Nomenclature

“You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be. And one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid…. You refuse to do it because you want to live longer…. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab you, or shoot at you or bomb your house; so you refuse to take the stand.

Well, you may go on and live until you are 90, but you’re just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.”

     -- Martin Luther King Jr.

Here's where the Colonel stands.  The Colonel is a critically thinking, classically liberal, socially conservative, anti-fascist, (little "r") republican, (big "C") Constitutionalist.

If that nomenclature seems incongruous or doesn't make sense, then you are one, some, or all of the below:

     a) a spoiled, public school-educated member of the very fascist organization known as ANTIFA;

     b) a public school-educated Millennial who thinks the very fascist organization known as ANTIFA is actually anti-fascist;

     c) a low-information voter from either side of the political divide who spends more time generating and sharing Facebook memes poking fun at the other political party and its leaders, than engaging in the critical thought and continuing education required to logically and civilly defend your position on issues of the day;

     d) an LSU or Bama graduate;

     e) a current member of the U.S. Congress

     f) someone with a real life, who has far more important things to do with their time than to spend it, as the Colonel does, researching and writing about the arcane.

Allow the Colonel to break down his name and nomenclature for you:

Colonel.  Military rank achieved during nearly three decades of service as an infantry officer in the United States Marine Corps.  (The Colonel remains at a loss to explain how a man of meager talent and ability as he could attain such rank and will have you know that he retired before the Marine Corps made the colossal mistake of making him a general.)

Classically Liberal.  The great thinkers from whose minds and experience the concept of classical liberalism sprung -- Adam Smith, John Locke, Thomas Robert Malthus, Jean-Baptiste Say,  David Ricardo, Thomas Jefferson, and other critical thinkers -- saw free market capitalism as the greatest guarantor of both an individual's opportunity to achieve self-actualization (not a term they used at the time) and a society's opportunity to thrive economically.  A classical liberal sees the modern social liberal (read: socialist) welfare state as antithetical to the above and actually preventive of individual self-actualization and society's economic prosperity.  A classical liberal believes in a limited government (like the one designed by the crafters of the U.S. Constitution) which purpose is limited to:

     -- the protection of individual rights
     -- the provision of services not provided in a free market
     -- the provision of a common defense against foreign invaders
     -- the enactment and enforcement of civil laws
     -- ensuring a stable currency and appropriate infrastructure for             communications and commerce 

* It should be noted that, contrary to the currently popular and uneducated socialist canard, the perceived comparative decline in economic opportunity and standard of living for the most recent generations is NOT due to any excesses or imperfections in free market capitalism, but rather, has been brought about primarily as a result of the socialist abandonment of free market capitalism in favor of the welfare state and central economic planning.  Many uninformed social liberals point to Sweden as an example of the success of their concept of "democratic socialism."  The truth is  that Sweden's abandonment of classical liberalism and free market capitalism to experiment with radical democratic socialism nearly wrecked their economy and was demonstrating dramatic declines in individual liberty and economic productivity until recently arrested by classical liberal governmental and economic reforms that have restored Sweden's vibrancy -- in other words, Sweden looks so good today precisely because they are returning to free market capitalism and away from statism and the welfare state.  

Socially Conservative.  The foundation of the Colonel's social conservatism is his personal relationship with his Creator (the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), made possible by the atoning sacrifice of Jesus, faith in whom animates the Colonel by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  The Colonel takes no side on any social issue without consideration of God's will for him.  God's spirit not only convicts the Colonel of personal sin, but also grants him (and all who seek His will) spiritual discernment to know what is right in His eyes and what is the Colonel's right actions toward others.  In other words, the Colonel's social conservatism is not his personal position -- it is the position God convicts him to take.  It is the position of grace toward all other humans.  

*The Colonel recognizes that he ain't real graceful toward others most times -- this post included.  He ain't perfect, but God's not through with him yet.    

Anti-fascist.  Websters Dictionary defines fascism as: "a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition [italics, the Colonel's]." 

Fascism, as the Colonel opposes it and as is otherwise defined, is a concept for the creation of a regulated economic structure to transform social relations within a modern, self-determined culture.  Practitioners of fascism are uninhibited in their use of violence as a tool for persuading others to accede to their viewpoint. 

(The very fascist organization which moronically calls itself ANTIFA is the very living, breathing, hypocritically incarnate definition of fascism.)     

Dictatorial, or authoritarian, fascism has been the end result of nearly every society's headlong dive into the socialist shallow end of the governmental systems pool.  Those who wish to impose a socialist system on the American people (in direct opposition to the original intent of the U.S. Constitution) disguise their motives by placing the word "democratic" in the title, "Democratic Socialism."  To the history-challenged and politically uninformed, this makes this brand of socialism sound almost benign.  But, make no mistake, democratic socialism is in fact mob rule over a forced wealth redistribution (as opposed to voluntary charity) system that will always place the most charismatic tyrants in charge.
    
The goal of democratic socialism, in its proponents' and practitioners' own words, is:

"that both the economy and society should be run democratically—to meet public needs, not to make profits for a few. To achieve a more just society, many structures of our government and economy must be radically transformed through greater economic and social democracy so that ordinary Americans can participate in the many decisions that affect our lives." (Platform of the Democratic Socialist Party of America)

The above sounds really nice and all..., but it ain't what our nation was founded on and for -- far, far from it.  Our current system of government (at least the one enshrined in our Constitution) already guarantees the opportunity for "ordinary Americans" to "participate in the many decisions that affect our lives."  Which leads the Colonel to his last points.

The Colonel is a (big "C") Constitutionalist.  The Colonel loves and reveres the Constitution of the United States and the representative republic (NOT a democracy) that it (by "We the People") created and sustains.  And not just because he swore a solemn and everlasting oath to "support and defend" with his life.  The Colonel loves and reveres the U.S. Constitution because he KNOWS it, and in the knowing -- in the continuing study and rediscovery of its genius and corrected flaws -- the Colonel finds an abiding appreciation for the checks and balances that both give voice to the "ordinary Americans" and protects them from their own excesses of partisanship and avarice.  

The Colonel is a (little "r") republican because his knowledge of history and albeit marginal ability to think critically informs him that unchecked democracies always implode into tyranny.  The U.S. Constitution was written by men whose knowledge of history and ability to think critically informed them that, in the Colonel's words, "There's a fine, popular line between freedom and tyranny. A strict interpretation of the United States' Constitution keeps that line bright and visible." 

Far more learned men than the Colonel, acting on far more wise principle than he, subordinated their own partisanship and avarice to create and sustain the Constitution of the United States and the representative republican form of government for which it is the Peoples' guidebook.  

Far be it from the Colonel to consider, let alone advocate, any other system of government for the People of America... and the Americas. 

All the foregoing being said, if the People of our land do decide in democratic fervor to once again "dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them," the Colonel stands ready to assume the mantle of responsibility as a relatively  benevolent dictator.

Let's pray, for all our sake, it never comes to that.   

Confessions of a Carbaholic

The Colonel has a confession to make public.  The guilt of his transgression is growing inside of him like an alien in Sigourney Weaver's belly and he has to fess up early, or later give unnatural birth to a monstrous scandal.

The Colonel had a chocolate chip cookie for dessert last night. 

There! 

Whew!

The Colonel can feel the beast dying inside, dissolving in the second mug of black coffee-induced gastric juices flooding past the check valve missing since his cholecystectomy.

(For the proud GED-holders who make up the vast majority of the Bama and LSU fan bases, a cholecystectomy is the surgical procedure in which one is liberated from a malfunctioning gall bladder and then is subsequently relegated to a life of measuring distances to the nearest restroom.)

The Colonel knows, one chocolate chip cookie isn't the dieters'  crime of the century, but..., for a carbaholic like him, chocolate chip cookies are a gateway drug.  

The sugar high from a fistful of cookies cannot be replicated by just another fistful.  

Next comes ice cream.

And, not just a taste of ice cream in a small desert goblet -- we're talking a medium sized mixing bowl of straight, uncut vanilla, garnished with a fistful of chocolate cookies.  

Oh..., did the Colonel mention that, during his retirement physical sixteen years ago, he was diagnosed as a Type II Diabetic?

Could've had a little something to do with a life of self-medication for his career's physical and mental stress with massive amounts of sweets.  The Colonel is painfully aware that he has no one to blame but himself.  

Here's the point where folks who know the Colonel well say, "But, but..., you are so skinny and stayed so physically active as a Marine!  Didn't you get enough stress relief from the 'runner's high'?"

Runner's high?  You mean the other gateway drug?

The first thing the Colonel did after a long run was accentuate the "runner's high" with a candy bar or three. 

The sheer mass of sugary empty calories the Colonel has ingested over his lifetime, if placed in a pile in the middle of one of his fields here aboard his vast holdings at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere, would implode to the density of a singularity at the center of a tiny black hole that would easily consume the planet.

Okay..., the Colonel exaggerates.

The sucrose singularity of the tiny black hole wouldn't consume the whole planet -- just the northwestern quadrant of the globe, leaving the big blue marble looking like the not-quite completed death star in the movie, "St...

You get the picture.

The day after last Thanksgiving, the Colonel stepped onto the bathroom scales...

He quickly stepped off and went looking for his reading cheaters.  

The cheaters didn't change the number on the scale's digital readout.  Well..., maybe they added an ounce or two...  

The Colonel was a good twenty pounds in excess of his "fighting weight."  He immediately placed himself on the Army of Northern Mississippi's (for which organization he is the commanding general..., and one-man fighting force) Weight Control and Physical Appearance Program. 

The Colonel had an appointment with his doctor a couple of weeks later...

"Colonel, your weight is up a few pounds since your last visit, and your A1C is north of 8.  Are you still staying active?"

"Active?  His scales indicate the Colonel has been actively ingesting any and all foodstuffs within reach."

The doctor looked over his shoulder, "Who are you talking about?"

"Using the third person to self-refer, Doc.  It's the Colonel's verbal version of nails on a chalkboard -- keeps potential threats on edge."

"Not working," Doc pointed at the A1C number on the Colonel's chart.  "We need to get that number down below 7." 

"We? Doc, appreciate your empathetic participation in the Colonel's health care," Doc reflexively looked over his shoulder and then back at the Colonel -- now slightly on edge, "but, this is all on the Colonel.  Started a diet two weeks ago." 

"You picked the wrong time of year to do that." Doc's usually soothing bedside manner was replaced by a more edgy delivery.  The Colonel resisted taking advantage of a "told you so" moment.

"Well, Doc," the Colonel drew himself up to his full 5 foot 6 and 3/4s (don't ever forget the 3/4s), "the Colonel ain't smart and you can't make him." 


Seven weeks into his self-imposed torture regimen (aka: low-carb diet) the Colonel is halfway back to his fighting weight.  He's experiencing serious sugar-withdrawal symptoms this morning, but at least the guilt beast in his belly won't have so much fat to burst through.   

             

Apology Owed

The Colonel wishes he could set the clock back forty years and make another run at something he failed miserably.

The first week of January in 1979, the Colonel (then a second lieutenant fresh out of TBS and the Infantry Officer Course) reported for duty with the Second Marine Division at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.  His first operational assignment was as a rifle platoon commander in Company G, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment.

The Marines of Golf Company's third platoon deserved a competent and caring leader -- instead, they got an immature, self-centered, and tactically lost officer whose greatest contribution to their welfare was an early realization of, and quick reliance on, the competence of his platoon sergeant. 

The assessment above comes after forty years of self-evaluation.  At the time, that young Marine second lieutenant thought he was the second coming of Chesty Puller.

He had been led to believe that when he got to "the fleet" there would be a an infantry platoon of forty or so hard-charging Marines just waiting for him to lead them to glory.  All he needed to do was step to the front, wave his arm forward, and three 13-man squads of combat-hungry Marines would follow him to the outskirts of Moscow.

Reality sucks.

To say that Third Platoon, G 2/2 was "under-strength" in January of 1979 isn't so much an understatement as it is an egregious misuse of the word "strength" in any form.

On paper, the Colonel's platoon had 30 Marines.

On paper.

On pavement, the first chilly morning he stood in front of them, the Colonel counted a little over a dozen.

Three ranks of four or five Marines each.

"Sergeant Herrera," the Colonel asked his platoon sergeant, "where's the rest of the platoon?"

"Sir, three on leave, five U.A., two deserters, three in the brig, two FAP (augmenting higher headquarters) to Base," Sergeant Herrera intoned without referring to any notes. 

The Colonel blinked and stole a sideways glance at the rest of the company formation.  The other platoons were likewise far less on pavement than they were on paper.


The next day, Golf Company hiked to a training area a few miles from the barracks and set up bivouac for two nights.  The Colonel's platoon bivouac area consisted of four tents -- two men in each.  

His first field exercise was in command of half a squad.

The Colonel would like to be able to tell you that he trained those few Marines as if he were training a full-strength rifle platoon, making do with what he had.

He can't.

He was depressed beyond measure and he was the most motivated man in the company.

To make matters worse, that terrible lieutenant focused far more on corralling and correcting the platoon's miscreants than on taking care of his Marines -- learning who they were and looking out for their welfare.  That was the Colonel's real job and he failed at it.


The Marine Corps, indeed all of the U.S. military, at the end of the 1970s was in bad shape.  The experience in Vietnam had hardened and taught a generation of young officer and enlisted leaders who would make the Marine Corps their career; but the majority of the ranks were demoralized by the Vietnam aftermath.  In fact the entire nation was demoralized.

The nation's leader, President Carter, himself bemoaned publicly the national "malaise."  He was a good man, and a fair politician.  But he was no leader.  

His lack of leadership was felt all the way down the ranks to the last private in the last squad of the Colonel's platoon.  It is heartbreaking to think of it now.  What a waste.

And, the Colonel proved no better leader.  He wallowed in the muddy pit of self-pity and discouragement that threatened to make the national disgrace of Vietnam the death knell of the Republic and the great institutions (the military chief among them) that kept it alive.  

But..., there were some who didn't wallow.  There were some who refused to let the military fall any further.  The Colonel knows many of these great Americans personally.  They were mostly mid-career officers and NCOs coming out of Vietnam, and they didn't give up the ship.  There was also, at the top of the Marine Corps in the late seventies and eighties, a few general officers who made it their mission to drag the Corps out of its malaise -- to return it to the high standards of discipline and military excellence that had marked Marines as the world's finest.

Two of the giants of our Corps' history -- two southern gentlemen whose soft-spoken manner belied spines of steel and resolve -- Generals Louis H. Wilson of Mississippi and Robert H. Barrow of Louisiana, both highly decorated veterans of combat in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, were the rocks upon which the tides of the Marine Corps' post-Vietnam dissipation broke.  As the 26th and 27th Commandants of the Marine Corps, their seamless and sterling leadership for eight years righted the ship and restored discipline and focus to the Marines.  Their example and exertions set the tone for the next generation of leaders whose modernization (both equipment and warfighting doctrine) of the Marine Corps was validated in the stunning operational successes of the last three decades.

The Colonel almost left the Corps when his four-year commitment ended in 1982.

Almost.

He had even signed paperwork resigning his commission.

The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda changed his mind.  She wisely saw that the Marine Corps, and not Frito-Lay, was the Colonel's future.

Luckily for him -- and for the Marines he would later lead -- the next five years exposed him to some of the finest leaders with whom he ever served.  When he returned to the Second Marine Division in 1987, this time to serve as a company commander, he was no longer the worst junior leader in the history of the Corps.

He wasn't the best leader in the history of the Corps...

Probably not even in the top half...

But, he knew what his purpose and mission was.

The Colonel owes his modest success in command as a captain, major, lieutenant colonel, and colonel to great peers and seniors who taught him by example -- an example which placed the welfare of his Marines on co-equal footing with a laser focus on mission accomplishment.

The Colonel owes something else as well.

He owes the thirty Marines of 3rd Platoon, Company G, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment in January of 1979 an apology.  He shamefully knows not where a single member of that platoon is today.  He wishes he could gather them together in a school circle and talk to them as equals -- tell them they are remembered as his greatest failure.  But, he would also tell them that the shame of that failure fired his soul to do better.

The Colonel may have failed them.  But they didn't fail the Colonel.