Risk Acceptance and the Future of the Republic

At the end of the Roman Republic, two decades before the birth of Christ,  Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) -- considered the most famous Roman poet -- penned the epic "Aeneid," chronicling a Trojan warrior's mythic ancestry of Rome.  Virgil took his protagonist, Aeneas, from the "Illiad" and fashioned a virtuous and courageous ancestor to whom Romans could look during a time of political upheaval.   

Virgil's masterpiece was entirely a made-up piece of propaganda, but it was bought hook, line, and sinker by the citizens of Rome.  In particular, Aeneas' "pieta" (selfless loyalty) became the animating spirit of the Roman Empire as it expanded across the known world.

From Aeneas' lips, via Virgil's pen, we have a saying that has motivated human endeavors more than any other like utterance for the millennia since:

Fortes Fortuna Juvat  

Fortune Favors the Brave (or Bold)

The phrase has slipped the lips of men and women of valor in challenging circumstances in every century and on every continent.

Military units across the globe and across the ages have adopted it as their moto and exemplar of their ethos. 

Pliny the Elder said it as he ordered his galley across the Bay of Naples under a cloud of Vesuvius' volcanic fallout in a heroic attempt to rescue fellow Romans at Pompeii. 

Pliny died shortly thereafter.  But that is the point.

The example of Pliny's selfless effort, in the mold of Aeneas, motivated his fellow Romans to greater actions in greater crises thence.

Our Republic currently faces a viral volcano whose fallout threatens to bury every cherished right and privilege for which generations of  Americans have placed their very lives at risk. 

Fortune favored the actions of the brave men who rallied against British government heavy-handedness in 1775.

Fortune favored the commitment of the brave men who pledged their lives and their sacred honor with signatures on the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

Fortune favored the bold act of General George Washington as he gambled on a newly developed smallpox vaccine for his army in winter camp in 1777.

Let's pause and look in depth at that bold move.

Smallpox was raging in North America at the time of the Revolution.  Most of the British soldiers sent to put down the colonial rebellion had already been exposed in Europe and were largely immune.  Those on the American continent were not.  Washington knew that were smallpox to sweep through his army in the field, the debilitating disease would render it completely ineffective and at the mercy of simple British attack.  But, vaccinating against smallpox was considered dangerous and was, dare the Colonel say it, politically incorrect -- the Continental Congress even went so far in their feckless fear as to pass a law forbidding inoculation.  

General Washington was mindful that disease (smallpox included) accounted for nine times more casualties than battles in 18th Century warfare.  He disregarded Congress' political posturing and boldly embarked on a smallpox inoculation program for his army.  Washington had to do it secretly -- his army was within easy striking range of the main British force and if they divined that the rebel army was temporarily incapacitated by the effects of the inoculation, they could stamp out the hope of the rebellion in so far as it depended on Washington's ability to keep an army in the field.   

Washington's bold move could have ended disastrously.  It was a high risk move.  But fortune favored his boldness. In the months ahead, wings of a small, but relatively healthy, Continental Army scored dramatic successes at Saratoga, and exhausted Cornwallis in a chase across the Carolinas.  Without the two of which, the climactic, war-ending battle at Yorktown would not have been possible. 

In the two and a half centuries since, fortune has favored bold American action in the face of daunting challenges, the recounting of which will no doubt risk the patience of the Colonel's meager readership.

The Colonel isn't praising foolhardy risk-taking -- you know, the kind of carelessness that the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda reminds him to avoid every time he leaves the house, and for good reason.  No, the key to fortunate outcomes is calculated risk.

Sun Tzu said it best: "Know your enemy and know yourself: in a hundred battles you will not be in peril."

Knowledge, therefore, is the indispensable foundation.

Not feelings...

Not popular belief or majority opinion...

Knowledge  

In any endeavor, if you prepare with study and arm yourself with truth, you will decidedly shift the probability of positive outcome in your favor. 

While a foundation of knowledge -- of the factors bearing on the situation and of one's own capabilities -- is foundational, there is the grasp of another intangible on which fortune smiles:

Morale

Napoleon's equation is instructive: "In war, the moral is to the physical as ten is to one."

Nowhere in the history is the multiplying effect of cohesive morale, and bold leadership more evident that at the 334 B.C. Battle of the Granicus River.

When Phillip of Macedon, the king of a resurgent Greek empire, died, his son Alexander inherited the throne and, with it, Phillip's goal of invading and subduing long-time adversary Persia.

It was a daunting goal.  The Persian Empire was far larger, wealthier, and accomplished than Macedon. 

But, Alexander, barely into his twenties, had quickly consolidated his father's recently-won empire -- quickly subduing rebellious Greek provinces -- and in the process had begun to develop an aura of personal invincibility.  Alexander led from the front; his weapons often drawing first blood. 

And, with his elite shock-troop body-guard, the 300-man Companion Cavalry, as his fiercely loyal and exemplary spearhead, Alexander's battlefield exploits were often the decisive action.  Morale in his army was ascendant.  

When Alexander crossed the Hellespont (the strait separating Greece and Asia Minor) in 334 B.C., the Persian forces in Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) adopted a strategy of exhausting the Greek army until well-defensible terrain could be used to halt and destroy Alexander's invasion force.  That terrain feature was the Granicus River.

When Alexander arrived on the south bank of the Granicus after a rapid and exhausting 60 - mile march, the young warrior king found  his adversary guarding the north bank.  The Persian commander calculated, quite reasonably, that if the Greeks attempted to cross the river the attackers could be cut down as they climbed the Granicus' steep banks on the Persian side.

Alexander's senior generals counseled caution.  They advised Alexander to seek another, less well-defended, crossing.  It was sound advice.

But Alexander had prepared himself mentally, and his army physically, for just this opportunity.  

The odds were against him.  The Persian army far outnumbered his own, and was arrayed in a commanding defensive position.  Alexander's forces needed rest.

Alexander, however, knew that he possessed key intangible strengths vis-a-vis the Persians.

First, Alexander's army was far more cohesive.  Morale springs from cohesion -- the bond between brothers-in-arms -- and, morale rises to leadership by example.  

The army facing Alexander was a polyglot of units drawn from across the Persian empire.  A large component of the Persian force was actually a Greek mercenary outfit.  

Alexander knew his enemy.  He knew his own capabilities.  And, he knew the high spirit of his army -- embodied by his own personal example.

Alexander immediately attacked.

It seems a rash action, taken almost without pause upon his arrival at the Granicus.  But, Alexander calculated the risk of immediate action against that of delaying, and saw the intangible blow to Persian morale going forward were his Greeks triumphant in this first contact.

While Alexander and his Companion Cavalry stood on the right flank of his army, a Greek feint against the Persian right drew attention and forces to meet it.  Alexander then led his spearhead splashing across the river and crashing into the Persian center.

The melee that followed was brutal, but the high morale of Alexander's men, and Alexander's bold leadership, prevailed against the greater numbers of the enemy.

What do the historical examples of Washington's and Alexander's risk-taking mean to our Republic today?  Well, our Republic's future success depends, in the Colonel's not-so humble opinion, on the level of risk adversity that our people allow to creep into their souls.  

The men and women who immigrated to our continent's shores, and then subdued and settled its breadth, were masters of the calculated risk. The safe bet would have been to remain in their countries of origin.  Further, the far less risky course of action for the new Americans would have been to remain huddled in the relative safety of enclaves east of the Appalachians.

But, our ancestors calculated the risk against the potential reward and attacked across their "Granicus."

Our ancestors accepted the risks of inoculation and defeated smallpox, typhus, yellow fever, and polio, even as many of their fellows counseled caution and peddled fear.

Our ancestors stood up to some of the greatest war machines in history -- Great Britain (twice), Germany (twice), Japan, the Soviet Union, to name but a few -- even as many of their fellow Americans counseled appeasement and accommodation.  

The Colonel is at the point of his life where his mortality is felt more and more keenly with every waking.  There's not much left in the tank for physical combat.  But, he will never stop exhorting his fellow Americans to seize on the example of their forebears and adopt the motto: 

Fortune Favors the Bold!            

The REAL Volunteer State

Some of the Colonel's early Mississippi ancestors settled in a corner of what is now Chickasaw County, over 150 years ago.  The now-unincorporated community is called Buena Vista.  And, it is just about as remote as any like spot in the Magnolia State.  

The Colonel's knows a bit about remote.  He's been to some pretty far- flung and isolated corners of this big blue marble.  His own vast holdings here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere vie for inclusion on that list.

But, that's not even remotely germane to the topic of this post.

What is important, and is the record-correcting nature of this missive, is the fact that one particular state, which will go un-named (but whose name is spelled with a collection of double consonants and replicated vowels) lays claim to the moniker "Volunteer State" as if it's the best or only example of crisis volunteerism.

The Colonel would like to propose that another state whose name is spelled with a collection of double consonants and replicated vowels is in fact just as, if not more, deserving of recognition for its historic volunteers.

(For the LSU and Bama grads struggling to keep up, the Colonel's paragraphs above refer to the states: Tennessee and Mississippi.)  

And now, the history lesson:

In 1836, Texas won its independence from Mexico after a sharp little fight on the banks of the San Jacinto River.  Over the next decade, the Mexican government continued to contest the boundary separating their country and Texas.  Once Texas was admitted to the Union, the United States claimed the Rio Grande River as the international boundary; Mexico claimed the Nueces River further to the north and east as the limit to their territory.

By 1846, the disagreement over the international boundary had degenerated into a series of escalating military clashes between the U.S. and Mexico.  President Polk -- in the Colonel's not so humble estimation, the greatest U.S. President of the 19th Century (don't take his word for it; look up Polk's accomplishments, in just one term, and decide for yourself) -- stationed half of the U.S. Army's regular troops, some 3,600 men, on the Rio Grande to defend the U.S. claim.  Mexico answered this provocation with force, killing American soldiers in a couple of forays north of the Rio Grande.  

The die was cast.

President Polk asked congress to declare war with Mexico and requested that 50,000 volunteers be called into service for a twelve-month enlistment to augment the small regular army for what was expected to be a quick defeat of the Mexican army in order to force Mexico's acceptance of the Rio Grande border.  

When the call went out for Mississippi volunteers, 17000 (seventeen thousand!) men descended on the Mississippi River port of Vicksburg to enlist.  To put that number in perspective, the free male population of Mississippi at the time was less than 100,000.  In other words, one in every six men in Mississippi volunteered to fight for the United States against Mexico. Factor out the older and physically unable and the ratio is nearer to one out of every three.  

Great.  The rest of you states can send your young men home.  Mississippi will lick Mexico all by itself.

But, the U.S. War Department said that Mississippi was limited to only one 1000-man regiment.  So, a competition of sorts was held in Vicksburg for a couple of weeks, at the end of which one of the finest bodies of American volunteers to ever assemble for combat stood up as the Mississippi Rifles -- so named because they were primarily armed with highly accurate rifled weapons vice the regular Army's and other volunteer state regiments' smooth bore muskets.

According to the custom of the day, most militia's and volunteer units chose their own officers by ballot.  West Point graduate and Mississippi congressman Jefferson Davis was elected commanding officer of the Mississippi regiment.  Davis had been reluctant to vote for war with Mexico, but when he went to war at the head of the Mississippi Rifles he did so without hesitation.

General Zachary Taylor, previously in command of the 3600 regular troops in the area between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, saw his force swell by 3X with the arrival of the volunteer regiments, and he was particularly pleased with the addition of the Mississippi Rifles (commanded by his son-in-law, Davis) to his command.  Once Taylor's force was assembled and equipped to his satisfaction, he marched south into Mexico intending to strike deep and bring the bulk of the Mexican army to a climatic battle.

The Mexican army had other plans.

Astride Taylor's route of march south lay the city of Monterrey with a formidable citadel commanding its approach.  Taylor did not have the resources to mount a lengthy siege, so he endeavored to weaken and reduce the defense of Monterrey through a series of attacks too complicated to tell here.  But, the garrison of Monterrey eventually surrendered the town -- the Mississippi Rifles playing key roles in many of the Monterrey engagements.

Remember, the town of Buena Vista, Mississippi the Colonel mentioned earlier? Well, it wasn't called Buena Vista when it was first incorporated.  In fact, news of Taylor's victory at Monterrey (the first capture of a major foreign city in U.S. history to that point) and the Mississippi Rifle's heroics arrived back home coincident with the incorporation of the little town in remote Chickasaw County and the founders named their new town Monterrey in commemoration.

Key to the surrender of Monterrey was General Taylor's offer of a two month armistice in return.  This allowed the Mexican defenders to evacuate Monterrey relatively intact and to join with a larger Mexican force assembling to the south.  President Polk was not happy with Taylor's decision, told him to hold at Monterrey, and sent a force under General Winfield Scott to land on the central Mexican coast at Vera Cruz and advance west on Mexico City.

In the meantime, Santa Anna (who had recently been allowed to return to Mexico under the pretense that he would help negotiate a settlement of the boundary dispute) prepared to retake Monterrey.  By the middle of February, 1847 he had assembled a force of nearly 20,000 men, albeit not as well armed and equipped as the much smaller American force.  That the date on which Santa Anna began his attack coincided with George Washington's birthday became a point around which the Americans took offense and they rallied in defense of their positions south of Monterrey at a narrow pass near the hacienda Buena Vista.  The fight that followed was a desperate one for the Americans.  Outnumbered and on several occasions outflanked by the Mexican troops, several volunteer elements of Taylor's force melted away under the onslaught.  Into one particularly dangerous breach in his lines, Taylor committed his reserve -- the Mississippi Rifles.  Colonel Davis's exhortation to his regiment, "Stand fast, Mississippians!," remains to this day the motto of the U.S. Army National Guard's 155th Regiment, of which the Mississippi Rifles was the forerunner.    

The Mississippians stood fast.  Taylor held Monterrey.  Winfield Scott later took Mexico City.  The rest is history for another blog post.

Remember the newly incorporated town of Monterrey, Mississippi?  When news of the Mississippi Rifles' stand at Buena Vista reached home, Monterrey, Mississippi was shortly thereafter renamed...

Buena Vista, Mississippi.  

The Colonel's great grandfather, Methodist minister, and namesake, Thomas Edwin Gregory, was born in Buena Vista, Mississippi 35 years later.

The Colonel wonders whether the Reverend ever knew the significance of his birthplace's name.   

The Colonel also wonders why Mississippi is not the "Volunteer State."                                        

Best Kept Secrets of an SLJO

Thirty-eight years ago -- give or take a couple of weeks -- the Colonel, then a first lieutenant, was aboard a ship anchored in the protected waters of an Indian Ocean atoll called Diego Garcia.

The Colonel was then the junior officer on the staff of a Marine Air-Ground Task Force (today called a Marine Expeditionary Unit) embarked on one of the U.S. Navy's BUGS (Big Ugly Gray Ships).  As the junior officer on that staff, the Colonel had a long list of written primary and collateral duties; none of which superseded his unwritten duties as SLJO --[descriptive expletive deleted] Little Jobs Officer.  [descriptive expletive deleted] little jobs were often menial tasks that senior officers considered beneath the dignity of an enlisted man, but requiring the industry of a junior officer shamelessly protective of his career and willing to do anything to stay in the good graces of his superiors.

[descriptive expletive deleted] little jobs often popped up as events or requirements for which the aforesaid senior officers had failed to plan, and for which the time of the most junior and least experienced officer would not be considered a waste.

Assignment to these pop up [descriptive expletive deleted] little jobs often started the same way, but rarely ended like this one:

"Lieutenant George, come here!"

"Sir! It's Lieutenant Gregory."

"What?"

"My name is Lieutenant Gregory, sir."

"Wha... who?  Where is Lieutenant George?" 

"Sir, there is no Lieutenant George."

"Sure there is!  Short, skinny, balding, smart-[descriptive expletive deleted] with a budding Napoleon complex."

"Uh..., that's me, sir.  Lieutenant Gregory."         

 "Whatever, lieutenant...  What are you doing right now?"

"Well, sir, I was writing the operations report that you told me had to be on your desk by noon, and...

"That's not important right now.  Got another job for you.  There's a C-141 leaving from the airfield ashore in three hours.  Be on it."

"Aye, aye, sir!"  The Colonel (then still a lieutenant) spun on his heel and headed for the door.

"Wait a minute, George!  Where are you going?"

"It's Gregory, sir... I was headed ashore as directed." 

"Gregory?  What happened to Lieutenant George?"

The Colonel (then a lieutenant beginning to believe his anonymity meant he'd achieved his terminal rank) stood quietly at the position of attention and waited for further instructions.

"Take this binder, lieutenant.  The C-141 is going to Perth.  When you get there, go to the Parmelia Hilton and set up everything for our Birthday Ball.  The binder has everything you need to do -- follow it to the letter.  We'll be there in a couple of weeks, and..."      
"Perth, Australia, sir?" 

"Don't interrupt me, lieutenant!  Yes, Perth, Australia.  Do I need to send a lance corporal along to supervise you?"

"No, sir."

"Fine.  Listen carefully.  This is the most important job you'll ever have while assigned to this staff, and..."

"Sir, I thought you said that being assigned as the liaison to the Sultan of Oman's Land Forces for last month's exercise was the most important job I'd ever have..."

"Stop interrupting!  You didn't get that assignment -- I gave that mission to Lieutenant George.  Where is he by the way?  He would do a better job with this."     

"Sir... I'm Lieutenant George."

"Thought so!  You're not going very far in this man's Marine Corps if you can't remember your own name.  Now, when you get to the Parmelia Hilton, follow the checklist in this binder to the letter.  Do not deviate.  Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"We've already made reservations for you.  Get going."

"Aye, aye, sir!"

Twelve hours later...at the front desk of the Parmelia Hilton in Perth, Australia:

"G'day, sah!"

"Huh..., yeah, I'm Lieutenant Gregory, U.S. Marines.  I believe I have a reservation..."

"Hmmm, we have a reservation for a Lieutenant George..."

"I'm Lieutenant George..."

"Right, mate.  No worries.  Could'a sworn you said 'Gregory'.  We've been expectin' you!  Here's your room pass.  Our Events Coordinator will ring you up in the morning."  

A bell rung, a porter grabbed the Colonel's bag, and a long elevator ride and a short walk later they were opening the door to his room.

Only it wasn't a "room."  The Colonel has paid onerous mortgages on spaces far smaller.  He followed the porter back down to the front desk.

"Excuse me.  About my room..."

"Sorry, sah.  Is there a problem with it?"

"No... I mean... yes..., I mean..., I'm afraid you've given me the key to the wrong room."

"So very sorry, sah!  Let me check that...  No, sah.  That's the right room."

"But, it's not a "room..."

"Well..., no, sah!  It's our best suite..."

"Hold on there, now, partner!  There ain't no way my per diem is gonna pay for two weeks in that suite!"

"Oh, no, sah!  It's complimentary!"

"Yeah, I know it's nice.  But, I can't afford it."

"It's complimentary, sah.  On the house.  Y'know, mate... free."  

"Even the fruit basket and bottle of wine?"

"Compliments of the house, mate."

Twelve hours, a fruit basket, a bottle of Western Australia's finest, and a long nap on a very long bed later, the Colonel's phone rang.  It was the Events Coordinator.  The Colonel showered and shaved, and lugged his thick binder down to her office.

Before the Colonel could start wading through the hundred or so pages of checklists, the Events Coordinator opened her own binder, "We've taken the liberty of organizing your event along the lines of the events your organization has held here for the past twenty years or so.  Everything is arranged.  Unless you have any additional requirements, all that is required from you is your signature on the contract."  

The Colonel quickly leafed through the Event Coordinator's binder.  It was identical to his.  

The Colonel signed the contract,

Thomas E. George 

Lieutenant George had a very nice, all-expense-paid, two-week stay in Perth, Australia.  And, that's all Lieutenant George has ever had to say about that...

Hanging by a Chad

The coming national election has the Colonel feeling a bit nostalgic.

Oh, for the halcyon days of peaceful and orderly transition of presidential power.

You know, like Bush v. Gore.  

Twenty years ago the Colonel was serving as the Chief of Current Operations on the staff of United States Forces Korea (USFK).  The staff was primarily Army with an eclectic assortment of token representation from the Air Force, Navy, and Marines -- just enough to satisfy the designation: Joint. Parallel to the US staff was a mirror staff composed of Republic of Korea (ROK) military.  The two staffs together formed Combined Forces Command (CFC).  And..., all of this was nominally under the command of United Nations Command (UNC) -- a U.S. Army four star wore all three hats.  As you can well imagine, the organization chart and chain of command was more than just a little convoluted.

The staff didn't let the organizational mishmash get in the way of planning and operational progress, however.  Their own squabbling over rice bowls (military slang for areas of responsibility) was enough of a roadblock. 

The Colonel's counterpart on the ROK half of the combined staff was a ROK Army one-star by the name of Bang (pronounced "bong"). General Bang was (is) a great man who navigated the shoals and undercurrents of, often, competing US and ROK goals with aplomb.  That he had a great sense of humor helped immensely in the herculean task of keeping two armies focused on the threat to the north; not to mention easing a knuckle-dragging Marine's attempt to operate in a completely foreign environment -- the Army way of doing things as much as the Korean.

Early every morning, the combined US - ROK staffs provided BG Bang and the Colonel a half-hour PowerPoint presentation that covered peninsular events over the past 24 hours and progress on planning for upcoming exercises and high-level visits, etc. Afterwards, the principles of the two Current Operations staffs -- representing air, land, naval, and command post -- met in a smaller executive setting. Since most of the stuff of any import had already been covered in the larger audience brief, this smaller session was more about team-building than anything else.

BG Bang and the Colonel had agreed early on that instead of the more comfortable and default seating arrangement around the large  conference table -- US on one side and ROK on the other -- staff counterparts would sit together.  Furthermore, each pair was responsible for teaching each other a slang word or colloquialism that would be shared daily.  The looks around the table were priceless when a South Korean general, whose culture is steeped in polite and deferential speech, answered a subordinate's unbelievable claim regarding an issue with: "I didn't just fall off the turnip truck." 

As you can well imagine, some... okay..., a lot of the slang the American officers taught their Korean counterparts was not appropriate for polite company.  The prim Korean officers tittered like schoolgirls when one would use a blue phrase that would ordinarily not be accepted in their society.  For their part, the American officers, the Colonel included, continuously butchered the Korean language, shocking the deferential Koreans when the wrong tense was used when addressing a senior.

One morning in the second week of November of 2000, BG Bang summarily cut off the culture klatch and asked the Colonel, "What is a chad?" 

What followed -- as will be no surprise to any of you unfortunate enough to have been present when the Colonel has been asked a simple political or history question for which the Colonel believes a very detailed answer is required -- was a narrative tour de force of the Constitution, the States' responsibilities in national elections, and the role of the Electoral College.  

The greatest looks of interest around the table were the Colonel's American subordinates -- they were clearly hearing some of this for the first time.  And, that a knuckle-dragging Marine who didn't go to college (the Colonel went to Ole Miss, instead) could expound on the subject so, was even more amazing to them.

At length, when the Colonel finally paused to take a deep breath, the very prim and polite Korean brigadier general sitting next to him, grasped his forearm and exclaimed, 

"I asked you what time it was; not how to build a [expletive deleted] clock!"                             

Passing Away

The Colonel is a patient man. Advanced age does that to a person.

There was a time when he was the pure, living definition of the word: impatient.  Back then the Colonel had time for neither physical nor philosophical dawdlers.  You either got with his program or you turned in your Colonel's Club membership card and suffered disenfranchisement of any of the rights and privileges thereunto pertaining. 

As you can imagine, the Colonel was a lonely man.  The Colonel's Club was less a club and more a one-man band whose beat paced his marching only.  But that didn't keep him from beating the drum loudly and expecting all within earshot to fall in line behind and get in step.

The vigor with which the Colonel wields his mallet has lessened over the years.  And..., he doesn't care nearly as much about the fact that nobody is marching in step behind him.  But, there have been some interesting additions to his parade of late -- stragglers stepping off the curb and closing the wide gap behind.

Take, for instance, the Colonel's stance on the National Football League.  Now, football is the Colonel's favorite game.  Right behind football on the Colonel's list of favorite games there's...  Nope.  That's it.  It's football and nothing else.  

Baseball?  The Colonel would rather watch slug races.

Hockey?  Yankee fistfight.

Soccer?  Egregious waste of a football field.  

Basketball?  Nap time.

The Colonel believes that the game of football is a successful life's perfect metaphor.  Teamwork.  Controlled violence to achieve dominance over a likewise violent competitor.  Combined arms approach to the battlefield.  The muscle-memory value of repetitious training.  Snap deviations when the plan isn't working.  It's all there.   

So, for the Colonel to completely stop watching the NFL nearly two decades ago...  Well, that tells you a little something about what he feels about the situation.

The Colonel stopped watching professional football when it started becoming more about the players than the team.  The Colonel despises Fantasy Football -- the root of all rot in the NFL, in his not-so-humble opinion.

And, now that the NFL has become more a showcase for petulant players' social justice (a term that is about neither the good of all society nor about real color-blind justice) platform, than about a city's or region's pride in it's TEAM, the trickle of disenchanted fans turning off the NFL has become a torrent.

The Colonel says, "Welcome aboard."

There's also something else the Colonel wants to say but he won't...

He shouldn't...

Wouldn't be polite...

Might upset somebody...

Oh, well.  He can't restrain himself.

"What. Took. You. So. Long!!!" 

Did you really believe -- twenty years ago -- that professional football would weather the glorification of individuals over team?  That the NFL would be better for it?  Really?  

So, it actually took entire groups of individuals (can't really call what the NFL fields, teams, anymore) putting a rapist's name on their helmets and disrespecting the hundreds of thousands of American fighting men and women -- of all segments of the most diverse society on the planet --  whose mortal remains were honorably and respectfully covered by the flag during whose anthem they kneel, to make you walk away in disgust.  Have you really not been disgusted before now?  Really?  

At some point in the not too distant future, our nation will be at war with a near-peer competitor who will pose a truly existential threat.  The All Volunteer Force (actually the All Recruited Force -- there is a significant difference) that has provided forces with which our Republic's political leadership (the Colonel uses that term as loosely as a baby's diaper deposit) has dallied in limited objective (read: non-decisive) military adventures abroad over the past half century will not be sufficient for that fight.  When real war comes to the heartland -- the fight with a near-peer competitor will see physical effects across the fruited plains -- every citizen and temporary resident of our Republic will suddenly find themselves deeply involved.  

Think the Wuhan Virus pandemic has been disruptive?  You ain't seen nuthin' that will compare to entire regions of our great nation engulfed in kinetic warfighting effects.  

The NFL will cease to exist.

It already has, as far as the Colonel is concerned.                  

  

The Call of Citizenship

"History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon." -- Napoleon

The Colonel has increasingly moved toward entrance into the camp of those whose version of past events is decidedly different than the majority opinion.  It happens to people who really study history objectively and comprehensively.  Most don't, and remain blissfully ignorant.

The Colonel is looking at you, Americans.

  

In the decades leading up to America's third major civil war (See King Philip's War of 1675 - 1678, and the misnamed American Revolutionary War of 1775 - 1783, for the first and second major civil wars), American politicians sought to preserve the union of states by compromising over the heinous practice of chattel slavery.

With the change of presidential administrations in 1861, under a new political party (the Republican Party) specifically organized to end the practice of chattel slavery throughout the entire union of states, American politicians effectively discarded the canard of compromise.  Southern politicians led their states in a revolt against the central government (a move they claimed, not altogether erroneously, echoed the revolt against the central government in 1775), and Northern politicians rallied their states in an effort to "preserve the union."      

Neither position was particularly popular to a majority of citizens in either region.  But, as is nearly always the case throughout history, and is certainly true today, the views of a malcontent minority  receive the most attention.  

Let's be clear -- the base cause of Southern secession was indeed the desire to preserve the institution of slavery.  Full stop.  Historians sympathetic to the antebellum south have cloaked that root cause in the threadbare cloth of "states rights," but the overarching "right" the southern states sought to preserve was the right to maintain the institution of slavery.  Period.

And..., let's be likewise clear-eyed regarding the real reason Northern politicians were so intent on preventing Southern secession.  Southern politicians weren't nearly so interested in whether western states would enter the union as "slave" or "free" as they were in the prospect of "tropical" lands to the south (much more conducive to agriculture based on slave labor) joining the union.  Northern politicians feared dilution of their power in that possibility -- they had prevented President James K. Polk from annexing all of Mexico (as he easily could have) at the conclusion of the War with Mexico in 1849.  Annexation of just the northern half of Mexican territory (the half least suited to agriculture based on slave labor) added enormously rich lands to the Union without the prospect of diminishing Northern politicians' power.  An independent Southern nation's manifest destiny would not be westward.  Had the Confederacy succeeded in establishing its independence, the Southern nation might very well have rather quickly extended itself to include at least the Caribbean and Central America.  Such a nation would have become an economic power-house with which the remaining states in the diminished United States would have had a difficult time competing. 

    

The vast majority of citizens on either side of the Mason-Dixon Line were not overly enthusiastic about the prospect of war in 1861 (just as the vast majority of colonists were not enthusiastic about the prospect of war in 1775).  Their politicians were, and they generated enthusiasm (as politicians always do) by rationalizing war as a means of projecting ideals (North) or protecting property (South).

And, so we find ourselves today -- politicians on one side of the aisle (the ideological Mason-Dixon Line, if you will) generating enthusiasm for projecting ideals (socialism) and politicians on the other side provoking an opposing reaction for the protection of property (capitalism).  But, in reality, as it has nearly always been, the politicians on either side care far less for their side's ideology than they do for the personal power that accrues to the leaders of the ascendant movement.  

Politicians are able to accrue personal power, at the expense of those they purport to serve, because the vast majority of the people are unwilling to do the hard work of citizenship in our Republic.  True citizenship is not a label; it is a calling. 

The call of citizenship requires education.  

A worthy citizen of our Republic should have an appreciation of the objective, unvarnished version of the Republic's history.  Public education textbooks do not provide this.  If a citizen's study of his republic's history ends with public school education, he or she is not answering the call of citizenship. 

A worthy citizen of our Republic should have ready access to our Constitution, through even the most casual study of which the least educated of us can determine for ourselves whether a politician's proposal passes the Constitutionality test.  If a citizen depends on the courts to tell him or her what is Constitutional, he or she is not answering the call of citizenship. 

The call of citizenship requires acceptance of responsibility.

A responsible citizen is one who leaves our Republic in better condition and in better hands than he or she inherited it.  Our Republic is indeed an incredibly valuable inheritance, and each generation of Americans should do all in their power to at least preserve the principal of that inheritance by observing and preserving the principles upon which that inheritance was initially bequeathed.

A responsible citizen ensures that his or her progeny are prepared to inherit the riches of our Republic.  Leaving this up to our public schools (love you, teachers, but you know the Colonel is right) is not a responsible action. 

The call of citizenship requires the sacrifice of service.  In some form or another, above and beyond just being a productive member of society, every citizen should seek a way to serve the other members of our Republic.  The older, if not necessarily wiser, the Colonel gets, the more he doesn't view his service in uniform as particularly sacrificial -- he was adequately compensated for his service.  

So, he'll seek to serve by sacrificing his time and continuing to write.

    

The Coming Fourth American Civil War

Ask any public school graduate to provide the very basics of the seminal wars of the American experience and you will be lucky to get a vague accounting that may or may not include the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the War with Mexico, the Civil War, the War with Spain, the First World War, the Second World War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and the two major campaign theaters (Iraq and Afghanistan) of the Global War on Terrorism.

Ask for causes and participants in each of the above and you will be lucky to get much more than a shrug of the shoulders and a dismissive, "Dude, that's history.  It don't matter anymore..."  

So, the Colonel knows that any post hereon which deals with any critical analysis of history (particularly causes and effects of military conflicts) runs the risk of finding their way to the bottom of the list of most-read.  Nonetheless, he is uncontrollably driven to posit a likely future event given the current state of American social and political discourse viewed through the lens of American history.

The Colonel believes we are on the cusp of the Fourth American Civil War.

At this point, the Colonel is sure that the lips of a majority of the Alabama and LSU fans who began reading this missive have already tired, and they have left to google search tree-killing herbicides and corndog recipes.  The rest of you dear and valued readers are no doubt scratching your hat racks and asking,

"Fourth American Civil War?"

Yep.  We Americans have endured at least three previous major civil wars since European colonists began beaching boats on the New World's coasts. 

"But, Colonel.  My high school U.S. History teacher taught us that there was just one civil war and it was fought by the North to free the slaves in the South."

The Colonel knows what you were taught.  He had the same textbooks.  But, you see, there are these marvelous things called non-fiction history books that actually contain critical analysis beyond the one paragraph summary indoctrinations provided by modern public school textbooks.  Read enough of these marvelous critical examinations of history and you can actually begin to discern the truth of history.  Not only that, but you can learn to critically analyze the present and predict possible futures.

The Colonel's bit-more-than-cursory examination of history informs him that there have actually been several major, and many minor, civil wars on the North American continent since the 16th Century.  Let's take a look at three from which we can draw conclusions that may inform us about the coming fourth.

King Phillip's War
            Hop in the way-back machine with the Colonel and let's flash back to the year 1675.  The scene is the northeastern region of the future United States we now refer to as New England.  Five decades of European colonists had established enclaves along the New England seaboard and despite on and off skirmishing with the Native American people then occupying the territory (having displaced others), the separate European enclaves had lived largely in peace by establishing alliances with the various tribes against those tribes enemies.  Under the paramount chief of the Wampanoag Confederacy, Massasoit, the native population, though decimated by disease had maintained an equilibrium of sorts with the European settlers and the two occasionally joined forces to resist encroachments and raids by outside tribes.  But, as the tide of European settlement continued rise, competition for land and resources began to mount correspondingly.  The natives were restless.

With the deaths of Massasoit and his oldest son in 1692, Massasoit's younger son, Metacomet assumed leadership of the Wampanoags.  He was a rather prideful man, full of his position, and assumed the name King Phillip because he believed himself to be on par not with the various village and town leaders of the colonists, but with their king in England.  He continued his father's strategy of peaceful social and economic interrelationships with the colonists.  However, he began to doubt that the colonists felt the same way about the relationship that he did, and he chafed at what he considered disrespect and breaking of promises as the settlements expanded into more and more of traditional Wampanoag land.

King Phillip began to conspire with tribes in the interior, whipping up anti-European sentiment and promising to destroy the European settlements before the European population got too big to stop.  But, King Phillip was not able to enlist all of the various tribes in his conspiracy and several remained loyal to the Europeans with whom they had developed deep social and beneficial economic relationships they were loathe to abandon.

During the spring of 1675, warriors from tribes loyal to King Phillip began raids against isolated European settlements.  The European reaction was swift and indiscriminate.  Soon open war wracked the region.  Native Americans were caught up on both sides of the war in fighting and destruction that eclipsed any the region had ever seen.  By the end of hostilities a year later some of the major native tribes had suffered 50 to 80% population losses.  The European colonists had suffered nearly 10% population losses.  Scores of towns and settlements on both sides were completely destroyed.

King Phillip's War, which had enough definitive hallmarks to be considered a civil war, was the most destructive war on the North American continent per capita.  Even surpassing the calamity of the War for Southern Independence (aka Civil War) in 1861 - 1865 in terms of percentage of population and property lost.

King Phillip's War was the first major American civil war.  It's casus belli was primarily competition over land and resources.

The American Revolution
             Arguably, the seeds for the American colonial rebellion against Britain were planted during what we call the French and Indian War  -- a relatively minor campaign in the titanic European struggle that wracked the world in the middle of the 18th Century.  Native American populations again found themselves on both sides of a conflict -- this time between France and England.  Native tribes that attempted to stay out of the fight were indiscriminately attacked by both sides.  

To pay for the cost of that war, Great Britain levied taxes on commerce with its colonies.  The so-called Stamp Act of 1765, requiring that all publications and public records in the American Colonies be printed on paper containing a paid-for stamp, was one of the most ubiquitous and irritating of these taxes -- particularly so because it was imposed without participation and/or approval of the political representation in America.  Ergo the resistance slogan: "No taxation without representation."  

Commercial interests in the New England colonies -- particularly Boston -- agitated more and more fervently against London's heavy-handed and dismissive attitude toward its colonial subjects in America and began to act out in not-so passive resistance.  This prompted a dramatic increase in British troop presence (including mercenary forces) that further exacerbated the situation. 

The British move to seize militia-stockpiled arms and ammunition in Lexington and Concord set the spark to the powder keg of Colonial resentment against the heavy handedness of the Crown -- at least in New England.

In the Southern Colonies the reaction to the anti-Crown activities in New England was a mixture of horror, revulsion, and fear.  There was already developing a cultural divide between the two regions and the Southern Colonies were, frankly, happy with the very beneficial trade of their agricultural commodities with Britain.  The majority of colonists in the Southern Colonies were either completely loyal to the Crown or, in the case of settlers in remote western lands, ambivalent to a concept of "independence" they already enjoyed de facto.  It took more than a year of open hostilities in New England, before the representatives of enough Southern Colonies were cajoled into supporting the Continental Congress' declaration of independence.

It wasn't until the British carried the war to the South in 1780 that more than a small minority of Southerners participated on either side.  But, heavy-handed tactics by Cornwallis and two of his more notorious lieutenants (Lt.Col. Banastre Tarleton and Maj. Patrick Ferguson), incited open warfare (true civil war) between loyalists and rebels (aka patriots).  The intensity of fighting in the war of maneuver employed by General Washington in the north (primarily aimed at keeping a viable force in the field -- the destruction of which would have snuffed out the rebellion) paled in comparison to the ferocity of fighting between Americans in the South as loyalists and rebels (in militia formations and out) settled old scores and created new scores to be settled.

The American Revolution, particularly in the South, was the second American civil war.  

The American Civil War
       The third major civil war on the North American continent (at least since the arrival of Europeans) was the war fought over southern states' secession from the United States.  History written by the winners of that conflict states flatly that the war was fought to "free the slaves." This belies the fact that Lincoln's war to "preserve the Union" did not assume the abolitionist mantle until halfway through the conflict.  Confederate apologists argue that the war was fought over "economic" reasons.  They are correct, but turn a blind eye to the fact that the economy in the south was built on the back of chattel slavery.  

The war fought between 1861 and 1865 was conceived by politicians from two regions (north and south) with widely different economic bases (industrial vs agricultural) and governing philosophies (bias toward national supremacy vs tendency toward state sovereignty).  The war was disastrous for the south -- a significant portion of its infrastructure was wrecked, cities and towns burned, and farms laid waste.  It took the better part of the next century for the region to recover economic vibrancy.  But, from a purely scientific viewpoint, it can be argued that the American Civil War actually sowed seeds of American Exceptionalism whose germination bore amazing fruit in the next century.                                  

The Coming Fourth American Civil War
       War is the single most prevalent theme in the history of man.  Wars between peoples who on the surface have all but the most superficial things in common is common.  Even the most cursory examination of history shows that.  To believe that the American experience will be any different..., well..., it hasn't been so far; and it will likely not be any different in the future.
               

The Colonel believes another major American civil war is all but inevitable, to be fought for much the same reasons the first three major civil wars (and countless minor civil wars) were.   It might even be America's next great conflict...


...or it might be the coming war with China.  The Colonel's crystal ball is a little cloudy on that point this morning. 

     

The Great Shagginess

The Colonel hasn't been out in public much lately, but current photographic evidence perused on social media indicates that it has gotten a little shaggy out there.  

The Chicom Cold has shuttered our barber shops, and we've become so starved for any novel stimulation, intellectual or not, that head hygiene and grooming experimentation has become a widespread epidemic...

...too soon?

    

And..., the Colonel has to admit... he's become part of The Great Shagginess.  

There once was a time that the Colonel's haircut motto was "once a week, whether needed or not."  In fact, early in his career as a ruggedly handsome soldier of the sea, he bought a set of electric hair clippers and began cutting his own hair (or, at least what was left of it due to early onset follicle failure) every Monday morning shortly after reveille.  Set on the lowest level, the Colonel's clippers cropped his blond mane so tightly against his shiny grape that on sunny days he was occasionally buzzed by search and rescue helicopters.   

That $20 investment paid for itself in the first month.  The Colonel has been plowing the savings on barber shop visits (and comb purchases) back into his gunpowder addiction ever since.  He hasn't counted either recently, but the Colonel is relatively certain that the number of hairs left on the top of his brain housing group are greatly outnumbered by the lead launchers in his gun safe.

It occurred to the Colonel the other day that he had the wherewithal to be of service to his fellow man and do his part to fight back against the scourge of The Great Shagginess.

The Colonel's best friend -- the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda -- came looking for the Colonel the other day,

"There you are, knucklehead," she cooed, finally finding the Colonel sitting in a chair at the end of the long drive winding from the Big House down to the county road.

(Some may think her tone was more condescending that coo, but most don't know the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda like the Colonel does.  One man's condescension is another man's coo.)

"What are you doing?  And, why do you have your generator down here."

"Silly dear," the Colonel cooed (the Colonel doesn't dare condescend to the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda), "they won't run without electricity."

"What won't run?"

"These," the Colonel answered, holding his hair clippers aloft in his palms as if presenting an offering to the gods of shorndom.  

"Your hair clippers?  You haven't touched those in over two months?  Why are you cutting your hair down here at the road?"

"The Colonel is not cutting his own hair, dear."

"Well, why not?  You're starting to look like you just staggered down out of the mountains at the end of a long winter."

The Colonel ignored the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's lack of geographic knowledge -- there's not a mountain anywhere near staggering distance from his vast land holdings here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere.  Instead, he addressed her query regarding his operational pause in the grooming standards attack, 

"Haven't had a reason to get a haircut or shave, lately.  You know the Colonel only shaves when he goes to church, and we haven't been allowed to meet in person for the past two months, so..."

The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda stood in front of her man with her arms crossed in that endearing way that the Colonel knows means that she's trying very hard to fathom the depths to which her love for him dives.

"I'm trying very hard to remember why I love you," she stated in the matter of fact way she reserves for the moments when she attempts to control her emotions.

The Colonel was beginning to grow uncomfortable with his bride's struggle to find the right words to express her love and admiration for her man, "That's okay, dear.  The Colonel knows you love him.  But, as important as that is to you at this moment, there is a much more important mission on tap."

The Colonel stood and gestured to the scrap of plywood propped up by a feed bucket at his feet.  In the Colonel's practiced military all-caps he had printed,

FREE HAIRCUTS

The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda looked at the sign and then back at the Colonel.  The light in her eyes dimmed ever so slightly as if something in the very depths of her soul had just been placed on life support.  She uncrossed her arms and let them fall to her sides in the dainty way that the Colonel knows means she is surrendering to his superior logic and intellect.

"Knucklehead, you aren't a barber.  You can't give haircuts without a license."

The Colonel raised his right index finger in his time-worn signal that he is about to achieve and maintain argument superiority, "Don't need a license -- ain't chargin' nothin'.  Besides, it's a free country."    



       

Free Country

"It's a free country."

Seems the Colonel doesn't hear that refrain near as much as he used to.

"It's a free country," used to be one of the more popular statements used in American discourse.

If the Colonel wanted to do something out of the mainstream of popular culture or social acceptability, he placed his hands on his hips and declared, "It's a free country!"

If the Colonel wanted to do something out of the mainstream of popular culture or social acceptability, his contemporaries shrugged their shoulders and expressed their passive disapproval with, "It's a free country."

Seems a quaint notion today.

It once wasn't so quaint.  "It's a free country," was once the operating principle upon which Americans based the conduct of their daily lives.  It was also the lens through which the free citizens of our republic gauged the actions of those they had placed in government with the express responsibility of protecting their freedoms.  

When the founders of our republic crafted the Constitution, they not only established a strong federal form of government -- as opposed to the inherently inoperative confederation that preceded it -- they also carefully placed limits on the federal government, intended to protect the rights of the two constituents to that federation -- citizens and states.

The founders knew that they had created a form of national government that would inherently seek to increase its power over the individual sovereign states, at the expense of their right to self-determination; and over the individual citizens, at the expense of their God-given civil rights.  The founders thoughtfully debated the tension that would exist between the government and the freely governed, and added amendments to our Constitution -- colloquially known as the "Bill of Rights" -- that specifically addressed concerns about what  a government -- any government -- would or could do to its constituents.

The First Amendment addressed freedoms at the leading edge of the individual desires that had driven men and women who, eschewing comfort and security for the hope of greater freedom and opportunity, left the relative comfort and security in the "civilized" Old World to take up the challenges of settling the New World:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

The next seven amendments garner the lion's share of attention. The second and third amendments specifically addressed individual rights that had been abused by the British Crown -- maintaining personal weapons and quartering troops in private residences.  The fourth through eighth amendments specifically limit the government's actions, and protect the rights of citizens, within the legal system.

The Colonel thinks that the last two amendments, the two to which too little attention is paid today, are the most important pieces of the entire document.

The Ninth Amendment, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people," is the hidden jewel in the crown from which all the other jewels draw their stability.  The men who put the plan of our government on paper, wise as they were, knew that they could not fathom the depth of freedoms granted men by God.  They made sure, in the Ninth Amendment, to place a fence around  the government -- a moat around the zoo's lion exhibit, if you will -- to restrain the inherent bent toward federal government over-reach.

But, remember, there are two constituents in our Republic's Constitution -- the people and the states.  The Tenth Amendment to our Constitution mirrors the Ninth in this regard: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." 

Why is the Colonel's pedantry on this topic germane today, you ask?

The Colonel answers with a simple question:  Where do you sit as you read this, and why?

Our governments -- people we placed in positions of authority and responsibility at the local, state, and national level -- have decided that, for our protection, they must restrict our freedom.

The Colonel has no problem with a government (the lion on the other side of the moat that is our Constitution) recommending that he self-restrict his own freedom of movement and association. 

But...,

It's a free country.

Tread on the Colonel's God-given freedoms..., tread on the freedoms of his cherished grand-progeny..., tread on the freedoms of the American people... one step further than is absolutely necessary to address the current crisis and the Colonel, and millions like him, will strike back with venom at the ballot box.