Now Who Can We Gut Next!!!

I have been following closely the growing debate on the movement to cut back the national debt so kindly left to us by the previous administration.    They arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with a SURPLUS and in eight years they had been able to dig that SURPLUS into a 1.5 trillion dollar debt.   Not too bad for a guy who supposedly had a degree in business from the Ivy League.   In less than two years the current administration has managed to wrangle this debt back a few billion dollars even in the face of the various non-funded mandates left at the doorsteps of most Americans.   The medicare pharmacy program – UNFUNDED.   Heck the two wars in the Middle East were UNFUNDED instead relying on special Congressional allocations requested as needed.   As usual, the very wealthy were exempted from feeling these growing tax burdens.   Now the citizens have once again demonstrated their total lack of long term memory and have decided that the entire problem is a creation of the current administration and have voted in virtual carbon copy of the boys and girls who caused the mess to occur in the first place.   These folks carry various banners calling for shrinking the government and elimination of all sorts of government programs.   Some of these new patriots have even called for the preparation of a forceful overthrow of the established government using weapons actually authorized by that same government.   Irony does not seem to bother them at all.    These are the same folks – Left and right, who find newspapers such as US Today to be so enticing since it manages to crush even the most complex issues into one or two paragraphs… "World War III broke out today.  Pictures on page three."    OK, now watch, here comes another one of those ironies.  The current administration formed a group of very smart people to look into ways to cut the budget obligations and went to great pains to make certain this Commission remained as politically neutral as possible.   Some members were old hardcore conservatives and some were tried and true bleeding heart liberals.  They have recently released a few of their ideas and as expected you could hear the cloth rending and ashes flying all over the nation.   OMG, they attacked virtually every sacred cow at the alter except of course the wealth of the very rich…Nope, that cow went untouched.   The middleclass were gored and re-gored again and again from proposals to increase Social Security retirement age to 68 to increasing co-pays for Medicare services.   Toss in a healthy proposal for a .15$ a gallon increase in gasoline taxes and mix well with the elimination of the middleclass' only REAL tax deduction – mortgage interest payments, and the aged and hardworking middle class are being asked again to shoulder the excesses of the public debt, little of which did they benefit from when it was being created.  In addition, they are proposing a 100$M cut to the Defense Department paid in part with a total freeze on military pay raises for a few years.   It was not stated but this would also entail a similar freeze on promotions for these men and women who have been asked to sacrifice so much already.    Actually this bit about whacking away at the military was copied almost intact from a previous axing of the military conducted by another President – Dwight D. Eisenhower.  Yep, old General Ike froze pay raises and promotions across the board for almost the entire term he was in office – eight years.   I was a young boy at the time but my Dad was a career soldier and a WW-II and Korean War vet.   Now that the Bush wars are winding down, our military is being asked to sit down and shut up and take whatever scraps our Congress may decide to toss their way.  Kipling said it best when he wrote the haunting paragraphs in his poem entitled "Tommy":

O It's Tommy this, an; Tommy that, an; Tommy Go Away,"

But it's "Thank you Mister Atkins,'  the band begins to play.

The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play.

O it's 'Thank you Mr. Atkins,' when the band begins to play."  

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep

Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap

An hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit

Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out the brute!"

But it's "Savuour of 'is country," when the guns begin to shoot.

An 'it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please.

But Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool – you bet that Tommy sees!   

Of course the new faces on Capital Hill have screamed as though stuck with a poker as well as lots of the old crew.  Obviously they would appear to have other places where they can fin a few trillion dollars lying about.  Whatever!!!  It is such a great show to watch and would even more interesting if it were not so serious.  If just a few of the Commission's ideas are adopted and blended in with the REALLY crazy ideas tossed around by the Tea Party whackos, we are ALL in for a great deal of fiscal pain.  Get ready my friends…Mr. Bush's bills are coming due.

As I recall

As I recall …

It's 11/11 again and we are honoring our military members posted at some of the most glamourous locations and some of the most frightening and terrible places in the world.  We are actually celebrating the cessation of hostilities to end World War- 1 that had been touted as the war to end all wars.   This was touted as the war to end all wars but of course in about 25 years we were at it again.   My Dad was an infantry soldier in World War-II who participated in the Italian campaign and later, as a "second waver" at Omaha Beach in Normandy.  Six weeks later he was wounded in France and evacuated back to England and later to Ireland where he met my Mother and…well you fill in the rest.   Dad didn't get much a respite from the horrors of war since he was still on active duty in 1950 when he was sent to Korea for the next three years.  He arrived as a Master Sergeant and left with a battlefield commission and promotion to Captain.   Dad made the leap to Army Intelligence soon after Korea where he continued to confront the enemies of this nation as a silent warrior.   My time in hell began in December 1966 during my first tour of Southeast Asia.  I survived the Tet Offensive but I got in the way of an AK-47 30 Caliber rifle serving with Special Forces near the Ashau Valley in the northern border regions of Vietnam.  I returned for a second extended tour in 1970 and was there when we began the process of ceding significant portions of the country to the enemy forces of North Vietnam.   When I left in 1973, the war was actually over except for the final push by the North Vietnamese which happened with full evening TV coverage less than 18 months later.  Ironically it was my Dad's last war experience.  He was actually one of the many people who boarded helicopters on the roof of the US Embassy in Saigon.   It was the first time America actually lost a war and make no mistakes, we lost it – simple as that.

Let's examine some of the myths from our participation in Southeast Asia. 

1. Our loss in Vietnam was caused by a lack of support in Congress, the Press, the man on the street (Pick one).  NONSENSE!   We went from several hundred "advisors" to over 500,00 men and women in less than ten years.  We were supported by every non-nuclear weapon in our arsenal including Naval Carriers, Air Force heavy bombers, and ground force main battle tanks and long range artillery.   Our forces received generous pay increases virtually every year of the war.  No one ever said no to any legitimate strategy presented by our Generals except for missions that were clearly targeted at civilian economic infrastructures as forbidden by the Geneva Convention.   Congress rubber stamped everything.
2. Disaffection on the part of the civilian populace in the US demoralized the soldiers actually fighting the war and encouraged our enemies.  "Long haired hippies"  were as much a joke and item of derision among soldiers as they were in mainstream US.  We had AFN radio and the Stars and Stripes military sponsored newspaper and not much else in the way of new coverage from the U.S.   The enemy didn't even have either radio or press coverage for their forces.  They most certainly could not use demonstrations or similar activities in the U.S. as morale boosters.  They were motivated by a deep mistrust of non-Asians and a certain degree of deep rooted nationalism.  I participated in numerous interrogations of captured enemy soldiers but I never found even one who was a "card carrying" communist.  They were there because it seemed the right thing to do in support of their country.  
3. Soldiers returning from the war were routinely spat upon, hit with Umbrellas, mugged, insulted etc etc. as they walked down the street.  Nonsense!  This simply did not happen and anyone who says so will always preface their statements with the caveat that they knew someone who had this happen to them.   I wore a Green Beret and had a boatload of ribbons on my uniform.  I wore my uniform proudly in many, many cities, towns and villages and never once was I accosted or personally insulted.   Even proven "baby killlers" such as Lt. Calley never reported being accosted or otherwise insulted or confronted on our streets. 

Well that's all I have to say on the topic.  We MUST remember that we must never confuse the war with the soldier.  I was "for" Vietnam during my first tour but wide awake to the eventual unsuccessful outcome during my second tour.  I still went and served proudly since that was my duty.   My personal beliefs had no impact on how I conducted myself in the "woods."   I don't ever recall meeting a soldier who was in Vietnam to stop international communism or to answer a demand from his diety.   If I had met such people, I would have refused to have them on my Special Forces Team.