We Have the best Commercials

We have the best uniforms, the best slogans, and the best commercials. I know it's a recruiting tactic. I remember what it was really like. Doesn't matter, that commercial makes me wish I was young so I could go do it again.

I love the Corps for those intangible possessions that cannot be issued: pride, honor, integrity, and being able to carry on the traditions for generations of warriors past.
--Cpl. Jeff Sornig, USMC, Navy Times, 11/94

He Did Nothing Right

Surendra Dangol cooperated with the robber, gave him the money in the register, made no threatening moves, and was shot to death. Now, according to the Boston Globe and Police Superintendent in Chief Daniel Linskey, the clerk "did everything right in this case."

No he did not, Daniel, no he did not. He made a fatal mistake. He trusted a criminal with a gun. He made no effort to run, or to defend himself. He took no actions prior to the robbery to be prepared for self defense. He trusted, he complied, and he died.

He should have been armed. He should have taken some martial arts training. He should have fought. No one should just stand down and be a victim.

If you try to tell me that guns are bad, and have no real use in a self defense situation, why do you let police carry them, Daniel?

If you try to tell me that victims should always cooperate and trust to the mercy of their attackers, why don't your police do that? Why are they carrying pepper spray, tasers, asps, and handcuffs? Why do you train the police to fight?

If this same murdering criminal points his gun at another citizen, are you still suggesting that people take no action? If so, are you giving the same advice to your police?

If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.
--The Dalai Lama

For My Friends

Dan, Steve, Ken, Borepatch, Jay, Jim and the rest of the usual suspects, this is for you. Hat tip to Fun Turns to Tragedy!!! You make the newest addition to the blogroll.

And after that incomprehensible collection of words from Janet Napolitano in the quote in my last post, here is a quote from another American that makes a clear statement.

A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.
--George Washington

Northwest 253

I was going to post my thoughts about the latest attack by our sworn enemies but Bloviating Zeppelin pretty much summed it up in a way I can't add anything to. If you haven't read his post on the subject, here ya go.

We have established working groups with ardent goals and short deadlines to make recommendations for better enforcement strategies all across the operations spectrum.
--Janet Napolitano

Christmas 2009

We went away for Christmas, rented a place in the mountains. All the boys came home. They are scattering again, leaving only the youngest behind, but for a few days we were again a family of six. Seven, if you count Henry the Snowman.

The water behind him is the South Fork of the New River, outside of Boone, North Carolina. The cabin had a fully outfitted kitchen, a stone fireplace, and a game room downstairs with a pool table and ping-pong. We took turns cooking, went hiking in the snow, threw a few snowballs, relaxed. It is the memories of all our Christmases together, the early years of Santa, thousands of cookies, old decorations brought out and rediscovered, that bring me a wistfulness when I look back. There has to come a year when they form new bonds, move on to their own Christmases, and it will fall to me to accept that, and to let go. But it was not this year.

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home.
--Charles Dickens

Tired of How You Are Treated at the Airport?

Don’t fly.
Don’t.
If you make an exception due to dire necessity, such as a death in the family, then accept the treatment you will receive. Otherwise, don’t fly.

Airline companies are marginal businesses. Full planes are profitable, planes half full are not.

If we want to change the way we are treated by the airlines and the TSA, the only way to do it is to stop accepting the mistreatment. It is the same thing as a battered woman that does nothing to separate herself from her abuser. People that know her shake their head and wonder why she keeps going back, knowing that more abuse was inevitable.

So here’s the plan. Drive. Don’t travel by plane. Take trips closer to home. Take a cruise. If it’s work related, do it by video conference. If 20 % of the people that will fly in 2010 did not, and let the airlines know the reason for their decision, changes would occur.

But if you pay your money to line up and be mistreated, and you already know it’s going to happen, exactly whose fault is that?

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.
--James Madison

I Have Been Away

We went to the mountains for Christmas, and I will blog about it tomorrow or the next day. First I need to address a new member of the blogroll. Jennifer who blogs at Double Nickel Farm left me a short comment about my last post that deserves to be on the front page of the New York Times. Since I can't do that, I'll settle for bringing it forward to share it with you.

Next year my son will spend Christmas away as he will be in Afghanistan. This post grabs at my heart thinking ahead...

...signed wife of former MP, daughter of soldier KIA 1967 Vietnam, sister of retired Colonel and now mother of the next generation to step up to the plate...

The cost of freedom, yours and mine, is in the simple words of her signature. Daughter, wife, sister, and mother. Thank you, Jennifer, for your sacrifices.

I went and picked around her blog, looking back some months and found this gem I think you should read. It is a list of reasons that she thinks make her a domestic terrorist.

...I can say with absolute certainty that if I am the threat it may be too late.
--Jennifer of Double Nickel Farm

Christmas Deployed

I spent Christmas 1981 in Iwakuni, Japan. We were a long way from home, and Christmas was the big reminder. Christmas Eve was spent with friends, drinking and talking. The chow hall put on a fair representation of a Christmas meal. It was the only Christmas I spent deployed, and the only one that I did not get to do any cooking.

There are hundreds of thousands of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines far away from home this Christmas, some overseas, and some at bases too far from home to travel. They deserve our admiration, our thoughts, and our prayers as we join with those we love over the next few days.
The song in that video was a hit in 1943.

The troops will be on duty, standing watches, doing their jobs, and even if they get to stand down, the most they can hope for is a phone call. They will be lonely. For those that make it home next year, it will be a Christmas they always remember. It will be the one that makes all those to come that much sweeter.

Christmas is a time when you get homesick - even when you're home.
--Carol Nelson

Christmas Present

There are lots of cookie recipes in this book. The one at the top of page 208 is only one that has the ingredient list doubled in my mother's handwriting along side the original amounts. It's a simple recipe for sugar cookies. My grandmother made them, and my
mother. She taught me, and I have
made them every year but one since
I was old enough to use the stove.
(as always, click to biggify)

Last night my oldest son and I got out the trays and the colored sugar and set to work. When the dough is cold and hard it rolls out easily on a floured board. A 400 degree oven and a close eye on the time yields trays of results and an
aroma that has meant Christmas time
to us for three generations.

Whatever traditions bring meaning to your holiday, my hope for all of you is that you get to celebrate them with those you love. If any of you want
to try one of mine, here is ...

ETHEL'S SUGAR COOKIES

1 1/2 c. butter
2 c. sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
5 c. all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. salt

Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs and vanilla; mix thoroughly. Stir flour, salt, and baking soda together; blend with wet ingredients.

Chill at least 1 hour. Roll dough 1/8 inch thick on lightly floured board. Cut into desired shapes. Place on ungreased baking sheet. Sprinkle with sugar. Bake 6-8 minutes at 400 degrees or until cookies are a delicate golden color. Makes about 4 dozen large cookies. Note: If using self-rising flour omit baking powder. (quantities doubled)
--Betty Crocker Cookbook, Second Edition, 1956, Page 208

I was Five

I wanted a train. And a Tonka truck. And at least a dozen other things I had seen in the Sears catalog. Santa had heard it directly from me at Woolworth's, and I was sure he had promised to deliver on the goods. Looking back, I can see that my parents were struggling along. Living in a small rented house that must have been impossible to heat, two young children, an old car. But memories are shiny things, and this is what I have from the Christmas of 1962.

We always had a real tree, decorated with an assortment of old glass balls and strings of lights. Wrapped presents were arranged under the branches. I was charged to keep the water topped off. The plug was on the wall behind the tree and this was the first year I was permitted to crawl under and plug it in.

The cookie jar stayed filled with sugar cookies cut out in stars, reindeer, and snowmen. When we went out at night, many of the houses were decorated in colored lights and plastic figurines of Santa, reindeer, and Wise Men looking at the Manger, all lit from the inside and glowing in the darkness.

The last few days of kindergarten wound down, school let out, and then finally, impossibly, it was Christmas Eve. It is a wonder I didn't die of terminal anticipation.

The way it worked in my house was that the wrapped presents got opened one by one, after Mass and breakfast, with everyone seated and much oohing and ahhing over each gift as it was displayed. The contents of the stockings and any loot from Santa, however, was fair game when you woke up.

My bedtime was around 8 o'clock, and I was put to bed with the admonition that Santa could not come unless I was asleep. I laid there in the dark as long as I could, waiting to hear the sleigh. I don't know what time I woke up, maybe 4 or 4:30. The house was dark and quiet. I still slept in pajamas with feet, and I slipped out of bed and padded into the living room.

Santa had come. My stocking, now packed with small items, rested in the bed of a red and yellow Tonka dump truck. I plugged in the tree and sat on the old sofa in the quiet cold taking out the contents of my stocking. Then I played with the truck as quietly as I could until finally the light began to filter in the windows.

That is all I remember of that year. I am sure that we went to Christmas Mass, had a big meal, opened the packages under the tree, but those memories are lost in the jumble of Christmas Past. It was the quiet time alone in the early morning that has vividly stayed with me.

Memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.
--Kevin Arnold

What Money?

Money is an idea. A dollar is just colored paper unless you, me, and everyone else comes to some agreement.

It's now up to the Chinese to decide what a dollar is worth, and how many more of them they want to buy. It's clear that our Executive and Congressional leadership, on both sides, have no tools to balance the budget, and no ideas beyond increasing the debt.

The world does not have so much money to buy more US Treasuries.
--Zhu Min, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China

Lamest Excuse

Let me propose a hypothetical situation. I'm driving through my town in the middle of a snowstorm and a group of young adults throw snowballs at my truck. I leap from my truck in anger and draw a handgun, facing down the snowball throwing miscreants. They call the police in alarm, and on videotape I admit to drawing a weapon and justify my actions by saying I did it because I was hit with snowballs.

How's that going to work out for me? My understanding is that I may only draw and use that weapon in self defense when I reasonably believe my life is in danger. Think my snowball defense would hold up in court? Think the responding officer would just let me drive away? Think I wouldn't be arrested, have my weapon confiscated, lose my permit, get convicted of menacing?

Of course I'm not a police detective in Washington, D.C. . Apparently up there, the rules are different.

He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.
--Lao Tzu

Mussolini imitation, yr duin it rite, aktually.

Nobody can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.
--Sydney J. Harris

Atmospheric CO2 Effects on Heat Absorption

I had not been posting on this topic because Borepatch and so many others have been doing such a great job of covering the topic. But here I go.

A letter to the editor in the local paper sparked my curiosity and I went looking for some facts. Here they are. Cold Facts on Global Warming. If you are at all interested, this is an informative paper, documented and referenced.

What I was looking for was an answer to two questions.
1. What is the maximum amount of heat that CO2 can absorb and reflect back at Earth?
2. How much more heat will be reflected if CO2 levels continue to rise?

The answer is simple. CO2 levels have risen over the last 150 years to the point where CO2 is just about having it's maximum effect. Raising CO2 levels further will have little or no effect because CO2 is already reflecting almost all the energy that exists at the frequencies where CO2 has the physical characteristics to do so.

Other interesting facts.
1. The disparity between the effect of CO2 and that of water vapor. Atmospheric water is the primary source of reflected heat, and one that has not changed significantly due to human activity.
2. The ability of the ocean to act as a heat sink work to balance out the effects of solar variations, both short and long term.
3. The complexity of the system, even with just the known variables, makes studying it and making predictions impossible. Current models do not even accurately predict what is being observed now. The likelihood is that there are factors that have not even been considered.

I am trying to consider the science and understand what I can of it. There is one trend more troubling than any of the possible outcomes of climate change, however. Study of the science no longer matters in Britain. The London Telegraph reports that belief in climate change has been given the protected status of a religion. Grasp that if you can. Science can no longer speak to the science of climate, environmentalism is a legally protected belief system. Now it is enough to believe CO2 emissions are dangerous, and a crime to suggest otherwise.

Sure, I can believe that. I can believe that eleven is louder, too.

Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.
--William James

Christmas Thought

I don't know why flammable rocks aren't restricted. Licensed. Only sold to valid permit holders that show proof of need. They definitely should not be sold to minors. And that Jolly Old Elf flying around, just how many of these dangerous things does he have in that sleigh? I think the TSA should investigate.
One other question I have is about the global security grid that has been in place to support Santa's child surveillance operations.

He sees you when you're sleeping,
He knows when you're awake.
He knows when you've been bad or good,
So be good for goodness sake!
--Lyrics from "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town"

What do You See?

I got this image in a Powerpoint show that was sent to me of dozens of 9-11 images. This one stood out, it's an image I had not seen before.
Click on this picture to enlarge it and look at it. What do you see?

It's the boats that caught my attention. They aren't military, or even fire department, boats. They are tugs and ferry boats, sailing in to move people off the island. No one was in charge, there was no coherent plan. This is individual Americans, responding with the resources they had, doing what they could, on a day when no one could do enough.

We choose only once. We choose either to be warriors or to be ordinary. A second choice does not exist. Not on this earth.
--Carlos Castaneda

One Rule

If you could make one gun safety rule, just one, that would bind them all and ensure that never again would there be an "accidental" shooting, here it is. Call it Rule 1.

Do not let the muzzle cover (point at) anything you do not want to shoot.

All other safety rules, however helpful they may be, come after this. Every "accidental" shooting I have ever heard of or read about breaks this rule. If the muzzle is pointed in a safe direction, everything else that can possibly happen will be okay. I am not suggesting that other rules should be discounted or ignored, only that, for me, this one is the Prime Directive.

Safety is something that happens between your ears, not something you hold in your hands.
--Jeff Cooper

Let's Say I Was in Debt

Say ten years ago I had followed the herd. Bought a bigger house and took on a large mortgage. Watched enough commercials to decide to buy a new full sized pickup truck. Had a couple of maxed out credit cards. Now, with the holidays approaching, I have no extra money. What should I do? By the time I pay the mortgage, the truck payment, fill it with gas, and make minimum payments on the cards, I'm broke till next payday.

I know, I know! I will get some new credit cards and keep spending. I'm already so broke that collapse and bankruptcy is inevitable. So I'll just put it off as long as I can.

I'm not in that situation, of course. I own my home. The truck is 13 years old and paid for. There is a small amount on a credit card, as I have been shopping online the last couple of weeks, but the card was clear when I started. I will pay it off next month.

No, it's my government is the one in that situation. All those really smart people that know better than me can't look at the facts in front of them and make a responsible decision. It's our money they are spending. It's our country they are driving into ruin, a debt so great that not even the greatest economic engine in history can pay it. It's an amount so big that it is hard to imagine it.

What does one TRILLION dollars look like?. Think of a pallet of bricks, that is about the size of $100 million. Like this.
In this next picture, the pallets are double stacked. This is $1 trillion.
We owe 12 of them. We are going to raise it to 14.

And to preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.
--Thomas Jefferson

Jenny Sanford, Tiger Woods

Back in June I wrote a short piece about Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina and his efforts to salvage his marriage after being caught with the other woman. Here's the important quote:

Let's go over this again. When caught out with "the other woman", do not bother to act sorry. You are not sorry you did this, because it was great, hot, illicit sex, and you enjoyed every moment of it. At least stand up and say, "Damn, I'm sorry you caught me."

Otherwise, tell the truth. Tell us what she was like and how much fun it was. This whiny apology crap makes you look weak and nobody, not me, not the press, not your political cronies, and certainly not your wife, believes a word of it.

Mrs. Jenny Sanford filed for divorce today, more or less proving my point. Mark Sanford whined and groveled, and then got kicked to the curb anyway.

Now it looks like Tiger Woods is going to try the same thing. Drop out of the tournament schedule, work to overcome the ever increasing weight of his infidelities by contrition and I suspect, in the end, get divorced anyway. It would be better if he just manned up, said, "Yes, I did it. It was great. But I am sorry it all came out like this, and if you want to stay married, I'm willing. If not, well, there's enough money for us both to go our separate ways. Let me know, I'm going to Vegas." She would, of course, immediately leave him, and they could get on with life. At the end of it, he could say to himself that at least he didn't look like that whiny governor.

Those who are faithless know the pleasures of love; it is the faithful who know love's tragedies.
-- Oscar Wilde

Selecting Gifts for the People of the Gun

I am a member of a minority. We are scorned in the press. We are misunderstood. In some states, such as Illinois, we are hated and feared to the point that we are licensed and tracked, having to have identity cards or risk arrest. Even where I live, most of us carry the thing that marks us in secret. You see, I am one of the People of the Gun. We were so named as an insult, but Alphecca first saw the wisdom of embracing our true name, and set up the site for the tribe.

You may know, or even be related to, one of my tribe. It might a close friend, or a spouse, or a grandfather. It might be anyone. You know in some vague way that shooting, hunting, reloading, or gunsmithing is their passion. But you are at a loss as to what it all means. Possibly you're put off by it all, or even frightened. To buy this person a meaningful Christmas gift is beyond you. So, with plenty of time remaining before Christmas Day, as a public service, I am going to offer advice and gift suggestions to help you select a firearm/hunting/reloading related gift for the first time.

First, some questions to see if you know something about them.
1. Is it hunting? If so, is it upland birds, deer, ducks?
2. Is it competitive shooting? If so, is it handguns, or trap and skeet? Rifles?
3. Do they reload?
4. Do they like to work on their own guns?
5. Do you know what type or caliber of gun they use the most?

Perhaps you can answer a question or two, but it's okay if you can't answer any of these questions. This year, one of the on-line retailers of gun related accessories has a gift guide. Broken down by the type of gun enthusiast you are shopping for, further broken down by the amount you have to spend. Think of it like the old Sears Wish Book. If you can answer any of these questions, or can think of others, you're on your way to a successful gift at that site.

But, if you have found my gift guide and you're thinking this is impossible, you don't have any idea, you just know there are guns around and they shoot, but you don't understand this tribe and their ways, then get a gift certificate. It doesn't have to be a big one. We People of the Gun are so used to being given ties and shirts, just the fact that you took the time to get them a gun related gift certificate will warm their little shrunken gun clinging heart. I know my local gun shop is offering gift certificates as are many of the online gun stores I visit.

Here's the important advice. If you go with the gun related gift certificate, use it to start a conversation. Bridge the gap, see your Person of the Gun as another human from a different tribe. Consider it your true gift that you are willing to learn about their ways and learn to coexist with them. Learn enough about the tribe to carry on a conversation, it may require some vocabulary and tool recognition, but most People of the Gun in the United States are already using many English words and with the wonders of the internet, you can write down and look up many of the unfamiliar terms.

So next year, when Christmas rolls around, you can shop with confidence, select a really appropriate gift and see their eyes light up on Christmas. Because you knew after talking with them, for example, that they like to hunt, and some new-fangled cold weather shooting gloves were on their wish list. It wasn't a gun, or ammunition, but it was something they would use and they will think of you every time they wear them. That's really what Christmas gift giving is about, isn't it? It all started with three very different people bringing gifts to a baby, and we can continue the tradition, reaching across all sorts of boundaries to make Christmas wishes come true.

You know you're a gun nut ... when no one in your family can decipher the numbers and gadget names on your Christmas wish list.
--"Weedwacker", posting online at The High Road

___________________________________________

DISCLAIMER: I am not suggesting you should or should not buy from Midway USA, although I do shop there and I have nothing but good things to say about them. There are local gun shops, the ones I frequent sell all sorts of things, and supporting a local business, perhaps a business that you know your gun nut Person of the Gun likes, is a great idea. I am just a blogger, I have no connection with any online business, except as a customer. There are several on-line retailers of gun merchandise I have had satisfying transactions with, and with a little searching you will find many good gun related places to shop.

I put up that link up as a catalog to look through, like many of us once looked through the Sears Christmas Catalog every year. I offer it as a way for you to find a gift that could become a treasured memory, and as an entry point, like National Geographic Magazine, to exploring a different culture.

Update:Edited for brevity and clarity.

Sometimes They Just Say It Out Loud

"We must spend our way out of this recession", Pr. Obama said Tuesday. Since it's the Associated Press, I'm accepting the source and believing he actually said it. Because until I found it on a major news site, I thought it might have come from The Onion.

Now that I understand it is the policy, so many other things make sense. Here's some other possible headlines that follow the same kind of twisted logic.

"We must surrender our way to victory."

"We must regulate our way to freedom."

"We must tax our way to self-sufficiency."

"We must legislate our way to smaller government."

The old truism says when you're in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging. Not America in 2009, we're going to dig harder, and presume to use the dirt we're shoveling to fill in the hole in which we stand.

Reason means truth and those who are not governed by it take the chance that someday the sunken facts will rip the bottom out of their boat.
--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

No Better Friend

Oh, yea, and that other part, too.

Here's a Marine Officer providing an overview and some demonstration firing of the M82A1A .50 caliber rifle and the currently available ammunition.

The deadliest weapon in the world is a Marine and his rifle.
--Gen. John J.Blackjack Pershing, U.S. Army

Not Because She Wanted To

Not because she was compensating.
Not because she was a gun nut.
Not because she wanted to.
Because sometimes, there is only survival or death.

Self-defense is the clearest of all laws, and for this reason: lawyers didn't make it.
--Douglas William Jerrold

Why They Served, Why They Serve Today

Whatever flaws and fights we are having here at home, the United States military stands as a rampart to protect us. So we can do all sorts of things, live our lives, raise our children, volunteer our time with causes we care passionately about. The men who gave their youth, and sometimes their lives, to defend America, and the young men and women today that stand between us and the enemy played a role in making this possible.On this Pearl Harbor Day, remember what freedom costs, and what it's worth.

The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.
--Mitch Albom

December 7th

There is a joke that asks, is there a 4th of July in England? Children say no, but of course there is, it just isn't a day with a special meaning.

When I was a boy, the men who fought WWII were in their 40's and 50's, working, raising their children, in the middle of their lives. Now the years have slipped past, and the ones that remain are elderly. Soon, all of them will be gone, and the direct memory of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor will go with them. It is up to us to decide how, if, and for how long, we will choose to remember this day.

What we pick out to remember helps define who we are.

Yesterday, December 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
--Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dec. 8, 1941

Blogroll Add

Nobody Asked Me is my latest addition to the blogroll. He's an old Sailor, been blogging for a couple of years. I'm going to be looking back through his archives this evening. This is good stuff.

I can imagine no more rewarding a career. And any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worthwhile, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction: 'I served in the United States Navy'.
President John F. Kennedy

Swiss Freedom

Hat tip to Neptunus Lex I have a couple of Swiss rifles, one like the older model that is shown in the safe, and one older than that. They are beautifully made, accurate rifles. It is heart warming to see them appreciated and used.

Personal weapons are what raised mankind out of the mud, and the rifle is the queen of personal weapons.
--Col. Jeff Cooper

A Bumper Sticker isn't Enough

Support Our Troops is a website that collects links to all sorts of support organizations that do various things to support the troops, disabled veterans, and service families. I don't know that every one of them is valid, or which one you might be moved to support. I know it is important to do something.

Here one I've supported, and I think is worthy of your consideration. Fisher House has been around awhile. The first Pr. Bush attended the dedication in June of 1991. Here's a quote from their website:

Fisher House™ Foundation donates "comfort homes," built on the grounds of major military and VA medical centers. These homes enable family members to be close to a loved one at the most stressful times - during the hospitalization for an unexpected illness, disease, or injury.

There is at least one Fisher House™ at every major military medical center to assist families in need and to ensure that they are provided with the comforts of home in a supportive environment. Annually, the Fisher House™ program serves more than 10,000 families, and have made available nearly three million days of lodging to family members since the program originated in 1990. By law, there is no charge for any family to stay at a Fisher House operated by the Department of Veterans Affairs; and Fisher House Foundation uses donations to reimburse the individual Fisher Houses operated by the Army, Navy, and Air Force. No family pays to stay at any Fisher House.

This PDF brochure will provide more details. The families being helped are already forever changed by the war.

Don't stand on the sidelines. These are our warriors, they deserve our support. Find a way to get involved. Volunteer your time, make a donation, help a family directly. The Christmas season is a good time to start.

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.
--John Fitzgerald Kennedy

A Reminder

Every one of the troops we have deployed is someone's son or daughter. They are brothers, sisters, dads and moms. They stand between us and people that would behead us, burn us, destroy us and our way of life. They are sometimes scared. They are often lonely and very far from home. They are not going to know how much they matter to us unless we tell them. They are not going to tell us how much they need our support. Find a way to send something to a servicemember overseas.

Help a family of a deployed servicemember this Christmas season. There are parents, and sometimes grandparents, dealing with young children, bills, car problems, and life while the parents are deployed. They need support, too.

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
--William James

When the News Media Fails III

Here's Chris Matthews, with his unbiased insight as to what West Point represents to the President of the United States.

Really? Some of the best, brightest college students in the country, who made it through a very rigorous selection process to get there, are the enemy? People our country will trust with the most powerful military force in the history of the world are the enemy? Men and women who have sworn a oath of allegiance to the Constitution, some of whom will die carrying out the orders they receive are the enemy?

Chris Matthews, you fail. You don't have a clue who those men and women are.

...years of heritage that is now passed on to you by the ‘Long Gray Line.’ Remember the beauty and strength of this place and let it always be an inspiration to you. Remember the solid, gray granite of these walls and how these stones have stood against countless seasons, a symbol of America’s strength around the crucible of her military leadership. An remember this simple charge – love your soldiers with all your heart and soul and mind and body. And selflessly serve your grateful nation.
--General Colin L. Powell, commencement speech at West Point, May 31, 1990

Afghanistan

Someone convinced Pr. Obama that leaving Afghanistan would be a disaster. Kudos to whoever that was. If we leave, the Taliban will return, and everyone who has trusted us and worked with us will die. The outcome of that will be that there will be no place in the Islamic world that we will be able to project power and expect anyone to support us. Our enemies would be so emboldened, because what they said was true, bleed the Americans and they will leave.

It is down to this. If we choose to fail, if we retreat, if there is any result other than victory, the next time we fight it will be a world war, and it will be total war with only survival as a goal. Remember what it took to win WWII, what we had to become, what we had to do.

I think it may come to a larger war anyway, but if Pr. Obama wants to try to contain it, his support for expanded operations in Afghanistan has promise. The fact that so many of his liberal supporters are upset with this plan makes me want to consider the possibility that it is a good one. It is certainly the first time I watched him act as Commander in Chief. Now it is his war, it was already ours.

One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half.
--Winston Churchill

Looking at the Worst

One criminal, ignored by the system for too long, shoots and kills four policemen. They were together, awake, armed, getting ready for their shift. He walked in and shot all four of them to death. One of them managed to return fire and wounded the shooter before he died. It can happen to any of us. It will happen to someone else today.

One thing I noted in the article is this:

"Troyer said the gunman entered the coffee house and walked up to the counter as if to place an order. A barista saw a gun and fled out the back door. The man then opened fire on the officers as they sat working on their laptops."

The barista saw the gun and ran. There was time to respond. Did the policemen even look up? Where they aware of the unfolding event prior to the first shot being fired? Since the first two were killed still sitting at the table, it seems unlikely.

Do not misunderstand what I am saying. I hold the shooter totally responsible for his actions. What I am looking at is something else.

In the United States today, even when we have caught and convicted dangerous people, they get released.

"Clemmons' criminal history includes at least five felony convictions in Arkansas and at least eight felony charges in Washington. The record also stands out for the number of times he has been released from custody despite questions about the danger he posed."

This criminal should have been in prison, but he had been released. He decided to pick some policemen and ambush them. He could have just as easily decided to pick me or you, or our wives and children.

"Clemmons also was recently charged in Pierce County with third-degree assault on a police officer, and second-degree rape of a child. The Seattle Times said on its Web site that he was released six days ago after posting bail."

He had picked someone's child, he had raped a child and still been put back on the street less than a week before he walked into that coffee shop. Straight Forward in a Crooked World has a post about how bad it can get. Because if it happens to you, you will be on your own and 911 will be an eternity away. If you can face what Matthew has been writing about in his Dark Arts posts, you can shift the odds.

LawDog had a post on this back in 2006, called Meditations on the Combat Mindset. Because it isn't about the tools you have hanging on your belt. It's about the weapon you carry between your ears.

If it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country.
--Malcolm X