| Age, Infirmity and Attendant Miseries |
[Nov. 29th, 2009|09:41 pm] |
It's cold again in this part of North Texas. Temps in the Forties. I know those of you in the Frozen North are scoffing. But for me, the little souvenirs I've gotten in the form of metal objects in my lower back, left forearm, and right thigh ache like the dickens when it gets like this. The metal replacement parts or connectors in my skull hurt too but in a different way. a kind of pressure that feels like it's pulling my head apart. Thank God, not many pain receptors there. My better half with her voice messed up by her illness is disinclined to believe that I really can't hear most of what she says because she speaks too quickly and right now she can't produce the lower pitched sounds in her voice that I depend on for putting together what she says. Of course she doesn't believe I have hearing loss because I pay attention to other kinds of environmental sounds. She has no referent to why I do it and often my situational awareness is more of a distraction to her and doesn't like it.
My aphasia is getting worse. Today I somehow cross connected memories of Abu Abbas and Carlos Ramirez Sanchez with each other. Perhaps it is related to the week before when I confused Abu Abbas leader of the PLO with the terrorist Abu Abbas of the PLFP and PLO. The latter being the person I dismissed today as 'couldn't possibly be the guy.' A week before couldn't remember my two great aunt's names.
Old age sucks rocks! I never meant to live this long. I'd hoped to pass on at the ripe old age of 30 to maybe 35 before the body went to hell in a handbasket. But the boys need me. The elder twin wanted/hoped that I would make it to Thursday's meet against N. Crowley. I can't promise anything but I'll try. I will have to be there in Frisco for the TISCA meet their coach has asked me and with him that's like telling me to attend. If it weren't for them and my Love, I'd roll over and die. But, the wounds, the fragments in my lower left arm, the scar froom the knife fight on my right hand, the bayonet wound in the right forearm, the bullet wound in the right upper arm, not to mention the arthritis in my knuckles from all the martial arts, the dull ache in my right thigh where the spent 5.56 round sits, a testament to 'friendly fire'. The dull ache near my spine of the fragments that barely missed making me a paraplegic and peppered my left kidney and were mostly stopped by the muscle built up from hauling in nets and long lines that cause sharp pain when I move sometimes because they sit too near nerve trunks for them to be removed. But, what bothers me most is the damage to my brain, I joke that the head wounds from Purple Heart #3 make me more tolerable as a person, but I miss having an eidetic memory that I can rely upon to be encyclopedic and reliable. I hate not being able to remember names and faces or to recall names with events when I spent a part of my life to hunt those people down. I think the concussion that I shrugged off as minor that attended my fractured femur, may have had greater effect than the doctors or I believed. Either that or I'm headed down the road my mom is halfway down to senility and dementia. I don't want the boys to ever see me like that.
So I sit working on two things, the Business Requirements document for my client and a database I'm building for my sister and wondering how long can I keep going? I need to make enough to really retire on. But that will take another ten to fifteen years.
I hurt so bad and I'm so tired. Please God hold off on the coronary for those ten to fifteen years at least. I couldn't deal with the cognitive loss that comes with an MI. I watched my grandfather try to deal with it and the anger with himself for losing the ability to calculate simple ballistics in his head or solve a quadratic equation the same way. I'm not anywhere near as strong as he. |
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| Tis the Season... |
[Nov. 27th, 2009|11:03 pm] |
It's sort of a tradition. I don't recall when it started and I know that I've never been terribly consistent about it. Exigencies and all that rubbish. But it's been pretty much since the first VCR we acquired, kind of a Holiday tradition.
The first night after Thanksgiving we watch Donovan's Reef the connection with the season is rather brief as and summed up here. The thing is schmaltzy and amusing in a way. But more important to me is the sight of places on Kauai the way I remember them. There are scenes from the beach at Hanamaulu where Lee Marvin come ashore to the beach near the mouth of the Wailua river and at Lydgate park where several other scenes take place. There is also a scene from Waimea Canyon (the Grand Canyon of the islands). This was the Kauai of my youth, a Kauai of very little tourism, of my maternal grandfather's family where they had a small farm and salt works in Hanapepe and my Auntie Annie made her famous Lilikoi Chiffon Pie at Mike's Cafe there. Auntie Annie and Auntie Clara were characters. Auntie Annie had married a pure blood Hawaiian from Ni'ihau and while she was ostracized by the family for having married my Uncle Johnny. Auntie Annie created what is now the signature dish the Lilikoi Chiffon Pie in Hanapepe and Kauai as a whole a taste of which I first had in 1964 on my family's one and only trip to Kauai. I remember Uncle Johnny well as a man talented with the gift of song and for the fact that he made Auntie Annie happy. For this the family eventually had a change of heart. Auntie Clara was a wealth of rich stories of old Hawaii and was one of the few people left who actually could speak Hawaiian including the dialect spoken on Ni'ihau and would often be asked by members of the Robinson family and officials of the State of Hawaii to interpret for them. Auntie Clara for all of that was a GS-4 or GS-5 clerk at Pearl Harbor and worked sometimes with my father's sister, my Auntie Nancy.
Both of them had (it's hard to believe they've passed on) a passion for gambling and made an annual sojourn to what I refer to jokingly as 'Hawaiian and Chinese heaven'. Las Vegas. They usually stayed at the Frontier hotel that catered to Islanders but gambled in the bigger venues where the stakes would go higher. Their game was poker, and it wasn't unusual to find those two winning at the tables as they could calculate the odds on drawing their cards in their heads. They always came home with the trip paid for, their lost salaries paid for and a little bit more. Thankfully, I never had to play against them at poker but did get roped into a game of cribbage with them and my grandfather. Talk about sweating bullets! There I was with three people who could calculate the scores based on the cards that had been played and those they held and I could barely come up with all the combinations of 15. These were times of great joy in my life and Kauai of that time has an extra special place in my heart.. We would see them at births, marriages and funerals often enough. I'm very sorry that I missed both Auntie Clara and Auntie Annies funerals. I was very fond of them.
Donovan's Reef also has the song Pearly Shells (Pu'pu a o ewa) that was the song my class performed at our first Lei Day celebration. It also has some people that my family knew in the cast. Jaqueline Malouf was the daughter of a family friend and Jon Fong was a relative of Hiram Fong.
Anyway, that's why I usually start my path through the Holidays with this movie. |
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| Happy Thanksgiving! |
[Nov. 26th, 2009|12:09 pm] |
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Before I run off to sample the goodies, that's what I want to wish everyone. Please, before diving into the feast today remember the people who are getting their hot Thanksgiving dinner via Mermite cans brought in by Helicopter or other military conveyance. Give thanks that they are willing to sacrifice so we don't have to. |
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| Thanksgiving Thoughts |
[Nov. 25th, 2009|05:27 pm] |
It is the eve of Thanksgiving, and I've much to be thankful for. I have been blessed this year. The boys are well and the eldest even called home to talk to his mom last weekend He's a natural born leader if ever there was one. If he'd quit procrastinating and be just a hair more proactive and quit with the 'rebel without a cause' thing. He may become someone to be truly reckoned with and succeed in whatever he endeavors. He is, I think on a good path, and look forward to see him during his Christmas leave. The twins are doing very well in school They're also doing very well in swimming. The elder twin finally got his turns together after growing 4 inches this summer. His brother dropped seven seconds off his time in the 500 Free and we're all looking forward to the TISCA Zone Meet on Dec. 10-12. I'm very thankful for the way they've taken me into their hearts. I'm very thankful for their mom, my friend and the love of my life. God saved the very best for last. I love her more than I can say. At the moment she's exasperating me because she worked this week despite having a case of walking pneumonia that had her cyanotic and febrile just last Friday. Her boss made her drive down to Austin and Houston to make client calls. She in her stubborn and willful way complied lest she lose her job to this yutz of a tukki. Yes, one of the things I love about her is that she can outstubborn me and she's smarter than I. She has also made a home for me rather than a domicile and when I travel, I really look forward to seeing her and to our times spent in DFW when she sees me off. She raised those boys to be the young men they are through very trying events. All I do, is provide support as their biggest fan and to set a good example and help out when I can whether it's homework, keeping an eye on their stroke and style or in dealing with the trials and tribulations of a teen who is learning about so very much in life right now. They're my family and we know each others faults all too well, but we love each other. My family provide me with a purpose.
I'm always thankful for Winston. He's been my "son" these many years and though my darling doesn't quite believe it, he does talk to me.
In a way tomorrow is also one for other reflection, perhaps more melancholy than most of the others. This is only the second Thanksgiving that the eldest son will be away from home and I though I'm fairly sure he has a group of other young recruits going through this with him and gathered all around him. I think he'll miss having his mother and brothers with him at dinner tomorrow. My thoughts and prayers go to him and to all the young people whether they're eating their Thanksgiving feast in a DFAAC somewhere or scooped out of a Mermite cannister in the field.
Thank you men and women of the US Armed Forces. |
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| The Fallen at Ft. Hood |
[Nov. 8th, 2009|05:02 pm] |
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I realize that this is a lot to ask, but would anyone reading this please write their Congressional Representatives and ask that they award the dead and wounded in the terrorist shootings at Ft. Hood the Purple Heart Medal. It isn't very much against a life or blood spilt. But it is something and it was in the line of duty while engaged in what used to be the Global War on Terror and now called the 'overseas contingency operations'. It would be something the parents and loved ones of the slain can at least have as a small tribute to their loved ones and the survivors can feel even if they can't deploy that they were a part of the effort. |
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| Officer Kimberly Mundley |
[Nov. 8th, 2009|12:25 pm] |
Apparently, Officer Mundley was the first armed person to encounter MAJ Malik Nidal Hasan. She's what is commonly referred to as a 'rent-a-cop' by me and many others who disparage the replacement of real MPs by contractors as part of the Rumsfeld DoD's policies. Officer Mundley apparently by all accounts entered the SRP where MAJ Hasan was engaged in his act of terror shooting two pistols at unarmed Soldiers who were there as part of preparations for deployment. These accounts say that she identified herself as her SOP required. MAJ Hasan turned on her and charged both guns blazing. Probably a terrifying sight to the Officer who was hit in the wrist and both thighs. But while she could have gone down or dove for cover with no blame attaching itself to her for doing so. She calmly reacquired her sight picture and put four rounds into MAJ Hasan's center of mass as she'd been trained to do. The fourth round apparently dropped him and again as trained she ceased fire.
If these accounts are true. This is the kind of valor in the face of the enemy that would normally be deserving of a write up for at least a Silver Star. I don't know what the Federal government can give her. I think the Gold Lifesaving medal or some such. Regardless of which, should she return to duty and I hope that she does and soon. If I encounter her when going on post (it's my nearest PX and commissary) want to shake her hand and offer her my thanks and every courtesy a hero deserves.
Thank you Officer Mundley I don't know how many lives you saved but save those lives you did.
Post Script:27 November 2009
The original stories seem to have been a bit overstated shall we say. From what has now come to light, Officer Mundley was indeed the first law enforcement officer and therefore the first armed person to encounter MAJ Hasan but apparently did not fire the shots that brought him down. There are many arguments about the original reports. The fact remains that she was the first and was hit three times by bullets from MAJ Malik's assault. This may or may not have given her partner Mark Todd, who apparently shot MAJ Hasan the opportunity to do so while MAJ Hasan fixed on her. While not quite the hero original reports would have, still both Officers are deserving of kudos for what they did to stop that slaughter. |
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| Ft. Hood an Opinion |
[Nov. 7th, 2009|12:57 am] |
I have some short comments to make on the events at Ft. Hood Thursday.
The first is that Islam is not a monolithic juggernaut of a religion. It is a fractious one and it is that fractiousness that works to our advantage. At the same time jihadists try to manufacture and use external enemies to focus their followers upon to counter that same fractiousness. Not all Muslims believe in jihad or in the end of the US or even Israel. Some are proud and honorable Americans and for every SGT Akbar or MAJ Hasan there are others who are trying to prove that they and their loved ones are worthy Americans. We no longer have segregated outfits like the 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments of the 2nd Cav or the Japanese of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team of WWII fame. So these Soldiers serve in a variety of units throughout the Army. Many sharing the same fierce determination to prove that they are every bit as loyal and loving of their country as anyone else that those famous WWII units displayed.
I am appalled at the low level of knowledge displayed by news commentators and other talking heads about the military. First, an Army doctor is commissioned as an O-3 (Captain) if he/she has an MD. Second, upon successful completion of board certification in a specialty that MD is promoted to the rank of Major (O-4). There are other ways to attain the O-4 rank having to do with successful completion of a residency program and x amount of years Time In Service or Time In Grade (I don't recall which). Soldiers while on base are seldom "under arms" carrying weapons much less loaded weapons except for certain kinds of training. So despite being a huge military reservation, Ft. Hood would be an unlikely place to find armed Soldiers with live ammo except on the firing range. You might say it's one of the few places in the US where only the police are likely to have guns. As ironic as that may sound. Another item is how the news media assume that he has some kind of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder based on never having deployed or from just hearing other Soldier's during counseling. How do you come to this conclusion? The man is on a respirator under guard for heaven's sake! How about we wait for the Article 32 hearing to find out the facts?
From what I've heard the Soldiers at the SRP who came under fire took care of each other pulled the wounded to safety and rendered aid. for this I am thankful.
For those who lost their live in the attack at Ft. Hood, to absent comrades!
My prayers go out to those who are wounded may they recover quickly and fully. They also go to the survivors who must deal with loss of not just friends or family members but with the loss of a certain quality of innocence that we in America have and too often take for granted. I offer my condolences as well. |
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| Change |
[Oct. 25th, 2009|02:44 pm] |
The United States voted for "Change" and "Hope" in 2008. It received neither. This needs no debate. One can only take a look around and see that the current Congress and the Executive are essentially perpetuating the very things they railed against. As I recall they were against the Patriot Act (after they were for it. It would not have passed otherwise.) War continues in Iraq and Afghanistan although both are currently like rudderless ships. And while Medicare and Medicaid are running out of money or have run out in some states. Both the legislative and executive branches of government are trying to foist universal health care on the nation even though they couldn't administer the other two programs or reform them sufficiently to stop them from hemorrhaging to death. Billions have been spent so far on trying to 'bailout' businesses that were 'too large to fail'. Yet everyday we see in the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg that they're still in a state of failure. Yet, we now regulate everything about those businesses.
For 2010, I'd like to see some change, it may give me some hope.
So, for better or worse, here's my wish list.
I'd like to see Congress repeal the 'Stimulus'. I'd like to see Congress decide there isn't any business that's too big to fail because this should never have been the case and no company should be allowed to grow to the point that this is even a concept to entertain.
I'd like to see Congress get rid of senseless regulation that prevents financial institutions from using sound lending policies. I'd like to see Congress force the sale of all of its holdings in banking, insurance and automotive industries at market. Sure they'll take a loss and we taxpayers will have to pay for it. But, government doesn't belong in business anymore than business belongs in government. Too many differences in economy and approach for either to work in a single entity.
We do need to concentrate on our infrastructure, to that end I'd like to see Congress act to encourage energy related projects on the whole by providing tax incentives for nuclear energy, for oil and natural gas exploration and development. I'd like to see some real research into the alternative energy sources, knowing that they probably aren't the panacea that some big businessmen who are currently fattening off Congressional pork like some German Hochadel of the 17th century.
We need to concentrate on real education. Students should be required to learn not just basic math skills but to appreciate higher mathematics this should be done by making the skills relevant to career fields. Just because a teacher doesn't use even algebra in everyday life doesn't mean that a businessman or an engineer or a computer programmer won't. We need to create an environment in our schools that fosters learning and makes technical and science courses relevant to the students. Teach them to succeed. We also need to teach them to think critically rather than to read and regurgitate what amount to talking points held by officious, tyrannical, brainwashed individuals who cannot meet the challenge of a young questing and questioning mind. We have to also deal with geography so that people know what, where and why and the geographical/geological and physical features of the world they live in. I live in rural and suburban America and the kids want to hear about the world they live in. Provided that it's put to them in an interesting way and that they're encouraged to ponder and ask questions about. We need to teach them history and why it's relevant that they can build upon the work and lives of others so that they can move from where we are to where we need to be.
This also brings up one of the true missions of government, "to provide for the common defense". At this point, we have squandered what was bought at the price of over 4,000 lives in Iraq. Some good may be salvaged from it, should we have the sense to devise a good strategy for continuing the mission that Gen. Petraeus began there. We need a strategy in Afghanistan NOW!!!!! Further dithering is not only costing lives but provides nothing but the time the Taliban which by way of several Pakistani, Iranian and Arab news organs is becoming increasingly enamored of the idea of a world wide caliphate. If not stopped in Afghanistan where it began, where? President Bush had an answer, but does his successor?
I'm probably at this point wishing for far too much from people who didn't have the brains to question and to ask for particulars of what 'hope' and 'change' were. Especially from someone who never had to make a tougher decision than whether to order the fresh asparagus or the arugula salad with mango vinagrette at The Pacific Club. A person who lied, stole and blamed others for his misdeeds as he grew up in Manoa. You were one of the reasons that we chose to send my son Ben to Kaimuki High School rather than Punahou so that he wouldn't grow up to be you, Mr. Obama. He didn't thank God. |
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| Political Opinion |
[Oct. 23rd, 2009|04:48 am] |
Mr. Obama,
You ignored the Tea Party movement, cost the people billions of squandered dollars in your pork laden so called 'stimulus' package. Cost even more through your "cash for clunkers" debacle where the cost was greater than the dubious benefit of sending most of the money to Japan and Korea. Your cap and trade bill promises to cost the livelihoods of at least three towns to the North of me and don't even get me started on the idiocy known popularly as 'Obamacare'. Your desire to create an internal security force 'as well armed and trained as the military' basically the equivalent Okhrana or Gosdar Stavennoy Besopasnasti, you know Stalin's Secret Police and its successor the KGB. For the most part I can agree to disagree with you on these. Mainly, because the impact of these things is counted in money primarily. Ok, yes displaced lives, the creation of economic refugees and potentially the loss of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In essence, the creation of everything that people like yourself said that President Bush was trying to do but didn't even propose.
But, the one thing that I cannot agree to disagree with you upon and that has created a situation that exceeeds the disillusionment that I had for the Carter administration. Disillusionment that almost caused me to emigrate to Switzerland where at least they understand the importance of a strong defensive capability. That thing is what you are not doing in Afghanistan today. Men are dying as you dither away trying to figure out how to appease your domestic political base while at the same time looking like you still mean to fight a war there. Mr. Obama, sh*t or get the f**k off the pot! It's obvious to General McChrystal and to anyone with eyes that by May of this year you'd abandoned the strategy that you sent him there in March to implement. In the absence of a concrete strategy, we've been pulling back our forces at a time when in response to the Pakistani offensive against the Taliban we should be moving up to block those forces at the Afghan-Pakistan border or to at least create some kind of containment. But instead we've let them move back into Afghanistan where we can no longer use the mountain passes and deep valleys to the East to canalize their movements and create contrainment if not concentrations where we can effectively engage them. The results are the battle at Kamdesh where the PRT was being drawn down and we took eight dead. Increases in IED and RKG attacks that have killed or wounded troops daily. Not to mention a Taliban presence that is spreading across what were once relatively secure provinces. Your inaction is causing the needless, useless and inhumane deaths of Americans each day you dither.
Mr. Obama, I'm glad I don't have to salute you but more than that I have learned to actually hate someone for the first time in my life. |
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| Why We Fight |
[Oct. 10th, 2009|01:55 am] |
Perhaps the country has forgotten the following facts.
1. On 11 September 2001 the US was attacked by people who killed innocent civilians.
2. The men who perpetrated the attack were part of a group that is referred to as Al Qaeda.
3. The members of the attack came were trained by and ably financed by a part of the organization that was operating out of Afghanistan.
4. The Taliban government chose not just to harbor Al Qaeda but to ally itself with and give sanctuary to Al Qaeda members from the US.
5. In order to try to eliminate future threats by Al Qaeda in Afghanistan we were forced to also make war upon the Taliban who supported Al Qaeda with force of arms.
Al Qaeda isn't a nation it isn't even a very cohesive group. I have seen first hand the way that it operates in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have seen children who were 'knee capped' in front of their fathers, seen the results of mass beheadings of village leaders who didn't want to give full cooperation to Al Qaeda's representatives. I have seen other things I will not describe because of the nightmares they evoke, but no horror writer to date can match what they have done in reality. These are the people the Taliban have allied themselves with. The Taliban for its part isn't all that wonderful. To this day women in Afghanistan are the bound chattels of men especially in Taliban controlled areas. In these areas, women can still be stoned to death, a very brutal, slow and painful torture that ends in a horrible death. They are executed in areas outside of Taliban control for simply going to school or God forbid! (literally to the Taliban) exercising the right to vote or to speak freely for education or domestic rights. Rights American women take for granted, like being able to go out shopping without a male escort.
Al Qaeda is a hydra, a many headed monster that grows two new heads when one is lopped off. It can only exist because governments or the leaders of an area or nation allow them to exist within their borders. We cannot fight Al Qaeda by lopping off its many parts. We can however defeat it by eliminating the environments that harbor and protect it. Places like Afghanistan, Somalia, The Horn of Africa, parts of the trans-Siberian countries and others that sucoor these monster and shelter them from those who wish to stop people who will talk a young man or woman into strapping a bomb to themselves or driving one in hopes of a better life in the name of Allah while the leaders profit from what those poor benighted souls are persuaded or coerced into doing.
We aren't fighting to build a nation of Afghanistan. We aren't fighting for oil or for 'multi-national' corporations. We are fighting to give people a choice and to elminate the threat of another 11 September 2001. A threat that is real and ever increasing as the US is percieved to have lost the 'stomach' for destroying Al Qaeda.
I disagree with Mr. Obama from the very base of my core. I too was raised in Hawaii, my wife taught at Punahou where he attended school. I dealt with his grandmother. So I know that he is a self-aggrandizing, narcissistic no-account who has struggled with his abandonment by not one but two fathers and a mother who was a rebel with too many causes and little time for her children.
But I do not disagree with his former position as Candidate Obama that we cannot lose in Afghanistan and that the battle is important and part of the key to keeping our country safe from a future attack. What we do here and now will be critical to whether we see mushroom clouds over a major or several major US cities in the next ten years. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 8th, 2009|06:13 pm] |
These are the names of the heroes of the battle of Kamdesh, Afghanistan. These men gave their last full measure that others might live in freedom.
Spc. Stephan Lee Mace, 21
Sgt. Joshua Kirk, 30
Pfc. Kevin Thomson, 22
Spc. Christopher T. Griffin
Spc. Michael P. Scusa, 22
Sgt. Vernon W. Martin
Sgt. Justin T. Gallegos, 22
Sgt. Joshua M. Hardt, 24
To quote a certain Republican President,
"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain "
That is or should be our prayer as a nation.
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| Battle of Kamdesh |
[Oct. 6th, 2009|05:05 am] |
I've a feeling that the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) at Kamdesh was using the old FOB Keating for its base. Some of the MSM seem to have Kamdesh in Kamdesh province mixed up with Wanat in Waygul province. Wanat happened a year ago in July, so it can't be the battle that happened this past weekend. The PRTs have been stepped up as a part of the strategy that was put in place last March. Unfortunately, the situation has also changed. The Pakistani Army has been sweeping through the tribal areas and pushing out Taliban and Al Qaeda forces who have re-crossed the borders into Afghanistan. Gen. McChrystal has requested additional troops to try to engage and decisively reduce or eliminate these forces in essence trapping them between NATO (read US with British and Canadian) forces and the Pakistani offensive.
Eight of the 48 US service personnel in the garrison died in the battle for Kamdesh where they engaged enemy forces estimated at well over 200. There are stories that a number of the wounded refused medevac to continue to fight next to their comrades.
Well done men of 4th BCT 4th Inf Div. It probably won't be an action that gets the unit a Presidential Unit Citation but should have. They acted in the highest tradition of the United States Army displaying valor and courage in the face of superior enemy forces.
The names of the Soldiers who died will live on in the hearts of their comrades.
To absent comrades. |
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| Bugle Calls |
[Sep. 19th, 2009|03:46 pm] |
I'm watching an old John Wayne movie Fort Apache which has a goodly number of bugle calls, I find myself explaining them and at the same time realizing how much I missed them.
When I was very young we lived on base housing at Bergstrom Air Force Base, Keesler Air Force Base and Hickam Air Force Base. Some of my earliest memories were of the color ceremonies every morning and evening. The Air Force wasn't as big on bugle calls as the Army, Marine Corps or even the Navy. but every morning I would hear the sound of Reveille and To The Colors and at night the retreat was announced with Taps. In the Hawaii of the early 1960s bugle calls were played to announce the raising of the colors with To The Colors and the lowering with Taps. As I grew older and entered high school and JROTC, I had only one opportunity at a summer camp offered to the outstanding cadets in Hawaii. It was my very first taste of the life I had chosen and while I remember things I learned when we had an introduction to the 25th Division Recondo School (most of the division was actually still deployed to Vietnam at the time and participating in operations in the "Parrot's Beak" of Cambodia.) we were learning about what would later be Air Assault skills like rappelling and ingress/egress from helicopters for airmobile assault. We lived in two man shelters (pup tents) or 'poncho hooches' and went out on patrols every night still carrying the M14s that our schools/units had in their inventory. By day we would awake to Reveille, form morning, have breakfast to the sound of Mess Call and morning parade to the Call to Assembly and finished a day of classes in everything from the care and feeding of various crew served weapons to ordinary 'monkey drill' (drill and ceremonies) with Retreat and lights out would end our teenaged BS sessions talking about that mystery of mysteries, girls and who did what that day with Taps. A year later I was in Basic Training at Ft. Dix and while a lot of the draftees and other volunteers in my company (we slept in platoon bays in those days would lay in bed cursing the Drill Sergeants or feeling homesick, somehow the sound of the bugle calls gave a structure and some comfort to my days as a recruit that kept me insulated from all of that. As training continued and I worried the war in Vietnam would end before I had a chance to go, the sound of bugles counting off the hours at Airborne School, At Ranger School at AIT at Ft. Sam Houston and BAMC and finally in a very different sort of "Q" course from that which is offered at JFKSWC today. The bugles announced the cycle of the day.
Some thirty eight plus years have come and gone since those halycon days of my youth. As I listen to "Officer's Call" and to Recall and so many other familar sounds, I realize how much they reflect a part of my life that I'm no longer part of. They represent my youth and a measure of my meaning. I look around at the boys mostly fidgety because such movies as Fort Apache seem irrelevant to their present. While I recognize how important that I've become to them (this movie is one of my birthday presents). I realize that they have become part of what I rationalize as my current relevancy in the absence of the more direct influence I had on shaping the world. Still, I miss the bugle calls that even today stir my blood.
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| Milestones... |
[Sep. 17th, 2009|08:02 pm] |
Yesterday Mary Travers died after a battle with leukemia. She was born on 9 November 1936 and became an icon of the 1960s as part of the the trio of Peter, Paul and Mary. I grew up singing many of the folk ballads they made famous like If I Had a Hammer, 500 Miles and Puff the Magic Dragon (which at the time I thought was about a C-47 gunship and its pilot). Those and a few similar songs were the tunes I learned to play on the guitar.
Another death yesterday, was Henry Gibson whose dry humor and poetry recitals were a part of the schtick that characterized the tongue in cheek and slightly avant-garde humor (very avant-garde humor for network TV in those days). He too died after a brief battle with cancer.
May they rest in peace. Mary Travers brought music with meaning to many of us and Henry Gibson gave us something to laugh about in times that were turbulent.
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| Afghanistan - The 'Right' War |
[Sep. 12th, 2009|04:16 pm] |
Mr. Obama in his campaign for the Presidency said, "It's time to refocus our attention on the war we have to win in Afghanistan," If it's the war we 'have to win', why then isn't he concentrating on it? If what he said, "If another attack on our homeland comes, it will likely come from the same region where 9/11 was planned," He's also said, "It is unacceptable that almost seven years after nearly 3,000 Americans were killed on our soil, the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 are still at large," he said. "Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahari are recording messages to their followers and plotting more terror. The Taliban controls parts of Afghanistan. Al Qaeda has an expanding base in Pakistan that is probably no farther from their old Afghan sanctuary than a train ride from Washington to Philadelphia."
Ok, Mr. Obama we got the speeches but what are you doing to back it up. Sure you sent over another 30,000 troops but the problem with counterinsurgency is that it is not a pure military conflict as you well know from your studies of Mao and of other revolutionairies. What it is, is a political war with perception as the key component rather than geography and political influence versus political coercion as the primary tool.
So, what have you done to change the perceptions of the people of Afghanistan and of the Taliban and Al Qaeda? Have you given the perception of a strong and implacable enemy but good and faithful to your allies? Have you given the impression that we are strong and inexorable that we'll grind them down like grist in a mill? Or have you given them the impression of being weak and of indecision when it comes to truly fighting an asymetric counterinsurgency in Afghanistan? Do you come across to an enemy who doesn't care what kinds of appeasements you offer or what you do for domestic US consumption? Do you show weakness bowing to Saudi Princes (twice on public photos) rather than have them give obeisance to you at least come across as their equal? What are you doing about the opium 'problem' in Afghanistan? What are you doing to in hearts and minds in Helmand province? Do you even know? Do you really care?
Right now the media is making all preparations for us to abandon Afghanistan to the Taliban again. Even now we're well on our way to abandoning the people of Iraq when they (not necessarily Mr. Nouri al-Maliki who has his own agenda) need us more than ever. Will we abandon Afghanistan too? The war you claimed was the 'Right War' and the place we should concentrate our efforts? Or did the realities of our lack of strategic airlift into that land locked country show you that your Democratic predecessor who killed Pentagon budgets for strategic airlift in the 1990s as part of a 'peace dividend' prove insurmountable? Of course you could have alleviated it somewhat by pushing for additional C-17s but sacrificed those for the 'Cash for Clunkers' and the 'Economic Stimulus'. Wouldn't the C-17 have been an economic stimulus?
I'm fairly certain that the deaths of every serviceman dying in Afghanistan today weighs on your conscience like it did on Mr. Bush. But I'm probably wrong because you care about as much about the average troop as Mr. John Kerry, which is to say not one whit, because they weren't of your Chicago Machine, Arugula or Kobe Beef eating, high falutin' kind. They're just ordinary folks who mostly come from places where they cling to their bibles as a source of comfort and direction and to their guns as a form of self preservation. |
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| Remembrance |
[Sep. 11th, 2009|02:36 am] |
Today is 11 September 2009. Eight years ago today, the world changed for me in a way that will forever affect my life. We said, then that it would forever change the United States, but that was then and this is now and few remember with vivid clarity the horror of that day eight years ago. Few remember the anger. The people of the United States have gone through their seven steps of grieving and for the most part 'moved on with their lives'. I'm still in the anger phase and probably will be for life. I'm still angry that a bunch of islamofascists have pretty much gotten away with murdering 2,720 innocents. I wasn't as angry when we were killing them off by the dozens daily in Iraq as they sacrificed themselves on the altar of their Jihad or when they were being hunted out of caves in the Hindu Kush. Heck they were coming to us to be martyred for their cause and in the process being eliminated faster than they could breed. That to me was 'a good thing'. But we've since gotten over our grief, our anger at these murdering scum and our desire to keep them from being able to do it again. We now seek rapprochement with them. Mr. Obama apologizes to them for whatever and every wrong real or imagined we committed to 'deserve' to be attacked.
I for one, fundamentally disagree. I feel that the only rapprochement I want with them is to see that they all find 'peace' or perhaps 'piece' through death. Not just the death of those who commit the acts but of their teachers, leaders and anyone who would indoctrinate someone to believe that it is 'righteous' to kill the innocent.
Today, I will say Kaddish for the souls of those innocent lives lost on UAL Flights 175 and 93, American Airlines Flights 11 and 77 and for the 2,720 other people who lost their lives eight years ago. I will pray that we can prevent another attack through our military efforts across the globe. But, I grow increasingly doubtful that we will. |
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| It's Not About Party |
[Sep. 10th, 2009|05:41 pm] |
The other day when discussing the health care issue with someone out here and the retort began with, "You Republicans". I began with, 'It isn't about Republican or Democrat. It isn't about Left or Right. It's about the expansion of government into every aspect of life in the US today. If it was wrong for George W. Bush why is it right for Barack Obama? Why does government need to own and exercise control over banks and financial institutions? Why should government take an equity position in GM and dictate policy to Chrysler as they did? Why couldn't they be allowed to go into bankruptcy? Why shouldn't a company like AIG be allowed to file Chapter 7 and make itself over? Is it right for the White House to create a list of people who protest its policies? Why should we let government which has proved it cannot administer MediCare, Medicaid, the VA, TRICARE and the Indian Medical Service be allowed to control the health care for all Americans? Is it right that these same people who have no answer to $34 trillion dollars in unfunded MediCare debt be allowed to dictate a program that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says will at some $1-$1.5 trillion dollars in debt, debt that will not be paid for in our time? It's not about party I frankly don't care what party you support. It's about much more than that. It's about passing into laws that no one has read. It's about using regulation to add to government while by-passing Congress. It's about being against big government. This isn't just a Republican or Democrat issue because no matter what party you belong to, this is what your opposing party will control at some point in time.'
The person I was talking to responded with the oh so intelligent, "But that was what Bush did." 'Not entirely.', was my response. At that point I got the eyeroll.
Does anyone else besides me see this? Or is the country filled with people on both sides of the issues who can only parrot talking points handed to them? |
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| Employed Again! |
[Sep. 10th, 2009|06:10 am] |
In the inimitable manner of what I've come to call my profession, I applied for about 24 projects in the Business Intelligence World. I landed 24 interviews. Of these 12 were 'fishing expeditions' we pretend we're going to start a project to find out what something will cost and then pull the plug at the last minute announcing that it will be done in-house (these usually are a source of remedial work that costs the potential client twice as much as the original would have). Five of the projects couldn't get budget approval and three were looking for someone in another skill set (I'm an architect/business analyst/project manager) from mine. of the remaining four, one dropped the project completely and two wanted to ''low ball' on the compensation by bundling expenses with my pay rate giving me about $10-$12 an hour after expenses. The final one thought my rate was reasonable and skills and methodology fit their needs. They have contracted for me to perform a Business Requirements Analysis and planning for an upgrade/migration or conversion of their existing application.
So, to make it short, I start a new project on Monday. With luck it may see me through the holidays. If all goes well, it may see me overseeing an implementation project to begin in Q1 2010. |
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| Mr. Obama to Answer the "Many of the Big Questions" on ObamaCare |
[Sep. 8th, 2009|04:27 pm] |
The first most important question for him to answer IMNSHO, is how will this be paid for?
The second big question is that any 'savings' from cutting out waste, fraud and abuse is a good intention. But, given that since 1968 we've been trying to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse from MediCare and MediCaid but haven't managed to do so after forty years why will this succeed now?
The third big question is how is disincentivizing employer paid insurance plans with a tax, creation of a 'public option' in whatever guise going to magically drive down the costs of insurance? Aren't actuarial risks unchanged? Also, the public sector has no profit incentive to keep overhead in check, a fact easily seen in the management of the USPS as well as in the bloated bureaucracy of MediCare, so again, with no control on the administrative overheads or incentive to keep these in check how will a 'public option' save money in the long run?
If the government hasn't been able to 'fix' MediCare and Medicaid in some forty years, what make them think they can implement a 'public option' that's any better? Also, what happens to MediCare and Medicaid?
If some 15% of the population is uninsured and the breakdown of this number is that;
- 35% Live in households that comprise the top 5% of wage earners (the wealthy).
- 31% Are eligible for programs such as Medicaid or S-Chip and are just not enrolled.
- 26% Are illegal aliens
- 8% Are truly uninsured and many of these fall into a gap category such as unemployed, or should be covered by a spouse or parent but aren’t or have exhausted their insurance coverage or are ‘uninsurable’ due to pre-existing conditions.
Why are we trashing the system that the other 85% have and are relatively satisfied with? Why not just create something for some portion of the 15% who have no insurance?
These are four of the questions I'd want answered on Wednesday night. I want the answers straightforward and to demonstrate that Mr. Obama actually understands the problems behind each of these problems.
Let me give you some ideas.- Modify the existing HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act so that health insurance carriers are able to offer policies nationwide. In this day and age of mobility this makes perfect sense and will create new insurance products that may be more affordable as they might not include existing state insurance requirements for abortions, gender transition and other elective procedures.
- Institute Tort Reform. This alone will reduce the cost of health care by tens of percentage points. You've already got the insurance companies indemnified against their malpractice why not let the Doctors and other care providers in on it?
- Allow tax exempt 'health savings plans' to be maintained for a lifetime instead of one year at a time. This will help people pay for routine and preventative care (no over the last fifty years preventative care is actually more costly than episodic care) or to be used towards other deductibles or health insurance premiums. Have them set up similar to IRAs.
- Create a national 'special risk group' to provide special insurance for high risk groups such as those with pre-existing conditions.
- Expand the existing CMS quality measures database and include JCAHO Sentinel Events in a listing so that people can look at the quality of care for facilities and health care providers thereby allowing them to make more informed health care decisions.
- Fix MediCare and Medicaid. These need to pay their fair share of the costs of health care for those in these systems rather than passing those costs onto other insurance providers. For a start, slash 3/4s of the jobs out of HHS using a 'lean Six Sigma' approach and demand those remaining be productive or out of work. Regulate the amount of overhead intermediaries can charge the program to no more than 15% of gross reimbursements. Institute a 'private option' to MediCare allowing people to purchase commercial coverage while in their youth to cover their medical costs after 65.
Those are just some of dozens of suggestions that many others including myself have come up with and all would cost far less than a trillion dollars to institute and probably would be far more effective given what I've seen of government run healthcare through my VA, TRICARE and as an administrator of health care providers for MediCare and Medicaid.
So why create a tempest in a teapot when other less costly or radical solutions would work as well and perhaps better?
Postscript:
Well, I watched it. It was a tremendous waste of time. Instead of answering serious questions and showing that he'd given any thought to the many issues raised in town hall meetings (when people had them) he dismissed most of them with arguments that didn't even consider the points raised, the same tired dismissals that he's used in prior speeches. If he believed anyone was convinced by his tired old dismissals of real concerns, concerns that were raised not necessarily by right wing activists but by the Congressional Budget Office, Physicians, Senior citizens who wonder how he proposes to cut $500 billion out of MediCare and still maintain services especially when the program currently runs a $34 trillion dollar un-funded liability for future care, and people who have actually read the House and Senate proposed legislation. The 'death panel' strawman he created and broke down was laughable as he used it to avoid other more important issues while also ignoring his own advisors (Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, Dr. David Blumenthal) published statements about changing care delivery (Blumenthal in an article in Lancet advocated delays in cancer treatments to reduce the cost of care and Emanuel advocates an age quality index as a means to ration health care). Do we worry about the advocacy of such positions and its relations to an un-elected, group of health care bureaucrats whose job it would be under the proposed legislation to oversee what kinds and amounts of care are delivered under ObamaCare? To quote Sarah Palin, "You Betcha!" does dismissing concerns given his advisors opinions voiced in medical literature repeatedly answer the questions those opinions raised? The answer is a resounding NO! After all Mr. Obama didn't you say that we should judge you by the people you surround yourself with?
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| So, What Did They Know and When Did They Know It? |
[Sep. 7th, 2009|11:17 am] |
Perhaps one of the biggest faux pas of recent memory has been the treatment of the United Kingdom and Great Britain in particular by Mr. Obama et alia. First of course there was the cheesy gift and less than enthusiastic welcome to British Prime Minister Gordon Blair which only underlined the return of a bust of Winston Churchill on loan from her Majesties government to the US that had formerly sat in the Oval Office. Later there was a similar incalculably insulting gift given to the Queen herself on her visit. These have no doubt caused injury to our relations with our staunchest ally. Now comes news that the brouhaha that Mr. Obama and his Secretary of State raised over the release of convicted Lockerbie/Pan Am Flight 103 bomber Abdelbaset Al Megrahi is as much theater as the words of Captain Renault in the movie Casablanca when he exclaims "I'm shocked, shocked I say to find that there is gambling going on in this establishment!" even as he collects his winnings for the night. So it is that in an article in the Daily Mail Online we find out that 10 Downing is equally shocked by the feigned outrage of Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton as apparently the White House was, ‘The US was kept fully in touch about everything that was going on with regard to Britain’s discussions with Libya in recent years and about Megrahi,’ the article further goes on to say that, 'We would never do anything about Lockerbie without discussing it with the US. It is disingenuous of them to act as though Megrahi's return was out of the blue. They knew about our prisoner transfer agreement with Libya and they knew that the Scots were considering Megrahi's case.'
So apparently Mr. Obama knew in advance that there were talks aimed at transferring al Megrahi to Libya and didn't raise a ruckus then before anything even started. He apparently voted 'present' until he was against it. Or did he advocate the release of this inhumane, terrorist killer of hundreds of innocents of all ages and sexes for 'humanitarian purposes'. Well, if so, it is a change from previous US policy and it gave from all accounts a great deal of hope to terrorists all over the world.
Is that what Mr. Obama meant when he promised to bring 'hope and change'?
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