This I'll Defend...

“There’s something happening here.
What it is ain’t exactly clear…”
            --Buffalo Springfield

It’s been longer than I’d like since I last posted, but I’ve had a very difficult time trying to decide what to say.  I don’t like talking politics in this blog, but I haven’t found much of anything lately that I feel like laughing about. 

So, today I will talk about some things that are bothering me.  I suspect they’re bothering you too.

Thirty-nine years ago this month, I loaded an old, beat-up Dodge Colt without air conditioning, and headed south to Fort Benning, GA.  That car held everything in the world that was important to me, especially my beautiful and very pregnant wife. 

Upon our arrival I deposited her into a decrepit old trailer house outside of the post, and reported for duty.

Just two months previously I had raised my right hand in front of the Flag of the United States of America, and swore an Oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic”.  I was at Fort Benning to begin training on how to do that. 

Since that day, I have never been told, formally or otherwise, that I have been relieved of that Oath. 

Yet, today I find myself being assaulted from all corners it seems, demanding to know if I side with the Nazis, or if I side with the Communists.  What in Heaven's name is going on here!  Are you serious?  How can that even be a question?

Let me be completely clear:  I will never side with either one of those groups of thieving, lying, murderous bastards!  Both of these extremist fundamentalist “isms” have murdered and enslaved millions of people around the world.  I will never associate with any of them, other than to resist their evil, and defend our Constitution as my Oath demands.

I am on the side of Logic, Reason, Enlightenment, Law, and Love.  I don’t do hate, and I have personally never met a fellow Soldier, Sailor, Airman, or Marine who does. 

My uncle and his brothers-at-arms fought the Germans and the Japanese, not because they hated them, but because they loved their country, their families, their friends, and their way of life. 

If you don’t believe that, then look at what happened after the War was over.  My uncle and his brothers rebuilt Germany and Japan.  They stood up to Soviet and Chinese aggression and defended the German and the Japanese people.  Not once did they say, “Oh well.  They’re just Germans, or they’re just Japanese.  Who cares what happens to them?”   Today, Germany and Japan, once our bitter enemies, are among the closest of our allies.  That was not accomplished with hate. 

We don’t live in a perfect world.  I find it a rather hostile environment actually.  There are a few good things going on, but unless we walk a narrow path, Nature herself will destroy us without a thought.  For example, we can adapt to the heat and the cold.  But if we don’t, either one will kill us.  We can adapt to Gravity and fly six miles high in the sky.  But one small deviation from the correct path, and we are destroyed.  Gravity shows no mercy.

It seems to me that the Ancients understood this better than we do today.  Their writings from long ago are clear in their warning to us: “They have planted the Wind, and will harvest the Whirlwind!”

Nature is not forgiving.  Cause and effect are immutable.  The Second Law of Thermodynamics has not been repealed.  We can’t afford to be out planting the Wind. 

My Dad used to tell me: “Don’t listen to people who haven’t got their heads screwed on right”. 


I think that’s a good idea.