The Face of the Enemy Old and New

It is the inherent nature of man, in the Darwinian struggle of survival of the fittest, that will always create those who would want power, to be the strongest. The problem within this struggle, this striving, the same as in the evolution of humans, animals, plants, etc, is that there will always be those that are exposed to something, pollution, poor or thin soil, shallow places in which to grow roots, that will mutate into a gross representation of the original.

And, as in nature, these mutations will often take over the other life in the area, eventually strangling or destroying everything around it. Therefore, I believe it is always necessary to seek out these mutations and pull them out like weeds, lest they succeed in their aims of destruction.

This enemy is much like the old. I am not speaking of 9/11 per se accept to refer to the new enemy as those that perpetrated the act. The "old" enemy is tyranny, fear, dictatorships, belief in the omnipotence of the state over the people instead of for the people. I am referring to men such as Hitler, Stalin, etc. and all of the things they stand for. These kind of men have existed through out history, as far back as we, in our feeble memories, can re-call it. These kind of men, mutations, have never been swerved from their ambitions by the offerings of peace, but rather spit upon it and laugh as they go one their merry way conquering and destroying.

The new enemy is not just some men who attacked the US on 9/11 or any other countries before or since. If I believed that, I would still be calling for them to be brought to justice in our courts. The new enemy has an ideology like the old enemy: subjugate the people to the will and power of the state (in this case, some twisted idea of Islam); the people must bow to the will of the state, not the other way around. It is plainly spoken in their manifesto.

They believe that they can only perpetrate this ideology if free societies do not exist or are too weak to oppose them, lest the people have hope. 9/11 was not just the murder of 3000 people. It was the first strike by which they hoped to change the face of the world as we know it. To knock off the most powerful free society in the world. By their own admission, they feel that once the US is gone or too weak to respond, the rest of the free societies will retreat and leave them to their madness.

And these men are succeeding in this aim to some extent. Many free societies are refusing to recognize their intent. They believe them not to be so much an enemy of freedom to be defeated, but as criminals or murders. A small group of people, a cult, who, once hunted down, will be eradicated, no longer something to fear and they can go on with their life.

The problem here is that this ideology is wide spread in the middle east. The development of the ideology, the implanting into men's minds that only submitting to the literal words of the Qu'ron, to the judgment of a few men considered "righteous" and thus the only ones able to interpret and apply the word (of Allah), is accomplished daily in the madrassa's and the mosques of the region. It is institutionalized within the governments of these states as "Departments of Vice and Virtue". The addition of poverty, lack of economic and social growth, gives it the legitimacy in cries for. That the sinful or hedonistic life people have led (real or perceived), allowing the infiltration of western decadence, is the reason why they suffer.

This gives the enemy a wide base from which to pull their "soldiers". For the last 30 years, these beliefs have been confined to separate groups, who have only inflicted them on their own people. But like the Nazis and the Communists of the last century, it only takes one strong leader to take this ideology, these separate groups and turn it into a "cause", a nationalistic endeavor.

And like Fascism and Communism, this ideology will not be satisfied with only consuming it's immediate environment. Once it has felt it's full power, it will seek to destroy or take over all of the places and people that it can reach.

This is the aim, the danger, of the enemy. Not the small acts of terrorism, murder and mayhem that they perpetrate now, but the future horrendous acts of a totalitarian and destructive state. A state, by it's own ideology, that believes only those who believe as they have the right to live and all others are to be destroyed. That any of their own who deviate in anyway or fail to meet their exacting standards are to be beaten, tortured or killed to serve as an example to the rest (of the sheep). And who will judge the "righteousness" of the people? A few men who claim to know the word of "Allah"? Only they can interpret this word? Only they can create the laws?

If you can understand this concept, you can understand the purpose of Iraq. It is no simple war of aggression. Not for oil, not for land, not to end the undeclared continuing Gulf War, not for economy, not to knock off lingering enemies or a few dictators, and sadly, not just to free one group of oppressed people in Iraq or just to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

It is all of these things rolled into one concept: Freedom. That the way to defeat this enemy is to take away the base from which he can recruit his followers; from which he can claim legitimacy. The way to defeat him is to replace his weak and destructive ideology with a strong, constructive, prosperous society that gives hope for the future. That does not rub the salt of self loathing, shame and guilt into the wounds of poverty and hopelessness, but gives them the means to heal the wound, creating new hope and prosperity.

This is the greater purpose of Iraq.

Summary only...

Quick Notes in the last 24 hours

1) A great man died on June 5, 2004. Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States of America. A man who truly believed in the greatness of America. That it should always stand for freedom. That it should spread freedom and democracy around the world. That it should not lay down before dictators and tyrannical regimes, but stand up for what she believes in, the principles that have always seen American through the toughest time.

June 6, 1984.. Normandy, France,
We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free.
June 6, 1984 ... Normandy, France,
The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest.

2) Al-Yawer is making the rounds. First to Germany where he plays a little 2 faced to get the German support:

He told Munich's Focus magazine he hoped that the United Nations would support "free, fair and transparent elections" as planned by January 31, 2005.

"The sooner the better," he said in the interview printed in German. "For decades Iraq was the play toy of various dictators. Now it should not be permitted to be the puppet of the great powers. Therefore it is absolutely necessary to bring the power back to the Iraqi people as soon as possible"

Don't get me wrong, I want them to get that ASAP, just sounded a little whiny playing to the German audience kind of thing. These folks are certainly political animals.

Nice.

3) While at the same time, interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi tells the UN that they will need to US and coalition forces there for some time and do not plan to ask them to leave.

Who's getting played?

Summary only...

From There To Here

I have been floating around the blogsphere for about a couple of weeks, reading everything from left politics to right politics, pro-American and con-American Iraqi bloggers, soldiers, civilians, daily life of average people, technical, tyrannical and sometimes just rants. I've joined many comment discussions on all of these subjects and have been educated to say the least.

While floating around, I decided to try blogging (or flogging as the case may be) myself. If nothing else, I feel it will be interesting to start an electronic journal to keep track of my thoughts as I ramble through the days and weeks to come, in what surely is a changed world.

It is very simple for me to point to the day that I woke up and decided to pay attention to goings on outside my usual sphere of influence. On September 11, 2001, I was getting ready for work, taking a shower, getting dressed, I had CNN on to get my morning dose of "world" news. I came out of the bathroom and was sitting down to put on my shoes when I saw the second plane fly into the towers. For a moment, I was stunned. I fumbled for the remote control to turn up the sound. I thought this was an advertisement for a new movie or something. There had been recent reviews of the new Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, "Collateral Damage" and I thought this was some wild imaginations of the movie. I kept saying to myself, "is this for real?"

Then, Aaron Brown, a CNN anchor appeared and said something like, "Oh my God, another plane just flew into the towers" or something like that. I sat stunned for the next few minutes, watching the fires as I realized that this was for real. It only took me a minute more to realize that this was deliberate. One plane might be an accident, two planes were for a purpose. I didn't know who or what or why, just a vague impression, a word I had heard before: terrorists.

I watched the news for hours, saw the Pentagon, the reports of the plane that went down in Pennsylvania. I saw the terrible pictures of people jumping to their deaths. The towers falling. People running, covered in white dust with just their eyes and mouths as dark holes in a ghostly face. I heard about people making phone calls from the planes telling their loved ones good bye. And then the Pentagon pictures as people were pulled bleeding and burned from the building. The pictures are burned in my mind forever.

I didn't go to work until very late. But nobody asked me where I had been. They were all listening to their radios. The TV in the conference room was on and the footage kept playing over and over. I kept waiting to hear from the President. What were we doing? What would we do? He finally came on the TV and told us to remain calm. The government was still working and we would get to the bottom of this.

From that point forward, I was addicted. I haven't really watched prime time TV for 3 years now. My TV is almost constantly turned to one cable news channel or the other. Or I catch programs about terrorism, history of the middle east, CSPAN, etc. The first thing I look at when I turn on my computer is the major media outlets websites. Because, I need to know. I need to know what is going on right now. The morning of Sept 11, the only reason I saw anything or knew anything was because I was late for work. If I hadn't been late, I would have been driving down the road, listening to CD's, oblivious to everything as usual as I went on my merry way.

I don't regret seeing those pictures. Shortly afterwards, there was a big uproar about the constant showing of the pictures on TV making a mass blemish on our psyche, so they stopped playing them. Am I damaged? I don't think so. It woke me and reminded me that my safe little world wasn't all that safe after all and I needed to pay attention.

I said I started looking up information and watching the news constantly, right? I wanted to know who did this and why. What was their agenda? How did it fit in my world? I read books: "The History of Islam"; Queen Noor on the Jewish/Palestinian issue; the history of the Western World and the Middle East. I watched "experts" give their thesis on what motivated the terrorists.

I started hearing something strange. Something that went against my upbringing, my "moral compass" as it were. As people started reviewing the "history" of this action, it sounded like they were telling me that these 19 men had a reason to kill these 3000 people and try to destroy my way of life. They weren't at fault. It was America that was at fault. We were bad people who, through our selfish need to live the life we wanted to, had dealt with bad dictators or governments that had oppressed their people. Since we dealt with these bad people, we were responsible for the oppression of these other people. WE made them into terrorists. WE were to blame for our own death.

I can tell you that this did not sit well with me. As a matter of fact, it made me mad! I mean really angry, can't hardly see straight. After the actual events of Sept 11, I had actually felt a little numb. My focus was: let's find these guys that did this and bring them to justice. And when I thought that, I was thinking: arrest them; bring them to court; try them as murderers. But after I heard these people telling me that we were not really the victims, the 19 men were and, you know, "really, what else should we have expected", I saw red. That's when the word "apologist" entered my vocabulary: somebody who makes excuses for the accused because they were disadvantaged socially and economically; a product of the society they grew up in; bound to behave badly because we programmed them.


As a woman, this kind of ideology of turning the victim into the accused, really hits home. I have seen (and still see) many instances of women who were raped or abused and the attorney for the defense goes after them, smearing their reputations, insisting that their life style, their dress, their actions were the reason they were attacked. That kind of "victimizing the victim" just angers me to no end. And that's what I heard over and over again. The intellectual explaining to me how my nice life, nice house, nice car, nice clothes and nice job had made my government deal with not so nice governments that didn't let their people have such a nice life. Ergo, I was responsible for people wanting to kill me and ruin my nice life.

Maybe there is something wrong with my reasoning, but I have to tell you that is what it sounded like. Then, I saw the pictures of people dancing in the street. Chanting "death to America", "Death to Bush", burning flags and generally looking like they were happy about the situation. The whole time, the leaders of these countries were offering condolences. Condemning these terrible acts. Offering support to the US. Frankly, I couldn't reconcile the two pictures. Somebody was out of touch and I realized it wasn't just me. These same governments quickly had the police run down and shut everybody up. Take the film from the cameras. Don't let anybody see. God forbid, anybody get the idea that their country, their people might be involved in this horrible act. They were like frightened children who think if they just stand still and be quiet they can't be seen.

Then, action. The people who did this were Al-Qaida. A group of terrorists who styled themselves "mujihadeen" or holy warriors, protectors of Islam. They were based in Afghanistan and we needed to get them. And those friendly Arab countries were all ready to help us. Yes, you can fly out of bases from their country. Yes, they will keep the price of oil down. We will help you track down the terrorists, trust us. Those few people don't represent Islam, believe me. Islam is a religion of peace. Our country would never be involved in supporting terrorists. We only support freedom fighters. We only support the poor oppressed Palestinians who want a free Palestinian state. We give money to Muslim charities to help the poor Muslim brethren of our down trodden Arab neighbors not these crazy mujihadeen. It's them you want, not us. We're your friends. Don't mind those couple of thousands of people marching in our streets chanting "death to America". Don't mind those couple hundred clerics in our mosques telling our young men to join the jihad. That's not really us.

OK...Once again, something I couldn't reconcile. These people were trying to separate themselves from the terrorists they were funding. They were funding "Muslim charities" run by political organizations that had military wings for the exact purpose of spreading their fundamentalist Islamic beliefs or killing anyone that didn't conform. That was like the Sein Finn trying to separate themselves from the IRA.

As we prepared to go to Afghanistan, the anti-war chanters started their ringing defeatist chant: War is not the answer! Afghanistan was Russia's Vietnam, it will be our defeat too at the hands of the mujihadeen! We should find out what they want, why they did this to us! We need to understand! Then we are in Afghanistan for about three weeks and the defeatist were chanting again: Quagmire! Vietnam! Give Peace a Chance!

Nope...No peace. Within weeks we were in Kabul and Kandahar. The Taliban was high-tailing it to the mountains and the Afghanis were throwing off their burquas and shaving
beards, welcoming the US forces. No quagmire. No Vietnam. The only depressing part was that we didn't catch Bin Laden. We got a number of his crew, but he had run like the cowardly dog that he was. Hiding in caves and traveling by foot through the mountains. No one knows exactly where he is (or do they?). Speculation seems to be that he is traveling between Pakistan and Afghanistan, using the loyal Pashtun tribes to hide him. The one area of our fight that continues to be poor is our intelligence gathering and analysis. Based on everything I have read and heard, one out of every 1000 pieces of information has some validity or intelligence value. But we still have to put it together with one out of another 1000 pieces to get a piece of the puzzle.

I think we have been close to him many times, but he has more ears in the local places. Now, in 2004, he has dropped of the radar with only an occasional audio tape released. His most highly publicized lieutenant, Abu Al-Zarqawi is running around Iraq causing serious problems for our armed forces and kidnapping civilians. Wait...I get ahead of myself.

Afghanistan is largely subdued with occasional flair ups amongst the tribal elements. Unlike Iraq, Afghan after the fall of the Russian backed government, reverted back to it's tribal organizations as the whole place was in anarchy and this was the only form of "law" the Afghanis knew. Most of the population was too young to remember a time before the Taliban and have no reference to national pride or government. This is going to be a tough battle to create a democracy and overcome tribal connections, but it is well underway with Pres. Karzai in Kabul. Problem here as I see it is that he doesn't have control of the Afghan outer areas. We will have to see how the elections go in September 2004. Interesting thing about these upcoming elections, there is no news coverage. This is largely the forgotten war where the media only covers the deaths of coalition soldiers or "battles between tribes".

Pat Tillman, ex-football player who gave up his career to join the Army Rangers was killed this year. He was hailed as a great hero who took the fight to the enemy; who sacrificed a good living to join the army and fight for what he believes in. That lasted about 30 days. The media had to tear that apart. Recent report says that their were no enemy, just 2 troops that crossed fire. Pat Tillman was killed by friendly fire. No hero here. We can't have that. We must examine our heroes within an inch of their lives, look for every defect and hold it up to the public for ridicule so that they can see that their heroes are all paper. Easily torn. We cannot have heroes. That might give people hope. They can have no hope. We must destroy that hope so that they will be like sheep to be led, so when the true savior of the people come and show them the way to utopia, they will be ready....blah, blah, blah.

I know, I know...I am ranting now. The onslaught of negative, demeaning, press is almost unbearable and it has a far worse message in it than any "propaganda" ever spread by our enemies. You are unjust. You are immoral. You have no right to fight back. Your enemy is justified in attacking you. The rich are using you as cannon fodder. Don't fight their illegal, immoral war for oil. What right to do you have to tell someone how to live? You can't even fix your own country.

If you remove "oil" from this rhetoric, you will find the same anti-war commentary all the way back to the Revolution. I'm serious. Look at the Civil War anti-war movement. Lots of folks were insisting that we didn't have to go to war to keep the seceding states in the union or force them to accept the anti-slavery conditions for admitting states. They could be reasoned with. Reasonable people knew it was just a matter of time before slavery would fade away on it's own. We just needed to keep the economic and diplomatic pressure on. Read and be enlightened how the anti-war movement has always insisted that we "just need time." In the meantime, humans were being bought and sold over and over again, tortured, brutally punished while the sides debated. Fortunately, Abraham Lincoln had a few more guts and decided to do the right thing.

Every war, has it's anti-war movement. Usually, they were minimized by our cultural belief in doing what was right and we were able to defeat the enemies of freedom. And yes, I do subscribe to the theory that most of our wars were fought in direct interest of maintaining the freedom of the United States and her allies, because such freedom is anathema to the rest of the world where the top predator usually controls the people and tries to enforce their lone predatory ideology on the rest of the world.

There is one time that we were defeated that haunts us today and keeps the Anti-war people going: Vietnam. The war against communism. The war in which we were not defeated by our enemies, but were defeated by our own lack of moral courage. Give peace a chance. Give north Vietnamese a chance to murder 10's of thousands of South Vietnamese as we exited the peninsula. That was the day we lost all moral rectitude. American citizens danced in the street, chanting "Make Love not War" while men, women and children were slaughtered where they stood. That is the great "Baby Boomer" generation's claim to victory. Not how we defeated the communists and kept some country free, but how they were able to make the US withdraw from an "illegal" war. Victory for the "Free Love" movement.

Well, I was just a baby then, but the thought of it makes me shake my head. A sad day for our great nation, when all that it stands for was trampled in the dirt by people wearing beads and smoking hashish. And we are still recovering from that today. Today, these same people are the age of our leaders. They teach in the schools. They teach that the defeat was a good thing because it taught us humility. These are the people, the folks who cannot forsake their past lives as hippies, but are still trying to relive it that get involved in every anti-war movement. Unless, it suits their purpose. For instance, I do not recall any anti-war group starting any demonstrations when we went to Somalia to give "humanitarian aid"; or to Kosovo and Bosnia to protect the ethnic Albanians and Muslims from genocide.

That was ok. Kosovo and Bosnia are European. We understand them. Somalia is full of poor, starving black people that we see on our TV's everyday. They can't help themselves, the TV said, so we need to help our poor down trodden brothers. Never mind that these people were being over run by gangsters with machine guns, machetes and RPGs. We can save them simply by bringing food in. 18 Soldiers later, we realized that was the worst and most under supplied undertaking ever. And why weren't our soldiers prepared? Because, our compassionate, liberal leaders wanted the Somalis to know we were there for humanitarian purposes only and denied the military appropriate armored vehicles because it might be "intimidating" or "provocative".

HELLO! That is the purpose of the military. The military is the big stick! Later of course, there was all sorts of information about how Al-Qaida was involved in training these guys. Of course, in 1993 I only vaguely understood who "Al-Qaida" was. I knew about the World Trade Center being damaged by a bomb in a rental truck, but I still did not understand who Al-Qaida was. But, I'm getting off point. Military intervention was now only popular if it was a humanitarian crisis, easily identified and supported by Amnesty International. If not, it is illegal and immoral.

I actually supported both the Somalia mission and Bosnia/Kosovo. As a matter of fact, I was really upset when we pulled our troops out of Somalia after we suffered some losses. I understood that this was only supposed to be a humanitarian effort, but once we went after the warlord and he in turn attacked us, it was war and we should have kicked some major ass right then and there. Then Somalia could have been a democracy long before we thought of going back to Iraq. But, we didn't. We withdrew, limping back and gave the terrorists an idea that we were weak and could be defeated.

In 1991, Saddam Hussein, nominal "President" of Iraq, invaded tiny little Kuwait for the purpose of annexing it "back" into Iraq for the supposed reason it had once been a part of the Persian Empire and, therefore, was inherently a part of Iraq.. Bizarre. Really, the only purpose was to get access to more oil and more land with a sea port. Saddam recognized he could not be a true power in the region unless he had a Navy by which to assert his will on neighboring countries by land, air and sea. Saudi Arabia, et al were afraid that Saddam would target them next and asked for our assistance. This required direct intervention of our military because the Saudi military was not large enough nor well enough trained to keep Saddam out of Saudi while we set back and just sold them weapons and ammunition.

And, Saudi is an important exporter of oil. Not that we buy that much of their oil, but the amount that they pump and sell has a profound effect on the cost of oil on the market. Eg, gas is higher or lower, other energy is higher or lower, cost of goods is higher or lower (due to transportation costs), etc, etc. So, letting Saudi and other OPEC friends get over run by Saddam Hussein was not in our (the US) best interest or those of the rest of the world who would have been thoroughly screwed if Saddam got his hands on the major oil reserves of the world. The little Stalinist wannabe would have been rubbing his hands together, chuckling with glee while he played yo-yo with the world's economy and we tried to keep our countries from falling apart. The crazy b*stard was too schizoid to understand how the oil game was played and why you don't rock the boat, because it might tip over.

And it did, dumping the remains of his army on the highway north to Baghdad. But, I jump ahead. Let's not forget important parts of the story. The United States already had some bases in Saudi. Small parts of existing Saudi bases, particularly air fields where we helped train and trained with their pilots. We, the infidels, of the United States of America, in order to form an imperfect union and perpetrate hedonistic acts on the devout and righteous Muslim population, had invaded Saudi Arabia with our soldiers at their request. There was, in short, an uproar by the imams and more devout of the population who insisted that our soldiers be confined to their bases to avoid contaminating the perfect Saudi blossoms of Islam.

In otherwords, keep your democracy, freedom, Christianity and immoral ways from our population. And, we did. Not that it made the more militant, Wahabi Qu'ran thumpers happy. They were just plain pissed that "infidels" were in the holy land. Enter our friendly mujihadeen from Afghanistan. Remember, this is only 1990, well before 1993 World Trade Center bombing or the 9/11/2001 attacks.

Al-Qaida (the base) was formed in Afghanistan to expel Russia and defeat communism (once again). The US supported the Afghan rebels with money and weapons throughout the 1980's. Thousands of Russian soldiers died, I'm sure thinking they were fighting for the motherland. But, it was a proxy war for the US and we spent a chunk of change to win it with out spending our blood. Once the Ruskies withdrew, the Mujihadeen joined the Taliban (holy students) and took over the governing of the country, purging the commie government. Then they purged the women. Then they purged anybody who didn't fit into their Islamist world. Then Afghanistan was a subjugated and bankrupt state that routinely beat, maimed and killed it's citizens for the smallest transgressions.

In 1990, Al-Qaida and friends were just getting started in Afghanistan. When Saddam invaded Kuwait and threatened Saudi, Al-Qaida offered to come to Saudi and fight a gorilla war against Saddam. This offer came from Osama Bin Laden. A Saudi citizen who had been living as a "freedom fighter" in Afghanistan for almost 10 years. He was wealthy in his own right. His father had left him millions of dollars from a Saudi construction company. He had went to school in England and was well educated. The Saudi's were not interested in the offer. Basically, they did not want a bunch of "holy warriors" roaming around the country. How were they supposed to get rid of them after the battle was over? What if they didn't go back to Afghanistan? What if they hung out in Saudi and fomented revolution against the "corrupt" leaders?

These were very real dangers for the Saudi Royal family and they decided to make a deal with Satan...er...I mean the United States instead to preserve their power. Al-Qaida was too well supported in Saudi by charitable organizations to fund the "holy warriors" and the imams in the mosques preaching the duty of "jihad" which was being interpreted as "holy war" with infidels and heretics instead of the personal "jihad" which is your own struggle with good and evil in your life and the struggle to give yourself totally to God (or Allah in this case). OBL (Osama Bin Laden) went away pissed and was stewing in Afghanistan.

But, as I said, the Saudi Royal family had not stayed in power all this time because they were stupid. Enter the US. Many more US soldiers and British and French and German, etc. It was the largest coalition of countries since the UN Korean Debacle. But this time, it was ass kicking time for Saddam. You can always tell when somebody believes their own press. This guy really thought that his Arab brothers (who he had been intimidating and threatening for years if not directly at war) would come to his defense. He really believed he was Saladin, the savior of the Arab world. So..When we told him to get out by January 15, 1991, the dumbass would not withdraw. Somehow, he thought that his million man army of tanks, artillery and infantry could stand up to constant bombardment of the most technologically advanced militaries in the world. I think he was smoking hashish or something (I heard a rumor recently that he was self medicating; very common for people who are schizophrenic, manic or bipolar; they think they can control their own emotional roller coaster with drugs and alcoholic. If he had only read more western literature or joined AA he would have known better).

In 6 short weeks, his infrastructure was ruined and his military was reduced to just about nil. His guys were running so fast that they caused a traffic jam on the main highway back to Baghdad. It was a "duck shoot" for the Coalition. As a matter of fact, the media started calling it a massacre (which, in the literal sense of the word it was) and public opinion was starting to turn. We are, after all, a compassionate group of people who hate to see blood shed just for the sake of blood. Unfortunately, ending the battle there was not exactly the best plan.

Let me return momentarily to the anti-war "not in our name" "no blood for oil" group. It is in my opinion, had we not interfered and Saddam got the oil reserves secured, we would have had one hellatious recession if not depression set in on us. I think we would have seen some serious lines at the gas station, retro 1978. Then the same people would have been blaming the government for a failed economy and screaming why they hadn't done something to prevent this. Some people will never be satisfied.

Other issue here...George Bush I re-enacted the "Bay of Pigs" on the Shia population of Iraq. The US, thinking they had seriously destroyed Saddam's military, started whispering that now might be a good time to revolt. The US would support them. Of course, there were no outright guarantees of direct military support because, really, it was supposed to be against our constitution and the Monroe Doctrine to interfere with governments "outside the sphere of the American continent". Which means we can screw with Argentine, Chile, Mexico, etc in the interest of our country because we reside in the region, but we are not supposed to help depose other governments in other hemispheres directly unless we have declared war for other purposes (talk about outdated in the new global world!). Hence, no tanks or aircraft support, but we support you theoretically.

And, here we go again, the Shia revolt and Saddam crushes them with his Republican Guard that he had held back from the war and was largely intact. When I say crush them, I mean massacring entire villages. Men, women and children bombed out of existence, shot in the back of the head. Heads crushed by brute force. Women raped and murdered. Mass graves of the Nazi holocaust variety. We stood by and watched it happen. I don't understand all the reasons. Was it world opinion who insisted we were not responsible for regime change? Was it our own worries about how we would administer the country and rebuild it once we got in there (and no doubt we would)? Was it pressure from the regional Arab countries that were worried an unstable Iraq would make their own countries less stable? Make their ability to produce and deliver oil untenable? Was it all of these things rolled up in one?

I don't know. Don't know if I really will ever understand. Looking back now does not change the situation, but let us hope it was an eye opener for future administrations. At the time, I was worried I was blood thirsty because I really thought we should have just gone down town to Baghdad and got rid of the SOB then. But we didn't. The only thing we were able to do was institute "No Fly Zones" in northern and southern Iraq to try to keep the bastard from using gunship helicopters on his people. That worked a little, but certainly did not stop the movement of his ground troops within the country as they went about the business of extermination whole populations like an ugly remake of the Nazi SS.

This starts 13 years of "containment" policies in which we fought an undeclared war. Occasionally, his troops would lock on to our aircraft with radar and we would respond by blowing the crap out of the installation. Then there was the blow up of the "milk factory" because it had duel purpose equipment. Arab television (who would not exist if we had not protected their hypocritical asses) started referring to us as the great Satan again and proclaiming how we were oppressing the poor people of Iraq. In addition, embargos and sanctions were in place that were supposed to make it difficult for Saddam to get weapons, but he could exchange oil for food through the UN. That was another debacle that was only discovered recently. Saddam was giving kick backs (basically laundering money). Giving cash to administrators and countries supposedly for food and medicine, only to get it back in the form of weapons or in cash at a reduced rate (like $.50 on the dollar) in outside bank accounts. There is truly nothing good in this world that some asshole can't figure out how to muck up.

So...The Iraqi people starved while he played "Victorious Uncle Saddam" to the Arab masses. I can never figure out how these people could turn the massacre of 600,000 soldiers as they ran with their tails between their legs into a victory for Saddam. I think the whole region has been subject to mass hypnosis through the call of the imams at the mosques or maybe subliminal messages on Al-Jazeera. If you can imagine believing everything you heard from your government or some talking head on TV being a legitimate means of information. It was mass delusion or maybe self delusion. Crazy in short.

In the meantime, back at the ranch, Osama and friends were just getting started. They saw themselves as defenders of the true faith and the Muslim/Arab culture and had been turned away by the hedonistic rulers of Saudi Arabia in favor of the great Satan. This of course meant war. Undeclared war without warning to the combatants, but war it was. First, bombing US service personnel, Yemen in 1992, the World Trade Centers bombing number one in 1993, various unsuccessful plots for several years, declare war on western civilization in 1998Jihad Against Jews and Christians, bomb Kenyon and Nairobi embassies 1998, bomb USS Cole in Yemen 2000, Sept 11, 2001 (need I explain?), and the list goes on and on and on. Fast Facts About Al-Qaida

All you have to do is read their own garbage to know that these people only have one plan in mind, kill the infidel, be they civilian or military, spread the faith of Islam, "free" the Arab nations from their Crusader/Jewish overlords and restore Islam and the Muslim nations to it's rightful place as THE greatest nation on earth, etc, etc, etc. There are many more publishings and statements by the "great Shaiyhk" OBL and friends that state their intent and purpose. I did not need to read nor hear all of this fanatical rantings to know their intent.

All this, while we slept. Watching our political leaders becoming laughing stocks, spilling their guts about adultery, under the table financial deals, campaign contributions from foreign countries, potential murderers and definite destruction of the constitution and standing amendments with Supreme Court rulings meant to stomp out the last vestiges of religion from the government (which I did not know was so damn rampant really; never paid it much mind; didn't effect me. Seriously, I may be technically a Christian, but I'm not a holy roller and certainly never tried to inflict my beliefs on anybody. Pretty much seemed that the government wasn't actually doing that either, but I guess the socialist/atheist/enlightened folks were just waiting for us to be distracted by the tabloid politics so they could finish up creating the socialist world they started under LBJ. Let's hear it for welfare and social security! Yippee! A bankrupt policy with bankrupt politicians! Let's get more of that!)

It was more than obvious that they intended to destroy the United States by whatever methods possible on September 11, 2001. They are very good at learning military strategy and applying it within their limited resources. They did take on and defeat the Russian Empire, USSR. Of course, the USSR was actually trying to spread communism and develop communist client states and I don't blame anyone for not wanting to live under that rule. But, I will not consent to live under the rule of some crazy mullah who wants to tell me what I can think, wear, hear, say or when I can eat, drink, piss, pray and sleep. Not happening as long as I can stop it.

On September 11, 2001, the terrorists tried to apply the military equivalent of "taking off the head of the snake" by simultaneously striking our financial center (World Trade Center); command and control of military (Pentagon); and leadership (Congress/White House) with four planes. This was not just an "attention" getter as many people would like to believe. This was an all out strike on the US infrastructure. If it had succeeded in it's actual aims, I am sure I would not be writing this blog today. I would be like the people during the depression, working any job to get whatever money I could to survive while trying to avoid the gangs of criminals that would certainly come out of the wood work and make life miserable or attempting to get home by curfew because I am more than positive that we would have been immediately under martial law.

Fortunately for me, most companies did not believe in having all of their information in one place and there were many other stock exchanges through out the country that took on most of the work while New York wept. Terrorists did not understand the workings of our financial system. Fortunately for me, our grandfathers knew that military commands should be in appropriate fortified structures and had built the Pentagon to this purpose. Pentagon shapes are notoriously strong and particularly so when coupled with the architecture rules applied to medieval castles: concentric walls meant to keep the enemy contained away from the true center of power. Not to mention the NORAD command that would have taken over in the event the Pentagon was destroyed.

Fortunately for me, passengers on flight #93 found out what had happened and knew that they were going to die and probably take many other innocent people with them. They rose up and decided to go down fighting if necessary. They crashed in a Pennsylvania field, 30 minutes from their destination. The first civilian heroes in the fight against terror in the 21st century. May God grant them peace. That day, a phrase took hold in our conscience: "Let's Roll".

The things that the terrorists did not consider when attacking the United States:

1) Redundancy is the key to our survival. All of our government, military and financial systems have had redundant (back up programs) from the day of their conception. Through this method, regardless of war or natural disasters, the free and democratic government of the United States would continue.

2) The true spirit of the citizens of the United States. We are like a big family. We can argue amongst ourselves, but don't ever mess with our brother or sister or insult our mother or father because we will stop arguing between ourselves long enough to kick your ass. (of course, when the perceived threat has dissipated, we will be back at it again, arguing amongst ourselves)

3) The concept of biting the hand that feeds you must not exist in the Qu'ran or be translatable to the Arabic language. If you bite the hand that feeds you, the other hand is probably holding a big stick and will beat you until you let go of the hand and run away with your tail between your legs. (Please note that OBL and crew are still hiding somewhere, praying to Allah that an unmanned predator will not appear over the horizon and drop a laser guided missile on their asses)

Today, these guys realize that they cannot attack us directly without severe consequences. Instead, they go after our weaker allies in an attempt to intimidate them into retreat. Which they succeeded in doing to Spain and are attempting to do by de-stabilizing Saudi Arabia with attacks on foreign personnel and oil infrastructure. They are in Iraq now, working like fiends to prove that democracy and western civilization is not the future of Iraq, only the word of Allah is law. (they will be getting the surprise of their lives shortly).

So...I mentioned already that Afghanistan was a relative success, although today, we are still trying to educate and disarm the masses of tribesmen to shove democracy down their throats whether they like it or not. I did hear a rumor that we only went to war to control the fabled "Afghan Oil Pipeline" that would supposedly guarantee scads of oil from Tajikistan or Uzbekistan or one of the "stans" nearby. These folks must have been sleeping on September 11. Maybe they were in a coma for a couple of months? Don't know. But the death of 3000 Americans, Aussies, Brits, Italians, Saudis, Pakistanis, Mexicans, French, German, and the list goes on, is a good enough reason for me to gear up the military and start stomping ass.

I know...Not very enlightened of me, but what can I say? I am just a barbarian at heart.

Fastforward to 2002. Now we come to Iraq. Why, oh why was Iraq important? Many ask that question. Most must not pay attention. They only hear sound bites on the TV. WMD. No blood for oil (not that again). Illegal war. Free Iraq. Spread democracy. Saddam is Stalin's twin brother (or son). Mass Murder. Mid-east peace. Zionist attempt to take over Arab world. Crusade of religion (WTF?). Not in our names (yes, that again). Infidels. Terrorists. UN Resolutions. Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And this list goes on. But, Iraq had a purpose.

If you listen to the conspiracy theorists, they will tell you that there was a long ago plan by the neo-conservatives, just waiting for the right moment to be whipped out and applied to the middle east. They will tell you that every moment, every disaster has been orchestrated by the Zionist west in order to come to this moment when they can legitimately invade the Arabic region and steal the oil for themselves, humiliate the Arab world and denigrate the great prophet. Or, you can take out the word "Zionist" and "humiliate the Arab world ...denigrate the great prophet" and you will get the conspiracy theory of the Left Wingers in the US. The movie stars, Harvard/Yale graduates, left over hippies, save the planet, don't eat meat, make love not war, smoke hashish, I only drive an SUV for safety, we need more social (welfare) programs, enlightened intellectual experts on foreign and economic policy.

Ok...Maybe I got off target here with my rant. Hopefully, my description is making you laugh instead of think that I am some right wing, white power, Jesus forever crack pot. I only say it like this because I have had it boiling inside of me for so long. It just had to come out! This is what I was talking about, way back in this posting: victimizing the victim. Mix that in with some moral relativism and you have a whole crowd of people blind to the truth (at least the way I see it).

But, this is what brings us to Iraq. I hope I didn't jump around too much and make this as confusing as a Quentin Tarantino movie (pulp fiction), where you had better not leave or start reading in the middle. In my next posting, I will explain why Iraq was important (per my understanding); why the conspiracy theorist have part, but not all of the story; and why, after years of voting Democrat, I became an avid supporter of the Republican Party.

Summary only...

Isn't It Funny...

This is just my observation, but it seems that the unrelenting coverage of the "failure" in Iraq has suddenly died down now that the hand over to the Iraqi Governing Council took place as planned. Don't get me wrong, you still see some blips on the screen about continuing fighting in Kufa, but it's only quick 2 minutes reporting with a film clip that actually appears to be the same one they show over and over again every time they mention "fierce fighting". LOL!

Now we are starting to get back to the attacks on the economy and the other supposed administration failings. CIA Chief George Tenet resigned today, ostensibly for "personal reasons". I don't doubt that is true in the basic sense of the word. I am positive the administration was not going to force him to resign or fire him because this would be "admitting" a mistake in their intelligence operations. Not something Bush was likely to do in an election year. Don't need one more bullet in the Dems gun. But, I suspect that Tenet knew he was done for after November anyway if the President got re-elected. He probably would have been quietly replaced 6 mos after the elections.

Basically, he was a "good manager" who let good management get in the way of "managing the business". He put a lot of trust in his subordinates and let them run with some things hoping to jump start the limping "company" back to it's old abilities to really run down good intel. But, as I have learned in the business, you can't assume anything your people are telling you is right before you starting spitting it out at meetings. You better check and double check or you will end up with egg on your face. I know a few people who had to learn that lesson the hard way and I believe George Tenet is one of them.

As it is, I think he decided to take his fate into his own hands and resign on his own. Saving face and, at the same time, taking the sword for Bush before the campaign really got underway.

Now, the question is, who can really run the CIA the way it should be run? Maybe Condi Rice? She would probably make sure that she only got the right stuff and wouldn't allow anybody to spill out garbage. If they did, she would give them one of those "you disappoint me" speeches like your Mom used to give, quietly close the door and then have the guy fired a few days later. Nothing like a woman to make things all nice and tidy.

Summary only...

Just A Few Notes...

Today started late again. Tonight, I am too tired to stay up late, so I am going to sleep early and stop jumping on the blogs. Need sleep....

Today at work was like any other day. "Need an analysis of revenue from this source by 12pm tomorrow for a meeting"; "Can you conference call and discuss the correct documentation needed for..." The branch thought the financial center was being a pain and the financial center thought the branch was dragging their feet. So, here I go again.

Newsworthy Items:

1) President Bush gives a loooong commencement speech at the Air Force Academy's graduation today. He basically tried to explain why it is that we need to be at war in Iraq and what we are hoping to accomplish by making Iraq a free and democratic nation. To make it short:
a. Free countries give hope and prosperity to their people
b. Dictators give despair and pain, breeding conditions for terrorism
c. It is the right of evey man and woman to be free to live, pray and worship based on their own beliefs and conscience, not at the will of the state.
d. It is the historic and future role of the Unites States to stand for freedom of all people (see, every war since revolution, but particularly parallel to our current situation would be the fight against fascism in World War II.
e. For those who believe we should not be in the middle east, "America has always been more secure when freedom is on the march, America is less secure when freedom is in retreat!"
f. We are not waiting for the terrorists to attack us again, we will take the fight to the enemy.

2) More shootings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Terrorists are getting very bold in their attacks. Attacked in Khobar again last Saturday and killed 22. They went around searching for "infidels". Hmmm...nope...these people don't hate us. (This just cracks me up. Really, they are accusing the US of being "crusaders". Seriously, who is trying to force their religion on whom?) Frankly, this is just a product of the Saudi two handed diplomacy. The part where they shake hands with us and gladly take our money for oil in one had and pass it too the militant mullahs with the other. Now they are finding out the price for their two faced dealings. Saudi tracked down a couple of "terrorists" on their list and killed them (Saudi justice), but were not necessarily part of the Khobar attack directly. Which leads up to story #3...

3) Saudi Arabia quickly closes down charities that may or may not be giving money to the terrorists. They are folding the charities together into a national charitable organization to be administered by the state under strict guidelines to prevent siphoning of funds to terrorists. DUH! Now they get it! After they have spawned a couple thousand or more of their own rebels, they want to shut it down! That's called "closing the barn door after the horse got out". But hey, at least they are trying.

4) Obscure note...Mr. Wallace of "60 Minutes II" has declared the Iraqi war "ignoble" if not unjust. That it is not the same as World War II. I always appreciated his reporting, but now I know when he puts the names and faces of our fallen soldiers on the TV, he means it to inspire fear and dread in our hearts. There is no honor in his actions. I think in his old age, he is beginning to reflect on his mortality and wonder if he has any sins to be forgiven. I think there is a saying that goes something like, "war is a young mans game, diplomacy belongs to the old".

5) Last note...watching CSPAN and they were having a hearing on the Afghanistan situation. The situation is a concern because the security there is still tricky and we are wondering how we can insure free and fair elections in Sept 2004. Democrat Senator from California Tom Lantos gets a big "Right On" from me. He states very clearly that "We have plenty of American soldiers sacrificing their lives for a free Afghanistan...We liberated Europe twice and saved Europe from communism through two generations. Our European allies are getting a free ride in Afghanistan. They shirk their responsibilities globally. NATO and Europe are not doing enough to bring security to Afghanistan...We must say it loud and however unpleasant. Despite their encouraging and solemn words to our officials, it is apparent that they do not have the will to develop a free Afghanistan much less join in the greater war on terror"

Senator Lantos is calling on Spain and Turkey to send the troops they originally intended for Iraq to Afghanistan. Here is a guy I could vote for. You tell them Senator!

Summary only...

My Two Brothers

As I mentioned, I have a brother who is in the Air National Guard. Because he may be deployed sometime soon, I will not put his name and rank on this public blog. My military brother is 1 1/2 years younger than I am. He has been living in Arizona for over 15 years. He is married and has two young children.

For the first 10 years that he lived in Arizona, I lived in Philadelphia,Pennsylvania. Opposite ends of the country and we did not communicate very much nor see each other a lot. Largely, because during that time, we were both financially constrained. I can say we didn't even talk over the phone. For the last 3 years I have made an effort to visit him and his family as often as I can. My traveling with my job allows me to get travel rewards for free flights and car rentals, plus, he is close to San Diego so I will occasionally stop over there on the weekend instead of returning home if I have to return to San Diego the following week. My company doesn't mind because it is cheaper than flying me all the way back to Kansas City.

Anyway...after so many years apart, this last year we had a lot of conversations about business and politics. The funny thing is that we both have many of the same beliefs, management styles and politics even after spending so much time apart. We are both serious Republicans when our parents were staunch Democrats. Imagine that! Of course, I can't tell a lie. In my 20's, I still voted Democrat and thought the Republicans were a bunch of neo-fascist that wanted to take our rights away. How else can I explain voting for Bill Clinton in both elections? I was not doing drugs, I swear (at least, I didn't inhale)!

The last four years I became disillusioned with the Democrats because they spent way too much time trying to run down other peoples plans and not enough producing of their own. Not to mention, on Sept 11, I woke up to a new world and realized that I would not have wanted Al Gore to be president during that time. In my mind, Al Gore was a "good management" type and not a visionary. Too much sticking with the tried and not so true policies. I was looking for a new plan and the Republicans offered it.

Let me stop there. I will do "why I am a Republican with informed dissent" on another occasion.

Point of this entry was to say that my military brother called this Tuesday and told me something important was on the news. It appears that manufacturing jobs are at the highest since 1973. ISM Index Rises That is huge. Particularly as the Democrats and the liberal media keep trying to tell everyone that the economy is still down and is not making it's way back up. That is the plan that they are working on for the election anyway. Not "how will I get more jobs going", but how the other guy isn't.

My bro' and I talked for awhile about the information because he knew I was talking to a friend who was one of the "the Republicans are only helping the rich by cutting taxes" people and insisted that any job growth was only in the low paying services sectors. This was irrefutable proof that was a bunch of hogwash. And since in was on the most "liberal" news organization CNN, you can't really argue that it's a Republican spin. Of course, the Libby's tried to spin it anyway by saying that it still hadn't replaced the 3 million jobs lost in that sector.

As a numbers person, that was a bunch of bull to me. I mean really, how do you get "highest employment rate since 1973" and still not replace the jobs? Somebody's got their eyes closed.

I have to tell you, I am not really a conspiracy theorists per se, but with the way the media reports nothing but negative, negative, negative on the job the President is doing, even though the indicators prove differently, it makes me start thinking that the news media IS the 5th column and is desperately trying to influence the elections.

My other brother who is 5 years younger than I am, is one of those "the Republicans are screwing us" folks. He has 3 children. He has two children who are receiving disability checks from the state. This enables him to stay home with the children. His wife works a part time job because she couldn't take the lack of other grown ups conversation (LOL!LOL!). I thought that was funny because she was obviously including my brother in the "non-grown up" group. Don't get me wrong. My brother is a good guy who would give you the shirt off his back, but he definitely thinks the government could do a little more "shirt giving" if you know what I mean.

He got pissed off last year when the big tax credits for people with children was en-acted and he didn't get any. Of course, I tried to explain to him that, since he fit into the lower tax bracket and got full credit for 3 kids, he got all of his tax money back and then some at tax time and that he could not expect to get more of somebody else's money when he didn't pay it in. The argument was lost on him of course as he continued to insist that only the "rich" got any benefit.

I reminded him that I was one of those people who got a benefit from the tax cuts and that I was not rich. The tax cuts were to help the middle income people because they are the ones that pay out the most. He told me I was a "brainwashed" lackey of the rich and I told him he was a "socialist bastard" that should go live in Sweden or Germany if he felt he wasn't getting taken care of. We had a few other exchanges on the subject and the war in Iraq, but I will leave that for later.

Suffice it to say, we do not agree on politics. But don't let that confuse you about our relationship. After we had that "discussion" we popped the top of some brewskies and sat down to watch some movies with his wife and kids. The next day, Memorial Day, we did the big barbecue with our relatives. He paid for most of the food and drinks (what does that tell you about his financial situation?)He only lives 15 minutes from me so I spend a lot of time over at their house visiting when I am in town.

That is the story of my two brothers. I love them both dearly. One I didn't really see for a long time, but somehow shares by beliefs and the other I think was adopted! :)

Summary only...

Another Day, Another Dollar

Got up late today and started work even later. I got addicted to reading blogs and now I can't go without reading them and the comments every night. Much more interesting than the news! Wanted to do my first post last night and have my own blog. Even if no one reads it, I will list all the important things to me and someday, when I'm old and batty, I can read it and try to remember important things.

So, about work. Alot of my time is spent on the telephone. ALOT! We have many branches around the United States and I'm called on to review problems with customers, problems between the branch and the corporate office and problems between branches. I am actually pretty darn good at interpreting and negotiating settlements. I have found through this function of my job, that people may speak the same language, we may have emails, pagers, telephones and celll phones, but we definitely have "a failure to communicate" as the warden said in "Cool Hand Luke"!

I cannot tell you how many disputes I have to settle simply because both sides will not shut up long enough to hear that they are saying the same thing. That, or the "one upmanship" of trying to prove who is right instead of figuring out how to get the job done.

Of course, I can say that from a position of power. These days, I am the right hand of the VP of Operations for our Division and one of the few who can actually translate our business needs to the corporate staff and vis-a-versa. This is so, because my division is a very small part of a national company and had gotten little attention for a long time (I have worked for the company for 6 1/2 years and the first 4 years I spent alot of time explaining to people what our division does much less what it needs to operate). The smallness of our division has been good for me because I have been promoted 3 times in the 6 years and am expecting my next promotion in the next few months (God willing).

Only problem with our division is that, after years of neglect, it is just now getting it's feet under it financially. For the first year, in I don't know how long, we were profitable. Not that that says much, because the profit was just above 2%. The company wants 20% and we are working hard towards that this year. Unfortunately, like many companies, part of making that profitability was in laying off workers. The only thing I can say in defense of that is we really had alot of duplication of job functions at the branch level as well as jobs that were created that had no direct impact on revenue or services.

I can say this is true because I was one of the people that went through all of our processes and had to sort out the "absolute needs" against the "wish list" employees. Now I spend alot of my time explaining to people the difference in these functions and why it was important to lay off 15 people so the other 135 could keep working.

Of course, our sales are down this time of the year so that is making it tough, too. I will not be happy if I have to cut more people. I have tried to get some detail from the sales staff about what we are doing, but the head guy is not particularly forthcoming on the details. I think they are under attack and are doing too much CYA instead of "what can we do better".

There is the good and the bad about being the person that helped make those decisions: 1) When you come to town, people are scared. When you ask them questions, they get very nervous and defensive.
2) When you tell somebody they need to do something, they will do it.

My primary function was really to review company, federal and local policies and regulations and get them distilled down to the ranks with necessary procedures. The function has rolled up into a whole lot of financial analysis, writing reports, doing presentations and generally running interference. I can honestly say that there is not a number that gets reported up stream that I did not review and provide analysis for.

OK...no more bragging. That's the work thing. Now that I bragged about my job I can tell you that I was really worried about my job 6 weeks ago. As I said, we were trying to reduce costs. We did not make all of the necessary expense reductions at the branch level so I knew it was going to come up to my level. I actually had my resume prepared and was posting it on job search sites. Then I got the news that it would be my couterpart who got the boot. I was both sad and relieved at the same time.

The worst part is that I will now have to do his functions and mine together, so I guess the up coming promotion will just be payment for the pain and agony I will have to go through now.

Summary only...

Memorial Day

Yesterday, we had a barbecue at my youngest brother's house. Several cousins and friends brought their families and we cooked hamburgers and hotdogs on the grill. We had potato salad, baked beans, pickles and some other veggies like carrots for dipping. We had about 10 kids between the ages of 2-12. They all took turns bouncing on the big trampoline in the back yard. Even the adults got on and took turns bouncing around. We looked pretty silly, but we were having a good time.

Later we had watermelon and played "horseshoes". My mom had also brought my father's uncle over. He has Parkinson's disease and lives in a nursing home. His own children don't come and see him much, so my mom always makes sure he comes to all of our barbecues and holidays. By the end of the day, we were exhausted, but happy.

My other brother called today and told us he was on standby. He was supposed to go to Iraq shortly and had made all preparations to go, when they told him they had "double slotted" the position. In other words, they had actually selected 2 people to go for one position. Apparently, the other one had shown up and taken that slot, so my brother is waiting for follow up orders. This is probably relief and agony for his wife at the same time. She has been dreading his deployment, but had screwed her courage up to the sticking point and now he is being held back. I can't imagine what she feels.

He and I had talked last week and discussed particulars of all necessary legal documents if something should happen to him. He named me the executor as he felt that his wife would not be able to handle things if this situation arose. We talked about general topics and actually had a laugh about full military honors funeral services. He insists that he wants full honors with all the guys in full dress uniform and that he would be buried in Arizona. Not because he is from there, but because it is very hot in the summer. He stated, "I want those b*stards to sweat like I did when I went to military funerals."

This might sound strange to some people, but I gather it is not unusual among career military men to laugh about such things. I think it helps them keep the thought of potential death in it's true perspective. Not something to dwell on and become morose about. If you laugh about it, it can't paralyze you with fear while you're in battle. Your head will be clear and you can get on with the task at hand.

The only thing I did not do today is go to my Grandfather's grave. He died 17 years ago (I can't believe how long it's been, seems like yesterday). I am going to do that this week. He served in World War II in the Navy as a Seaman 1st class. He was there when they bombed Iwo Jima and helped run the soldiers back and forth on the LSTs while they were being sprayed with machine gun fire and mortars. He never told anyone about his service until a year before he passed. I remember that we sat on his front porch eating barbecue sandwiches from Gates Brothers and drinking a beer. We were talking about history because he knew I liked it so much. Then he told me some stories about his time in the Navy. He was very proud of his service, but he never bragged or showed off his medals. When he died, we got a surprise when we found out he had won the Navy's Bronze Cross for valor and a few lesser service ribbons.

I have 2 uncles who served as well. My Mom's older brother served in Korea and my Dad's younger brother in Vietnam. They are both great guys who don't really talk about their service too much either. Both of them are proud of this service, but have their medals and other mementos tucked away in boxes. The men in our family believe in doing their duty. They don't believe they are heroes (even if they have a box full of ribbons) or anything special. Now that I think about it, I have always heard the same thing from all of them: The real heroes never came back.

We have had a lot of men in our extended family who have served in the military, all the way back to World War I. The men in our family have never been drafted, they always enlist, just like my brother (although, my brother is the only one I know of to make a career out of it).

My father told me about the day my uncle enlisted in the military. My uncle will tell you it is because my dad and my aunt were both married and he was left at home to bare the brunt of my Grandmother's "mothering", which he said was about to drive him crazy. So he went and joined the Army a few months after turning 18. It was 1970 and the war was not going well at that time. Lot's of peace protests and riots going on. This would not seem like a good time to enlist.

However, my dad tells me that my uncle enlisted to keep my dad from being drafted. My dad had been married for less than 3 years. I was a baby and 1st brother was on his way. My Dad's status was "A1" for the draft which meant that he was a prime candidate to be selected. When my uncle found out, he went down and enlisted that day. He was single and thought that he had much less to lose. During the draft, if you already had a father or brother enlisted in the military, your draft status was downgraded. My father was never called up.

My dad always felt guilty about this so he did the next best thing and became a police officer. He retired a few years back after 21 years on the force. He has scrap books and letters of commendations tucked away in a box, too.

So, on a day we are supposed to remember our heroes, I just want to take a few minutes to remember the heroes that I personally know and love.

God bless our soldiers and keep them safe.

Summary only...