Football players and other entertainers make bad messengers these days

     As military people, we hold ourselves to a higher standard of performance than most civilians. Indeed, by law, we are bound to adhere to a far more rigid standard than the rest of you.

     For instance, we voluntarily surrender many of our constitutionally guaranteed rights when we join ... the rights to freedom from search and seizure, freedom of speech, the right to a trial by a jury of your peers, the right to peaceably assemble to petition for a redress of grievances, all are held mostly in abeyance for those of us in the military.

     But we tell ourselves it's so that you in civilian life can continue to enjoy your freedoms.  And we mean it.

     So let's take a minute and examine the current wave of "taking a knee" or hiding in locker rooms by players of the National Football League while our national anthem is played.

     On one hand, it's their right.  Rights are only good if they are observed, utilized and respected by all.  As long as one is prepared to accept the consequences for their own actions, you can make any statement you want in our country.

     On the other hand, let's take a look at what they're doing.

     The National Anthem, if it is a political statement at all, is a statement of political solidarity between us all!.  When you stand for the National Anthem, you are standing as a tribute and as a statement of intent to honor the miracle of the American Republic that we have all built over the past two-plus centuries.

     When NFL millionaires protest that anthem, they are telling the rest of us something that we already know ... that our Union is an imperfect vessel.  They are saying that, as good as our nation is, we nevertheless still have a ways to go to ensure freedom for all.

     But NFL millionaires may not be the best messengers here.  

     First, there's the problem that many of them are convicted felons.  People who have epitomized bad behavior, gotten caught, and were sent to prison ... before coming back onto the football field to work on making their next million dollars.  Bad mediums for this particular message, I'm thinking.

     Secondly, these players are little more than ENTERTAINERS ... not political policy advisers.  

     I put them in the same class of pompous loudmouths as actors and actresses, who feel empowered to advise we commoners on the right way to run a government.  (George "There's Never Gonna Be a President Trump" Clooney, Ashley "I am a Nasty Woman" Judd, and Cher all come to mind at this point.)

     Entertainers.  That's all.

     And we commoners get the final vote on entertainers.  We can give them a resounding "Shut the Hell Up" by simply not watching them.  (Look what happened to comedienne Kathy Griffin when she posted a photo of herself holding a Trump head.  Her career since then is in tatters.)

     If you don't like what these millionaire football players are saying with their Take-a-knee-or-hide-in-the-locker-room protest, turn the channel and watch something else.  Hell, maybe talk to your family or even go outside for a walk or something. 

     They'll get the message.

Fathers Day ain't official unless it's messy

(My first Father's Day ... AFTER I cleaned my beard and changed my flight suit)

Your first Fathers Day doesn’t count unless it involves baby poop all over, or about a pint of half-digested strawberry yogurt in your face.

My first Father’s Day coincided with my name appearing on the flight manifest of a US Navy P-3 Orion patrol bomber, and a prospective long-ish mission out over the Pacific Ocean.  The 13 men (we were all male back then) of the bomber’s crew were all waiting around in the time-honored military tradition of “Stand by to stand by.”  That means we had to wear our flight suits everywhere, keeping our helmets and survival gear close to hand...and then just sit around waiting for the call to launch the mission.

So there I was, at home, in my flight suit, sitting around with my (then) toddler daughter, Johanna.  We were doing the “fly-like-Daddy Game” in which I lay on the living room floor, and she latched onto my legs and hands, and I lifted her up yelling (what else?) “Fly like daddy!”

This game never failed to bring gales of giggles from her.  Well, almost never.

On this day, Johanna had eaten almost a half-pint of strawberry yogurt about a half-hour before our FLD game kicked off.  Evidently it didn’t sit well with her.

Anyway, on about our 13^th FLD takeoff, instead of gales of giggles, Johanna made a sound like a piece of plumbing backing up, and turned an interesting shade of green.

Then the half-digested yogurt came pouring out of her mouth, straight down, onto my face and into my beard.

Her mom looked at me, with pink-colored goo dripping down my face and onto my sorry mess of a flight suit, and (stifling a laugh, I’m sure) wished me my first Happy Fathers Day.

And it only got better from there…but those are the substance of other stories.

One Last Service to Render

Our uniforms don’t fit like they used to.  Our waistlines now are somewhat more expansive than they used to be.   Our chins, which once jutted proudly over our stiff collars like the prows of warships, now tend to sag a mite.  Rather than standing tall in formation, some of us are stooped from age, while others are confined to wheelchairs.  Our hair, once all the colors of the spectrum, now tends to mostly gray and even solid white.

None of that matters today.

We’re standing here in the hot Florida sun to render one last service to one of our own.  We’re here to render last military honors to a World War II vet who passed away and is being interred today.

The “we” in mention is the Honor Guard of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post #10209, of Spring Hill, Fla.

Yes, I’ve become one of those guys … who wear military style hats and crisp white shirts.  I’ve become of those guys who show up to march in small town parades behind the fire engines; those guys who sit outside WalMart stores to sell paper poppies on Armistice Day, and who show up at military funerals to fire ragged rifle salutes with ancient M-1 Garand rifles.

It’s necessary, you see.  If “we” don’t do it, who will?  There aren’t many of us left.

                                                               *     *     *

Veterans organizations like the VFW, the American Legion and the DAV, exist today because we have – as our British cousins would say – “seen the elephant” and most of you have not.

We have been forged and changed in the crucible of military service, and it sets us apart from the other 99% of the American population who have not served.

You may not even notice it, except that we act “different.”    But we notice it.  A lot.

Serving in the military, especially in wartime, changes people in ways that their civilian friends and family cannot begin to fathom.   Once you’ve served in the military, you’ll notice that you are no longer defined by the same limits as many of your civilian friends.   Where once you might be tempted to just throw up your hands and walk away from a task too difficult or too dangerous, military people are taught and trained to dig deeper, hang on, and to find resources inside they never knew they had.  

“Do or die” now defines us, instead of “Close enough for government work.”

The US Marines like to say that “The Change is Forever” … and it is.

When the first Veterans came home from the American Civil War, they founded in 1866 the first ever US veterans organization, the Grand Army of the Republic.  It was because veterans needed someone to talk to.  Anecdotal tales from the time noted that veterans found they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) discuss the war with their families.  Indeed, they found they couldn’t really discuss their experiences with anyone who hadn’t been there. ..with anyone who hadn’t also “seen the elephant.”

No disrespect intended towards loving family members and caring civilians, you understand.  It’s just that you wouldn’t understand.  You lack the cultural and experiential reference points to fully comprehend the changes in us.  Even among ourselves, we find it difficult to put into words what we’ve seen, what we’ve done.  But there’s the key.

Among ourselves, we don’t NEED to put it into words.

Looking around a crowded VFW post during a meeting, you can hear the same coarse jokes and vulgar language we learned in Boot Camp or Basic Training.  Look a little closer and you can see the same thousand-yard-stare in everyone’s eyes.

Among ourselves, we can let our (white) hair down and relax a little.

There’s something else at work behind veterans organizations.  Something shameful.

This country has a long history of backing away from its promises to veterans.   Nowadays, it’s not at all uncommon to hear Congressmen or Congressional budget analysts talk about the expense of Veterans health care (which was promised to us), while their own health care system is superior to everyone else’s.  Some even talk openly about trying to balance the federal budget by cutting funds for the Veterans Administration.

We get it. We really do. We’re an expensive commodity … but in a country where 99% of the population chooses not to serve, we’re worth every penny.

                                                           *    *     *

Which leads us back here to the cemetery and the VFW Honor Guard waiting in formation.

Even in a veterans’ organization like the VFW, not every member wants to experience this.

Honor Guard members know that, the moment the commands are given and they fire the rifle salute, taps is going to play from the electronic bugle carried by another of our members.  That’s when the family nearby will know they’re saying goodbye to their beloved grandfather for the last time.  That’s when the wracking sobs will start, and the heavy feeling of grief will truly set in.

We know that our rituals and ceremony are part of their leave-taking and closure.

We share in those moments with the families.  Every time.  But we don’t do it for them.

We do this so our departed brother or sister will know their comrades were here for them.

After a lifetime of service in uniform, we do this difficult task as one last service to one of our own.

We can't leave home! (We're not Eskimo)

I think I know what went wrong when Kathy and I pulled up our tent stakes and slipped southwards towards our new home.  Our whole family surprised me with the depth of their sadness at our departure. 

That’s when it hit me.

We weren’t the ones supposed to be leaving.  Somehow, that upset the Natural Order of Things.

Old people don’t leave home … unless you’re an Inuit Eskimo elder in time of famine, who crawls out onto an iceberg to die so as not to burden the rest of the tribe.

It’s our kids and grandkids that grow up and leave home.  It’s the young people in our nation that have new horizons and new homes and new adventures waiting for them.  Old people are what the youngsters push against.  Elders and the family home are what get left behind. 

We’re supposed to be solid, substantial, stolid … cemented in place.

Funny, despite the host of aches and pains that daily remind me I’m not 25 anymore, I don’t feel much older than I did when I was a long-haired college kid back in the 1960s.  When I shave the face in the mirror every morning, I don’t exactly see the fresh-caught young sailor who loved going to sea … but I know he’s still in there.

Except for the sheer discomfort entailed by most adventures, I still yearn to see new places and meet new people. 

So weighing the existential anchor and sailing off towards the unknown felt as familiar to me as waking up in my own bed (now packed safely into a moving pod, somewhere on the road behind us.)

But I get it, Kids.

Still, maybe it’ll help to imagine your parents blazing a trail somewhere out beyond the horizon.

Or maybe it’ll be helpful to know that, when you come to visit the Casa de Chaos del Sur from now on, Christmas dinner will be held someplace warm.

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.