Life and Death—The Boredom, Dispatch 5

Thank you for reading about my continuing exploits on my quest.  I’m trying to fill my holiday season with actions that are productive and/or meaningful to me before I go back to working at the job I love.

Catch up with Dispatch 1 , Dispatch 2 , Dispatch 3 , and Dispatch 4.

Sunday, Day 17 of The Boredom, was spent mostly with family. Still, I dedicated more than a few hours to peaceful solitude in front of the glow of my computer screen.

Not gonna lie, playing The Lord of the Rings Online has become one of my favorite pastimes.  It’s an epic role-playing video game and the designers created worlds that allow me to explore and learn more about the regions and peoples written about in one of the greatest literary masterpieces of Western civilization.

Day 18, Monday, was mostly spent working on manuscripts and doing research, both for building my business and for a future writing project.  The academic research has been for the purpose of writing a multi-volume history of the Vietnam War, entirely from a libertarian perspective.  So far I have seventy pages of notes typed out on the computer, single-spaced and 12-inch font.

In the evening I attended my Civil Air Patrol (U.S. Air Force Auxiliary) squadron meeting.  Our guest that evening was an Air Force colonel who happened to be the staff director for the Fourth Air Force at March Air Reserve Base.  He spoke with us in the headquarters board room—really a section of the squadron’s double-wide, walled off by chalk boards on one side and bookshelves on the other—and I managed to get an interview before the end of the meeting.

I take pride in having volunteered in the Air Force Auxiliary.  I originally joined to have a joint activity with my nephew, whose old man was long gone and badly needed a structured program at the time, but I stayed because I truly enjoy the program.  Three years later, I’m a First Lieutenant and one of the most active public affairs officers in California Wing.  I take pride in my own accomplishments and in serving with this incredible, humanitarian manifestation of the “organized militia.”  Plus, it’s pretty badass that CAP sank two German submarines prowling our coast during World War II, with dozens more air-struck and damaged into retreat.

Day 19, Tuesday, I had my nose in books, smoked too many cigarettes, and then forced myself to go to the gym.  It seems like I’m only ever motivated to work out when I’m on base...  Oh well, at least I went.  The highlight of my day was finally getting in the mail my new green vinyl record of the Misfits' Project 1950 Expanded album—the entire thing is punk rock covers of oldies songs.  Listening to that was too cool!

Wednesday was spent doing more research, further work restoring manuscripts, and I managed to step into the sunlight to get some lunch.  In the evening I went to my older sister’s house to honor our tradition of, whenever I’m back from the desert, watching Modern Family as a family—myself, my sister, and my niece and nephews.

I don’t even remember Thursday.  I honestly don’t remember caring.  It was probably a pleasant day.

Friday, Day 22, I punished myself at the gym.  I did a full forty minutes of cardio, then migrated upstairs to do the bar dip for four sets of twenty-five suspended reverse sit-ups.  I followed that up with three sets on the horizontal chest-press machine—one set for my left arm, and one reduced-weight set for my stump.  I do my best to work out the right side of my torso despite my limb deficiency.  I’ve been lucky enough to reverse some of the muscular atrophy on that side.

Following the chest-press I grabbed a forty-pound weight bar and did four sets of squats, fifteen reps each.  While it’s been good for my thighs and tush, it’s been remarkably good for my right shoulder muscle (which is noticeably smaller than my left).  I finished everything off with another ten minutes of cardio—this time on an exercise bike—and in my time at the gym I downed another chapter of War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.

Saturday, Day 23 of The Boredom, was as incredible day of days.  I got up at 0530 (not my finest of hours), showered, and put on my CAP uniform.  After picking up a Powerade, Red Bull, and a stick of beef jerky—the popular food of the modern warrior—I made my way to squadron headquarters by 0645.  The squadron departed for Riverside National Cemetery.

Our mission was to participate in Wreaths Across America, an event to place holiday wreaths at the graves of departed armed forces veterans, thus keeping their memory alive.  The event was very touching and moving.  The only part that weighed on me was talking with some of the Gold Star wives and mothers.  Whenever military family members see me, they see the crew cut and the missing arm and mistakenly do the math to think I’m a combat veteran.  I tell them I’ve never been in combat, but they don’t care—they already respect the uniform and they have things they need to get off their chest.  I have an obligation to these women who lost so much for their country, to listen to what they need to tell me.

And so seventy-year-old women wept in front of me for the husbands they lost in Vietnam, and forty-year-old women wept for the sons they lost in Iraq and Afghanistan.  What particularly disturbed me was the Vietnam War widows—forty or fifty years later and the grief still hits them hard.  It always stays with you and doesn’t go away, just like Abe’s death in Al Anbar province hasn’t gone away from me after ten years.

I got off duty just in time to drive across Riverside, where I made it just in time for my friend’s wedding.  One of the senior NCOs in my unit—we’ll call him “Job,” after the Biblical figure—was getting re-married.  Since he’s been through emotional hell and back in his life—long story, you don’t want to know—and he’s become a mentor to me over time, I wasn’t going to miss his wedding for the world.

Three amazing things happened that afternoon.  First, I saw my friend truly happy for the first time in years.  Second, an important bond was strengthened.  I noticed several tables had reserved seating; one was reserved for the bride’s family—a thriving, bustling table—and another reserved for the groom’s family.  The latter was empty; the entire groom’s family has since passed away.  I asked “Job” if I could eat my meal at his family’s reserved table and he said, “Yes, I consider you family.”  And I made sure he saw me eat at that table.  The third wonderful thing that happened was that I met an intriguing older woman—one who’s kind, classy, sexy and smart.  We shot the breeze for hours and had a ball.  Phone numbers were exchanged.

After I got home from Riverside I had a nice hour-long visit with my older sister.  She and I are very close and I consider it a blessing that one of my siblings is also my close and true friend.  Following the visit that primarily consisted of laughing and talking smack about psychotic relatives, I picked up my good friend Midshipman.  He and I had gone up to Big Bear and Holcomb Valley together two weeks ago.

Midshipman (right) and I (left)

We sped over to the American Legion hall in Azusa, California, to join my friend “Shark” for his birthday celebration—SharkFest 2014.  Let me just tell you, SharkFest was AWESOME!  It was seriously the best party I’ve been to in months, if not longer.  A cemetery and a wedding in one day are a bit much, especially after talking with the war widows.

Shark is a Navy veteran who saw combat in Afghanistan.  Nowadays he’s a student at Mt. San Antonio College.  I met him through the San Bernardino County Libertarian Party, he was always supportive of my writing, and we’ve been friends ever since.  We were celebrating his 31^st birthday that night.

It was such a relief to shoot the breeze and swap stories with veterans and fellow current reservists my age.  The special bond between veterans that you read all the clichés about, then mentally discard, is real.  I hadn’t realized the extent before, but I did that night.  I realized that I’m not a 19-year-old FNG—f***ing new guy (a liability)—in a shiny new uniform, amazed by everything going on around him.  I’ve been a weekend warrior for seven years, added to three years of extra duty with the Auxiliary, and another two years as a contractor embedded with the regular Army.  I’ve done my share, endured both the outdoor elements and the bureaucracy, and it was great to be around other guys and girls who actually knew what the hell I was talking about!

Gotta love Vietnam vets!

Better yet, the party wasn’t great just because I met solid people and partied hard with my buddies.  Other than making a host of new friends, I danced with some of the prettiest girls in the San Gabriel Valley, civilian and veterans!  One girl, currently a student, was the prettiest woman Marine I’ve ever seen—seriously, I’m a sucker for dark brown hair and green eyes.  Better yet, she’d been “downrange” (military slang for the wars), which made her a badass.

The entire night was therapeutic, and the entire day was an incredible ending to my week.

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CAP historical painting courtesy of CAPhistory dot org.  All other images are by the author.

So Rand Paul and Hillary Clinton Walk Into a Hearing...

Your typical Foreign Relations Committee hearing when chaired by Rand Paul

So two people who want to be President of the United States walk into a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing; one is a Democrat and the other a Republican.  One plans to be heard while the other plans to do the hearing.  However, it turns out that rather than the Democrat be heard while the Republican does the hearing, the current Senator from Kentucky delivered an exceptional rhetorical falcon punch to the Democrat until-recently-Secretary of State regarding her questionable leadership over the embassy in Benghazi.  Realistically, it was more of a Dragon Ball Z-style mega punch by Senator Paul through the body of ex-Secretary Clinton.

“Had I been president at the time, and I found that you did not read the cables from Benghazi, you did not read the cables from Ambassador Stevens, I would have relieved you of your post.”

Ouch!  The standard operating procedure is to offer one some ice for that burn.  However, ex-Secretary Clinton should be content with procuring some ice either through her health care benefits as a federal employee or she could even settle for ObamaCare as tirelessly campaigned for by her former boss’ administration.

At this moment in time I feel it quite appropriate to make the case that a Paul presidency would take great strides in divorcing the ill-begotten marriage between government dollars and private sector health care which is responsible for driving the prices of health insurance and health care sky high.  Dr. Paul was even instrumental in establishing eye clinics in Kentucky that catered to patients without medical insurance.  Furthermore, Dr. Paul subscribes to Austrian economic theory, a school of economics whose leading thinkers have been providing ideas for privatizing health care completely and in a way that makes care and insurance easily affordable.  (See Mises.org and search “health care” because I’m too lazy to explain myself when others have already done it so well for me.)

Returning to the wrestling-style smack down of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, it’s beyond redundant to state that Senator Paul thought Secretary Clinton handled the Libya situation poorly.  Defenders of Secretary Clinton may criticize Senator Paul for being overly critical or even for being partisan.  However, there is nothing partisan about Senator Paul’s views on foreign policy, including Libya.  Let’s flash back to the filibuster speech he delivered on the Senate floor on September 21, 2012.

“We gave money [to] dictators, from Saddam Hussein—who was once our ally receiving billions of dollars—to the Mujahedeen who were radical jihadists, but at the time we didn’t mind if you were a radical jihadist if you were our radical jihadist, because they were opposing the Soviet Union.  But the Mujahedeen eventually became the Taliban who are now our enemies.

“According to [scholars] Corey and Ryan, the world’s worst dictators have received $105 billion under the guise of official developmental assistance.  Instead of helping the poor, the assistance is aiding the ability of the dictators to remain in power.  In fact, it keeps them in power long enough that it enflames the populace that we end up having to... [go back] because of war.

“Why is there such a widespread anti-Americanism?  Because we propped up and gave money to so many despots, to so many dictators…  Why are we seeing people burning the American flag?  Why are we seeing such great unrest in 30 different countries?  Because our foreign aid and our military aid has propped up dictators who become over decades despotic, autocratic, who torture their people, prevent freedom from occurring, and then there’s a backlash [against us].

The particular context of this speech was cutting foreign aid to Pakistan, Egypt, and Libya.  Like his father, retired Congressman Ron Paul, Senator Paul is ideologically opposed to foreign aid just as the founding fathers were.  His use of these three unstable countries as a gateway to cutting foreign aid is particularly clever, in my opinion at least.  The reasons he gave for cutting foreign aid to these countries essentially boils down to the following: the government of Pakistan has only made half-assed efforts to a half-assed approach in fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Pakistan, extremism and civil strife are rampant in Egypt, extremists in post-war Libya killed American diplomats without ever being held to account for it, and American intervention in foreign affairs—especially in middle eastern countries torn by civil war and civil strife—only breeds hatred and ill will against America and Americans (hence the angry mob murdering the diplomats in Libya).

Had Senator Paul (or his father) been President, not a dime of American government money would have gone to the extremists infiltrating these governments, there would have been no Americans killed in Libya because there would have been no American presence there, and there would have been no incident over which to relieve Secretary Clinton.  The sad irony is that leftists are going to dislike Senator Paul even more now that “he was mean” to Hillary Clinton, even though Paul’s view that America shouldn’t police the world or tell other countries what to do is sharply in contrast to Clinton’s view yet very much in line with the left’s views of a humble foreign policy.  Oh well, the left’s hypocrisy doesn’t make Rand any less cool.

The best part for me in witnessing all of this is knowing that Senator Rand Paul will run for President in 2016.  This is especially sweet because Hillary wants to run as well—it’s no secret she’s wanted to be President for a long time—and the combined embarrassment from the leadership failure in the “Benghazigate” scandal with Senator Paul’s grilling only serves to shatter Clinton’s dreams of being POTUS while solidifying Paul’s foundation.  Because I’m currently killing downtime on a military base in the middle of nowhere, I will now entertain myself by applying Senator Paul’s awesome burn to the following film scenarios:

Star Wars: Had I been king of Alderaan and found out you ignored the beacon signals about the Death Star, I would have relieved you of your post.

The Lord of the Rings: Had I been Lord Elrond and found out you ignored the mystical signs that the Nazgul were hunting Frodo, I would have relieved you of your post.

Star Wars again: Had I been a general and found out you ignored the message signals informing us that the Empire was going to attack the rebel base on Hoth, I would have relieved you of your post.

Harry Potter: Had I been head of the Order of the Phoenix and found out you, as headmistress of Hogwarts, ignored the owl letters regarding death eaters onto the castle grounds, I would have relieved you of your post.

Star Wars yet again: Had I been Admiral Ackbar and found out it was a trap, I would have relieved you of your post.

Full Metal Jacket: had I found out you were not under sniper fire in Vietnam nor in Bosnia/Kosovo, I would have relieved you of your post.

Star Trek the Next Generation: Had I been head of the galactic federation and found out you ignored that giant Borg cube that flew by the Enterprise, kidnapped Captain Picard and turned him into a cyborg, I would have relieved you of your post as Number One.

The Sandlot: Had I been your father and found out you lost the Babe Ruth autograph ball in the Beast’s yard, I would have relieved you of your post.

Star Wars in real life: Had I been Steven Spielberg or Francis Ford Coppola and found out you were going to make prequels to the Star Wars Trilogy, I would have relieved you of your post.

Perhaps the only thing sweeter than seeing Senator Paul destroying Democrats would be witnessing him spearheading the effort to purge the neocons from Republican Party leadership.  Honestly, with friends like the “conservatives” who went out of their way to bring down Ron Paul’s candidacy, who needs enemies?

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USMC photo 090214-M-4150N-112 is in the public domain. Rand Paul photo by Gage Skidmore and used via CC BY-SA 2.0 license.  Both images obtained from Wikimedia Commons.  If FUNimation wouldn't be inclined to sue my pants off for using Dragon Ball Z fight stills, I would have used them in a heartbeat.