How perfect is this? A shot of Talisker, behind a pint of Uncle Sam Black Lager (Sam Adams. An uncle. We've met.) following a meal of T-bones cooked on my very own grill, in SoCal (where it was shorts and sleeves weather today), the night after my abundantly talented daughter did some sort of Uri Geller shit on-stage (as she performed a supporting role in "Bye Bye Birdie" at Theater 29, our own playhouse out here in the middle of the Mojave) and convinced an entire theater full of people to cash in their CDs, to sell all their worldly possessions, to sell their children into indentured servitude, and give the proceeds to a her in the cause of freeing Tibet from the Communist Chinee.
After the curtain-call, I asked her what she had planned. She said, "Dad, this fight against oppression in South America ain't what it once was. Most of the countries down there are either wholly-owned by the drug cartels, or are paternalistic enough to give the Pope a case of penis-envy. We're not gonna create arepresentative republic kind down there. So, I've changed my focus to Tibet. Richard Gere's a pussy, and they need someone who can operate over there without getting their tits in the way. I've managed to get support from that whole "Other Government Agency" (OGA), who has given me a Tactical Psychological Operations Team, some Human Intelligence Exploitation Marines, and a section of MH-153s from Fort MacDill, Florida to get us around. The only stipulation that OGA put on me was that I've got to raise money, since the Global War on Terrorism COSTJON is about to be turned off after the election. It's like Jake and Elwood...I'm on a mission from God."
I wiped my eyes, kissed her forehead, and wished her luck.
I later saw a bucket full of $100 bills make its way to the dressing room after the show...
Kids, it ain't the Monroe Doctrine, it's the El Sucio Doctrine. And we ain't fuckin' around this time. It's kinda like the Carter thing with the Panama Canal. Except we kill all the Panamanians and take the Canal (that we built) for ourselves...
It's...
BILE
Vol. XLVI
Old Ways are best, and the genetic hot-tub of the industrialized nations
1) "You know Jim, we need more gynocologists out there where the rubber meets the road..." As has become custom since that ambulance chasing fuck, Wally, has occupied the space next to me at work, I've been damn-near kilt by him dragging the least common denominator for me to examine. Lookit the attachment. Again, I'll pause to freshen my drink, as you check it out.
Ready?
Exercise.
Please understand that since I was in my mid-twenties, the military has been treating me and my Marines as if we were a bunch of addled teens. Those of you who can remember the mid-nineties, and were on a UDP rotation to Okinawa, can attest to this. Back then, we would get brief after brief after brief about how we should really not drink to the point where we were unable to stop ourselves from re-enacting the crime of the Kin Beach Rape in Okinawa. We had the Old-Man, the XO, the Chaplain, and even the battalion Medical Officer warn us of the long-term effects of being an asshole. At each step, they treated each and every Marine in the audience with a condescension that bordered on criminal. It was as if we were mere children, incapable of making mature decisions in any context. Incapable of recognizing cause and effect. Just a buncha dumb assholes.
Well, my friends, it wasn't true then, and it ain't true now.
Check it out. We hail from a tradition of warriors who lived on rats, captured Jap rations, and K-rats on Guadacanal in 1942. Thousands of us died on the black beaches of Iwo Jima. Thousands more perished in the jungles of Okinawa. And so it goes...Inchon, Chosin, Khe Sanh, Hue City, the Easter Offensive, Fallujah. Lotsa good guys interred in the ground, sacrificing themselves to water the Tree of Liberty, and in the name of the guy to their left and right. There are hundreds of thousands of Marines who survived these heroes, and still cling to the memory of just how great those guys were. How the world is just a little more drab without them here. But getting by, because they've gotta go out tonight on OP, or out today to answer some PIRs (Priority Intelligence Requirements...i.e. "who/where the fuck is this guy?") Those guys, my friends, are fuckin' hard men. Carved out of wood.
But times, they is a-changin'...In this war, you see the addition of a couple of significant people to the average infantry battalion that goes forward. The first: The Staff Judge Advocate (SJA), a lawyer. The second: an embedded reporter. The presence of these individuals, while sometimes diverting (you know that I speak of you, Kazman), is also an admission of how bound we have become to modern international opinion.
"Imagine if you will", an infantry battalion advancing under fire through Hue City, Vietnam, in 1968. Somewhere, in Hue, a Squad takes fire from a building. They advance under that fire, using suppression and alternating bounds to close with and destroy those assholes, whose most fervent wish is their loud and uncomfortable death.
They enter and clear the building. While they do so, one of the Vietnamese assholes, that was trying to kill them moments earlier, rolls over conspicuously in some death throe, or other wild spasm. The third man in the room sees movement towards his mate out of the corner of his eye and kills that motherfucker with a burst out of his rifle. Because he has taken fire from this house. Because that guy in the floor looks like every other motherfucker that he has fought and killed today. Because he'd rather die than either of the two Marines who entered the building before him.
Now, in those days, this kind of reaction was understood. It was expected, and it was hailed by peers and superiors.
That same scenario happened in Fallujah in 2004, was documented by an embedded reporter, and we heard the fucking hue and cry from the media as to the inhumanity of the young Marine who shot that asshole. What nobody saw was the second and third order effects of that hue and cry. The battlion to whom that Marine belonged had to deal with inquiries from higher, once that whole scene played out on national news. These inquires occupied the time of the battalion commander, the company commander, and the platoon commander. This detracted from the abilities of those men to do their jobs, and kill more motherfuckers who would wage war against the United States. It represented a reduction in the discretionary combat power that could be wielded against the enemy. And this was because a reporter was with that particular squad...
Now that you've read the attached article, imagine a battalion commander, intent on taking the fight to the insurgent and developing relationships with the local leadership. Not only does he have numerous reporters in orbit around his command at different points in his deployment, but he has a staff judge advocate on hand as well.
This SJA is to the infantry battalion what "Tom Hagan" was to the Corleone family in "The Godfather" . He advises the commander as to the most legal way to accomplish his mission, while he also performs a myriad of investigative duties relating to Marines shooting at or into the Iraqi people, plus he accomplishes legal assistance duties as he is able, and (in the case of Kaz), he declares "war trophies" to be within the letter of the law, so we can bring them home. (I pause to stub out my cigarette in the Soviet 152mm artillery projectile base that Kaz allowed me to pack back to CONUS in '04...)
Now, imagine this same battalion commander, who has to answer to your run-of-the-mill, belt-fed Regimental Commander. Added to that, he has to maintain order and discipline over the 1100 cats that he has to herd everyday in a combat zone through his five company commanders. He must maintain awareness of current operations. He's gotta approve future targets and operations (while informing the aforementioned belt-fed Regimental Commander of that too). Meanwhile, he's dispensing military justice with regards to violations of the Laws of War, and/or the Uniform Code of Military Justice, with the help of his battalion Sergeant Major, (while informing the aforementioned belt-fed asshole of that, also). During all of this, mind you, he's leading the battalion by circulating the battlespace and spot-checking Marines with regards to their abilities to accomplish his intent. He's interacting and developing his company commanders. He approves and forwards citations for heroic action. He writes letters of condolence to the families of the fallen...people, that fatass Donald Trump would tap out within five minutes, by God.
Okay, now imagine this same busy man, engaged in the daily maintenance of his assigned battlespace, as was described above. But now he's been waylayed by a bevy of psychologists who think that 2nd squad, 2nd platoon, Echo Co 2/7 is too strung out. "They need rest and refit", "they're at their breaking point", "I'm going to recommend to the Division Commanding General that they be pulled off the line".
We can't do this to that man. What is at question here is leadership within the United States Marine Corps, people. Each Marine on the line has his peers to confide in, (and we do confide in them, to our demise...isn' that right, Godboy?) Plus, those junior Marines have fire team and squad leaders watching and listening to them. Platoon sergeants watching, listening to, and guiding their squad leaders. Platoon commanders ensure order and discipline are maintained within their platoons. Company Gunnery Sergeants and First Sergeants listen to and monitor the relative order, sanity, and discipline of the platoons. Company executive officers ensure that the platoon commanders are in-step, or at least organized in some meaningful way. Company commanders are the fathers of these 180-200-man families. Battalion Gunners provide experience and an objective ear to any and all that approach them with a problem. Most of you have rolled your eyes at me by now, because you know all of this. I brought it out that way because this is the support network, people. It was designed to not only give orders and assault objectives, but to maintain sanity. It is a very effective paradigm. This paradigm has worked, and worked well, since the time of the fuckin' Roman Legions.
The attached article proposes another distractor to the entire process. It proclaims that officers and Staff Non-Comissioned Officers cannot lead our Marines effectively. Further, It provides a secondary chain of information that will violate the principal of "unity of command" (fingers interlaced here, Kaz) by creating a parallel reporting chain that resides outside the one dude who is supposed to be responsible for making the fuckin' call (i.e.: the battalion and/or the company commander).
And so, the guy who should be making the fucking call cannot do so because he has been saddled with an entire psych staff who is analyzing his every bowel movement. Ladies and gentlemen, that is not how wars are won...that is how they are lost. While I am certain (with every fiber of my being) that the non-green/non-trauma aspect of Navy medicine wishes to get into the Iraqi Theater of Operations to validate their existence now that al Anbar is as quiet as a fuckin' church, that should not mitigate into this intrusion into the daily affairs of battalion operations. Period.
So, that's the argument. But here's the backstory on this. Line up the distractors in this case: International Media discontent for the war and it's analysis of the inevitable civilian deaths therein (Media embeds as the action and SJA involvement as the counteraction); and the overwhelming stigma of PTSD that results everytime a former jarhead gets arrested (Arrest as the action, and Psych participation in a shooting war as the counteraction).
People, I've been around Marines for a long damn time. Most of them are not these frail, vulnerable creatures that the media has identified for you. Yes, many have seen things that man can never get his mind around, and that has been a trend since mankind started killing one another in an organized fashion...
But for the most part, your Marines are resilient men with a valid and time-tested support structure to develop them as men, and maintain their sanity during the most trying of challenges. They are not frail creatures, my friends. They are sturdy professionals who can bear the brunt of the longest war in the history of this nation. They are who they wished that they could be back when they were ten years-old. They are United States Marines, by God.
2) "Mr. Adams, I'm sorry, but we on the staff have decided that you represent too large a burden on the current gene pool..." (Okay, that's probably something that I should have heard sometime in the last 17 years, but work with me here...) People, we have gone past the Great Idea Cut Off Point. Please note that i have predicted this here, in this space: We are keeping alive people who have no business contributing to mankind. Herrnstein and Murray dealt with this important topic in their very controversial book "The Bell Curve". Basically, what Murray argued was that those who were less inclined to produce were more inclined to make babies than those who were actually making money. I absolutely agree with the conclusions reached in that tome, and furthermore feel that we need to add an adendum to the hipocratic oath. After the phrase, "First, do no harm", should be another oath whcih abides to Darwinian truth: "Second, stop letting dipshits procreate"...
I have personally witnessed this phenomena, as a teenager, being raised by a step-father who, if he was born in 1850 instead of 1950, would have curled up and died at the age of 17. He is emotionally unsuited, at a very basic level, for effective survival in this reality. However, due to modern mental health care advances, advances in medication, and other myriad advances in the ability of modern health care to prop up a feeble fuckin' basketcase, he has been allowed to grind out an additional half-century, despite obvious genetic challenges. He remains worthless, but thankfully has not spawned any progeny. This is but one example, I see other examples everytime I turn on the TV on weekdays before work and see the mutants waving flags, banners, and posters outside the "Today Show" set.
In 1927, Supreme Court Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote an awesome opinion in this specific area. In upholding a Virginia state compulsory sterilization law, (Buck v. Bell), Holmes found no constitutional bar to state-mandated sterilization of an institutionalized, allegedly "feeble-minded" woman, saying that "three generations of imbeciles is enough." The repurcussions on my eternal soul that will result from this entire line of reasoning , and the fact that it is making the hair stand up on the back of my libertarian neck, begs that we quickly move on...
I bring no clear solution to this pandemic. (I mean, aside from setting Sarah loose amongst the populace with clearance to stun, collar, and/or sterlize these assholes, but we won't go there...) I'm just identifying another issue that will bring us down eventually. At some point, as the dead weight in society continues to gain mass, while the capable stagger under their inertia, any forward progress will stop utterly. And all because we have made huge advances in technology, and then made that technology a "right" for all to enjoy.
Segue into one of my raging pet peeves: The alleged "right" of all to health care..
Now, logically, YOU don't have a right unless I have a corresponding duty to recognize that right. You have a right to speak, and I have a corresponding duty not to interfere with you. But speech doesn't cost anything, right? You hear me talk all the goddamn time without spending a nickel. (Moral of the story, you can wish all you want, but i'll still send you this shit.)
With health care, it was never intended to be a fuckin' right, and here's why, (Hillary, you acerbic bitch):
Medicine is a business. If people have a right to health care, then i have a corresponduing duty to pay for that health care. If people have a right to housing, then I have a duty to pay for their house. If they have a right to employment, then I have a duty to give them a job.
Thus, there is no right to health care, housing, or employment. I only agreed to provide those things for my own children. Everyone else can kiss my ass. Every man, woman, and child in this fuckin' world has parents, let them worry about those things. So, please think about the definition of such things as "rights" and "duties" before you open your man-pleaser. Thank you.
3) "Supposedly, he was born in a mental institution and only sleeps for one hour a night...he's a great man." A few random observations from out here in the bleacher seats:
a) Hope once again springs eternal. Not since the effective end of Communist rule in the former Soviet Republics have we witnessed the downfall and peaceful transition of power from madmen as we have these past six months. Missed it, didn'tcha? Yesterday, the Cuban Parliament officially handed power from Fidel Castro to his brother, Raoul. When one considers that Steinbrenner handed over the daily operations of the Yankees to his two sons, we can see that history will highlight the first months of 2008 along with 1989,1945, 1781, and 1649. Viva Libertidad!
b) Ten years later, and Jared is still making money off of not being fat. I haven't been obese for 37 years. I haven't noticed any corresponding income to match what this retard is making simply for not eating his way into the grave. Somebody. Anybody. Please. Why is this turd floating up to the surface again? Quick, somebody flush, or just mail the dude a quarter-pounder with cheese. I'm seriously tempted to send Sarah out with a captive bolt pistol and some meat tenderizer. Subway'd make a killing on Jared sandwiches ("Less than 10g of fat per serving!").
c) The annual Douchebag award. I listened to Brian Williams on the Bob Costas radio program the other day. I have officially thrown his name into the ring for the honor of being "the biggest douchebag in the galaxy". This guy makes Al Gore sound reasonable. His homoerotic cooing over Barak Hussein Obama is more difficult to listen to than the Twentynine Palms Junior High Band. How is this guy not being thrown to the wolves for being such a one-sided asshole? Brian Williams should be fed a handful of concertina wire, and dragged behind a subway car.
d) Please Exile Berkely, CA... A guy I used to work with is the current Recruiting Station Commanding Officer of the Sacremento, CA Marine Recruiting Station. Among his many challenges (the foremost being continued survival without killing hippies in his immediate vicinity) is the Recruiting Sub-Station that is in Berkely, CA. I'm sure most have seen it, but to conflagurate the entire crew here, I direct your attention to this. Apparently, the good people of Berkely wish they were speaking German, Japanese, or a really bad dialect of Russian. Feel free to piss on anything or anybody from Berkely, CA at your nearest convenience. My friend Brian, the poor bastard that has to work up there, hasn't actually complained about this entire scenario, but just imagine what it's like for him, a combat veteran who has commanded a company in Iraq, and put men in the ground, but has to go to work everyday around such ingrateful assholes. I used to think that Texas would probably secede from the Union sometime in the next hundred years. I think what is more likely is that the rest of the United States decides to kick California out of the fuckin' pool. I, for one, would not shed a tear...
4) Epilogue. Animal Mutha emailed an invitation to get drunk in Vegas last week. While I couldn't do it then, I will be up for a good drunk on 13 March, and again on 28 March, as we do the normal logistical moves to get Joel and Sarah to and from their Spring Break locales. I recommend a SCAMD Initial Planning Conference in Vegas that weekend. Anyone who is interested, gimme a yell within the next two weeks, and we'll put together a training schedule...
Mojave Viper wasn't about winning or losing.
It wasn't about words.
The hysterical shouting was in tongues, like a pentacostal church.
When Mojave Viper was over, nothing was solved,
but nothing really mattered.
Afterwards we all felt saved...
The liberator who destroyed your property has just realigned your perceptions...
Uva Uvam, Vivendo Varia, Fit,
Unclean
("One grape, seeing another, ripens")
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