When The World Dials 911

Happy 237th birthday to the United States Marine Corps!

The Marines are the smallest branch of the fighting services, but they hold a place in America's heart that is both large and unique.

Large because the Marine Corps' place in modern history has been gained through some truly outsize events.

Just after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, they stopped by at the tiny atoll of Wake to overwhelm the tiny Marine garrison stationed there. Instead, it was the Japanese who were overwhelmed, and their invasion failed. When they returned with vastly superior forces, the Marines on Wake fought to the bitter end, only ceding the island after inflicting a fearful toll on the invaders.

A few months later, the First Marine Division landed on Guadalcanal, in the Solomons. It was there that the limit of Japanese empire was established, and the long, slow path to victory in the pacific began.

To these can be added Tarawa and Peleliu, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Twenty years on Marines made the headlines in Viet Nam, in the siege of Khe Sanh and the battle for Hue City

But beyond the numbers, and beyond the mythos, the Marines are perhaps the most beloved branch of any armed service to walk the earth.

They're an anachronism, in a way, with pure infantry as their main calling. other services may employ ever-larger quantities technology, but the basic marine mission is still to support the 19-year-old lance corporal who's advancing through the mud.

And as such, their standards have remained high. You may want to be a Marine; but not everyone with the wish has the ability. Gaining admittance to this club requires sweat, blood, toil, and character, because the marines don't want weaklings who'll fold under pressure.

The drill instructor hurt your feelings? Take it up with your congressman, but in the meantime get off post and don't come back.

Your arm wrecked by a bullet? You still have another one, don't you? Keep shooting.

Because of this unapologetically neanderthal stance, with machismo simply splashing off the top, the Marine Corps have earned our love, and our trust. When asked "who would you turn to for help?", given the choices of a doctor, a clergyman, a congressman, or a Marine, guess who wins, with over 97% of the votes?

And who shows up every Christmas, standing post for Toys For Tots?

Our Marines.

Among the Righteous

Well, it's official. If you are a drug user in Oklahoma, you won't get welfare.

On the face of it, this is a commonsense way to guard the coffers of our nation, and to encourage good behavior. Dig a little deeper, and it's a rather cynical attempt to implement a 'feel righteous' policy without having to solve the problem.

The rise in illegal drug use, starting in the 60s, has been a disaster for the United States. The amount of human potential, minds that could have made a difference, has gone up in smoke. An effective treatment for breast cancer, perhaps...or a way to prevent Alzheimers. We'll never know.

And so, we attack the symptoms. Keep welfare money out of the hands of drug users. That'll show them.

I wonder, though, what does it show them? These drugs are addictive. Celebrities and politicians spend a lot of money going to the Betty Ford Center to try to break their habits. Are we expecting those on welfare to have the strength to do it on their own? Does giving them the choice of starvation - literally - hold the promise of making them superhuman? Or is it a convenient way of telling them to go die, while feeling very judicial about the whole thing?

And at the same time, we protect the drug culture. We love the television shows and movies with winking references to drug use, and we make sure that our best and brightest make enough money to be able to cycle through detox facilities. We don't want to lose a Britney Spears, for heaven's sake! And we can't face a world without Lindsay Lohan's acting talents!

We elect presidents who've admitted to using drugs. Bill Clinton, who didn't inhale. George Bush Jr., who used cocaine before becoming a born-again Christian. Barack Obama, whose use of marijuana (inhaling, apparently) is well-known. That's three out of the last three, if anyone's counting.

We don't want to sacrifice the politicians and singers and actors and athletes on the altar of law. So we're apparently going to take the less-important members of our society, and sacrifice them instead.

While we laugh at the funny things people do when they use drugs, every evening, gathered around the television, the modern family hearth.

Have we lost our minds?

The Prize

What's The Prize?

Simple. To be a part of something bigger and more noble than themselves, so that their lives can gain stature, and be uplifted by association, and by inclusion.

Look at the phenomenon of Stephen Ambrose and "Band of Brothers". Dr. Ambrose was a dedicated professional historian, and a skilled writer, but when he decided to tell the story of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment's E Company, he opened a floodgate of emotion and need in the United States.

"Band of Brothers" is the story of a group of men who were ordinary soldiers at the time - skilled, yes, but there were hundreds of other military units manned with competent citizen-soldiers, and dozens with an equivalent level of proficiency.

But what was ordinary then seems extraordinary today.

Dr, Ambrose recognized the innate nobility in these men, and the justice of the cause in which they fought, and in which some of them died. It's not that he made them ten feet tall; he just cleared away the underbrush of sad years that had grown up in the last half of the 20th century, so we could see their true stature.

I think we want that stature today. We want heroes, and causes of mythic proportions. We want to feel that we can be better than we think we are.

Better than we think we are. The real point that Ambrose (and Tom Brokaw, author of "The Greatest Generation") makes is that these men were 'common', that they came from every region and social class. They didn't see themselves as noble, and like Bill Maudlin's cartoon characters "Willie and Joe", many of them griped their way through the killing fields, wanting to get it done and go home.

People like us. They were caught on a cusp that forced greatness on them...but so are we all. Every one of us faces challenges in our lives that invite us to rise above what we are, above what we thought we could be. Challenges in action, yes, but also in compassion, challenges in forgiveness, challenges in duty, honor, and fair play.

We can be better than we think we are. We CAN be as good as we really are.

It's our choice. Every day.

Whosover Destroyeth A Soul

When I was growing up, a bully was someone who waited for you after school, and threw you headfirst into a culvert. It was something that just happened, and eventually Mr. Bully would meet someone bigger and meaner, and get the stuffing kicked out of him. (Never her, in my experience, but girls may have dealt with their own sort of bullying.)

It's different now - the Internet has allowed a new generation of bullies to flourish, without the risk that an old-school bully took - that his victim might just land a lucky punch or kick. The New Bullies can work their misery in safe anonymity, behind an electronic wall.

And they are out to kill. they aren't aiming to hurt the body; they're out to destroy souls. And young people are killing themselves, driven to despair that their lives can be ruined by lies spread across the Internet.

Why do we tolerate it (and we are tolerating it, please make no mistake)? One reason is practical - it's not that hard to find the origin of an Internet hate campaign, but it's expensive. Many of these kids know the rudiments of covering their tracks, and it takes some sophistication to reliably run them to ground.

The other reason we tolerate it is the culture of victimization. Everyone's a victim, and perpetrators are really the victims of their own victims...they've somehow been goaded into their predatory ways, and therefore deserve special care.

In addition to these, there's the Culture of The Child, taking "a little child shall lead them" just a bit too far. We've allowed children to be a world unto themselves. Ask any high-school student...it's a cruel and insular world in which they live, with no real accountability except to one another (and to school administrators who sometimes swoop in, deus ex mechina, to harshly enforce some regulation, and then disappear.

After all, the worst among us might just be the best, given a chance.

Then again, they might merely be the worst.

The best way to rid ourselves of this blight is pretty simple - terminate the Culture of the Child. Hire teachers and administrators that will not only follow the lesson plan, but who have the understanding, and the authority, to enforce good citizenship. let the kids know that their independence is over, and that they will be answering to the adult world for their actions.

After this, truncate the 'victimization chain' to two links - perpetrator and victim. Period. There are no extenuating circumstances for bullying.

Will we, as a society, do this?

It's really up to us.

Good Things Happen

I would not trade places with you.

Nothing against your life - but I wouldn't want you, whoever you are, to experience the amount of pain that I go through on a daily basis. Nothing noble about it - I just wouldn't want it on my conscience.

It comes from a pancreas problem, caused by gallbladder surgery in 2002. It can't be fixed, and increasingly, can't be controlled by medication. Cheap cigars help the nausea, though. There's always a silver lining.

It's characterized by sharp pain in the right upper quadrant of the abdomen, just below the ribs. it extends through to the back, and lately has been cutting across the center (the 'midsagittal plane') to the left side. it really, really sucks.

I thought I'd try to avoid being one of those happy-sappy idiots who says that "This is the best thing that's ever happened to me, and I wouldn't trade it for the world!"

What morons. Anyone with a speck of sense wouldn't want this.

But there is a tiny grain of truth there, a little mustard seed of reality. learning to deal with this has made me able to work under conditions I never thought I could face. Looking at the likely outcome of the process and maintaining both hope and a calm outlook has changed me. Well, okay, for the better, I hope!

There is a lot of support from family and friends, but at the end of the day, the responsibility to keep moving, both physically and emotionally, is mine. One can philosophize until the cows come home comatose, but mastering almost any challenge is a good thing.

I enjoy sunrises and sunsets more. I live each day more fully than most people I see, and try not to denigrate any hour with careless words...nor stain any hour with careless action. I don't watch much television, but I read a lot more. Most important, I try to let my wife know I love her, and let the small stuff go. Just...let it go, and never mention the little stones in everyone's marriage shoes.

I wish it didn't happen, and that I didn't have to go through this...but I think my wife feels more appreciated than if I were 'normal'. I think my dogs are happier.

Ah, the heck with it.

Best thing that ever happened to me.

Vote For ME!

Well, the election's almost here. Still don't know who to vote for, for the presidency? Vote for ME! Just write my name in there...

I mean, why not? I'm a pretty decent person, and would rather see harmony than strife. I like animals, get bored by zealots, and think that pageantry, pomp and ceremony are a waste of time.I think people who want to take crosses off public lands are stupid nasty spoilsports...and I think those crosses should be joined by Stars of David and Islamic Crescents. This country needs to stand for the free practice of every religion...not just militant atheism.

I'd love to be able to say that the government which governs best, governs least. It's no longer possible, though, since there are entities in the media which will step into any vacuum and exercise proxy government by shamelessly manipulating public opinion. The Jeffersonian Ideal was great - in Jefferson's day. If we tried it today, the people who run Facebook and Google would be running the country.

I'd love to say I believe in the working harmony of the international community. Well, I don't. A lot of governments out there would love to see the United States diminished, and we just don't have to listen to them.

Enough generalities. If elected I promise to:

1. Work toward cutting congressional salaries and pensions, and increasing those for teachers, police officers, and firemen/
2. Work towards repealing Obamacare. Not that I don't believe in a national, comprehensive health program, but I would like to see one that might actually work before trying to implement it. - and the president and Congress should be the first to be included in it.
3. Stomp the Iranian nuclear weapons program, hard.
4. Tax companies that send jobs overseas, to the point that they lose money by doing so.
5. Let the Bush 'high-income' tax cuts lapse...BUT use those tax revenues to by the equivalent of 'war bonds' in the name of the taxpayer, so they get that money back, with interest.
6. Make sure that all government employees who have contact with the public are monitored for good manners.
7. Support PBS and the NEA - we need them, even if we disagree with them
8. Work to permit prayer in public schools - the public education system needs all the help it can get, and I'm being serious.
9. Work to abolish 'No Child Left Behind'.It's just an excuse for passing kids who don't have an education through the system. Kids need the basics - reading, writing, and arithmetic, along with US history. The rest is gravy, if the educational system's already in disarray.
10. Support the Second Amendment as an individual right to bear arms - people have an inalienable right to defend themselves and their families.

Ten reasons are really enough. Most voters choose their candidate on one or two issues.

But whoever you vote for, please get out and vote. Not everyone in the world gets to do that.

Rednecks In Love

In my heart of hearts (and, my wife would add, in my half of brains) I'm a redneck. Even though I can quote Shakespeare, identify scads of classical music (and know how to use the word scads), and wrote video scripts on Impressionist art...I could still fit effortlessly into the rural south, and I'd never be found again.

Fortunately for me, my bucolic tendencies were somewhat muted when we were dating, and I only tried a few of my Sure-Fire Redneck Dating Strategies on her.

Here's what she missed...mostly.

1. During a romantic walk on the beach, impress her with your drunken gorilla imitation. (When I met Barb I lived inland)
2. When making a date, tell her "Don't wear a tight skirt...it's a long first step up into my truck." Women love big trucks.
3. When picked her up, don't honk. Gun the engine instead. If you're smart the V-8's got headers, and she'll be impressed. Women love the noise of a poorly-muffled big engine.
4. Wear a ballcap. Women don't like to look at your sweaty hair. Turns 'em off.
5. When she gets in the truck, make sure she knows that the six-pack's under the seat, but not to give you one...you're driving. Women love responsible men.
6. Make sure the dogs in the cab with you didn't eat beans that day. Women get turned off by farting dogs. Done't eat beans yourself, either.
7. Plan your dinner venue with care. The crowds at McDonalds start to thin out at about 7:30.
8. Women like good table manners. Cut up your McNuggets, and eat them with a knife and fork. Keep your napkin on your lap, not in the front pocket of your jeans.
9. If you selected a movie, make sure it's in English so she won't have to read you the subtitles. Women don't like to be put to work during a date.
10. If you go to a concert, bring an extra cigarette lighter for her.
11. When you're bringing her home, move the dogs over and let her sit next to you. Put your ballcap on her head to show that you like her; she'll be so taken she won't care about your sweaty hair, or the sweaty ballcap, either. Women like romantic gestures.
12. When you're saying goodnight, and she offers you her hand, show her how cultured you are by kissing it. Don't lean to far forward and put her face in her chest, because then she might hit you, and that makes asking for another date awkward. Women don't like to have to hit their dates.
13. When you call to ask her out again, and she screams, it means she's happy. Women love polite, sophisticated men.

Yes, all of these things really happened before I met Barbara. And have happened since.

To her! I mean, to her!!!!