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the junior officer on that staff, the Colonel had a long list of written primary and collateral duties; none of which superseded his unwritten duties as SLJO --[descriptive expletive deleted] Little Jobs Officer.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.                  

The Other Shoe

The Colonel can't help but be a bit pessimistic even in the best of times.  He's a planner.  A military-trained planner.  

There is no such thing as "worst-case" planning in the military.  The going-in assumption is that something (a lot of somethings) will go wrong.  If you don't plan for the worst case as a matter of course, you will most often fail. 

Successful military planners never use the word "hope." 

So, the Colonel, without a glimmer of hope allowed to rest lightly on his faltering optic nerves, always thinks about what bad thing could happen next.

He doesn't worry.  He ain't afraid of nothin' or nobody...

...except the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda.

The Colonel's planning pessimism is not rooted in worry.  It comes of a life-time spent in the study of history.  Not the inanity of names and dates.  No, to study history is to dig deep into the cause and effect of events.  

To truly study history is to understand the major events that shaped the arc of humanity in the past, and to gain a healthy appreciation for probable major events that will challenge humanity in the near future.  

The current Chinese Communist Party abetted pandemic sweeping the globe is nothing new.  Pandemics have swept the globe dozens of times in recorded history.  They will sweep again.  Humanity will never be completely immune to the effects of viruses whose very existence is based on the natural drive to adapt to and overcome immunities.  

So, the Colonel is not at all surprised by the virility and spread of COVID-19.  In fact, he's been expecting something like it.  Not because he has any special prescience -- he just studies history.  And history tells him that these things happen fairly regularly. 

This morning, the Colonel has begun to wonder if and when the next shoe will drop.

Major events like pandemics, natural catastrophes, economic disturbances, wars, or social upheavals rarely happen in isolation.  They are often inter-connected -- causing, or exacerbating one another.  For microcosmic example, local epidemics often follow on the heels of natural disasters that compromise sanitation.

What the Colonel "what ifs" (he doesn't worry, remember) about is the effect a really huge (but certainly not unprecedented) natural catastrophe would have on modern civilization -- particularly at a time when (like the current pandemic) society is already under stress.

What if the New Madrid fault were to slip?  (For you Bama and LSU grads, the Colonel ain't talking about some Spanish wardrobe malfunction.)  A little over 200 years ago, a series of major earthquakes occurred along a mid-continent fault that runs through and near the town of New Madrid, Missouri.  Three of the temblors -- spaced about a month apart -- have been estimated to have been somewhere between 7.5 and 8.0 on the Richter Scale.

Those are big shakes.

Fortunately, the population of the region at the time was sparse.  The human death toll was minimal.  

The physical effects were, in a word, frightening.  

Were a similar earthquake to strike today, the metropolitan areas of Memphis and St. Louis (along with scores of smaller towns in the region) would cease to exist as viable places of habitation.  Very few multi-story buildings would be left standing.  Highway and railroad bridges across the Mississippi River would be compromised, at least; dropped, at worst.  Pipelines of all types -- feeding cities across the nation -- would be ruptured.  Electrical transmission grids would be destroyed.  Roadways would be impassable.  Ten million souls in the region would be instant refugees -- with no way to get away except on foot.

Oh..., and geologists, archaeologists, and seismologists who study the New Madrid Fault, say that earthquakes, like the ones 205 years ago, have occurred every 200 to 500 years in the past.         

But, hey, it might not happen again for another 300 years...

Okay, let's talk volcanoes, then.

Cataclysmic volcanic activity has been a geologic constant throughout history of our planet.  And, when the Colonel uses the word "cataclysmic," he ain't talking about your run of the mill Pompeii-burying Vesuvius, or the more recent Mount St. Helens or Mt. Pinatubo eruptions.  Those were small potatoes compared to what our planet is capable of.

Out west, in our great Republic's fly-over country, is a volcanic caldera the size of Rhode Island.  Millions of folks visit it yearly.  The geologic wonders of Yellowstone National Park are the result of a thin part of the Earth's crust under which bubbles a monstrous plume of molten rock.  The last truly cataclysmic eruption at Yellowstone was approximately 640,000 years ago.  

So, we're due, right?

The projections for the effects of another Yellowstone mega-eruption are awe-inspiring.  The ash fall, alone, will cover a majority of the continental United States in a layer of pulverized rock thick enough to collapse structures.  Actually, it won't be "ash" as in wood ash.  It will be microscopic bits of volcanic glass, which will lacerate lungs and kill..., unless you are protected by, get this, an N-95 mask.

A volcanic mega-eruption, anywhere on the globe, will truly alter the climate.  No tax in the world will fix it. 

Volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis caused by earthquakes -- our planet constantly challenges life's foothold.  The terrestrial threat is great -- the extra-terrestrial threat even greater.

Chunks of rock and ice zipping around our solar system have a habit of running into things -- like each other, planets, moons, and our star.  Over the last few decades we have become painfully aware of the threat.  The Colonel won't belabor it.

The Colonel will, however, bring to your attention an even more likely extraterrestrial threat to humanity -- and it comes from our star.

From casual daily and seasonal observation, ol' Sol seems a constant.  Our sun is in fact a changeable and tempestuous star.  That it provides a predictable supply of light and warmth allows us the dangerous luxury of ignoring it's life-altering capabilities.   

The Colonel refers to what he believes is one of the single greatest threats to humanity's existence on this wet rock -- a coronal mass ejection (CME) from our sun.  

A CME is solar burp of magnetized plasma.  CMEs occur quite regularly -- three to five times a day, depending on the 11-year cycle of solar activity -- and vary greatly in intensity.  Really large CMEs -- fired off in our direction (or rather in the direction of where our planet will be when the CME arrives at our orbital distance from the sun) have very intense effects on our planet's magnetosphere and atmosphere.  When a very large CME's slug of matter and electromagnetic radiation strikes smashes into our magnetosphere, it compresses it, wraps around the planet, and snaps back in a burst of terawatts of electromagnetic energy -- creating a planet-wide electromagnetic pulse (EMP).  If the EMP is strong enough, it pulses through anything that conducts electricity and fries electronic equipment.

The largest EMP-causing CME on record occurred in 1859; named the "Carrington Event" after the British astronomer, Richard Carrington, who observed the immense solar flare and recorded its effects.  And, the effects were incredible.  The only "electronic" equipment at the time were telegraphs.  During the hours-long impact, the Carrington Event CME/EMP surged through telegraph wires, shocking operators and igniting the wooden blocks on which telegraph terminals were mounted.  

When a Carrington Event level CME occurs again (and it will) the EMP will render inoperable every un-shielded piece of electronic equipment, and equipment with electronic components, on the planet -- every car, every radio, every battery-operated watch, every TV, every aircraft (outside of gliders), every computer, every cell-phone, every ICU ventilator, every Keurig coffee machine, every... you get the picture.

Even if some piece of equipment happened to miraculously survive the EMP because it was shielded or wasn't plugged in, it still would be useless -- there will be no surviving electric grid available to power it.

A 2008 study, "Severe Space Weather Events—Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts: A Workshop Report, National Academy of Sciences, 2008," predicted that a Carrington Event level CME/EMP will cause "$2 trillion in damages with a recovery time of four to ten years." 

Oh, and scientists tell us that Carrington Event level CME occur roughly every 100 years.

Enjoy the rest of your fine day... waiting for the other shoe to drop.

            

Social Distancing Fails

Nostalgia has crept into the Colonel's infantry-addled being this morning.

He's been reviewing old photographs from his crayon-munching days and one glaring fact leaps out at him from nearly every image...

Hey, there's no social distancing going on! 

Look here, America, most of you have nothing better to do this morning than peruse the Colonel's historical review of personal social distancing fails...  

You've binge-watched everything binge-watchable.

You've eaten every snack in the 3-week quarantine chow stash.

You've mastered the three sheet wipe.

You've washed your fingerprints off.

You've discovered that teachers are vastly underpaid and you've told the kiddos to go play in the street.

Some of you have even caught yourself contemplating a first-time firearms purchase.  (See Josh at TGC Outdoors and tell him the Colonel sent you.)

You've mastered the mid-morning and mid-afternoon nap.

You've even caught yourself on Pinterest looking for things to make with old neck-ties and empty hand sanitizer bottles.

So, the Colonel is here to rescue you.

Our first entry from the "way back file" is the Colonel, then a first lieutenant, standing in as the potted plant in front of Headquarters Company, 31st Marine Amphibious Unit (31st MAU).   

The year was 1982.  The place was Perth, Australia.  And, that's about all the Colonel remembers (or cares to share) about that port call.  Note the disturbing lack of social distancing.  Note the tavern in the background, which may or may not have contributed to Colonel's inability to remember anything else about this picture.  

Your next social distancing fail stop on the Colonel's historical pictorial trail is a shot of the 31st MAU HQ's LPA (Lieutenants Protective Association). 

The location was aboard LHA 3 (USS Bellau Wood) in the Indian Ocean west of Australia.  The date was 10 November 1982.  The LPA unilaterally decided to upgrade the uniform of the day to celebrate the birthday of the Marine Corps.  The LPA was shortly thereafter sighted by the MAU XO (LtCol Wild Bill Marcantel) who proceeded to live up to his nickname, at the expense of the LPA in the wrong uniform.  Note what seems to be a half-hearted social distancing attempt by the lieutenant on the right.  The truth is Scott Sullivan was a Texas A&M grad and that's as close as the rest of the LPA would let him stand.

A year later (that would be 1983 for you Bama and LSU grads struggling to keep up), the Colonel (then a captain) was assigned to the Basic School (TBS -- never forget the T) as an instructor/staff platoon commander training brand new butter bars. Here, the Colonel is conducting a uniform inspection.  

Beyond the social distancing failure, there are several other items of note in this picture.  First note that the Colonel is taking his duties very seriously -- measuring the distance between the end of the uniform epaulet and collar with his calibrated finger.  Also, note that there is another person in this picture shorter than the Colonel.

A couple of years later, then Captain, Gregory was in command of a reinforced rifle company in Battalion Landing Team 1/8 with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit deployed to the Mediterranean.  In this social distancing fail snapshot, he is pictured with his (from left to right) Company Gunny, Forward Air Controller (FAC), Executive Officer, Company First Sergeant, and Artillery Forward Observer (FO).   

Note that the FAC and FO are the only ones smiling -- the others had been with the Colonel much longer.

In 1990, the Colonel was promoted to major and assigned as commanding officer of the recruiting station responsible for Marine Corps Recruiting in Georgia and South Carolina. 
 

No social distancing in this picture.  The Colonel is, however, attempting to claim a little personal space with some not-so subtle man-spreading. 

While on recruiting duty, the Colonel had his first taste of the Joint world.  The social distancing fail picture below depicts the Colonel's recruiting competition with Georgia Governor Zell Miller.     

Just off camera to the left of this shot was a picture of Chesty Puller with whom Miller served in Korea.  When this photo op ended, the Governor asked the Colonel to stay behind for a minute.  That minute turned into a half-hour of war stories -- a cherished memory.  Note the Army lieutenant colonel (Army recruiting battalion commander) looking down at the Governor -- loved to tell "dumb Marine" jokes.  The Colonel (then a major) came to a joint service recruiting meeting prepared with quality recruiting reports (county by county break down of average ASVAB scores) showing that the Marines were trouncing his recruiters in every county in Georgia.  "Dumb Marine" jokes ceased.

Having survived three years in command on recruiting duty, the Colonel was given his choice of attending whichever service's Command and Staff college he wished.  He chose the Air Force's Air Command and Staff College (ACSC) in Montgomery, Alabama.  Pictured below are the nine Marine majors in the 600-man class.  The Colonel was the lone infantry-man in the class.   

No social distancing observed.  Note the smiles -- they were in the midst of a year-long vacation with the Air Force.  

When the Colonel graduated from ACSC, he was told to stay put as one of the two Marines on faculty.  He spent the first year teaching Airpower Theory (yeah, that was a hoot). 

No social distancing observed, although they did try to hide the Marine in the back. 

The Air Force discovered that the Marine might not be the most enthusiastic Airpower Theory instructor and he was assigned to the Joint Operations instructor group for his second year on faculty.  In preparation, the Colonel attended the three-month joint school (Armed Forces Staff College -- AFSC) in Norfolk, VA.  AFSC was not necessarily known for its academic rigor -- so the Colonel was sent on a summer vacation in the middle of his Air Force vacation.  The non-social distancing photo below is of the seminar group/softball team/dinner social club to which the Colonel belonged. 

Yep, only Marine in the group.  Side note: graduation from ACSC put a check in the Colonel's Joint Professional Military Education (JPME) Phase I box.  Graduation (with honors in softball and taco preparation) from AFSC put a check in the Colonel's JPME Phase II box.  And..., because his time on the faculty at AFSC counted as a joint assignment, he was designated a Joint Specialty Officer.  That's right -- nowhere else in DOD can one go on a three-year vacation and get joint credit.   

Towards the end of his second year on faculty at AFSC, the Colonel's (by then a lieutenant colonel) career monitor called to say that he had been selected to command a battalion.  An infantry battalion.  In Hawaii.  Yes, Hawaii.  House on the beach Hawaii. The Colonel took command of the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, in February of 1997.  The social-distancing fail shot below is of the 40 some odd officers of the best battalion in the Marine Corps.  They provided superb leadership for 800 Marines and Navy Hospital Corpsmen and made the Colonel look like a hero during the battalion's 7-month deployment to Okinawa (and the rest of the Western Pacific) in 1998.  

Note that the Colonel is the only man smiling in this picture -- most of these officers had been with the Colonel for the better part of 18 months at this point, so...  The XO, seated to the Colonel's right is smirking -- he was in command of 2d Battalion, 3rd Marines a year later.   

As penance for an absolutely wonderful tour as C.O. of the best battalion in the Marine Corps, the Colonel spent his last year in Hawaii as the XO (second in command / chief of staff, if you will) of the Third Marine Regiment.  No social distancing fail photos exist from that year -- the Colonel was not a pleasant man to be around.

When the year of penance ended, the Colonel was sent back to the school house -- the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.  The social-distancing fail photo below was taken a few days before graduation in June of 2000.   

 For those of you who care enough to try, you will find the Colonel by looking for the shiniest bald pate in greens.  

A month later, the Colonel was in Korea.  The Colonel spent most of the next year in a bunker in Seoul.  Good training for the current pandemic.  There are a few social-distancing fail photos from that year, but they are so secret that if the Colonel were to share them with you he would have to kill himself.

Selected for command, the Colonel escaped from Korea and took over as the C.O. of the Sixth Marine Corps District, headquartered at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, S.C., and responsible for Marine Corps recruiting in the Southeastern United States.  The social distancing fail photo below was taken in late 2001, and includes the Colonel and his majors (commanding state-sized recruiting efforts) with the Commanding Generals and Sergeants Major of the Eastern Recruiting Region and Marine Corps Recruiting Command.     

   
Note the Colonel ain't smiling -- he was on recruiting duty for the second time and the Marine Corps had just gone off to war without him..., for the second time.  The trend wasn't looking good, so...

Note the only one smiling in this picture is the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda (first row in the stands, fourth from left).  She's been the Colonel's social-distancing buddy ever since.

Be well, America, and keep your chins up.  The Colonel commands it.  We'll all be taking social-distancing fail photos again real soon.