Deep Breath – Ready? Let’s Talk Navy Yard Shooting And Keep It Calm.

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Before we step even one inch into this topic, I’d like to offer my condolences to the victims in the shooting at the Washington Navy Yard. My mother (who is a kind and wonderful woman) sent me an email last night because members of my family were hurt. And the United States Navy is my family. I bleed Navy Blue when a sailor is wounded.

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Now that the disclaimer is done, and I’ve plugged the whole subscription thing we can get down to the meat of this thing: It is criminally stupid that our military are not allowed to carry weapons on duty. Moreover, they ought to be required to carry a weapon, as they are targets of terrorists and the unhinged. It is craven to do anything else. And this was as true under President Ronald Reagan as it is today under President Barack Obama.

The problem is that if you have guns you have to train your people how to carry them in an office setting. Well, Duh. And that costs money. Money that could be spent on other things. General officers don’t like being responsible for budget items that recur and don’t show big ticket items. They don’t like accidents. If you have enough people carrying weapons all the time there will be accidents. Promise. So, to avoid accidents you take away the guns. Our military bases are the biggest gun-free zones in the nation. And that’s how you get a massacre like Monday’s at the Washington Navy Yard.

A little history is in order here, so indulge me.

I thought the United States Air Force took security more seriously than any other branch during my years of active duty. They had real people, with real weapons, with real ammunition, and would shoot you dead if you trifled with them. Round in the chamber. Do not approach the fence under penalty of death. Orders had been given and they’d execute them (and me) if boundaries were violated.

I admired that quite a bit. I knew where I stood with those guys (it was all guys at the time) and that was just fine.

A very close second were the United States Marines who guarded the compound where I worked when I arrived in Spain. Never a smile, no chit-chat. Show me the pass or get your – fill in the blank. This was reinforced by the machine gun nests on the roof of our building and the sneaky little band of trained killers that lurked outside the perimeter in a QRF (Quick Reaction Force) that was somewhere on base. Maybe nearby, maybe in the barracks. But I always had the feeling that they were under orders to wait for orders. Ready to do the job, hampered by authority. No round in the chamber, but nearby.

The Army was a distant third. It actually amused me to see the Military Police from Fort Ord cruise through the Defense Language Institute. They gave off a very distinct vibe – “We don’t care now, we didn’t care yesterday, and we won’t care tomorrow. We have donuts to eat.” I say that with only the snark that a former police officer can muster. Lax, slack, blind, and all sorts of other words pegged them into their little car which they never left. This is not to say that there weren’t some pretty good Army security troops out and about. I’m sure that the guys in Germany were deadly serious about their jobs. Soviets within mortar range can do that for your attention span. Al Stewart said, “It sharpens your perceptions when your back’s against the wall.” However, I know that live ammo wasn’t issued to most of them most of the time. One notch below the Marines in readiness. This was not the fault of the troops, but a political decision from on high.

A grindingly distant last place (because I never dealt with the Coast Guard they escape any scrutiny) was my beloved Navy. We were afraid of guns. Basic training included exactly 0 rounds fired by your genial host. My Company Commander knew I was able to handle a weapon and sent me to run errands on qualification day. That was a six hour romp at the range where recruits fired .22 pistols and were screamed at by the instructors. My Chief figured I’d be better off taking the morning and lounging at the exchange. Thank you, Chief – I had a lovely time. It was simply familiarization so that they wouldn’t shoot themselves in the foot the first time anyone handed them a pistol. In the 1984-1989 period the only time I saw sailors with live weapons loaded with ammunition it verified for me that nuclear weapons were somewhere in the area. That was the only reason for a regularly carried/displayed weapon. We did guard other things other places with weapons, but the average sailor during that period didn’t know squat about weapons. Ship’s reaction forces did carry weapons, but they had to muster and get them from a locker – and only in emergencies.

I fully realize that I’m an old fool and that the weapons training is much better now than it was back then. I was one of those rare birds that actually qualified expert with a pistol. Not many even could try – ammo was short and very few ranges available for the average sailor to qualify. Today’s sailors (and other branches) get good training if they are going to be at risk. But the political cowardice runs deep. Guards were the go to solution on Monday. They did their jobs bravely by all accounts. But what if every third or fourth sailor had to carry a weapon as part of the duty section? Would that have cut down on the number of deaths? I’d hope so.

Until the brass realizes that we have an obligation to let our troops protect themselves on base and at work, we make them all sitting ducks. The logic (run down above) always said that the threat was minimal and we could avoid trouble if we just didn’t issue weapons. That lead to stupid decisions during my time in Spain. The Marines were pulled off guard duty on our compound. We went from well trained and armed people to – (drum-roll, please) unarmed sailors with a long stick that had a wheeled mirror on it. Yes, indeed, from well armed to target in five minutes. Our compound was now guarded by untrained cryptologists who were told to check under vehicles for bombs.

I always wondered what we were supposed to do if we saw a bomb under a vehicle? Point the stick at the driver and demand they get out of the car or face a scratched paint job? My input on the topic was not welcomed with much humor. I distinctly remember being told to shut up and stand the watch or be written up. I lucked out – I went to sea instead. Pretty awful when vanishing for an indeterminate amount of time on a submarine made you feel safer than standing at the gate with the wheeled mirror stick.

We’re back to the wheeled mirror stick. Give our troops a fighting chance. Arm them today. They all signed up for this gig – let them have a fighting chance of seeing the next sunrise. Problems with that? Maybe – but if you can’t trust them with a weapon, why are they in the miltary?

That is all. Except to remind you to say a prayer for the survivors and the families of everyone in Washington. After all, they’re my family.

Sponsorship Sunday – Week Four Revisited – Blondine

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During my trip to Haiti in February of 2013 I had the pleasure of getting to know the people of Healing Haiti. Part of their mission there is an orphanage known as Grace Village. It is my pleasure to present one of the children from Grace Village each week to my readership in the hope that you will take them into your heart and sponsor their care and education.

I’m repeating Blondine’s profile this week because all that’s lacking is a sponsor for her medical care. This young lady is so close to being “checked off” the list that I can sense it happening this week. Please prayerfully consider sponsoring her today.

This week’s child is:

Blondine:

Blondine

Blondine is a talented young lady who loves to sing and dance. Blondine’s favorite song is God is Able and other gospel songs. Blondine loves to spend her free time reading her bible and studying. Blondine hopes to be a doctor some day so she can help other people. Her favorite subjects, science and math, will serve her well as she continues her education. Blondine’s prayer request is that she is able to attend university so that she can become a doctor and help support her family.

Blondine came to Healing Haiti in July, 2008.  Blondine was abandoned along with her siblings Ronaldo, Laika, Edens and Bradley

Birth Info

  • Birthdate: December 21, 1995
  • Place of Birth: Port au Prince, Haiti

It is my hope that one of you will find your heart touched by this child and take up a bit of Christ’s work by sponsoring them for an extended period. My wife and I are sponsoring a pair of sisters and reading their letters today was a fantastic boost. Healing Haiti will do the right things for these children and I have full confidence in their work. I am not affiliated with them, they don’t endorse this blog, nothing like that at all. I just love kids (can’t be Santa and not love children) and know that Grace Village is the difference between life and death for many of these children. Please open your heart and prayerfully reflect on the opportunity God’s giving us to sponsor these children. Some of them have come out of slavery and have some of the toughest lives you could imagine prior to Grace Village.

Just click the link and it will take you directly to the page where you can sponsor this week’s child. And if God is particularly good and that child is sponsored when you get there, please grab another smiling face and change their life instead. My goal is to put Sponsorship Sunday out of business as quickly as possible and take that day off each week. Thank you. God bless you for your generosity.

Some of the finest people you’ll ever meet. The hands and feet of Christ.


September Eleventh Is Key To Understanding Syria And Benghazi.

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Twelve years ago our nation’s course changed when Jihadists attacked our people. Not for the first, second, or third time in recent memory, but in the most notable attack of the string. No longer was it possible for the people of this country to ignore the savage behavior of Islam in regard to our form of society. We were rocked. Tears were shed. Mourning overwhelmed us.

We got over it, shrugged off our coat, grabbed our rifle, and kicked some butts. Our populace was largely united in pursuit of the animals who flew airplanes into buildings. We went after the Taliban Mullahs that hosted them. We ruled the skies and covered the ground in our righteous anger. When we finished with that nest of vipers we turned our attention to Saddam Hussein. He’d been in defiance of the cease-fire since just after Desert Storm ended. He had boasted to the world that he had a program to manufacture weapons of mass destruction. He had a history of using chemical weapons in vast quantities against Iran and his own people. The intelligence services of the western states agreed that he probably still had them, was manufacturing more, working on nuclear weapons, and his continued refusal to let us in to verify the status of those programs eventually brought us to war. Our strategic interests were on the line. Like it or not, oil from the Persian Gulf states fuels the world economy. Saddam was a proven threat to that oil supply. Congress approved of the attack and we went to war.

Did we do a good job? Outstanding job. Our military was superb. Our diplomats and what we did with the peace weren’t so outstanding. It should have been anticipated but it wasn’t. Good idea, great execution, poor follow-through. Lesson learned.

Things seemed to quiet down in the intervening years. They really hadn’t. The swine who’d attacked us on that September morning were still at it, still plotting, still laying the groundwork for more attacks, and getting ready to kill more Americans. The difference was that we’d managed to fix most of them in battle overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan. Killing jihadists there didn’t involve as many of our citizens as killing them here would. Our military is good at this stuff, grandmothers in Bend, Oregon aren’t so hot at dealing with improvised explosive devices.

The press managed to fall in line with the new administration in calling things by new names. It was a moment that George Orwell would have trembled to see. It was no longer a War on Terror, but an Overseas Contingency Operation. Nidal Hassan murdering his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood wasn’t a terrorist act, it was an act of Workplace Violence. And the changes in attitude, perception, and presentation picked up pace until a year ago on the anniversary of the attacks on September 11, 2001.

On this first anniversary of the attacks on our diplomatic personnel in Benghazi, Libya, it is my firm opinion that the people in leadership roles in this nation, both Republican and Democrat, have failed the populace and need to be censored or removed from office for malfeasance. It’s simple – we never leave our people behind. I was raised that way and I’m sickened and saddened that this act has been accepted by the public as tolerable. We left four to die in Benghazi, and a lot more to fight in solitude with no aid on the way. Never in my experience was that an alternative we would have embraced.

Any effort to seriously investigate the behavior of those involved, and those denied a chance to act, has been rebuffed by the administration. A cascading series of mistruths has issued forth from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue beginning with the explanation (proven to be false) that a video on youtube.com caused the attack. It went on downhill on the way to hearing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defying a committee of the Congress with the most obnoxious statement ever recorded within those halls, “What difference, at this point, does it make?”

Military personnel who had intimate knowledge of the affair have been shuffled about so as to be unavailable for interviews. Congress has been mislead as to the retirement status of those they sought to interview.

The whistleblowers have been besieged in their attempt to reveal the truth. Put in limbo and denied career advancement while those who were chastised for mishandling the events have been returned to their jobs with no official censure.

Four American men are dead. Our ambassador cruelly murdered. Our facility burned after being sacked. And one year later none of the people who led the attack have been “brought to justice.”

Our elected representatives have been almost as silent about this travesty as the press. Term limits may be the solution I seek, but it doesn’t seem strong enough.

The power brokers are not doing our business. Those in elected office work for us, not the other way around. They have forgotten who holds the power in this republic – the voters. The elected officials seem to have an agenda of their own. And the press is with them in this pursuit of – what? What exactly is the goal of lying to the American people and denying the four dead men justice?

One year later, just as this should probably be building to crescendo, we have our president leading the charge to back a faction in Syria that is intimately linked with both the attacks on 9-11-01 and with the attack on 9-11-12. We will become the tactical air force of Al Qaeda if Mr Obama has his way. The loyal opposition, in the form of John McCain, has taken to talking down to his constituents and being petulant when asked valid questions about the situation in Syria. Mr. McCain has a park bench with his name on it somewhere, I wish he’d go and occupy the thing.

My experience in the Middle East tells me that far more is going on here than we will ever know. I do know one thing – we’re being lied to in a rush away from responsibility and a rush toward war. As a nation we are perceived as weak and wandering. We’ve been taken in a game of backgammon by an optometrist and a former Colonel in the KGB. And they’re laughing at us while our President stomps his feet and fails to lead. He’s a reactor, not a leader. And those under him hold the public in contempt. We are not citizens of a republic any longer, we are subjects of an emperor. One crowned with a Peace Prize before accomplishing a thing to earn it.

It is not leadership to speak to the nation and blame your limited choices on George Bush. Listen carefully to the words of the President last night and you’ll see that it’s all the fault of Bush. I was appalled at the hubris of the man for couching his arguments in that mire. Leadership is clearly explaining your point based on its own merits. Instead I heard that chemical weapons are bad and killing children is bad. I’ll spot him that point. But how is it worse than killing children with bullets and bombs dropped from aircraft? How is a chemical weapon different when it’s used that way than any other munition?

A word about our threatened strikes against Syria is in order. We have been told as recently as the 10th of September, that the plan is for limited strikes to disable our “enemy” in their capacity to use chemical weapons. I’ve been gone a long time from the arena, and have no idea what Syria has in their inventory any longer. But the preferred method of delivery for chemical weaponry is via tubed weapons. Artillery, large mortars, rocket launchers (think MLRS or Stalin Organs) and not via aircraft or large missiles. I can hide a fairly large amount of ammunition and a sturdy artillery piece in my garage. Limited range, but it will sit comfortably in the stuccoed splendor that is my car’s home. In the warehouses I pass on the way to work every day you could hide thousands of weapons that would do this job. And yet we’re threatening to take them out?

I’d feel a lot better about Syria if the people we were proposing to aid weren’t the same ones killing Christians and shouting Allah Akbar under the black Al Qaeda flag. The same vermin who attacked the Twin Towers, The Pentagon, and tried to destroy the dome of the capitol building in Washington. The same ones who beat our ambassador, Chris Stevens, to death in Benghazi a year ago today while Barack Obama turned the crisis over to his minions and packed to bip off to Vegas for a rally. The same ones who will soon be attacking a target somewhere you have been or will be going in the United States. They will be back. They’ve been moving on to the next target since Mohammed led his first raid against the polytheists in Arabia.

Are those the allies we seek? Do we win anything by aiding them? Chemical weapons are nasty things, but call me skeptical – I’m still not convinced as to who used them in Syria, what the weapons were, and who was responsible for giving the orders. Most of the evidence is undoubtedly classified. But when the administration will not tell the truth about much of anything and stalls for time on every issue they run across, I’m unwilling to grant them any further tolerance. They must make a better case for their intended actions.

The time to come clean about Benghazi is long overdue. Don’t grant them a pass on it. Don’t let our military get involved in a war we cannot gain from in Syria. September 11th is a key to understanding our place in the world. We came back from an attack, cleaned up some unfinished business that threatened our economy and strategic interests, and then slid into being a reaction oriented state that denies the reality of our actions and our motivations. We’ve lost our compass heading and need to get it back. Don’t take on Jihadist forces as our allies.

Speak up, America. Demand answers. Demand the truth. Do not tolerate the lies any longer. It’s the least we can do if we are to honor our Constitution and the rights we’ve been given by God. I’m done turning rights over in the name of safety and security. I want the truth.

Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi.

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It’s almost one year since the murder of four citizens at the annex in Benghazi, Libya.

In what has turned out to be a concerted effort to distract everyone from what happened, the feckless administration in Washington and it’s minions in the press have turned the discussion to a host of other topics. Gay marriage, Trayvon Martin, illegal aliens, and the list goes on. Let’s not forget Alex Rodriguez and other completely unimportant sports issues that take their place in the rotation.

A year has come and gone and we still don’t have any straight answers on what happened that night. We still have no accountability – the four State Department employees who were sent off on a paid exodus have all been assigned to new jobs and evidently admonished to be good little ducks. There is no explanation as to why our military didn’t/couldn’t/wasn’t allowed to respond to an assault on a United States diplomatic facility.

The former Secretary of State (Monica Lewinsky’s ex-boyfriend’s wife) has asked the question, “What difference, at this point,does it make?”

It makes a lot of difference. Because the same band of liars (proven by the repeated telling of the youtube video story as the reason for the attack) who have covered this up for the last year are now telling you that we need to go bomb Syria to stop the use of chemical weapons.

There is a complete lack of credibility in this administration. And, an almost complete lack of courage among the opposition in demanding the truth. Courtemanche’s theorem applies to Benghazi as well as to all else this administration has done: If Lindsay Graham, John McCain, and Barack Obama all agree on something, it’s a horrible idea. All three have been silent of late on Benghazi. I take that as agreement.

Tomorrow we’ll examine the whole thing in a bit more detail. Today, just listen to the increasing drum beat as the same administration that lied about Libya lies about Syria. War drums never sound all that great, today they sound worse than ever.

That Was Fun.

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After a month long marathon I finished revisions on my novel last night. Had a deadline for entering it in a contest.

Over the last month I’ve worked on the book an average of four hours a day. That might not seem like a lot to some, but it’s on top of all that other stuff that gets in the way of writing – work, dog, wife, auto maintenance, making jam, and sleeping. Not nearly enough sleeping.

A full 12 hour respite was taken before being awakened this morning and returning to the computer to resume work on general writing tasks. There’s more deadlines, more projects, a few commercials to record, and other stuff that will be announced in due course.

The biggest coup of the day was fixing the air conditioning in my car. My friends will vouch for me being a theory guy, but not so much with a wrench. I did some googling and found a video on how to fix it. $28.00 worth of parts and not a single bad word later I have a multi-speed blower once again. Mark your calendars – that won’t happen a gain in the near future.

A concern has been expressed about my health with such demanding schedules. Someone made specific recommendations on how I should deal with my health – lose weight and drink green tea.

Well, never having been told to lose weight before I – wait a minute, that’s what every doctor tells me to do. And yet the same health issues manifested when I was skinny. I see an analytic issue there – weight is not related to the problems. I’ll go you one and say that my knee problems are exacerbated by my being a husky child, but the tears in the meniscus were both due to athletic events that would tear it in a skinny feller. Sleep apnea – same issue, snored and gasped like a fish when I weighed about 1/2 of what I weigh now at less than half my current age.

Am I too fat? Yes. Trying to lose some weight is an ongoing thing for me. Danged donuts and bacon.

Here’s the howler: I disagreed with the reader’s “diagnosis and prescription” and the retort was that I’m not a medical doctor and thus not entitled to an opinion.

Says a lot about our culture when you can’t hold a valid opinion without a certification. That the history and knowledge of my body’s condition should be of less import than the national fetish with weight loss is sad. I appreciate good humored advice, but hectoring is not on the list of things I’m open for on a regular basis.

On to the next project. There’s a pile of printing that needs to be done around here and supplies were running low. Off to Office Universe to spend a pile of money on the world’s most expensive printer ink and a quick return. Ink, unique paper, donuts, and cookies. So much for the weight loss.

Lest I forget – there was no real point to this blog post. I just had to clear the baffles and head deep. The next few days have more substantial topics to cover and I had this little bit of flotsam to dispose of before I flooded the tanks.