Cleaning ladies meet ferrets and chaos ensues

OK, SO THE BLOOD-CURDLING SHRIEK coming from my kitchen and the sounds of running feet probably shouldn't have surprised me yesterday. But it kinda' did.

Let me 'esplain.

My MaidBrite cleaning ladies were making their monthly stop to scrape and polish my condo yesterday. I THOUGHT I had everything prepared for their visit: Dog in his cage. Check. Ferrets in the basement. Check. Cats doing whatever they were going to do anyway. Check. Me stashed away up in my Man Cave. Check.

My cleaning ladies—let’s call them Elpidia, Maria and Delores -- entered and in their usual efficient hustle and bustle, proceeded to clean this pile from top to bottom. In my spoken-if-broken Spanish, I explained that everything was fair game, but (a) they should give up trying to clean my office and just scare the carpet with a vacuum. "Solamente aspirada en mi officine. por favor," I told them. Oh, and (b) don't go near the basement door, I added.

Safely ensconced in my office, one of the ladies –  Elpidia -- tended to her upstairs cleaning duties. Maria and Delores tackled the downstairs.

About 20 minutes into the cleaning cycle, I heard the afore-mentioned blood-curdling scream from the kitchen, which was then punctuated by the sounds of dropping cleaning supplies and running feet.

I went downstairs, not sure what kinds of hellish carnage I'd see. 

It seems that one of our ferrets, Kringle, heard the cleaning crew's commotion, and had been scratching at the basement door. A lot. Maria, being curious and thinking perhaps a cat was trapped in the basement, went and opened the door. Bright-eyed little Kringle greeted her and went to sniff her ankles.

It was at that point that Maria screamed, threw down her basket of cleaning supplies, and ran into the dining room. Upon my arrival on the scene, I wasn't prepared for the sight of heavy-set Maria running into the dining room, being playfully chased by a small, white, furry Kringle. "Ratones, ratones!" (Rats! Rats!) Maria yelled. "No me gusta!"

I picked up the ferret, assuring Maria that it wasn't a rat, and that it was in the same family as weasels, wolverines and other small predators, "No es una rata! Eso es una ferret... un depredador muy pequeno! Eso es la misma familia de weasels i wolverines!" I assured her.

Elpidia, who had also come downstairs by this time, and Delores, were falling over with laughter at the sight of their hefty compatriot chased into the living room by a 11-ounce ball of animated fur.

Unfortunately, in her haste to exit the general area of the basement door, Maria had left the door open. Hearing the general sounds of riot and rout from upstairs, our little bandit-furred ferret Widget decided to investigate as well. But instead of heading to the kitchen, as Kringle had done, Widget headed straight to the living room and up to Maria.

Maria screamed again, and (I SWEAR she set a new  standing broad jump record vaulting over an ottoman!) ran straight out the front door. Elpidia and Delores, still weak from laughter, followed after her.

I never DID get my living room carpet completely vacuumed that day, but who cares? Got a free floor show with my clean condo!

OHMYGAWD, We've found a snake! Now what do we do?

OK ... this is an oldie but a goodie... in the same genre as "Things Staff Officers Say" and "Murphy's Laws of Combat" (posted previously.)

The idea is, when you're surrounded by The Suck, U.S. troops have always stepped up and given a great accounting of themselves .... and done it with a goodly dose of gallows humor at the same time.

With that in mind, I present to you the classic: "There's a snake in the Area of Operations!"

The Problem:  There is a snake in the Area of Operations (AO):

Army General:  Sees snake. Orders Colonel to call immediate meeting to discuss Snake Situation and possibly authorize movement on snake.  Requires preparation of 135 Powerpoint briefing slides, which he then declares he has no time to view.

Army private: Tells Sergeant Major and First Sergeant he never saw any snake. Never saw nothing.  No hablo.

Army Infantry : "Ugh! Me see snake. Me like snake. Me play with snake. Ouch! Me no like snake. Me go play with rocks."

Army Paratrooper: Comes down in force, landing right on top of the snake, killing it.  After assembling, they discover that they’ve landed in the wrong AO and killed the wrong snake.   Hang around and smoke cigarettes while waiting for airlift out

Armor: Tank runs over snake.  Crewman giggles, and looks for more snakes. Then they run out of gas.

Army Aviation: Has GPS grid to snake down to one half of one centimeter, but still can't find snake. Helicopter back to base for crew rest, a manicure, and go to the club and order some sort of drink called "The Snake"  

Army Ranger: Walks in 75 miles while starving and carrying 100-pound pack. Finds the snake. Plays with the snake, then eats it.  

Army Ranger (alt): Assaults the snake's home and secures it for use by friendly snakes. 

Army Green Berets:  Sneak into the AO and make contact with the snake.  Speaks to it in snake language, building rapport with snake, thus winning its heart and mind.  Trains snake to go out and kill other snakes.

Army Delta Force Operative:  Becomes a snake.  Pals around with the snake awhile to gain trust and information.  Passes information on to his handler.  Paints the snake den with a laser designator and then watches while the snake and all of its family are taken out by a drone-fired smart bomb.

Army Field Artillery:  Masses 10,000 mobile artillery units, and launches an all-out Time-on-Target barrage with rockets and high explosives and kills the snake … not to mention several hundred civilians.  The mission is declared a complete success, and all participants (including the mechanics, clerks and cooks) are awarded the Silver Star.

Army Combat Engineers:  Come into the AO and study the snake.  They prepare an in-depth, five-series field manual on employing counter-mobility assets to kill the snake.  The study is so obtuse that nobody reads it.  The engineers then complain that the maneuver forces don’t understand how to properly conduct counter-snake operations by the Book.

Army Intelligence:  Learns the snake's language and dialect, perform's "snake area studies," references and collates any other snake-related information.  Determines snake's order of battle, prepares map overlays and Powerpoint presentation of snake territory. Then tells colonel to direct the Infantry and Artillery to fight over who actually gets to kill the snake.

Army Quartermaster Corps:  Supply sergeant captures the snake and paints it green with a National Stock Number bar code on its flank.  He then has the Base Commander sign for “one snake, green, with scales, poisonous” on a non-expendable hand receipt and places the snake in the appropriate bin in his supply warehouse.  Later, after claiming he doesn’t have any snakes to issue, the sergeant ships the snake to a company deployed on the battlefield.  (Unfortunately, what that company had previously requisitioned, was “One Rake, with handle, for area, cleaning of.”)

U. S. Marines:  Assault the snake’s position with extreme violence, killing it and everything in sight, all the while complaining about “…lack of proper support from the Damned Navy.”

Marine Recon:  Follows the snake and gets lost

Air Force:  Fighter pilot flies into AO, mis-identifies the snake as a late-model Chinese high-altitude interceptor, and engages the snake with Smart Missiles,  Can’t tell if he killed the snake or not, but returns to base for a cold beer, while his crew chief paints a nifty looking snake decal on his aircraft’s nose.

Air Force Combat Controllers:  Parachute into the AO and guide the snake elsewhere.

Air Force Pararescue: parachutes into the AO, severely wounds the snake during the initial firefight, and then does their damndest to save the snake’s life.

U.S. Navy:  Mine and blockade the snake’s harbors, sinking or seizing any ships trying to enter on the grounds that they might be carrying snake food.  Invites members of the media aboard aircraft carrier to observe Navy-led anti-snake strikes.

Navy SEAL: Swims into the AO at night, walks 50 miles inland, and takes an uncomfortable position which they then hold for 24 hours just to stay awake.  They ambush the snake, expending all their ammunition and two cases of hand grenades and call for naval gunfire in a failed attempt to kill the snake. The snake bites the SEAL then dies of lead poisoning.   Else, the snake gets away and the SEALS blame the mission failure on poor intel.

Navy Intel:  Has no idea where the snake is, but is unable to tell you that as you're not cleared to know.

U.S, Coast Guard: Does nothing, as they’re too busy issuing citations to drunken pleasure boaters.

Central Intelligence Agency:  Locates the snake using a spy satellite.  They study the snake, scale by scale and watch its movements.  They draw up an extensive report on snakes, snake scales, snake lice, snake shit and snake movements, and pass the report up the chain of command to the Joint Chiefs, the CIA director and the White House National Security Advisor.  Meanwhile, the snake slithers off, disappears, and is never seen again.

Congressman:  Blames U.S. military forces for stirring up the snake in the first place.  Takes away the soldiers' weaponry and sends them back to fight the snake while wearing hand and leg cuffs.

Clinton White House:  Tells inappropriate snake joke to intern, and then orders the death of an innocent camel with 147 Tomahawk Cruise Missiles.

G. W. Bush White House:  Declares snake part of "Evil Empire" and drops Mother of All Bombs all over Afghanistan, possibly killing snake. Possibly not.  Then conducts a media Photo Op beneath a "Mission Accomplished" banner.

Either way, no one gives a crap about the snake anymore.

You're doing it, again. (Don''t leave us out here in the cold)

"When you get to these wars, I worry that America has paid us very well, the compensation's good (so the culture says) 'please go off and fight our dirty little wars and let us get on with our lives.' We need to figure a way to get America to buy in (those wars.)  Adm Mike Mullen, former Chief of Naval Operations

This country has, for long, had a love-hate relationship with its own armed forces.  It seems as though we in uniform are fine in our own way, as long as we don't get in your way.  The not-so-subtle message we get from civilians is, "If you want something more than just a "Support the Troops' bumper sticker, look elsewhere and don't bother us."

I recall that, when working at Best Buy (in effect, a huge chain of toy stores for adults,) customers would find out in the course of conversations that I was retired military.  They would dutifully thank me for my service, but then mention that they wanted their kids to go to a good college and get a high-paying job.  

So, military service was fine for some ... but the "better classes" couldn't be bothered.

Since the end of the Draft in the early 1970s, fewer and fewer Americans are volunteering to join the All-Volunteer Force of this nation's military services.  Fewer and fewer Americans are carrying the burdens of defense and freedom for everyone else.  A recent study published in the Veterans of Foreign Wars magazine showed that a huge percentage of Americans are just fine with that.  The study added that Americans believe we deserve to carry the added hardships of military service because, well ... we volunteered.

And you know what?  We were mostly OK with that.  We were, after all, volunteers and fiercely proud of that.  Besides, we were pretty well paid by the civilians so we could go and dirty our collective hands and the civilians wouldn't have to.

But then the Congressional bean counters began looking at defense and military peoples' lives as  commodities to be bought, sold and inventoried.

In an administration which requires all Americans to enlist ... er .... sign up for health care, the White House has said that it no longer can afford to fund military healthcare at pre-war levels.  That we long-term service people were promised lifelong care when we first volunteered to serve matters not one whit to politicians.  (After all, they've got their own healthcare system completely funded apart from the rest of us.)

The military services, whose equipment is worn out after ten years of continuous combat, are told that -- due to an artificially created sequestration -- they can't replace that equipment with new or even refurbished gear to a level sufficient to sustain the same level of operations, should they become necessary.  We're just going to have to make do.

At the beginning of the current operations in Iraq, Defense Secretary told soldiers they were going to have to continue digging through landfills for scrap metal to up-armor their Humvees against the murderous Improvised Explosive Devices.  "You go to war war with the army you have, not the army you might wish to have," he said.  Thousands of US Servicemen died or came home horribly wounded because the bean counters were too cheap to supply them with the arms and armor they needed to fight the war.

(Troops sent to Iraq without proper armor for their vehicles had to dig through landfills to find scraps to cobble together jury-rigged protection.)

Those of us of a certain age remember that, after the end of American involvement in Vietnam, one army (the South Vietnamese) was left in the field to wither and die, while another army (ours) was brought home to do the same thing.

Does anyone else see a theme forming here?  I urge all my civilian friends and colleagues:  Do NOT break faith with the armed forces you sent into Harm's Way.  If you truly value their service, stop tallying up nickels and dimes, and listen -- listen -- when they tell you what they need to fight the wars your elected officials start!.

Or else bring back the Draft, and nobody's kids will be "too good" to be sent in Harm's Way.