Our president tells the world that he is “not weak” as he addresses the graduating class at the US Military Academy commencement address. Using diplomacy and “multilateral action” (begging for others to contribute, participate, sacrifice, and lead) is an example of American might and leadership.

“Receiving tepid applause and a short standing ovation from less than one-quarter of the audience upon his introduction, Obama argued for a contradictory foreign policy that relies on NATO and the United Nations while insisting that ‘America must always lead on the world stage.’

‘If we don’t, no one else will,’ he insisted.

But ‘we require partners,’ he said….”   http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2641713/Im-NOT-WEAK-Obama-hits-foreign-policy-critics-vows-ramp-support-Syrian-rebels.html

The world needs us to lead. If we won’t, no one else will. But we need partners.  Wait, what?

So, less than 25% of the West Point graduates stood for their commander-in-chief when introduced. And he only received sporadic applause. Maybe they really ARE warmongers who want continual warfare. Or maybe they just disagree with a spineless, wish-washy, egg-suck dog who has apologized a blazing path across the globe, bowed to tyrants and despots, and forecasted our military plans to our enemy.

He used Syria as an example of this multi-lateral, (collective) action. Excuse me, but a few months back we were all set to use UNI-lateral military action against the regime in Syria. Assad had crossed the declared but undeclared red line, you see. We sent three destroyers to their shores. We send troops to the area (my kid was one). We sent planes. B. Hussein only stopped when it was “tooth pulling without Novocain” clear that the American people were not on board for a fourth war in the region. So he pulls back and defers to Congress who said, not just no, but hell no. THAT is an example of multi-lateral leadership?

Barry stated that we will use unilateral action when our strategic interests are at risk, or our people are threatened. Like the preacher in Iran imprisoned since Christmas, 2012. Or like the retired FBI agent missing since 2007. Or like the Marine Sergeant imprisoned in Mexico for the last two months. I guess those three are not being threatened, just inconvenienced.

This clown will not admit failure of any kind. He’s always right, or others are shades of wrong. Debating that depth of narcissism is impossible. He always will shift the goal posts. I’ll never be right and he’ll never be wrong. But I’ll never shut up.

A Marine, wounded in combat, suffering from PTS (I won’t call it a disorder), sits in a Mexican prison. It has been nearly 60 days.

Our President has been silent. Our Secretary of State has been feeble asking pretty please. Our Secretary of Defense has said nothing. Meanwhile they spend nearly 758 million dollar a year in US foreign aid. They are our third largest trading partner, and the nearly sole benefit of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement.

They hold our Soldier hostage. We pay them three quarters of a billion dollars.

The allow their drug cartels to control a large segment of the border, crossing into the US to kill Border Agents wearing uniforms of the Mexican Army or Federal Police, and we pay the three quarters of a billion dollars.

The three ass clowns mention earlier, B.Hussein, Hagel, and Kerry should be speaking with one clear voice. They should be telling the Mexican government in no uncertain terms to release our Soldier or we will not send another dime to your government. The Mexican president does not have pardoning power. Their Secretary of State does.

Send him home or we turn off the spigots. All of them. No more foreign aid. No more “workers” will gain entrance to our country. We will pay our militia to stop by whatever means needed the illegal aliens that come to our country to work or to siphon from our welfare system. $50 a head will generate a lot of enthusiasm, I bet. No questions asked.

$758 million dollars will buy the Marines about 6 Osprey aircraft.  The Navy could buy 8 more F/S18 Super Hornets.  If the F35 Lightning II ever stops being a vacu-suck of money, we could buy six of those.  That is just in one year.  Oh, and we’re not turning the money back on any time soon either.  You crossed that bridge and set it aflame.  We’re happy to keep pissing on the ashes.

We will shoot on site anyone dressed in your official uniforms of any agency that are seen on our side of the border. Our leadership should be speaking in one clear voice. Instead, their silence only encourages more of the same. If we won’t stop Mexico does the preacher in Iran have even a prayer?

Our and while the feckless civil rights groups gnash their teeth and polish their legal writs, our special operations forces will travel to the maximum security prison and test its adjective. Is it really maximum security? Don’t want to hand over our boy? We’ll go get him. I’m willing to bet that his family would feel better knowing he died trying to get home than to rot in fucking Mexico.

This is what five years of apologetic hope and change has given us.

I’m with Karzai.  I wouldn’t meet the prick either.

“Let us learn our lessons. Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth or easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The Statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.”—
Winston Churchill 1942

On this Memorial Day let us hope that our elected “elite” browse a morsel of history.

It’s been thirty one years since Grenada happened. These are rusty memories I’m pulling up.

One day on patrol when end up at the Cuban Consulate’s house. Since most of the bad guys shooting at us were Cuban, and we’d received sporatic fire from this general area a clearing raid was in order. After the ransacking we ended up killing and roasting his pig, eating about six of his chickens, all of the vegetables that were ripe, and washing it down with a 5-star bottle of French Cognac. That was my first experience with French liquor. I’m still not a fan of their wine.

One thing I found there (and kept) was a small plastic lapel pin. It was about an inch tall, had the year 1938 on it. It was an eagle with a German Swastika on it. I was amazed that a Cuban politician had been in or near Germany 45 years earlier and still carried this pin with him on his travels. I still have it.

Other memories include clearing other houses, kicking in doors, and such. We had one guy with us who was a big, strong dude. His preferred method of kicking in a door was to back up to it and sort of mule kick it. He did this once and, I shit you not, the house teetered over and collapsed. The whole front wall fell in, the sides fell off and outward and the back wall went, well, back. Flatter than a pancake, he looked at us and stated “This house is clear.”

Probably the most excitement I had was the night I got called forward to talk to the AC-130 Spectre gunship. We had unexplained lights across the valley and we wanted to know what was up. I got on the radio after climbing up to a roof to ID the target. I talked to the targeting officer aboard the plane, and without any secure means of telling him where I was described my surroundings and the target. He calmly answered back that he was looking at a road intersection. He stated there were four armed men in the intersection and about 100 meters away were two armed guys up on a roof. I looked to my left and through my NODS (night optics) could see four guys standing in the intersection at a road block.

Heart racing, I told him that he had found MY location. All six were friendlies. FROM that location, please scan 600 meters north. Understand that the AC-130 is a bad weapons platform. Bad as in awesome. Back then, it carried a pair of 6-barreled chain guns and a pair of 40mm Bofors cannon. They could have diced me and the other five up to pieces in a few seconds.

The target was just three cars parked close and one guy had left the headlights on.

I remember we had no military styled maps of the island. The military uses a style of map called MGRS–Military Grid Reference System. It is a system of putting boxes overlayed onto a map in 1000 meters by 1000 meters. Everyone could know what piece of land you were talking about by using it. We went in with Xeroxed copies of a tourist map and drew in the grid lines from the one map we did find. It was not a time of precision weapons in 1983 and that was probably a good thing. No one knew where other units were with any great accuracy. I still have my map. I’ve inked out lines of where I best remember my Platoon going–on foot. We didn’t have vehicles unless you counted our LPCs–Light Personnel Carriers; also known as boots.

I don’t remember really being scared, but I didn’t shit for five days, so I might have been inside. I knew I was trained and I was surrounded by 7000 guys, the average age of 22, all wanting to kill something just to know what it felt like.

Our first encounter with fire was just a lone gunman. I never saw him but the bullets he fired skipped of the road about 30 feet from me. The guys spread instantly to the sides of the road. Some fired back at whatever was in front of them but most held back. We got him. A M47 Dragon gunner shot the tiny shed he holed up in with his anti tank missile. We found a shoe. It still had the foot in it

Everywhere we went we found the debris of a poorly equipped and trained enemy. BTR60 personnel carriers burned out, lying on their side, people hanging out of them. One night we heard rustling in the wooded area by us. A soldier fired his LAW rocket (light anti-tank weapon–a 66mm rocket powered explosive dart, sort of like the Russian RPG). The next morning we found a cow with the LAW sticking out of its side. The rocket hadn’t gone far enough to arm. The cow was killed by a rocket propelled spear.

Another night we heard movement in the valley below us. I was called up to try and get mortar fire. I was denied. I then asked for artillery illumination and again was denied. See, after the illumination chute is blown out the base of the shell, that same shell loses its ballistic stability. There is no way to know where it will land. We were concerned about collateral damage. Like we might knock down a thatch hut. So SFC K., “The Greek” orders the Platoon’s M203 gunners to all fire illumination rounds. These are just 40mm flares, probably burn for 40 seconds, fire from the barrel under selected M16 rifles. It is a heavy bastard and the poor sop has to carry his basic rifle load of ammo plus a selection of grenades.

We hear “poonk” four times as each squad’s M203 gunner fired. One at a time we see a flare light up. One, two, three, BOOM! One guy had just fired the HE round he had loaded. The next morning, another cow was found in the valley, shredded by shrapnel.

One way the paper said to honor Veterans this Memorial Day was to write down your own stories. Here we go.

October 1983. My Brigade at the 82nd is on 2-hour recall. Our shit is packed but back then, they had no where for the troops living off post to store all their gear. My stuff was packed but I was already on the way to the unit when the recall came. I arrived in PT uniform ready to run and sweat. My FIST Platoon Sergeant asked where my shit was and why I wasn’t in field uniform. I told him I had no idea what he was talking about. I hadn’t gotten a recall notice. He had no choice but to send me home to get changed and get my shit back there. He gave me an hour.

Obviously when I got home I turned on the news. There was plenty of talk about a little island about 90 miles north of Venezuela called Grenada. I’d never heard of it. Jeff, the guy who was renting me a room had a set of Encyclopedia Britannica. (Probably the only time these books were opened.) I looked it up paying very close attention to weather patterns. We were packed for winter. Grenada was always warm. I dumped all my heavy weight BDUs (Battle Dress Uniforms) and packed my lightweight cammies. I also dumped a lot of other shit that wouldn’t be needed in a Caribbean climate.

SFC Preston took one look at my lightweights and knew I’d done some digging but also knew I wouldn’t admit to it. I was one of a very few who had the lightweights with me. Several guys offered to trade me uniforms along with cash but I wasn’t selling.

I remember being at the Green Ramp and my rucksack being God awful heavy. After packing extra batteries for the radio which I wasn’t carrying, batteries for the laser range finder (which I was), my binos, a silly useless encryption piece called a Vinson, ammunition and food, I was carrying 120 pounds. And my rucksack was lighter than most.

When we got to Grenada (airland–only the Rangers jumped in–well they had two guys from the 82nd with them–and for one of them it was his cherry blast) I downloaded even more shit. Oh, a cherry blast is a paratrooper’s 6th jump. We do 5 at jump school. So his cherry blast was a combat jump. What a way to initiate.

Anyway, I decided if I couldn’t eat it or shoot it, I pretty much said fuck it. I have no idea how some of those guys made it while we were there. I mean, I was in excellent shape then. I was 23 and could run like the wind. Some of the guys in my Infantry platoon were toting nearly my weight on their backs. But the rocks alongside Salinas air field was littered with discarded gear like some strange exhaust.

Enter Elliot Rodger.  A 22 year-old spoiled brat, spawn of a movie producer.  Twenty-two and driving a BMW he didn’t pay for.  Fueled by gasoline he bought with money he didn’t earn on a credit card he didn’t pay.

He kills a lot of people, the total probably is not yet known.  He targeted pretty college girls.  Why?  He felt rejected by them.  None of them would pop his cherry, it seems.  He tried to befriend them only to be rejected and watch them gravitate to ogres and pigs.  While he, the self-proclaimed “supreme gentleman” spent his life lonely, rejected, a life of unfulfilled desires.

He felt rejected.  He felt that he should have a girlfriend because he dressed nice, wore $300 glasses, had a nice car.  “… that’s just such an injustice because I am so magnificent. I deserve girls much more than all those slobs I see at my college.”  An injustice.  It seems reality set in and he discovered that life really is not fair.  And he was woefully unprepared to handle it.

The problem couldn’t possibly be that despite your obvious gifted wealth, you were simple a shallow, craven idiot devoid of personally redeeming qualities.

This is what a bloated and misplaced sense of self entitlement brings.  This is the fruit of telling your kid all his life that he is special and better than others–a winner at everything.  And we have generations of them all coming of hormonal age.

**UPDATE**  The monster’s father blames who?  Politicians and, of course, the National Rifle Association.  What, George Bush had nothing to do with it?  So, just proven is that the problem was not just with the kid.  The parents also are to blame since they failed to raise him properly.  You can’t coddle and provide for everything.  The kid has to learn responsibility and experience failure.  Spanking works on kids.  Grounding and privilege denial works on teens.  Anything else, and you can expect violence when they experience rejection.  But you go on–blame the inanimate gun.  Asshole.

** UPDATE 2**  So now it is revelaed that the monster had been in therapy since the age of 8, and “virtually everyday of high school”.  In light of this, it cannot have been a surprise to the divorced parents who hide behind the excuse of “we thought he was in good hands”.  Yes, that’s right.  Medicate and put him on a couch.  That absolves you completely.  I mean, he’s a director.  In Hollywood.  He doesn’t have time to deal with a kid on a short fuse.

I get pissed off probably everyday at the way some people drive. I mean, seriously. How can some of these people not be dead by now driving they way they do? If they haven’t crashed into an embankment by now, you’d think some people would have road raged them.

If you sit at a green light after it changed from red and more than two cars on either (or both) sides of you go without you hitting the gas, you are either apathetic in which case you shouldn’t be driving, or you are distracted, in which case you shouldn’t be driving. In both cases, since you are, you’re an asshole.

If you change lanes in the middle of the intersection, you are breaking the law. You are also an asshole.

If you wait until the last 200 feet or so to decide you need to be in the far left lane from the far right lane, you’re an asshole.

If you speed up to keep me from pulling out, then slow down so that I can’t get around you, you’re an asshole.  7/2/15–Mercedes 300SE, CO PAI9933; Parker and Monaco.

If you move over into the far right lane so that you can be first in line at a red light, blocking others from turning right on red, you’re an asshole.  5/28/14:  White Ford Ranger, CO 519 FAZ.  6/29/15–Ford E250 Van, CO843VQJ; Smoky Hill & Chambers.

If you insist on driving below the speed limit in the fast lane, you’re an asshole.  7/10/15: White Toyota Tundra (L&B Heating & Cooling), CO 729UUQ–Hampden Avenue.

If you speed up to pass me (on the right), then pull over into my land and slow down, you’re an asshole.  7/2/15–Red Ford Taurus, CO754TMY; Parker & Havana.

If you are watching a God damned movie on your phone while driving, you’re an asshole.

If you are on a crotch rocket motorcycle and weave in and out of traffic or drive down the dotted line while cars are stopped, you’re an asshole.

If you don’t flash drivers coming your way to warn them of a speed trap, you’re either a cop or an asshole. You could be an asshole cop.

If you park in a handicap spot, and put the placard up on your mirror from the glove box and have no visible handicap, you’re an asshole.

I wonder why I drive at all. The world has so many assholes in it. And they seem to live in Denver.

When James Holmes opened fire in the theater that night in Aurora, CO, he knew he would face no armed resistance. The theater was a declared “gun free zone”. Firearms were not permitted. Now before anyone goes all “what part of shall not be infringed” don’t they get, the theater is privately owned. They can establish any rules they want to, and they did. They made the business/economic decision to not allow firearms onto the premises. They even had little stickers on the sliding glass doors, I’m told, signifying to the viewing and paying public of this decision. People still went to the theater, many of them unaware that they were just so many moving arcade targets.

Most of the time, it is only after an incident we find out the place of commerce was really a live-fire shooting range. No one pays that much attention to a 2-inch square sticker on the bottom corner of a sliding door. In that case, we’re busy making sure the idiot in the kiosk sold us the right tickets, and bitching about the extortion prices at the concession stand.

You can bet, though, that Holmes saw those stickers—and he planned accordingly.

Then, last week, two pro-gun “enthusiasts” (in this case, read: morons) decided to exercise their right to bear arms and patronized a Texas Chipotle. (http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2014/05/20/chipotle-gun-open-carry/)

This Denver based chain is often franchised, which gives the owner great latitude in determining store rules in their retail world. The gun toting fools made other patrons uncomfortable with their scary black rifles. Some complained and now chain-wide, Chipotle is asking patrons to leave the gun home. They do not want you to go there carrying—open or concealed. Starbucks did the same thing last September, banning guns inside the store and even outside in the open air seats. (http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/09/18/starbucks-coffee-guns-ceo-schultz/2829937/)

Whether one agrees with these “good ole’ Texas boys” bringing their guns into the restaurant or not is a side argument. Personally I think a gun carrier is FAR better served by not letting others know he is carrying until the shit hits the fan. Hence the term “concealed carry permit”. These boys were within their right to carry openly as they did, but they probably also did it exactly for the reaction they got—scared and unsettled other civilians.

I mean, if I am a bad guy, going into a Chipotle to rob it and see someone there with a gun on his hip, I’m going to do one of two things—leave and rob something else, or shoot the guy with the gun to kick off my robbery. (See how a concealed carry is a better idea yet?)

Chipotle’s reaction was just as knee-jerk and stupid. Rather than address these two cretins, they made a company-wide determination to not allow firearms into their stores. They just announced to all of the James Holmes’ of the world that Chipotle is just the same as the Aurora theater. They will face no armed opposition to rob the place if they are money motivated, or just shoot the place up if a body count is what they seek. I never often ate there but let them know that I won’t in the future. They had other solutions on the menu and selected the least palatable—as far as I’m concerned.

Need proof? A Durham, North Carolina restaurant was recently robbed at gun point. It had been declared a gun free zone, letting patrons know they will have no protection while eating there while also telling all bad guys of a “low hanging fruit” target. http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/05/22/Restaurant-With-No-Weapons-No-Concealed-Firearms-Sign-Robbed-At-Gunpoint

It has been trumpeted every time a shooting incident happens: The best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. A person with a gun stopped both Fort Hood shootings from getting worse. A person with a gun stopped the shooter at the church in Colorado Springs.