Mississippi Mentor

The tiny rural community of Slate Springs, Mississippi would be one of those towns about which folks would warn, "don't blink driving by on the highway or you'll miss it" except that it's not even on a highway.   In fact, if one wishes to visit Slate Springs (and there isn't much to recommend a visit) one must first find and triangulate therefrom, the not-so thriving ruralopoli (the opposite of metropoli) of Calhoun City, Winona, and Eupora.  

And, finding one of those towns is no easy feat of navigation, even with GPS.

The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda uses GPS all the time when she is riding with the Colonel.  

"Goodness!  Please Stop and get some directions from somebody!"

The Colonel digresses.

Slate Springs can boast of little.  Except for one big thing.

Slate Springs produced the man arguably most responsible for the superpower success of the United States in the 20th Century.

If the Colonel were a betting man he would bet a punch in the jaw, and give you fifteen minutes to draw a crowd of witnesses, that not five percent of the thousands of you who regularly imbibe of the irregular literary libations ladled out in posts hereon would recognize the name of the man in question.

If the Colonel were really a betting man he'd make the wager a punch in the jaw and a swift kick in the pants that not one percent knows the name.

Fox Conner.

The Colonel will wait on the front porch of the Big House at Eegeebeegee, here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere, until dark to collect on the bet.  He'll be resting in a rocking chair -- delivering several thousand punches and kicks will tax him a bit.

Fox Conner, son of Robert Conner, a former Confederate soldier blinded at the battle of Shiloh, and Nannie Fox (whose maiden name undoubtedly influenced the Christian name given their son), graduated from high school in 1894, and having been regaled by war stories at his father's knee, saw service in the U.S. Army as his only opportunity to escape the grinding poverty of the rural South. 

A maternal uncle with political connections to Mississippi Senator (the Colonel is not making this up) Hernando De Soto Money, gave Conner an opening to apply for a nomination to the United States Military Academy at West Point. 

His rudimentary secondary education in rural Mississippi notwithstanding, Fox Conner graduated seventeenth of fifty-nine in the Class of 1898.  While at West Point, his instructors evidently nourished a passion for history, languages, and mathematics in Conner.  All three topics would prove instrumental in his rise through the ranks and his impact on the Army and America.  One of those instructing Conner at West Point was a rising star in the Army -- John J. Pershing.  

Conner's successful personal career in the Army can best be characterized as marked by two parallel paths -- opportunity and application. At each assignment, he made the utmost of the opportunities afforded him to learn something new and important about his chosen profession -- even if the subject lay far outside the narrow confines of his specialty. And, at each assignment, the application of his self-sacrificing consummate professionalism caught the eyes of seniors who marked him for greater future responsibility.

Commissioned as an artillery officer, his first assignment after gunnery school was to the occupation forces in Cuba, one of many possessions wrested from Spain in the brief war of 1898.  The listless nature of occupation duty has a deleterious effect on most soldiers.  But not on Fox Conner.  He found professional pursuits to occupy his time and so began to instill in himself a character of constant study and self-improvement, regardless the duty to which assigned.

With a knack for mathematics and a historical view of the inevitable (and necessary) evolution of tactics to match technological advances in weaponry and transportation, Conner found himself on the cutting edge of transitioning field artillery from its centuries-old role as a line-of-sight, direct-fire front-lines battlefield weapon to that of an indirect-fire from behind-the-lines weapon in support of front-line infantry.  His pioneering work and writing regarding gunnery and fire-direction in support of attacking infantry formations landed him the first of two such assignments teaching the subject at the Army Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas -- even though as a young captain he was somewhat junior to the majors who were his students in the course.

In 1911, having excelled in French in both high school and at West Point, Conner was identified as one of the few French-speaking officers available to respond to an invitation to send an American officer to serve for one year in a French artillery unit and then attend the foremost military school of the time -- L'Ecole de Guerre.

Although events and policy changes regarding officer assignments back home prevented his attendance at the French War College, Conner had made the most of his field assignment with the French Army.  He came away from the experience with not only a wealth of technical expertise with some of the most modern weaponry (far advanced of anything in the US Army at the time), but with many significant contacts and a deep understanding of the customs, traditions, and politics of the French Army.

Next assigned to Fort Riley, Kansas, Conner's artillery unit was deployed to the border with Mexico in 1914 and placed under the command of General John J. "Blackjack" Pershing and the  "Punitive Expedition" sent to confront Pancho Villa -- the Mexican warlord making cross-border incursions into the United States.  

Conner served under Pershing for a third time when the two were assigned to Army Headquarters in Washington in 1916.  Evidently, the culmination of the three shared assignments was a deep appreciation by Pershing of Conner's talents and professionalism, as Conner became Pershing's most trusted staff officer and his first pick for any important task for the next two decades.   

The first such assignment was as a staff officer to a stateside military conference of the new French/British/American alliance following American entry into the First World War in 1917.  Pershing was highly impressed with Conner's contributions to the conference, his great tact dealing with the French and British, his attention to every detail of operational planning, and his appreciation of the unprecedented logistical effort required for introducing vast American forces to the European war.

When President Wilson appointed Pershing to lead the American Expedition Force (AEF), an anticipated commitment of over one million U.S. troops to the War in France, Pershing turned immediately to the one man he trusted most -- Fox Conner -- and appointed the newly-promoted colonel to the most critical assignment in the AEF -- Chief of Operations.  

To this point in his career, Fox Conner had been mentored to one degree or another by outstanding leaders, Pershing chief among them.  Now, in addition to the not-so trivial task of developing the tactical, operational, and strategic plans that would vault the U.S. Army from a small, backward, ill-equipped force to the greatest army on the planet, employing the newest technology and the most effective warfighting doctrine -- all in the space of less than a year -- it was his turn to apply all that he had learned about mentoring.

On the AEF Operations staff under Colonel Fox Conner was a lieutenant colonel by the name of George C. Marshall.   Conner quickly recognized and mentored the development of Marshall's talent.  Indeed, Conner later confided to another young protege (who the Colonel will introduce to you shortly) that Marshall was "a genius."  High praise from the man to whom Pershing would refer as the one "indispensable man" in the entire AEF.

Hopefully, not too many of the thousands of you perusing this post are scratching hat rests and asking "George C. Who?"  But, just in case  --  George C. Marshall was Army Chief of Staff and the General on whom FDR depended most for strategic advice during World War Two. 

Secretary of State under Truman; Marshall Plan. 

That George C. Marshall. 

Fox Conner was arguably the single greatest professional influence in Marshall's career.  At a time when the notoriously trigger-happy Pershing was firing several senior officers a week for even the least significant of perceived faults, Conner and Marshall so impressed the AEF commander that there is never any mention of unhappiness with either of them.  Credit Conner. 

In fact, Conner was probably Pershing's closest confidant in the AEF.  Conner may or may not have taken advantage of that closeness with the boss, but he was resented for it in varying degrees by other senior officers.  One of whom was a glory hound by the name of Douglas MacArthur.  In fact, no love was ever lost between Pershing/Conner and MacArthur.  Pershing detested MacArthur and the feeling was reciprocated; to Conner by association.  

To convey Conner's brilliance as the operational planner who orchestrated every aspect of the AEF's training and operations from the introduction of the first American division in France to the  masterful American participation in the final offensive that ended the war would take far more room than is available in this already too-long post.  Suffice it say:  Credit Conner.

Besides Marshall there were several other now-famous 20th Century military men on whom Fox Conner is considered the greatest single professional influence.  

Ever heard of George S. Patton? 

Conner and Patton first served together in Pershing's "Punitive Expedition."  They were reunited in France.  Patton was present when Conner, on an inspection tour of front-line units in 1918, was wounded in the face by German artillery fire.  Patton is said to have remarked, probably somewhat snidely, that Conner would "have a wound stripe on his sleeve and two lovely scars, and if that isn't the [insert Pattonesque language for Divine Judgement here] luck of a Field Artilleryman." 

After the war, Conner and Patton became close friends, hunting and fishing together, and sharing other common interests  -- among them, colorful language.  Patton is quoted as saying that Conner's exclamatory language upon missing a shot while hunting was "novel and innovative."  

One wonders if Patton's own famous penchant for colorful language might not be linked in no small way to his time as a Conner protege.  At any rate, there is little doubt that Patton benefited not only from a social friendship with Conner, but was also on the receiving end of a great deal of mentorship.

At the conclusion of the First World War, Conner was, like Pershing, deeply critical of the terms of the Versailles Treaty and the way that the German army had been allowed to returned home believing that they had not really lost the war, but had been betrayed by their own people and politicians.  Conner was convinced that the seeds of a second major war with Germany were sown in the treaty ending "the war to end all wars."  Conner was so convinced of this that the remainder of his career was spent in large part preparing junior officers to fight that "next" war.

It's time now for the Colonel to introduce the young Conner protege to whom he referred earlier.

A little-known officer by the name of Dwight Eisenhower had the good fortune early in his career to have been assigned with Patton.  The two shared a passion for the development of armored warfare and even co-authored rather radical articles that riled the more staid and conventional senior officers in the Army. 

During the war, Eisenhower had been unlucky to have been both a capable staff officer and talented football coach.  When the AEF was forming in France under Pershing, the stateside Chief of Staff of the Army, General Peyton C. March, refused Eisenhower's request to go to France.  Turns out that there was no love lost between Pershing and March, and March was reluctant to send any more talented officers to work for Pershing than he had to.  Eisenhower sat the war out stateside teaching tank crews and coaching base football teams.

After the war, Eisenhower's career was seemingly on a dead-end track.  He was even nearly court-martialed for an infraction of pay regulations -- serious business in a budget-limited post-war force.    

To make matters worse, Eisenhower and Mamie lost their first son in 1921 to scarlet fever.    

Fortunate for Eisenhower, Patton remained a close, caring friend.  Patton introduced Eisenhower to Conner at a social event sometime in early 1921 and Conner caught a hint of something promising in Eisenhower.  It is also clear that Patton was attempting to make Eisenhower another Conner protege.

A year later, Conner was assigned to command a brigade in the Panama Canal Zone.  Patton recommended to Conner that he take Eisenhower with him to Panama.  Conner evidently trusted Patton's judgement and also saw enough promise in Eisenhower that Conner had to expend a great deal of energy and political capital to get Eisenhower assigned to his staff.  

In Panama, Eisenhower was assigned as Conner's Brigade Executive Officer; a job that in and of itself would have been demanding enough given Conner's high professional expectations.  Eisenhower, however, also found himself immersed in a three year study of military history, operational order writing, and strategic thought that vaulted him from run-of-the-mill staff officer to consummate operational artist and strategic thinker. 

Credit Conner.

Conner assigned increasingly challenging books for Eisenhower's consumption and then grilled his protege on them.  They re-fought ancient battles, Civil War battles, battles of the War in France, and then fought the war to come.

Conner stressed to Eisenhower the importance of correctly cobbling together coalitions and how to best combine different and disparate national armies into one cohesive war-winning effort.

By the time their time together in Panama had ended, Conner had imparted his vision of how the next war in Europe would have to be fought and won.

Perhaps most importantly, Conner introduced Eisenhower to von Clauswitz's "On War" and the then-obscure Prussian's view of the foggy nature of war and the intertwining of war and policy; a view not generally accepted by an American Army still following the geometric, one dimensional approach of the French military philosopher Jomini.     
  
Eisenhower later summed up the Panama experience thus: "the most interesting and constructive years of my life."

In his war memoir, "Crusade in Europe," General of the Army Eisenhower wrote:

"One of the subjects on which [Conner] talked to me most was allied command, its difficulties and its problems. Another was George C. Marshall. Again and again General Conner said to me, 'We cannot escape another great war. When we go into that war it will be in company with allies...We must insist on individual and single responsibility—leaders will have to learn how to overcome nationalistic considerations in the conduct of campaigns. One man who can do it is Marshall—he is close to being a genius.'"

In 1967 former President Eisenhower wrote:  "He was the ablest man I ever knew. I can never adequately express my gratitude to this one gentleman. In a lifetime of association of great and good men, he is the one more or less invisible figure to whom I owe an incalculable debt."

Major General Fox Conner retired from active duty in 1938.  During the latter half of his nearly 40-year Army career, Conner arguably wielded greater behind-the-scenes influence on the outcome of the Second World War and the post-war preeminence of the United States on the world scene than any other single individual.  

The Colonel will leave you with one last peek into the mind of the Mentor from Mississippi.  Between the wars, Conner lectured often at the Army War College.  Here are a few examples of his "lessons learned":   

"War is essentially friction and change. The only way of avoiding changes in a plan is to plan to stay home."

"I don't like saying anything bad about Generals, but I think it's possible to have too damned many of them."
                                              

"The most valuable qualification in an officer is common sense; contrary to general belief, it is the rarest element found in mankind."

"My three Principles of War are these:

1.  Never fight unless you have to;

2.  Never fight alone; and

3.  Never fight for long."

Oh, how the Colonel wishes the current crop of strategists would pay close attention to number 3. 

  

 




    

    

Amazing Grace

Forty-one years ago next month, the Colonel took his first love -- the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda on their first date.  

It was the last first date they ever had, with anyone.

Five years later, thirty-six years ago today, the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda completed the Colonel's life.

The Colonel, as anyone who has known him for longer than a week will readily attest, has not one gram of empathy and very little sympathy in his entire being.  But, there is a teeny, tiny part of him that feels profound sorrow for one thing and all men.

The Colonel is sorry that he has the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda and the rest of you never had a chance.

Genuine sorrow.

Tears brought to a glass eye sorrow.

Guilt-ridden, gut-wrenching, favorite ball cap-lost sorrow.

Never been sorry for a lost hat?  Now the Colonel is really sorry for you.

Okay, not sorrow  -- disdain.  The Colonel digresses.

The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda has been the Colonel's rock since long before he even realized he needed a rock.

For reasons beyond fathoming, particularly by the loose collection of cognitive cells thinly covering the bottom of the brain pan in his cavernous cranium, the Colonel has been the frighteningly fortunate recipient of the faithful and caring love of the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda, despite his well-documented failures, faults, and foibles. 

The Colonel gives thanks to a Gracious God for sending Jesus to save his eternal soul. 

He thanks a Miracle-working God for sending Miss Brenda to love him here on Earth.

The Charge of the Lieutenant Brigade

The other day a stray synapse in the pea-sized, shriveled lump of grey matter in the Colonel's brain housing group fired and he found himself remembering fondly a moment of great pain and professional gain.

Twenty-five years ago, this summer, the Marine Corps, in a rare lapse of institutional discernment, judged the Colonel, then a captain, competent enough to command a rifle company of America's best and brightest.

Within the first few weeks following a change of command during which an old friend, Ed Larkin, had reluctantly relinquished command of Charlie 1/8 (Company C, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, 2nd Marine Division) to the Colonel, the company marched from its barracks to a nearby set of ranges for a week of live fire training. 

Bivouacked in a field behind the range firing line, the Marines were in their platoon areas sitting in front of their shelter halves (each Marine carried half of a shelter and buttoned it together with another Marine's to form a pup tent -- a term Marines never used) eating their evening banquet in a bag (MRE).  Evidently, the day had not been too hot or too strenuous for them, because instead of falling quickly asleep as Marines learn to do as soon as strenuous activity ceases, they began to wrestle.

The wrestling matches evolved quickly beyond one on one and, as the Colonel and his lieutenants watched from a safe distance, one squad attacked another squad, and then one platoon attacked another platoon.

Each attacking unit would announce its intentions by standing facing its target and clapping slowly in unison, and then a roar would go up as the Marines rushed each other. 

The company's senior NCOs were doing a fair job of refereeing to make sure that things didn't get too out of hand, and the Colonel and his lieutenants turned their attention back to planning the next day's events.

Whenever a particularly large roar would erupt from across the field, the company officers would look up, chuckle, and comment on the battle's progress, "There goes First and Second Platoon" or "Tony, Weapons Platoon is getting stomped" or "Look at Smitty leading the charge," and then turn their attention back to planning.

Suddenly the low roar of friendly combat quieted. The Colonel and his officers looked up to see the entire company facing them and beginning to clap in unison.

The Colonel quickly scanned the faces of his five lieutenants and couldn't help but laugh at the looks of bewilderment turning rapidly to consternation...on all but the XO's (the Company executive officer -- second-in-command).  Brad McCullough was an accomplished martial artist and the Colonel never saw anything rattle him. The Colonel did see his eyes narrow, however, as he figured the odds and then saw him glance around for an escape route.

The other lieutenants were too shocked to do that much thinking.

"Gentlemen," The Colonel managed to muster without his voice cracking, "we can't run. We have to attack."

The Colonel turned and started jogging tentatively towards the company.

With that, Brad hollered "Keeeyaaa!," or something like that (the company officers laughed for months afterwards anytime one would yell "Keeeyaaa" in a not-so similar situation) and sprinted toward the 150 Marines facing us.

The Colonel and the rest of the lieutenants sprinted after the XO, and the six young Marine officers gave a long, wavering rebel yell that 125 years previous would have been right at home in Stonewall's Brigade rushing yankee earthworks.

The Marines actually stood stunned for a second at the sight of their officers charging them, and then recovered with a roar and charge of their own.

The gap of 100 or so yards closed in a few seconds that seemed like eternal anticipation of the painful collision with the camouflaged tide.

The Colonel picked out a big Marine in front of him who happened to be looking away at his own platoon commander, slanted toward him, and dropped him with an open field tackle that rung the Colonel's bell much louder than the Marine's.

The company engulfed its officers and all six went down under a crush of happily hollering Marines.

The company First Sergeant saved the Colonel from possible serious bodily harm, by reminding in his drill field voice, "Marines, that is your commanding officer!", and pulling Marines off of the pile atop the Colonel.

The Colonel and his First Sergeant did the same at the piles of Marines that marked the positions of the rest of the officers, and as the men respectfully separated themselves and headed back to their tents the Colonel heard a Marine remark proudly,

"Did you see the Skipper and the officers charging us?!?"

Little did they know, their leaders had no other choice.

But now, Company C, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines really belonged to Captain Thomas E. Gregory. 

The next year and a half was the best time of his life.

Semper Facetious

Amid appropriate trumpet fanfare (okay, it’s just his two grandsons -- the Hope of 21^st Century Civilization, Dashes One and Two -- on kazoos) the Colonel proudly precedes this post with preamble proclaiming that it is the 600^th time, since the inception of the “The Colonel’s Corner,” that he has subjected the thousands of you, who ingloriously imbibe, to the literary libations ladled out not-so-liberally hereon. 

To mark such an auspicious occasion, the Colonel feverishly fleeced the few remaining fertile cognitive cells lying fallow in forgotten recesses of his boney brain-housing group for a topic appropriate to the importance of the milestone.

He found nothing.

No witty repartee between the Colonel and the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda.

No hijinks of the Hope of 21^st Century Civilization, Dashes One and Two.

No feathered fable from the predator-safe environs of the Colonel’s Hen Herd House.

No legislative legerdemain of the Congress of the Tallahatchie Free State.      

No Biblical revelation.

No reminiscence from his career as a steely-eyed, roguishly handsome, amphibiously expeditionary minister of mayhem management in the service of his nation.

But, the Colonel must leave you with something…

So, he’ll leave with this to ponder:

Umm…

Okay, the Colonel admits he ain’t got nuthin’.   

So, this post will henceforth and forever be known as a total waste of your precious time.

Pretty much like the 599 that preceded it.

Battle to the Future

The Colonel has been, as many of you have no doubt noticed, somewhat lax in his writing and posting of late. 

He's been feeling a bit overwhelmed -- got a lot on his plate.


Besides the demands of tending to, harvesting from, and distributing the produce of a much too large garden this summer, the Colonel has also taken on responsibility for leading a strategic planning program for his church and has also been led to lead a couple of small group Bible studies.  

As happens more and more often nowadays, just as the Colonel begins getting comfortable in a rut of self-sorrow, God reveals new meaning in a well-read passage of scripture.

This past week, in preparation for delivering the lesson to his Sunday School class, the Colonel studied the 6th and 7th chapters of the book of Judges.  The story contained therein is a familiar one to all be the most recent beginner Bible students.

The writer of Judges details the Israelites' rhythmic falling away from God, oppression by enemies, calling on God for help, and receipt of a man from God to defeat their enemies.   In the 6th chapter the man, Gideon, raised up by God to deliver Israel is introduced to us hiding from the marauding Midianites.

Gideon is in skull defilade, threshing wheat in a wine press.   

Ordinarily wheat was threshed on a wind-swept hilltop.  But Gideon was afraid of sky-lining himself to the enemy and was instead hunkered down in a small cavity hewn from a rock, probably alongside a vineyard.    


While he was evidently successfully hiding from the Midianites, Gideon couldn't hide from God.  The writer of Judges tells us that the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon and said something in absolute incongruence with Gideon's actions:  "You are a mighty warrior."

Huh?

Amazing point of new meaning # 1:  God's omnipresence is not limited to three dimensions -- He is omnipresent in time as well.

God wasn't describing Gideon's present situation, but what he would become.  God already knows our battles  --  He's out there in the future fighting them as we speak.

When God tells Gideon that he is to lead the Israelite army against the Midianites, Gideon's first reaction is to remind God just how weak and insignificant he, Gideon, is.  In effect, Gideon tells God that because he is the youngest son in the least influential family in one of the least influential tribes of Israel, he is absolutely the wrong man for the job.

God says:  "Have I not already sent you?"

Amazing point of new meaning # 2:  God begins to work on our hearts long before he gives us a definite command.

God was telling Gideon that he, Gideon, had already been receiving a calling -- some call it a "still, small voice" -- telling him that he had to do "something."  God is at work in all of our hearts -- he owns 'em, whether we have decided to "give them to Him" or not.

Skip over the parts of the story most of us are familiar with -- the fleece and the dew, God's whittling down of the Israelite army from 32,000 to 300 -- and stop where God tells Gideon to take his servant and go on a reconnaissance of the Midianite camp.

Gideon sneaks down in the dark and hears a Midianite soldier interpret another's dream of tent-flattening barley cakes as the fact that, "This can be nothing other than the sword of Gideon...the Israelite. God has given the Midianites and the whole camp into his hands."

Amazing point of new meaning # 3:  God sends us, but He goes before us.

God clearly orchestrated the Midianite soldiers' dream and interpretation for Gideon's benefit.  God was out in front of Gideon's small force, preparing the battlefield for them.  Before Gideon even employed the stratagem of fooling the Midianites to believe that they were surrounded by a much larger force than just three hundred cupped-hand water-drinkers armed with trumpets and torches in clay pitchers, God was already at work in the hearts of the enemy.

That the ruse worked is not a testament to Gideon's cunning, but to God's ownership of the hearts of all men.

Last amazing point of not-so new meaning: The battle belongs to the Lord.    

The Colonel begs your forgiveness for his literary lapse.  He'll take more time to write now knowing that his coming battles are already won. 

    

Giant Retirement Gift

Just when the Colonel was settling into a comfortable, self-imposed, re-retirement routine of not giving a rip about nothin' or nobody, the Good Lord gets his undivided attention with a reading of His word.

The Colonel has read the book of Joshua in whole or in part many times in his life, and, true to the way God works, nearly each study has provided a different lesson.

This lesson hurt -- convicting the Colonel of an error, to add to the many he already recognizes, in his spiritual walk.

In the 14th Chapter of the Old Testament Book of Joshua, the writer pauses in his recounting of the allocation of the Promised Land among the tribes of Israel to relate the actions of Caleb.

Caleb comes to Joshua, the man God ordained to lead the Hebrews into the Promised Land upon the death of Moses, and reminds Joshua of a significant event in both of their lives 45 years before.

A little more than a year after leaving Egypt, Moses led the nation of Israel away from Mount Sinai and straight to the southern borderlands of Canaan -- the Negev Desert.  As any good operational leader should, Moses sent a long-range reconnaisance patrol north (Numbers 13: 17-20). 

Caleb and Joshua were two of twelve "spies" sent north.   When the twelve spies returned, they brought good news and bad news.

The good news: The land from which their patriarch Jacob (aka: Israel) had fled to Egypt to escape famine was once again rich and bountiful.

The bad news: In the Hebrew nation's 400-year absence from the Promised Land, other peoples had settled the land and built strong, heavily-defended, walled cities.

More bad news: Some of those walled cities housed "giants" (Numbers 13: 31-33).

The other ten spies focused the report of their reconnaisance patrol on the bad news and, although Joshua and Caleb counseled that God would deliver the land into their hands no matter the seeming insurmountable odds and obstacles, the Hebrew people collapsed into open revolt calling for a return to the "safety" of Egypt.

God's judgement on His people for this lack of faith in Him was to condemn them to forty years of exile, wandering in the wilderness, until the unfaithful generation (with the exception of Joshua and Caleb) had all died.

The Nation of Israel's wandering eventually took them north along the eastern side of the Dead Sea.  After Moses' death, God commissioned Joshua to lead the Hebrew army west across the Jordan River north of the Dead Sea. 

For the next several years, the Hebrew army executed an invasion campaign that defeated a total of 31 kingdoms, and, in the aftermath of this campaign, Joshua divided up the land between the tribes.

As Joshua was divvying up the Promised Land, his old reconnaisance patrol mate, Caleb, came to him with a reminder and a request.

The writer of the Book of Joshua relates Caleb's words thus:

“You know what the Lord said to Moses the man of God at Kadesh Barnea about you and me.    I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh Barnea to explore the land. And I brought him back a report according to my convictions, but my fellow Israelites who went up with me made the hearts of the people melt in fear. I, however, followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly.   So on that day Moses swore to me, ‘The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance and that of your children forever, because you have followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly.'

 “Now then, just as the Lord promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the wilderness. So here I am today, eighty-five years old!  I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then.  Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as he said.”  (Numbers 14: 6b-12 NIV)

Joshua remembered, and kept Moses' promise to Caleb.

Heretofore the Colonel has always read this passage as a retirement reward for Caleb's, and, by extension any man of God's, life of faithfulness.  

But, take a look at the last sentence of Caleb's request above.

Caleb was asking Joshua to fulfill the promise of Moses by giving him choice land... on which giant enemies still lived!   

Some "retirement" gift!

Only Caleb, 85 years young, wasn't retiring.  He still had giants to face.  The writer of Joshua later tells us that, with God's help, Caleb conquered the giants in his territory.  

So, what is the point toward which the Colonel has led you in no doubt frantic anticipation?

Glad you asked.

1.  The Colonel is convicted that there is no retirement from the Lord's work here on earth.

2.  The Colonel is convicted that one must be careful what one asks of God.  Even the greatest blessings may still harbor great responsibility. 

3.  God is in the giant-killing business, and the battle against our "giants" belongs to the Lord. 

Now, where did the Colonel leave that slingshot?  

Cornucopia Costs

It's the time of year when the Colonel's vast holdings here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere begin to give back to the Colonel and his kin.

The return on investment is a little out of whack, though...

God's Garden, so named by the Colonel and the produce therefrom dedicated to His service, has, just this past week, begun to yield fruit (okay,... veggies) for the intense labor invested by the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda and her man.

A dribble of fresh spinach, new potatoes, crook-neck squash, and green beans has flowed from row to plate and there is great anticipation of the freezer and quart jar-filling torrent to follow.

It had better be a torrent -- the nozzle on the Colonel's money hose has been wide open for the past two months stimulating the local economy via garden and hardware shops.  

And..., as the Colonel's time is invaluable, there's no way to calculate the hourly costs committed to the cause of counted-on cornucopia.  

So, let's just tally up the tangible, shall we?

The least expensive element in gardening is the seed and seedlings.  Still, the Colonel's cash outlay for enough of said seed and seedlings to sow in an acre of gardens has thus far been well into three figures.  

To coax green from the Confederate Concrete that passes for soil hereabouts requires generous applications of fertilizer.  Fertilizer, thanks to our federal government's absolutely absurd energy policy (or lack thereof), ain't cheap. 

Triple thirteen (13-13-13) on a bag of fertilizer used to refer to the chemical content.

Nowadays it more closely refers to the price.

With visions of vegetable bounty dancing in his head, the Colonel happily ran up his credit card balance for seed and fertilizer; thinking all the while that once seed and seedlings were sown and planted and fertilized, that would be the end of capital investments and all that would remain would be the time and elbow grease required to cultivate and harvest.

So, the Colonel merrily planted and fertilized and waited for Spring rains.

He waited.

And waited.

Interesting little fact about plants: they need water. 

They need sunshine, too.  But, sunshine without rain is to plants like taxing the rich to buy the poor vote is to effective governance. 

Eventually the producers get too dry to soak anymore.

As the days since planting passed without precipitation, the Colonel began to panic over the parching of his planned-for produce.

Did the Colonel mention that the aforementioned gardens are a considerable distance from the Big House?  "Considerable," in this case, defined as roughly a quarter of a mile.

After a week of hauling water in buckets and ladling out the precious liquid by hand, the low-watt idea bulb in a dark recess of the Colonel's little used brain-housing group began to flicker and throw sporadic light across the cavernous space between his ears.  A few of those sporadic particles of light illuminated just enough photo-receptive cells to energize a lone synapse to fire.

"Eureka!," the Colonel exclaimed, straightening from the back-bending task of pouring water on pitiful plants.

"I hope you've found gold," the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda responded from a row over.  "We are fast depleting our life-savings on this stupid garden and on Motrin for my back."

"No gold.  But, I've just had a great idea!"

"Well, let's hear it, Einstein," the Colonel's Lady responded encouragingly.  "If your idea is to let Kroger do our gardening for us, I might just approve it." 

"Kroger?!? No, dear, not Kroger."

"Fine, Big Star it is then.  They're cheaper, and you haven't discovered gold."  

"Oh, Sweetthing!  You are such a kidder!"

"Who's kidding?  Just say the word and I'll be back down here in a New York minute with an acre's worth of RoundUp."

"No! You're not gonna kill my garden!" 

"You're right, Knucklehead.  No sense wasting RoundUp; the sun will burn it up in a few more days." 

"No it won't!" The Colonel stood to his full height (five, six and three quarters -- and don't ever forget the three quarters) with arms akimbo and a look of undaunted determination fixed on his ruggedly handsome facial features.  "I'm gonna install an irrigation system."

"Great," the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda grunted with no little sense of sarcasm.  "There goes the money I've been putting aside for new shoes.  And why are you grinning like a mule eating briers?"

"New shoes?  I just got you a new pair of muck boots.  Besides, how much could a couple thousand feet of 3/4" PVC cost?"

Fertilizer ain't the only thing that ain't cheap, thanks to our federal government's absolutely absurd energy policy (or lack thereof).

The irrigation system was fully operational the day before the drought broke.

The Colonel and his beautiful bride picked an ice cream bucket-load of green beans this morning.

The Colonel figures each bean is roughly worth its weight in gold.

Eureka!   

Tom Hardy, Marine

Thomas William Hardy, of Columbus, Mississippi, passed away earlier this month.   He was 93. 

Only weeks before his death,  Hardy climbed into his sail plane for one last flight; logging the last hour in a flight record opened nearly eight decades before.

A 1939 graduate of Mississippi State, Hardy put his degree in Mechanical Engineering and his love of flying to work together as an experimental test engineer with the Pratt and Whitney Aircraft Corporation. 

When his nation went to war, he went with it.

Flying F-4U Corsairs with the famed "Checkerboards" of Marine Fighter Squadron (VMF) 312, Hardy was credited with three official victories against Japanese pilots.  

Like most in his generation, Hardy was circumspect about his wartime experience.  He was not, however, bashful about his love of flying. 

His octogenarian aerial adventures in the skies over Mississippi are the stuff of local legend.  One newspaperman in his hometown went as far as to call Hardy, "the Edmund Hillary of Mississippi."  Most who knew of his sail plane sorties were unaware that his time in the air also included time logged in mortal combat during a war fought when he and his nation were much younger and the battle lines were drawn between America and its enemies -- not between Americans.

The Colonel had the good fortune to meet Tom Hardy eight or ten years ago.  The Colonel's father and buddies have for many years held a Sunday afternoon sporting clays match in which Hardy was a frequent participant.  At one such outing, the Colonel was introduced to an elderly, yet spry, gentleman with, "this is Tom Hardy.  He was a Marine fighter pilot in World War Two."

The Colonel began to launch into a practiced spiel reserved for Marines from generations before his own, wherein he thanks the older veterans for their legendary service that "makes being a Marine such an honor today."  

Hardy didn't allow the Colonel to finish, "We're here to shoot.  Let's shoot."

We shot.

Men like Tom Hardy are a rare commodity.  They are quietly heroic, living their lives with more purpose and energy than a dozen lesser men who believe, and pronounce, themselves superior.

Semper Fidelis, First Lieutenant Thomas William Hardy, USMC. 

The Colonel will insist on finishing his homage when we meet again.   

Then, you can give the Colonel some flight lessons.

Heroes: Incentive, or Inspiration?

War is both the most base and the most noble of man's endeavors.  Those who have marched with fellows into the maw of destruction know no other more horribly soul-crippling nor no more honorably self-sacrificing experience the rest of their however long lives.


Veterans, survivors, of war know that the heroism of their fallen comrades provides not incentive for more war, but inspiration to serve something larger than one's self and conviction to ensure that the sacrifices of the few for the freedoms of the many are not forgotten nor wasted.


Chris Hayes, whose grip on the reality of a world that pits good against evil is more tenuous than a newborn's grasp of the trim of his blanket, has not the first inkling of a clue.  Frankly, he deserves no more attention than to pity the desolation of his vacuous view.


You and the Colonel knew many like him in the formative years of our high school and college matriculation. 


They wore peace symbols, not out of any real conviction for peace, but because it was cool.


They blithely blathered about disarmament without thinking for a moment that evil never reciprocates.


They naively spouted Marx and sought to to shine a bright spotlight on the relative few inevitable imperfections of our constitutional republic and its conduct in support of self-determination abroad, while never once pausing to credit the overwhelming good that our nation did in the lives of others around the globe.


They refused to respect anything -- not the flag that caresses the caskets of freedom's fallen, not the norms of a society that spawned the greatest leaps forward in man's long history, not their fellow citizens' right to the "free exercise" of religion in the public square --  except their own warped and deluded sense of enlightened intelligence.


They sneered in denigrating contempt at those who, in admirable early-onset maturity, followed a call to serve something larger than themselves.

Many of these awakened from the self-induced slumber of their self-righteous self-absorption and became productive members of society, at both ends of the political spectrum.


The rest became journalists and college professors.   

   

Limitation Lamentations

One of the Colonel's favorite movie lines is the observation made by Clint Eastwood's character, "Dirty" Harry Callahan, in the cinematic tour de force, "Magnum Force." 

"A man's got to know his limitations."

The Colonel has rarely been one to follow that advice.  And, with regard to the Colonel's physical limitations, the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda knows no... well, let's just say she's never been a Dirty Harry fan.    

Take the Colonel's latest forays afield in agriculture, landscaping, and animal husbandry, for example.

The Colonel, as the thousands of you who hang on his every written word in posts hereon have by no difficulty ascertained (except for the LSU grads who think the Colonel just used a naughty word), has been on an involuntary writing hiatus of late. 

Part of it has been his fault.

Part of it has been the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's fault.

Let's start with her.

Now, far be it from the Colonel, whose occasional lack of judgement, frequent loss of situational awareness, and catastrophe-defying clumsiness is the stuff of local legend, family lore, and several not-so-flattering semi-annual Marine Corps officer fitness reports, to cast aspersions on the judgement of his blushing bride of nearly 36 years (although the last part of this sentence prior to the parenthetical pause you are now perusing does call her matrimonial decision-making into question).  However, even she has a hard time refuting her reputation for underestimation of project scope and resource requirements.

Case in point: Renovation of the flower beds and lawn in front of our church.

Six weeks ago, the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda approached the Colonel during one of his frequent reverse prone strategic planning sessions and, in her ever-so-loving and gentle way, gained the Colonel's attention.

"Hey! Knucklehead! Wake up! You're burning daylight and I've got a small project I need your help with."

The Colonel opened one eye and regarded his soul-mate with apprehension bordering on stark terror.  He attempted to divert the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda by engaging her in loving small talk.

"Dear, one should never interrupt a steely-eyed Marine in the midst of deep thought, and one should never end a sentence in a preposition.

"What?!?"

"Dear, you said you have a project, and the Colonel quotes, 'I need your help with.'  You used the preposition 'with' at the end of the your sentence.  Not good grammar.  Let's try the sentence, again -- this time placing the preposition in the sentence correctly."

"Buddy, if you don't get a move on, you're gonna be black-eyed instead of steely-eyed.  I've just got a little project up at the church I need your help with..."  

"Ah, ah, ah..."

"...Jerk!"

"That's better!  Now, what is this little project on which you need the Colonel's help?"  

"Grrrr!!  Get up and get in the truck.  We're just going to move a few bushes and some clumps of monkey grass.  Shouldn't take the two of us more than 30 minutes with a shovel."

Four weeks of 10-hour physical labor-intensive days (involving the removal of two acres of monkey grass, moving forty-seven holly bushes, installation of an irrigation system and the laying of ten pallets of sod) later, Miss Brenda stood astride her prostrate man (collapsed in a mud puddle created by his own sweat) and proudly pronounced, "Phase I is complete!"

"Phase I ?!?," the prostrate Colonel croaked through dehydrated vocal chords.  "Just how many phases does this 30-minute project have?"       

Lest anyone get the impression that the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's projects have been the sole reason for the Colonel's absence from his appointed place of duty enlightening and entertaining the masses via the written word, the Colonel must admit that he shares some responsibility.

A few days prior to the initiation of the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's landscaping project / reenactment of the physical labor involved in the construction of the Panama Canal, the Colonel and Grandson #2, aka: H21CC-2 (Hope of 21st Century Civilization, Dash 2), loaded up the truck and headed into the center of the southern cultural universe, and home of the Harvard of the South -- Oxford -- to stimulate the economy at the local garden shop.

Said local garden shop was supposed to be receiving a shipment of Barred Rock chicks that morning and the Colonel was desirous of increasing and diversifying his monochromatic Rhode Island Red hen herd by the acquisition of one half dozen of said Barred Rock chicks. 

Alas, upon their arrival at said local garden shop, H21CC-2 and the Colonel were disappointed to learn that the shipment of said Barred Rock chicks had yet to arrive.

"Not a problem, little buddy," the Colonel reassured his third favorite person on the entire planet, "we'll go over to the Tractor Supply Store and pick up a few things and then come back and get the chicks later."

Upon arrival at the second stop in the Colonel's economic stimulus trip, the keen ears of H21CC-2 picked up the peeping of chicks.

"Pop!  They have some chicks!  We can get our chicks here!"

The Colonel bets you didn't know that four-year olds do not have a very keen appreciation for the differences between fuzzy yellow chicks that will become non-descript plain ol' white chickens and fuzzy black chicks that will become beautiful Barred Rock hens with which the Colonel was desirous of increasing and diversifying his heretofore monochromatic hen herd.  

To a four-year old, a chick is a chick.  And this particular four-year old wasn't budging from his position adjacent the wash tub full of chicks until he had some of his own.

Bottom line?  Instead of six, the Colonel now has twelve new mouths to feed. 

And water. 

And feed, again. 

And water, again.

And check on every 30 minutes.

Between landscaping and chick raising, who's got time to write?

Oh, and there's the garden.

Well..., gardens.  

The small garden up here on the hill next to the Big House aboard  Eegeebeegee -- the Colonel's vast holdings here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere and the capital of the Tallahatchie Free State -- has been wildly successful at the production of tomatoes and squash.  So much so that the Colonel felt emboldened last year to open up, down in the bottom behind the Big House, another quarter of an acre to cultivation wherein he raised a bumper crop of corn, okra, and cantaloupes.

And cantaloupes.

And more cantaloupes.

Countless cantaloupes.

Cantaloupe for every meal, cantaloupes.

Cantaloupe for every neighbor within a three mile radius, cantaloupes.

The Colonel invites you, at this juncture, to revisit the opening lines of this missive and recall the point he made regarding his frequent failure to heed Dirty Harry's advice on personal knowledge of limitations.

The garden in the bottom behind the Big House has trebled -- nay, quadrupled -- in size this year, replete with rows and rows and rows of beans, peas, spinach, onions, potatoes, okra, corn, squash, cucumbers, watermelons...,

And cantaloupes.

So, pardon the Colonel for his blogging truancy.  He's been a little busy...

Oh, and did the Colonel mention he got to go on vacation last week with his in-laws?  Wait until you read about that.

Of course, it might be a week or two before the Colonel gets back to his keyboard...               

Power and Authority

One of the Colonel's favorite Biblical accounts of the life of Jesus is found in Luke's letter to his presumed patron and recent convert to Christianity, Theophilus, wherein the unlimited power and authority of the God-Man Jesus is demonstrated.

In the fourth chapter of his Gospel, Luke describes the miraculous nature of Jesus' ministry in Galilee -- healing, restoring sight, exorcising demons -- and, more importantly, reveals the truth of God's anointment of Jesus with His authority, and power to exercise that authority.   Luke presents a representative account of each of the aspects of God's power and authority:

Jesus displays power over evil by driving out a demon possessing a man in the synagogue of Capernaum (Luke 4:35).
   
Jesus displays power over illnesses with the healing of Simon's mother-in-law (Luke 4:39).

But, the example of Jesus' power and authority that most gets the Colonel's rapt attention is found in the fifth chapter of Luke's Gospel.

Luke tells us that the two examples of Jesus' power and authority were not isolated events.  Jesus was healing and exorcising so many, that people came to Him from throughout the region, crowding Him so that the only way he could have enough space to teach was to commandeer one of Simon's boats from which to talk to those gathered on shore.

After Jesus completed his sermon, He turned to Simon and told him to "Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch" (Luke 5:4).

Now, Simon was a fisherman.  A commercial fisherman.

Simon, the character and personality of whom we become more familiar with after Jesus nicknames him "Peter," was a supremely self-confident man's man. 

An outdoorsman.

A man of action. 

A man who was certain that he knew more about the natural world in general, and fishing in particular, than anybody else on the planet -- well, in the region of Galilee, at least.

Simon would have made a good Marine.

Luke tells us that the supremely self-confident Simon gave Jesus a quick lesson in fishing.  The Colonel begs your indulgence as he embellishes Simon's words in a vernacular with which he is more comfortable:

"Boss, we've been bustin' our backs all night long and ain't got the first fish to show for it.  We just finished cleanin' the nets and all we are gonna accomplish here in the bright daylight is gettin' em dirty all over again.  But, if you wanna go fishin', we'll go."

The Colonel has heard and read a lot of folks who put the emphasis on Simon's obedience to Jesus' command in this instance. 

The Colonel rather wants to believe that, although Simon had witnessed many of the miracles performed by Jesus, he hadn't really been "touched where he lived."

Simon was just humoring his rabbi.

Simon had seen Jesus drive out demons and heal folks, but that was on land.  On the water was Simon's domain, the place that he knew better than anyone -- even better, in his estimation, than Jesus.

Luke tells us in verses 6 and 7 of Chapter 5, that when they let down their nets, fish filled them in such great numbers that the nets began to tear apart.

Remember, Simon and his partners were not sport fishermen.  Their very livelihood depended on their nets holding the greatest number of fish they could possibly imagine catching. 

Their nets were not designed to give the fish a sporting chance.

It is crystal clear to the Colonel, even given his severely restricted mental faculties and lack of a quality education (he didn't go to college -- Ole Miss is something else entirely), that Jesus exercised his power and authority over nature itself. 

Simon's nets just didn't happen to encompass a large school of fish.

Jesus exercised his power and authority over His creation.  Jesus directed every fish within fast-finning distance into Simon's nets.

This was, the Colonel believes, intended to get Simon's undivided attention.

This touched Simon at the very soul of who Simon was. 

Fishing, in today's business vernacular, was Simon's core competency; his market niche.

Nobody out-fished Simon...,

Except, Jesus.

Simon's reaction, as his partners' boats (plural!) filled to the gunnells with fish, is telling:

"Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!" (Luke 5:8)

The question comes to the Colonel whenever he thinks of this story,

"What do you think you do better than Jesus?"

When Simon realized that he had harbored the belief that he knew more than God about what was his core competency, that was the point at which, the Colonel believes, Simon realized the full extent of Jesus' power and authority over every aspect of his life -- and the full extent of his sinfullness.

What do you think you do better than Jesus?

Lost in Translation

An interesting discussion ensued after dinner last night at the Colonel's table.

Okay, it's the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's dining room table at which the Colonel is allowed a regular seat; but that's not important right now.

After-dinner discussions in the Colonel's house most often revolve around a recounting of the day's antics -- actors young and old.

Okay, it's the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's house the crushing mortgage for which the Colonel is allowed the great privilege of paying monthly; but that's also not important right now.

Last night's discussion wasn't so much about the hilarity of the very recent past as it was about concern for the future, in a country divided by two completely antithetical visions of the role of government. 

To the delight of the Colonel and his #1 son (and to the dismay of the distaff side of the household), the discussion wandered out of the flowered meadow of easy theoretical options and strayed into the minefield-littered battlefield of practical consequences.

As he has learned to do with his increasingly wary family, the Colonel lay quietly in conversational ambush until the moment at which the other participants were so deeply engrossed and so heavily invested in the discussion as to prevent their escape from the educational kill-zone at the moment of his initiation of direct lecture fires.

"Citizenship in our republic is a two-handed proposition.  On the one hand, the Constitution that establishes and limits the powers of our federal government guarantees a wide range of personal rights and liberties.  On the other hand, acceptance of the title 'citizen' in our republic carries with it the inescapable responsibility to conduct our personal activities within the boundaries framing that wide range and to accept the less-than fully democratic principles on which the republic was founded."

Caught in the direct fire lecture kill-zone, most of the Colonel's family waited patiently and quietly for the lull in firing indicating that the Colonel was reloading, knowing that to return fire was an invitation to escalation of the Colonel's use of verbal force and certain prolonging of the lecture firefight.

#1 son dashed the hopes of the rest, returning fire with relish.

The Colonel feels constrained at this point to explain to the LSU and 'Bama grads who may have erroneously stumbled upon this post in their frantic search for meaning in their lives beyond football, that "returning fire with relish" does not mean that #1 son threw hotdog toppings at the Colonel.

"But, Fearless Father and Former Roguishly Handsome Soldier of the Sea," -- the Colonel's progeny always display the utmost formal respect -- "the Federal Government is doing things with my tax dollars that I vehemently disapprove of on principle."

Okay, the Colonel will admit that his progeny do not address him so formally and respectfully.  But, if four decades with the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda have taught him anything, it is to translate aggressive address into more palatable pablum. 

"But, you senile old flatulent fool..." is caught by a filter just behind the Colonel's tympanic membrane and converted to "But, Fearless Father and Former Roguishly Handsome Soldier of the Sea..."  

#1 continued, "I feel like my vote counts for nothing.  I'm so tired of voting against things and they happen anyway."

"Ah, my son, welcome to the Colonel's world.  I haven't voted for anything or anyone since November of 1984."

The Colonel carried on and held forth for three of four more hours on the topic of citizenship in the republic and the role of each of the three co-equal branches of the federal government under a constitution specifically designed to frustrate accumulation of federal power at the expense of the several states and the many freedom-loving people residing therein. 

The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda finally interrupted him,

"Hey, you old... [translator kicking in] roguishly handsome protector of my virtue and plentiful provider for our progeny, you do know that you have been sitting here at this table, in the dark, talking to yourself for the past three hours."  
           

Hummingbird Holocaust Harbinger

The first ruby-throated hummingbird arrived here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere late last week -- none too worse for the wear after his long flight across the Gulf of Mexico from his winter home in the Yucatan.  He is the first of a flock that will eventually number in the several dozen, over-summering and taking advantage of the Colonel's sugar largess aboard the vast lands of the Tallahatchie Free State.  

The first hummingbirds normally arrive here after the 1st of April each year. 

However, this calendar year has started off anything but normal.

Although the first three months of the year were supposed to be Winter, the icy-breathed old man stayed in Canada and Spring sprung in January.

Among the loyal legions of you who regularly imbibe of the irregular literary libations ladled out in periodic posts hereon, there are certainly several who have just leaned back in their ergonomic chairs, taken a swig of their lattes, and exclaimed,

"Aha!! Global Warming!!"

Among the loyal legions of you who regularly imbibe of the irregular literary libations ladled out in periodic posts hereon, there are certainly several LSU and 'Bama grads who have just leaned back, scratched the peak of their hat racks, and asked,

"Whatsa ergonomic chair?"

Start drinking lattes and it will come to you.  That, and an insatiable desire to purchase anything with Barak Obama's likeness plastered on it.

Little known fact: Lattes cause liberalism.

The Colonel digresses. 

The Colonel is not a Global Warming (or Climate Change, or Environmental Evolution -- call it whatever you wish) denier.  Nor does he strongly contest the contention that modern man's carbon fuel effluence has contributed to the increasingly effective carbon dioxide greenhouse surrounding this big blue marble.  

He just doesn't think it is really anything over which to commit collective suicide.

The Colonel can accept the bases of most of the theories and notions about the consequences of the Earth's atmospheric temperature fluctuation -- whether amplified by modern man's actions or not.  

He is just not ready to discard the adjective "modern" in order to attempt arrest of the amplification.

The Colonel wonders, with what is left of his rapidly diminishing cognitive abilities, "Wouldn't it be much more modern for man to figure out ways to adapt to the change in climate to our advantage, rather than frantically cutting off our collective post-modern proboscis to spite ourselves?" 

Even the most casual review of the history of man reveals clearly that among his greatest attributes are his abilities to shape, and adapt.

Still, there is an even deeper and more worrisome problem with the climate change fear-mongers.  The fear they purvey is a spirit-killing spear to the heart of man.  

In his 1950 Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech, William Faulkner eloquently expressed the point toward which the Colonel has heretofore ineloquently bloviated,

"Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only one question: When will I be blown up?"

Faulkner spoke generally to a world gripped by the fear of impending and seemingly unavoidable nuclear holocaust. 

He spoke specifically to young writers who, accepting the prevailing conventional wisdom that man's minutes were irrevocably numbered in the shadow of runaway nuclear fission mushroom clouds, had, in his words, 

"...forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat." 

Faulkner warned that man, generally, and a writer, specifically, 

"...must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid: and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed--love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, and victories without hope and worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands."  

Faulkner spoke to the young writers of his age, but his words hold the power of universal inspiration today.  He summed up his firm faith in the God-given spirit of man with,

"I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance."

To which the Colonel need only add,

Ditto.
  

Nose for a Fight

Determining three months ago that he was turning himself into a bipedal food blister, the Colonel took corrective action and placed his sorry, not-so-slim self on an indefinite weight control and personal appearance program.

By the end of two months, the Colonel had shed eleven pounds. 

A much needed haircut helped him accomplish his goal of twelve pounds lost in 60 days.

During the next thirty days, the Colonel discarded an additional eight pounds off of his rapidly trimming frame, two pounds of which were lost just yesterday.

This morning, the Colonel's rather prominent proboscis is sporting a rather impressive collection of lengthy lateral lacerations, from which the Colonel estimates he lost at least two pints of blood -- at slightly more than one pound per pint.

Here's how it happened.

The Colonel and his trusty red tractor, Semper Field (not to be confused with his boat -- Semper Fish, nor his sawmill -- Semper Filet, nor even his rusty red pick-up -- Semper Fillit) were bush-hoggin' one of the many far-flung fields aboard the Colonel's vast holdings here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere.  The Colonel and Semper Field had completed cutting about half of the field when out of the corner of his eye the Colonel caught movement at the other end of the cleared expanse.

As the Colonel watched in amazement, onto the freshly-flayed field sauntered the biggest, orneriest, longest-fanged, sharpest-clawed bobcat in three counties and half of a fourth.

The Colonel brought Semper Field to an idling halt and gave the fierce feline his rapt attention.

The Colonel trained his finely calibrated Mark I, Mod A starboard eyeball on the cat and whistled low to himself -- the beast stood at least two and a half feet at the shoulder, with a head the size of a youth-league basketball.

A youth-league basketball?  Well, it weren't quite as big as a regulation basketball, and the Colonel ain't gonna be made out a liar over a stupid basketball.

The bobcat had spots as big around as one of the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's dessert plates and yellow eyes the size of half-dollars.  

And the yellow eyes were fixed on the Colonel.  

The Colonel's been in enough scraps to know when he's being called out, and this bad cat was clearly calling the Colonel out.

The Colonel ain't backed down from a fight, ever.  And, the Colonel ain't afraid of nuthin' nor nobuddy -- exceptin' the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda.

The Colonel took Semper Field out of gear and turned off the engine.  As the diesel rattled to a stop, the Colonel could clearly discern, even with his infantry weapons firing-depleted and tinnitus-afflicted hearing, the cat's low menacing growl, despite the fact that a good 100 meters separated cat and Colonel.

The Colonel climbed down from Semper Field and advanced on the bobcat with his vocal chords vibrating a growl of their own.  

The cat's eyes fairly gleamed as he trotted toward the Colonel.

The Colonel broke into a trot of his own and as the closure rate increased and the gap d' clash decreased, the Colonel's last few remaining cognitive cells lying fallow in a forgotten cranny of his bony brain-housing group jostled together just long enough to allow a synapse to fire and send a tiny charge to his low-judgement warning light.

The problem with his low-judgement warning light is it always flickers on well past the point at which the Colonel's low judgement level will allow him to do anything about it.

The thought did flash briefly across the cavernous expanse between the Colonel's ears that this cat might very well be capable of putting that last entry in the Colonel's health record -- Semper Final, if you will. 

But, the faintly blinking low judgement warning light and the last flashing thought of possible passage to his eternal reward were blotted from the Colonel's muddled mind by the searing pain attendant with punching the bobcat in a claw with his nose.

The Colonel's nose, with ample target area for even the most casual of area weapon engagements, split open in three places like a ripe tomato swiped by a..., well..., a bobcat's clawed paw.

Blood poured forth from his lacerated schnazz at a rate that the Colonel estimated would result in complete emptying of his body's hemoglobin reservoir within minutes.

As much as the Colonel was deeply enjoying the catfight, his low blood-level warning klaxon cut through the snarlin', growlin', screechin', and screamin' that emanates from any good tussle with a wildcat and the Colonel, despite the previously mentioned light-warned judgement deficit, summoned enough discretion to effect a not-so-valorous fighting withdrawal and eventual break in contact with the bobcat, long enough to rip off the remains of his shredded t-shirt and apply it with direct pressure to the grievous wound...

Not buying it?

Okay, here's what really happened.

The Colonel and his trusty red tractor -- Semper Field -- were bush-hoggin' one of the many far-flung fields aboard the Colonel's vast holdings here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere when the Colonel was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the killer cane of the most robust blackberry bramble in three counties and half of a fourth.

Said killer cane was thirty-seven and one-half feet long and as big around as the barrel of the Colonel's trusty deer rifle -- Semper Fire.

Thirty-seven and one-half feet long?  The Colonel could have just said thirty-seven or thirty-eight feet, but he ain't gonna be made out a liar, or exaggerator, over a stupid blackberry vine.   



Not only was the blackberry cane in question lethally long and pointedly potent, but it was heatedly hostile and mobile to boot. 

The Colonel and Semper Field were half a field away from the killer blackberry cane's bramble.  The killer cane's bobcat claw thorns fairly glistened as it leaped from it's bramble and raced toward the Colonel's nose...

That's the Colonel's story, and he's stickin' to it.