Without fear.

Because I have a lot of nerdy friends and wanted in on the social references that they made, I bought a graphic novel that came highly recommended. But this post isn't about that.


The adult comic book was originally published by installment in 1986, and was written in 1985, which was set as the present, with a lot of reflection on the previous half century, at which point it had diverged from our real timeline.


What was fascinating, though, was how scared we were of pending war. In this book, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan seemed clearly to indicate that, without some kind of major interference, an invasion of Pakistan would occur. And from the man on the street to the POTUS, World War III seemed inevitable.


But it was just another timeline, in an imagined universe, by a good writer and his illustrator.


Friends, I remember being afraid, as a little kid, of nuclear war. I remember being afraid of something that our nation couldn't control, coming in and taking our lives away from us.


As the 1990's came, and the USSR fell, the nuclear threat (or the fear of it) diminished. I grew into adulthood. I had the opportunity to decide my future.


At no time in my adult life have I felt afraid that our nation would be attacked on a wide scale. Sure, individual attacks can and have happened, but think about how indignant we were to have even those occur.  When you attack our country, there are major consequences. It's not a good idea. We send guys like John Shirley and his mates over to kick your butt.


We don't think a whole lot about our military, because of how effective they are at letting us lead our quiet normal lives. I'm not saying that it's right, but I'm pointing out how well they do their job: we as a nation get to continue to be self-absorbed and silly, without paying attention to what our military really does, because they're just that good.


For about 364 days of the year, it's actually okay to be self-absorbed, and not think of who guards our freedoms.


Today, we think of our soldiers, our marines, our sailors, our airmen, and our guardsmen who gave everything. Because we really don't have to. You can bet that their families think about them a lot.

Thanks.

11/11/13 - Veteran's Day.

Most of you didn't have to sign up, but volunteered instead. Others, you were called, and you came.

And after you signed up, you had to go.

You had to go, but you didn't have to come back.

Most of you did come back, though.

And this nation is better off for the going, and the coming back both.

Thanks.

I remember.

Mishmash.

--Without going into details, that free iPhone tracker app works. Stick it on your kid's phone, with the settings so that only the account holder can see where it is. Also works for your own phone, if you trust the phone company with that info. Lots do, lots don't.

--My new FD bunker gear came in again, with the proper color striping on it. (It had designated me a captain, before.) It's so clean. It has no odor. No smoke or sweat or mud. It has never been anyone else's before. It has a drag strap on the back. It has my name on the back in 4 inch tall reflective letters. Between that and my professional tag over my locker, I really feel like I am a member of the team. One of the firefighters laughed and said, "Hey, you finally are somebody!" I actually kind of got that feeling, too.

--I worked a house fire recently. The ambient temperature in the shade was 101 degrees when we arrived. We fought mostly to save a portion of the house, which we did. But we lost a lot of it. Wearing an insulated suit with a cowl over your neck really makes you hot before putting on that SCBA and going into a smoke-filled hot burning building. This in turn makes you suck harder on that air. No one much talks about the cooling effect of the gas expansion from that sweet compressed air. The simple desire to get cooler can make you take bigger gasps so that a tank that should give about 30 minutes lasts about 10 minutes. Or less.

--Note to the President: With the recent murder of our US ambassador to Libya, I wonder where our recently-decommissioned FB-111s* went. Are they mothballed? Did we sell them to other countries? What would it take to re-commission them? Oh, I know that there are other planes serving their old role just fine, or better (see: B1B Lancer). But I think that the psychological impact of a Tripoli sky full of Aardvarks again would be worth something. 

With an average speed of 600kmph, it should take a hair less than 9 hours to get a flight of Lancers there. Mr. President, if you want me to believe that you're a tough guy, get off the whole "I gave the order to the guy who gave the order to the guy who told the guys to kill Bin Laden." Instead, put on your game face, pick up the phone, and convince Spanish PM Rajoy that he'll hardly notice a squadron of jets flying 5 miles over the neck of the Iberian Peninsula.

I know that you like to have crib notes, so here's your flight plan, which I made just for you:

Click To Embiggen.

--My suggestion? Drop a few hundred GPS-guided inert practice bombs on our own embassy in Tripoli. It's our soil, after all. The kinetic kill to those who hoisted the black flag over our soil will be just as real, and the message sent just as strong: "We could have made this hit using a conventional bomb, or a fuel-air bomb, or even nucs. And we did it with obsolete planes. Don't piss us off." No collateral damage. Just stack one nose cone into the fins of the previous practice bomb.

--I'm taking PADM 5010 at university this semester. "Wow, graduate Public Administration courses are so exhilarating!" said no one, ever. I'm waiting for my books to arrive. If I hadn't bought them used on Amazon, I'd have been out $250 to $400. As it is, I'm out about $100 for books for one three hour course.

--I took an off-duty job last week guarding a bridge over an interstate highway. It didn't go anywhere. I went up onto it and took a camera phone picture of the traffic going by underneath.

--When I stepped barefoot outside to get the mail this morning, I found some public works guys picking up branches and throwing in the back of a truck, so I helped them. When my shirt rode up while pitching brush, one of them laughed that I had a pistol holstered. Yeah, if I've got on pants, I do. The family of the late former sheriff and police chief Herbert Proffitt undoubtedly wishes that he had done so, to.  Proffitt was 82 and recently retired for the second time, when while checking his mail he was gunned down by a former customer of his, harboring a 40 year grudge.  It is your duty to make it hard for them to kill you, and/or your tribe. Do your duty.  Otherwise, someone else is going to have to clean that mess up, and that involves apprehending the right desperate armed murderer without getting hurt. What's the first step in dealing with a snake bite? Kill the snake.

--I'm about to try to step up for a local citizen that's without much resources. We'll see if I don't screw this up.

--My brother and I talked a bit today about religion. I was surprised at how close we were were on the subject, which we hadn't talked about in some years. But it was one of those conversations where neither one of us would have gotten upset if we had discovered that we were at opposite ends of the spectrum, either. I am happy that he and I are at this easy-going place in our relationship.

--With a high of 75 this weekend, we may have finally made it through the long hot death march of summer. But I don't trust it not to give me triple digit temperatures again, until I'm well into the second half of my second month ending with -er.

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* Ask your National Security Advisor to get you Condi Rice's number, and ask her what these are. Don't rely on your party's defense guys to get this one right!

The militarization of law enforcement.

In comments on the previous blog entry, Greg mentioned "the increasing militarization of law enforcement in this country."

I think that it's a concern worth having, but I also think that, by and large, our concerns are about issues more theoretical than practical.

We all shake our heads at the pictures of NYPD cops in full tactical gear (BDUs, tac vests, M4s, helmets) standing out front of their city administration buildings, and at cops going full-on dynamic entry on what should be a simple warrant service. We grimace upon learning that yet another federal agency has a SWAT team.

How about letting the U.S. Marshal's Service do the SWAT gig, and let the other agencies work with them for the most part? Oh, I can see having a Special Response Team within the Secret Service, perhaps. But the rest? They need to farm it out if for no other reason than economy. We don't require the silly redundancy. But more importantly, when you have a SWAT team, you tend to feel like you need to use it. The already unnecessary Department Of Education doesn't need to be looking at their jobs and saying, "How could we put our SWAT team to work solving this issue?"

But the fact is, those stories and pictures are in the news because they actually are news. The norm is not news. Sure, we definitely need to keep a weather eye on those guys and prevent them from becoming the norm, but day in, day out, the vast, vast majority of us never tac out, almost never pull the black rifle out of the trunk except for routine administrative purposes, and have never put on a helmet.

That said, giving a patrol officer some gear to deal with exigent circumstances as the first responder is NOT militarizing the police departments. Sure I've got a tac vest in the back of the car. I've put it on once in the past year, while setting up a perimeter around a mentally-ill armed man's house, and we took that guy into custody by knocking on the door and talking him into stepping outside. Yes, I've got a short AR in the patrol car. It's a damned sight better way to deal with an active shooter than trying to get lucky with my pistol.  Just because the military also use an AR-pattern carbine doesn't mean that having one in my patrol car is making me militarized. It's just an overlap in gear. I promise you that Marshal Dillon would have had one if he could have. I'll further point out that his Winchester lever rifle (which model? M.1892?) was pretty much the assault rifle of that era. (Yes, I am aware that I'm speaking of a fictional law enforcement officer, but I promise you that most people critical of militarization of law enforcement would probably like to see Matt Dillon. Well, that or Andy Taylor, but if you can't see the foolishness of that fictional rarely-armed Sheriff employing an inept family member deputy, then I can't help you.)

When you see that your local cop pulls a shotgun from his cruiser to answer a robbery call, you may notice that it's likely to have a black synthetic stock on it, these days. That's not a militarization issue-- it's a practical one. These days, you pay extra for wood over synthetic, and frankly, the synthetic is more durable, usually is lighter, is is less susceptible to water or oil soaking into it, and doesn't look bad when it's been scratched by daily patrol tours. When he pulls a carbine out of the car, consider that a single round of .223 into the bad guy is a LOT better than throwing stray rounds of pistol around a neighborhood (believe it or not, the .223 won't over-penetrate as badly as a duty pistol round will.) or a load of .33 caliber buckshot pellets that start off at 1300+ feet per second. And make no mistake, if a cop has to fire on a bad guy, I WANT him using a long gun. A properly-used long gun will end a fight far faster than a pistol. If it's time to shoot a threat, I want that threat shot well. I want the least number of shots taken. If a gunfight looks likely, I want that police officer picking up a fight-ending long gun.

That's not to say that I subscribe to the "show 'em you mean business, so they won't mess with you" school of law enforcement, because I don't. If a cop is on routine patrol, I want that rifle or shotgun secured. I don't like balaclavas, even on raids. I don't like cops wearing leather gloves when they're out on patrol unless it's cold or they're about to perform a pat-down. (This goes double --no, triple-- for fingerless gloves.) While I'm fine with cargo pants, I find fatigue type uniforms to be distasteful. I hate drop thigh pistol holster rigs for regular patrol. If a cop is wearing a tactical vest, he'd better be doing something tactical, like serving a warrant. (I almost wrote "high risk warrant," but a lot of people don't want to go to jail even for a misdemeanor, so I'll put up with being somewhat tactical on any arrest, so long as we're not unnecessarily kicking in doors on no-knock warrants for preserving evidence.)

As I had mentioned earlier, last time that I put on a tac vest and grabbed the carbine on a call, we were responding to a call of a heavily-armed mentally ill person who needed to be taken into custody and who had proven he was dangerous. We talked him out, and cuffed him, and got him some help, as police officers, not as a tactical unit. But we were damned happy to have the long guns, and the extra ammo, and the extra protection that the tactical vests provided, as we first responders from different rural agencies performed that role, that night. Then we put the gear back up, and went back on patrol.

Because we're not soldiers; we're patrolmen. And we are the police in what is not a police state.

"So now what?"

A suggestion, Mr. Nobel Peace Prize-Winning President.

What do you do, after you announce that the most powerful nation in the world finally just knocked off a third-world-living thug, 9.5 years after he masterminded an effective attack on our nation?

You tell your military to pack up, come home, and stand down. We're in a recession, and we need to save money.

Announce the following, and note the respect that you can engender:

"We just focused the reach of our angry nation on killing one man who attacked our nation. Having killed him, we bring our troops and resources back home. My suggestion: Don't become the next target of our ire."

Then dismiss the TSA.

You might be amazed at the votes you find in the next election.

Got any pocket change?

I've got five... no, six! dollars, and 37 cents.

Let's all kick in and buy a Type 42 destroyer.

Sure, the engines and the guns are removed, but think of the fun we could have. I'm thinking that, once we've got some Mercury outboards mounted, we go make a run up and down the coast of Somalia.

I know whom I'm asking to captain her.

What, me?!? Are you kidding? Give up a gunport on the rails for a spot on the conn? You're out of your mind.

Damn.

If you haven't thought about our boys in Afghanistan lately, take a second to read and watch the video, and appreciate what a hard job they're tasked with doing.

It's not the speech. It's the qualification.

Who knows what motivation Rick Glen Strandlof had for claiming that he was a former Marine, decorated with a Purple Heart and a Silver Star for his actions in Iraq? The fact is, the Marines don't have any records of his being a member of their rolls. That's pretty damning, right there, because the Marines, being the cliquish organization that they are, are darned good about keeping up with who was one of them, for better or worse. (For example, they still claim Whitman and Oswald, and even Jeremiah Wright, among their former ranks.)

So when the Justice Department found out about Strandlof's false claims, they utilized the relatively new Stolen Valor Act of 2005, which broadened a former law against claiming to be a Medal Of Honor recipient. The new version of the federal law made it a violation to claim all badges and decorations of the armed forces as having been earned. (Text here.)

The case went to trial in a Denver federal court. Strandlof claimed a freedom of speech defense, and the feds claimed that false speech isn't protected.

And that was their case.

Well, when you stop right there, it's almost understandable that U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn dismissed the case, ruling that the law was unconstitutional. My argument would have been one of qualifications. If a man puts himself out to be an attorney, but is not, he is guilty of a crime. If a woman claims to be a medical doctor, but is not, she is guilty of a crime. If a person claims to be a police officer but is not, that person is committing a crime. It is proper that these persons be charged with those crimes, because there is a compelling public interest in vesting real doctors, lawyers, and police with certain credentials, lest just anyone claim to be able to be able to give legal advice (that might get you locked up), or do surgery on you (that might kill you), or arrest you (which will take your freedom away.).

What's the compelling interest? Oh, offhand, I would say that it's in reducing the cheapening of the heroism of our nation's soldiers. That sounds jingoistic, doesn't it? It's not meant to be. I simply mean that, if our nation is to stand, it must maintain a group of armed forces that defends it against enemies foreign and domestic. That's a Constitutionally valid goal. If we allow the awards and decorations, badges, and ranks bestowed by our military to be cheapened by permitting those who did not earn them to claim them, then we are undermining the esteem held by the public for our veterans: "Oh, so you're a retired Army Major with two Bronze Stars? So what? That guy begging spare change out on the corner is a former Marine Colonel, with a Navy Cross, a MoH, and a Purple Heart for the damage done to his liver during the Kaiser War!"
In Texas, we've got a law against preparing or presenting a fraudulent educational degree as one that was earned. I'm glad of it, in that I put in my time and money and effort to get my degree, and I'd rather not have its worth diluted by worthless diplomas put out. In effect, that degree is a financial instrument, and may advance my career, earnings, and reputation.

At the very least, can we not look at military decorations the same way, for our veterans? While I was at college, they were earning their own skins on the wall.

Time to wax jingoistic?

Look, I'm not one to get our country into unnecessary wars, but it seems like we're spread out a bit, already. Lets head one off.

Iran is rattling its sabres and working on nukes. Pakistan is playing dirty, and has nukes, and seems to be auctioning them off to the highest bidder.

It's time to make a bit of a statement. But to and at whom?

Well, for as long as I can remember, North Korea has been making ridiculous threats to anyone who can hear them. We threaten to cut off aid, or do anything to displease them, and they threaten to nuke us. They've been waving that particular sword about since before they even were confirmed to have it. Lately, N. Korea has been dabbling with further acts of war on our allies. I'm not just talking about a street fight in the DMZ, either.

What say we explain to China that we're not interested in getting into a pissing contest with them, but that we just need to demonstrate to Kim Jung-Il that he's simply not cut out to play these games?

After all, we have a new bunker buster that really, REALLY needs testing.

17 minutes of really interesting commentary.

Have you seen Bill Whittle's video? In it, he presents a very concise and fact-filled response to Jon Stewart's assertion that Truman was a war criminal for having bombed Japanese cities. *

Already having known the story, I didn't need convincing, but I'll admit to having found it fascinating, nonetheless.

I had visited his blog, Eject! Eject! Eject! before. But I'd never heard him speak. Not bad.


___________________________________________________
*Stewart was apparently moved to retract his statement. Good for him.

Give me just a minute, here.

I need a few seconds for an exercise of your mind, and I'm seriously asking you to devote your attention to the task for about a minute.

_ _ _

--Think of the most vibrant, most energetic young man or woman you know.
--Think of their earnest dedication to what they believe in, whether or not it's popular with others.
--Think of how exceptional they are. How they seem, to you, to stand out in a crowd of their peers.
--Think about their smile. Think about their voice.
--Think about the leadership that they are learning to display.
--Think about how this young man or woman that you're considering represents everything that is good and right about our society, and how important it is that he or she gets to help shape our future.
--Think about how much he or she means to his or her loved ones. How irreplaceable this young person, in the prime of his life, is to his family and friends.
--Think of how many of us know young men and women like that --the young lions of our world-- whom we expect to go on to lead this nation as they grow older.
--Think about these important young people, and realize: it is from this pool of our citizens that we ask to die in the service of our nation.

If your special someone is not in harm's way, think about all of those who are the special someones of others, who are. And realize that those others love their serviceman just as you love your young person. And here we come to the hardest part: imagining what it would be like to find out that your loved one has been killed in service of his nation. It's so painful to consider, that it seems unfathomable, yet I'm asking you to do it, for just a minute. Consider the profundity of the sacrifice. The depth of the pain.

Please remember those who fell and are falling, for our nation. At least for today.

Remember.

Gunship Diplomacy

Friend Tamara brings up a good point: If we're gonna be called an imperialistic hegemony, and people are going to treat us like one, then why can't we act like one, once in a while?

Tamara also brings to mind a scene that was best portrayed in one of my all-time favorite movies, The Wind And The Lion.

There are two superb scenes in that altogether great movie.

The first is in the opening scene, where Sir Joshua Smith is taking high tea with the American Mrs. Eden Perdicaris in her Morocco courtyard. Disturbing their tea, a group of armed Berbers sweeps in on horseback to kidnap Mrs. Perdicaris and her brood. The British man, like all good gentlemen abroad, is heeled. He draws his Webley, stands, and begins firing with some effect, unhorsing at least two Berber attackers before his revolver goes click on an empty chamber as another attacker bears down on him. Sir Joshua Smith looks at his revolver with great disdain and says "Dahmn!" before he is cut down.

I was about 14 when I first saw that movie and that scene, and ever since then, I've wanted a Mark I or early Mark II Webley .455 revolver.*

The second great scene of the movie is when, irritated that a foreign "dignitary" (for such Raisuli, the leader of the pirates, claimed to be) should take an American captive, and not unaware of the international (as well as political) repercussions of his actions, Theordore Roosevelt decides to send in the South Atlantic Squadron (later known as the South Atlantic Fleet). When negations for the Perdicarises fails to bring their release, a company of Marines, supplemented by sailors, come ashore in Tangier and march at double time to the palace**, where they take the Pasha captive, right smartly. The guard force that too late attempts to defend the palace is dispatched with alacrity.

It's beautiful.

The movie is loosely based on a historical incident. Some have made hay over the fact that diplomacy won the day, and that no shots were fired in the taking of the port of Tangier in the actual 1904 incident. So? When a fleet of SEVEN battleships and several companies of Marines comes knocking at your door, and you submit, you have effectively been subdued by military force (the threat thereof.).

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* Roberta knows what I'm talking about.
** You really ought to watch that clip, if you've got a minute. Part 1 to that is HERE.