Out Here, My Friend, We Deal in Lead...

Got a load on and got a little retrospective about just how long and how hard we all have fought these past twenty-five years.  Went on Facebook and vented my spleen.  Went a little like this:

I'm a Marine. I've been one since 1994. I have retired from being responsible for deploying to fight, but I am still responsible for training Marines in the art and science of combined arms in my civilian job. "Retiring" from the obligated service entails an age, and a level of experience (I think) that provides me with a perspective that is (I flatter myself) worth at least heeding.
It occurred to me today, about two hours ago, that I am happier at this point of my life than any other. I have become accustomed to being the "loyal opposition", for the past 28 years. As a young man, growing up in my formative years under the Reagan Presidency, my assumption was that the guy in that office, doing that job, wanted the best for Americans and wished for the country to be awesome. Slowly, Reagan's successors have eroded that assumption. I've slowly come to understand, in the fullness of time, that Smedley Butler was right, that War IS a racket, and that Reagan was the exception, not the rule. Reagan was an outsider, he had a cup of coffee as the governor of California before becoming the President, but he had not spent a lifetime of becoming the heir-apparent to the throne of the Chief Executive of the US as his successors did. Those individuals compromised the legacy that was genuinely aimed at making America stronger and more successful.
The current President seems to have the same motivation that Reagan once did, and the freedom of interaction to do so. He doesn't have a list of contributors to mollify as he goes about his business. He doesn't seem to be as likely to get us into a war to benefit the business interests of those who have contributed to him sitting in that office. This leads me to list the things that I realized, just now, that I do not miss:

*I do not miss being told by the President that I should feel bad about myself because I'm white.

*I do not miss being told by the President that I should be ashamed of my country, the oath I took to defend it, or the actions that I took in doing so.

*I do not miss worrying about the fact that my CinC wants to destroy the culture and tradition that I've adopted as a Marine Officer.

*I do not miss the daily press conference where the designated member of the White House staff decries almost everything I hold dear as vicious, while maintaining every vice that I've ever known is a virtue.

These are a few things that give me genuine happiness. I know that many of you find the President offensive, without any precise reason why, except for what the mainstream press is publishing out of a fit of puerile rage because they didn't get their way. The process of electing a new President was carried out, and we've got a new guy doing exactly what he said he would do. You might not agree with him or his decisions. God knows that I can sympathize, since the vast majority of what has come out of that office since 1992 has resulted in my own disagreement and outrage. Throughout that period, twenty-five years in duration, I have ever urged whomever would read my tripe to understand the constitution and the intent behind its adoption. I did not call for the head of any of the usurpers that had been elected. I did not urge violent demonstration against them. I only urged folks to be aware of what was guaranteed in the founding documents and to demand that they were either returned or maintained.

Now we finally come to it. Those that simply cannot accept what I have accepted for many years are calling for open rebellion. That is their right, and they are free to seek such redress for whatever slight of their rights that they perceive. But to those individuals I say this: I've gotten pretty good with my long gun out to 1000 yards, and I can knock the ass out of a barn cat with my lever gun anywhere inside 300 yards. If your sense of outrage makes it within a mile of my place, you're not going to be able to cash that check from MoveOn or whatever Soros exchange you work for. Out here, my friend, we deal in lead.

Unclean