept up to the last place she heard its sounds coming from. Our eyes met and widened in recognition simultaneously. Neither of us blinked or moved for what seemed minutes. Slowly, Miss Kitty began to disengage from our Mexican, errr, Mississippi Standoff. She never took her eyes off of me, but began to ease backward, lifting one paw at a time. I was so close that I could see the muscles under her tawny hide shifting and rippling as she extricated herself from the precarious position. When her nerves would no longer allow a time-consuming backward creep, she whirled in a spotted blur and headed for the safety of a thick line of pines.

I stood and looked over the side of the blind to watch her race away. As she reached the tall grass at the pines she took one final five foot high leap and vanished into the shadows.

I laughed all the way back to the house.

Bye, Bye, Buckeye

Will somebody please fix the bias glitch in the BCS that keeps sending a second-rate Ohio State to the National Championship Game!?! Last year, Florida embarrassed them. Last night Lucky State University (with two losses!!!) beat them. The Buckeyes are now 0 and 9 against SEC teams in bowl games.

Frankly, there is an EASY fix to the NCAA Division I Football National Championship Gordian knot. It's obvious that the premier conference in the country is the SEC--let's just crown the winner of the SEC Championship Game the National Champions as well and be done with it. Then we can enjoy the Bowl Games for the rusty team entertainment that they always are.

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate LSU? I pulled for (muffled gasps from my Southern Brethren) OSU--now that's hate.

Very Bad Things

I've detected a significant trend of negativity in the moronic media's 2007 retrospectives. Seems the only noteworthy events from the past year were all deaths, tragedies, disasters, or vice presidential hunting accidents. Don't know about you, but I can come up with a much longer list of great things that happened in 2007 than of the bad things. Of course, my list of great things will be much more oriented to what happened to me personally--most of which have already been chronicled in previous posts here at the The Colonel's Corner.

Perhaps even more importantly, there were a lot of very bad things that didn't happen in 2007. We Marines have a tendency to put pain in perspective. When I experienced appendicitis four years ago, the doctor asked me to rate the pain I was having on a scale of 1 to 10--10 being the worst pain I could imagine. Anyone with an inkling of the varied horrible ways to become a battlefield casualty can imagine some quite terrible pain. So, I told the Doc, through clenched teeth, "about a 4." That answer relegated me to several more hours of languishing in line in the emergency room behind the kid with the pea up his left nostril and the woman with a hangnail. The next time I got asked to rate the pain, I concentrated on the face of Miss Brenda and grunted, "She's a ten!"

So, to my way of thinking, while 2007 may not have been the year of milk and honey, world peace, and my Rebels in the SEC Championship Game, there were a few things I'm happy to say didn't happen in 2007 and I fervently hope not to see in 2008. They are enumerated below in no particular order of importance.

1. An asteroid the size of Kansas did not hit the big blue marble, thereby erasing all life except cockroaches.

2. Brittany Spears' mother did not give birth to a third child.

3. The North Koreans did not retake Seoul.

4. The Miami Dolphins did not go winless in the same season that the New England Patriots equalled the Dolphin's 1972 undefeated regular season accomplishment.

5. Al Qaeda did not pop a nuke in a US city, or any other city in the world, for that matter.

6. The Writers' Guild strike did not end in time to prevent reruns of some really good old movies during the holidays.

7. The worldwide coffee harvest did not fail, thereby depriving me of a good use for the permanent crook in my left index finger.

8. Fidel Castro did not die, thereby allowing me more time to build up my savings for the Cuban Land Rush when he does finally go to the hot reward reserved for all good marxists.

9. Al Gore did not get awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for a hoax... oh... wait...

And finally, in at the end for no particular rhyme or reason...

10. Causing you to waste your time reading this blog did not become prosecutable, although certainly remaining offensive.

Happy New Year!

Optimistically Pesimistic

Calendar year 2007 is fast growing to a close, and I don't know about you, but I'm not making any New Year's resolutions. In fact, several years ago my New Year's resolution was to never make New Year's resolutions again. It's the only one I've ever kept.


For your viewing pleasure this morning, I have posted a picture of the The Colonel and The Colonel's newest grandson. Taylor was born, if you remember (and if you do, it means that you waste precious time reading this blog and you have got to get a life), three weeks ago today. I haven't seen him, or his big brother, since his birthday--probably the only significant drawback to having moved up here to the Northern End of Southern Nowhere from the Redneck Riviera.


Added a new feature to my blog this morning. In the top right hand corner of the page, adjacent to the picture of the twins whose birthdays are separated by nearly 51 and 3/4 orbits of the sun, is the first of what may become an irritatingly common feature--a poll. Unlike most other insignificant polls (BCS, Iowa Straw, etc.), this poll has real meaning. First of all, it will allow me to gauge whether my readership has increased the forecasted 25% (e.g., from 4 to 5). Secondly, it will allow me to provide yet another method of wasting your precious time (maybe I'll actually provide a public service by using up time you would ordinarily use to see what Brittany Spears did last night). Last, but not least, it will allow me another avenue by which to subtly infer what are really the most important matters of our life on the big blue marble.


On another topic, I am pleased to note that my fellow Marine and favorite fishing buddy has returned safely from his third Babylonian Excursion in as many years. He reports that it is "much quieter" than was his experience two years ago advising the governor of Al Anbar Province. Seems the first few chapters of the manual that General Petraeus wrote regarding defeating an insurgency, and which the good general made required reading upon his assumption of command in Baghdad, are amazingly effective if followed. Now to see if the bickering tribal chiefs and megalomaniac mullahs will take advantage of the increased security to hammer out a lasting political agreement by which a New Iraq can govern itself in relative peace and stability. It took a relatively monolithic and demographically homogeneous late-18th Century America nearly a decade to come up with a workable national political system following cessation of hostilities with Great Britain. So, I'm not so optimistic that a hundred tribes and three diverse and diametrically opposed religions can make it work any time between now and the end of my parasitic existence on this third rock from Sol.

And, I'm an optimist.

Christmas Morning

It's Christmas morning on Eegeebeegee and for an hour or so this morning we'll be able to say that we have a white Christmas here at the northern end of southern nowhere. There's no snow, but a thick layer of frost is glowing white in the early morning sunlight. Frankly, that's all the white I want on Christmas, or any other day for that matter.

Miss Brenda and I don't tend to make a big fuss at Christmas. Most years since the kids left home, we don't even put up a tree. Some years our gift giving, in the name of Christmas, is already done before December arrives on the calendar. That's not to say that the holiday doesn't mean much to us. We prefer to channel the frenetic energy of the season into reflection on the reason we celebrate the 25th of December.

There are those who would rather we not dwell at all on the spiritual aspect of Christmas. Some challenge the date. Others wish to ecumenicalize the holiday, making it about anything but the birth of Jesus Christ. Whether you accept the date as the actual birth date of the savior is immaterial. I know the history of pagan seasonal rituals co-opted for Christianity's sake. So don't try to tell me that Christmas isn't really about the birth of Jesus. If you don't like celebrating the birth of Christ, then don't hypocritically celebrate Christmas Day. If you want to celebrate like a pagan, don't co-opt my holiday to do so.

What is most amazing to me is the power of God and His Son displayed in the conversion of their most virulent opponents. Saul's (thereafter known as Paul) conversion on the road to Damascus is one of the most celebrated from scripture. Paul, converted from his crusade to stamp out nascent Christianity, became one of the greatest spreaders of the Gospel in the first century following Christ's coming. Perhaps even more important to the spread of Christianity (and the subsequent celebration of the Christ's birth on December 25th) was the conversion of the Roman emperor Constantine I in the fourth century A.D.

Constantine, visiting Eboracum (modern day York, England) with his father Emperor Constantius Chlorus, was proclaimed Emperor (by the Legion in York) following Constantius' death in 306 A.D. Meanwhile in Rome, Maxentius, the son of an Emperor deposed by Constantius, was proclaimed Emperor by the troops garrisoning Rome. Over the next six years Constantine sailed from Britain, marshaled legions to his side, overran most of Italy, and prepared to besiege Rome. Maxentius, rather than endure a siege, marched his forces out to meet Constantine in open battle. Prior to the 312 A.D. Battle of the Milvian Bridge, Constantine received a revelation. Constantine later told contemporary historians that on the march toward Rome, he observed a cross in the sun and heard a voice proclaim "in this sign you will conquer." Constantine instructed his troops to paint the Greek letters Chi --Rho, the first two letters of Christ in Greek, on their shields. Victorious under the sign of Christ, Constantine made Christianity the Roman Religion, changed the December 25th celebration of the sun god Sol Invictus (the unconquered sun) to the celebration of the birth of the Son of God, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Merry Christmas!

Having a Huck of a Time

There must be something in the water in the Diamond State. Arkansas gave us the most talented (and most flawed) political genius of the modern era in Bill Clinton. He now has a rival for that title in fellow Arkansan, Mike Huckabee. Case in point is Huckabee's absolutely brilliant guerrilla marketing attack in the form of a commercial that has sent the yammering media minions into paroxysm's of apoplexy. Ostensibly the commercial was aimed at influencing voters who will participate in the upcoming Iowa Caucuses. It only aired as a commercial in Iowa television markets, and was, on its face, a positive and relatively effective message. In and of itself, the message would have garnered little attention outside Iowa. But the controversy engendered by the not-so-subliminal inclusion of a cross shape in the background has catapulted the commercial and Huckabee to free hourly national airing on every cable news channel and constant discussion on every radio talk show in the nation.

The manic media talking heads are hyper-ventilating over the overt use of religious symbolism for political purposes and are incredulous that..., GASP!..., it's working! And they accuse politicians of being tone-deaf. The secular liberal media elites are so out of touch with their audience, it is little wonder that the only time they get true audience attention is when they broadcast live police chases on Left Coast highways.

The reality is that the vast majority of Americans are NOT turned off by religious overtones in politics. Frankly, with ethical influence lacking in all other sectors of society, a politician's religious adherence has become the last bastion of ethical credibility against which the electorate can measure. Not to say that all those who cloak themselves in religious trappings will automatically be of the highest ethical character--there are charlatans in the flock to be sure. But, I'll take my chances with someone who professes personal guidance by a supreme moral authority, over a leader who kowtows at the alter of political expediency cloaked in the garb of unlimited individual personal freedom.

Don't know if Huck is the man for the job, or not. But, I have to admire his principles and his political savvy.

It's Torture

"Waterboarding" is not "an intensive interrogation technique." It is torture. There is no doubt in my military mind on this subject. There is also no doubt in my military mind that we should not subject anyone in American custody to torture, no matter how heinous their crimes and no matter how "valuable and actionable" intelligence gathered thereby will be. Those who defend the use of torture to extract information from captured terrorists justify it as a means of "protecting American lives." If this has become official American policy, we have crossed a well-defined line that has heretofore divided us from the enemies of freedom. To "save American lives" we have tarnished our American character.

American servicemen captured by our enemies during the past century or so have been subjected to torture and we have always reacted in justifiable rage at such treatment. Heretofore we have been able to express our outrage at the torture of our warriors taken prisoner without fear of hypocrisy. Unfortunately for our nation, we can no longer do so.

It is not surprising that the most vocal critic of "waterboarding" is Senator John McCain. He calls it torture, and he knows whereof he speaks. Shot down over North Vietnam, then-Lt McCain, USN was taken captive by the Vietnamese communists and subjected (as were all of his fellow POWs) to incredible and brutal torture. Read the book "P.O.W." for an appreciation of the heroism of our fighting men in captivity and the inhumane brutality of the enemies of freedom. Senator McCain and his fellow captives drew untold strength in the midst of their trials from the sure knowledge that America would never subject anyone to what they were enduring.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The best defense is a strong offense. Let's take the fight to the enemy as brutally as we possibly can and destroy them. But let's not destroy our unique American character in the vain attempt to protect ourselves from attack.

Announcing Mr. T

Miss Brenda is a grandmother, again. My favorite daughter-in-law, she of the most high and exalted position granted by virtue of her delivery of grandsons, gave birth to our second grandchild this morning. Taylor Ray Gregory's arrival on this date that lives in infamy, provides me a positive reason to celebrate Pearl Harbor Day. Weighing in at seven pounds, seven ounces and laying in at 20 inches, Mr. T joins his brother Caleb (Mr. C) as my two favorite people on the planet.

Fair warning to the world: Mr. C and Mr. T represent a future force to be reckoned with. Until they achieve such maturity as will allow them legal exercise of their obvious potential political power and business acumen, they will remain under the tutelage, protectorate, and spoilage of one crotchety old colonel. Mr. T will soon join Mr. C on romps of wild abandon through the red clay of N. Mississippi, visits to Eegeebeegee thereto providing opportunity for such fearless boy development exercises as the "whooping indian down-hill run," the "too-high-for-safety tree climb," and the "critter-catching creek creep."

My sons exist under the mistaken impression that my recent acquisition of acreage at the northern edge of southern nowhere was intended to provide them hunting grounds. As I have been unable to make much of an impression on the grey matter encased in their thick skulls over the better part of three decades, I will not waste any energy attempting to dissuade them from that erroneous belief. However, the truth is Eegeebeegee is intended primarily as training area for my grandsons' attainment of excellence in the manly arts and sciences, for which only a fearless foundation of running wild will suffice upon which to build a man.

Welcome to the world, Mr. T. Get ready to rule it.

Chasing Mr. C

Suddenly, the house is quiet again. For nearly two weeks, the sounds of a happy two-year old grandson (not to mention the sounds of a happy granddaddy) filled this place. He left this morning, along with all of the in-law Thanksgiving guests. He's a great kid, if I do say so myself.

He reminds me so much of his daddy at that age that I couldn't help remarking about the fact several times a day as his climbing and exploring curiosity and "do it myself" attitude led him to the limits (and beyond) of the ability Nana and Pop to keep up with him. Miss Brenda and I chased after Caleb from dawn to dark, and he wore us out! Raising toddlers is a sport for the young!

His daddy was fearless, and I see the same trait in my grandson. To my way of thinking, that's a good thing in a boy. A fearless boy provides a world of pride and a world of worry to those raising him. Fearless boys fight fair and fight for fairness. Fearless boys test boundaries in everything. Fearless boys climb trees higher than mommas think they should. Fearless boys challenge their daddies at an earlier age than their daddies can take. Fearless boys dream big and live for their dreams. Fearless boys volunteer and lead from the front.

My fearless grandson left this morning and his prideful Pop had to go to another room to keep anyone from seeing the tears in his eyes.

Hard Corps

What used to be one of the most celebrated dates in my life passed with little fanfare this weekend. The traditional birthday of the Marine Corps was Saturday. We Marines, and our friends, noted the 232nd anniversary of the Continental Congress' 10 November 1775 Resolution that "...2 battalions of Marines be raised..." Since I was 18 (in the fall of 1974) and in the early stages of my preparation to be an officer of Marines, I have celebrated the Marine Corps' Birthday. Often it was with great pageantry and prideful peacockery partying amidst fellow Marines. Occasionally it was with quiet reflection and rumination, alone. This weekend was one of the latter.

I did receive some congratulatory missives from family and friends. My daughter-in-law further cemented her exalted position (achieved through the provision of one and 8/9 grandsons) by calling to wish me "Happy Birthday!" An old high school buddy, now a Chaplain with the 3rd Infantry Division, sent an e-mail with birthday felicitations from "your big brother, the US Army." Even a flight attendant on a trip last week stopped, when he noticed my eagle, globe, and anchor lapel pin, to comment, "you've got a birthday coming up this weekend don't you?"

But the weekend was spent in a much quieter fashion than Marine Corps Birthday weekends of old. It was probably the first one in 33 years that I didn't participate in a ritual cake cutting of some sort. Shame on me, I guess.

Fear not, fellow leathernecks, faithful friends, and long-suffering family members, the eagle, globe and anchor tattooed on my heart lacks none of the vivid sharpness of its inking. I am still a Marine, after all.