Monday, January 31, 2011

Monday Update

The ol' Grump has been sent home from the hospital. He has had 4 days of people paying more attention to him and he's eating it up. Every memory he's ever had is told and retold.

The situation with the Kidneys has not changed, so they quit giving any medication for it. They also disabled the defibrillator he's had for the past 5 years.
A hospital bed has been moved into his room and the old double bed moved out back to the tool shop. The hospice nurse will start visiting tomorrow.

As they say, "time will tell", so all we can do is all that will get done and finally his preacher will get to preach him into the ground.

The Grump is OK with it.........it's been a long life with all it attendant ups and downs.

And so it goes.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Morning News in the Afternoon

The phone awakened the wife and I around 2:30am. After fighting with, and nearly being strangled by the mask and hose to the CPAP machine I finally made it to the phone before the ol' Grump's nurse hung up.

It seemed the ol' Grump was living up to his nickname and giving the staff at the hospital fits.

Accusing them of trying to rip him off and rob them for his money......the insurance companies were all thieves who weren't sending the checks when they should, how in the hell was he going to pay.......

I dressed and instructed the wife to go back to sleep. (does she listen.......NO)

Arriving at his room I calmed the ol' Grump down and finally got him to lie back and let me pull the cover up over him. It only took 40 minutes or so. I stayed til 6:30 and came back home since I had to make a trip to Cleveland this morning. The wife went to sit with him.

Trying to drain the fluid from him is not working......kidneys shutting down... Dialysis not much of an option...the Doctors about of options......friends and family coming round.

We'll see.

Ya'll pray for the wife.......and the ol' Grump, if so inclined. We'll see how it goes.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Friday Evening 1/23/11 9:56pm

Finally the week is drawing to a close. I'm ready.

Sunday started out with my left shoulder attacking me at odd times for no apparent reason. WTF (winning the future, Right, thanks presbo) is up with that. I know the rotator cuff is torn, so is the right one, but this would make my knees wobble and stop me in my tracks while I was just walking along.

Monday morning I hie myself down to the local bone popper, Dr. Hooper, Chiropractor, having figured out that if I turned my head to the left and down the pain would shoot to my shoulder. A quick ride on the massage table then a few well considered adjustments to the spinal bones and, voila' no more pains. This was great news since I'm a wimp when it comes to pain.......I mean come on, I take enough central nervous system suppressant to not feel being hit by a train, I don't have to take shoulder pain.

By Tuesday I'm all kinds of disgusted with the noise coming out of the talking boxes and the interwebz. If you are into that sort of thing you can check out Drudge Reports or visit your local leather clad dominatrix student of the school of Marquis de Sade. I'm ready to find 50 or 60 wooded acres with a bubbling brook and go sit myself beside it until the mushroom clouds dissipate from over the major cities or the smoke from the riots blows away.......whichever comes first. Don't bother me, let me listen to the water and the wind in the river cane.

Wednesday I'm wondering if gold is going to fall back to 1980 levels, and the coming financial, job, food, energy holocaust is indefinitely postponed.

Thursday, the ol' Grump needs to go to the emergency since he has swelled up with fluid 'til he can hardly breath and get around. The wife takes care of that while I take care of business, which I was glad of since my favorite thing in the world is to wait around in the hospital emergency room waiting for someone else to be seen.
He is admitted and kept overnight while they try with medicine to get him to take a leak larger that half a teacup. Wife is some stressed and the poor pouch having to stay in the house most of the day totally by himself is near catatonic with distress. His joy when the wife got back home is pure unconditional joy and love.

Friday, the ol' Grump is still no better, maybe a little the worse since he is more disoriented than ever and is afraid the cost of hospitalization will be too much. This from an 82 year old with money in the bank, social insecurity, a county pension which includes insurance in addition to medicare, a supplemental policy for everything else and holds a note on the rental home I bought from him. He ain't got to worry about money, but he does.

And I.....well I found this little item this morning.



1929 100 Lire, issued by The Sovereign State of the Vatican, 90.8% gold with a portrait of the then Pope, Pius XI.

Out of a mintage of 10,000 this one fell into my hands.

1929 was the year my father was born in Birmingham, Alabama. This one is probably a keeper. Researching a coin online will get you more information than you can use sometimes, but the end results are almost always interesting even if the coin has no great value.

Still it may be comforting to meditate upon as I sit in the cane beside the creek.

We'll see what tomorrow and next week bring, if I'm still around and if I feel like it.

Hope your weekend is great. Get off your ass and go somewhere and do something.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Once upon a time long ago

and not so far away, I owned a dairy farm. Well I owned the cows and equipment, part of the land with my mother and sisters, and all of the debt.

And life was good, well except for the getting up at 4am and getting slapped in the face by a wet shitty, half frozen bovine tail while trying to milk the ol' hussies. But, mostly good. Because we could sell all the milk we could produce, even if our government set allotment was lower, the Atlanta Dairies Cooperative, which not only bottled milk but made ice cream and had a Cheese plant to take care of any surplus over the demand for milk and ice cream.

A lot of dairies cooperatives were not so fortunate and were selling milk to the Federal government as powdered milk, Cheese and butter which the gov't would dole out to less fortunate countries, less fortunate citizens (read those on the public dole).

However even with all their largess the gov't still had to pay billions to store milk products, with the amount growing larger ever year. They did this because the farmers had an awfully good lobby in Washington, DC which funneled much moola into the pockets of congressmen and senators. And life was good for them and us.......

Well, up until the gov't in it's wisdom decided they couldn't afford the cost of storage anymore and sought to reduce the amount of milk purchased.

You'd think that would be easy enough, just stop buying the surplus milk, right?
The farmers were smart enough to figure out that reducing the size of the herds, feeding less high protein grain and other measures would work and within a week, voila' no more surplus.

Wrong that would be way too simple. No.......the gov't in it's wisdom would pay the farmers not to produce milk.

I'll not bore you with the process, let's just assume the gov't got to spend billions more. And the farmers went on to other profitable pursuits.

Today we have a problem with unemployment in the nation. Rates, depending on who you ask are over 9% according to the gov't figures and in actual fact are closer to 20%.

Many and varied are the solutions put forth by the experts, most of them long on predictions and very, very short on specifics.

I have a plan.

Want to really fix the unemployment problem? Listen up. Eliminate all bailouts, subsidies, giveaways and support systems - both to business and to labor. Abolish all employment restrictions and employment paperwork. All free labor - undocumented non-citizens - to compete equally with native-born workers. Cut taxes to a flat 10% rate for everyone. Abolish every government agency that begins with a letter of the alphabet. Then abolish the rest of them.

I confidently guarantee that the nation would be back at full employment within 30 days.

I can be confident because everybody except the criminal element would be busy working their fingers to the bone growing a garden on any available piece of dirt, and defending it with extreme prejudice to the criminal element many of which would be left to rot where they lay, or thinking green, we could use them for fertilizer. Or in more rational societies they'd be hooked to plows to till more ground.

As long as the feds take the pressure off labor to make adjustments. Giving food stamps, minimum wages, unemployment compensation, make-work, shovel-ready boondoggles - all these things cause workers to think they can continue as before...that a "recovery" of the good ol' days is just around the corner...and that they'll soon be earning as much as they were in 2007. Maybe more!

Tain't gonna happen.

Remember the cooking, gardening and canning advice your grandmother tried to give you. You'll wish you had her around for a little advice again.

I wonder sometimes.....

.....Why I ever try to put thought to keybord.

Especially when there are people like Vin around.

Go Here and read his "I like to pay taxes, with them I buy Civilization".

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Necessities......

... What do you consider necessities.

Food, water, shelter, transportation (I love my Truck), a source of income that allows you to provide yourself with these things and hopefully a little more.

I could add chocolate (dark) but my body would probably be better off with out it, although my mental state might get a little out of kilter. (Heaven knows I'm not fit to be around most of the time, but deprive me of a source of comfort and I won't be held responsible. Just sayin'......)

From whence cometh this rambling you might ask? Well, you might although there are few enough of you that check in here, statistically we matter less than the gnats bite on an elephants ass.

But as we were riding by the public housing (welfare housing) the other day it was pointed out to me that *..... lived there now along with her off sprung because she is mentally incompetent. This led to me asking, "what purpose does it serve the government to maintain this waste of air and her equally useless youngun,for it too will never be capable of much, at the citizenry's expense"?

The answer came quickly, "They've got to have something to spend the money on".

Well said. But more correctly, the government has to have something to spend the tax money's and the money's they borrow on else how could they stand before us and say, "Look what good use we have made off all that money and beside, you are not having to take care of your own defects and self created problems yourself". Lord knows none of us want to take responsibility for our old, incompetent, burdensome relatives, repeatedly pregnant daughters, drug addled, alcohol besotted, or simply too sorry to work, sons. Do we? Well?

If the government didn't take at least half of everything you earn in some form or other, of which half or more is spent on the bureaucracy administering this clusterf*** do you think that costs of care for these individuals might not be greatly reduced?

Just wondering about the necessity........

Monday, January 17, 2011

A Confession.......of sorts

I must confess to stealing the following paragraphs from an email received from The Daily Reckoning.

Look...according to our new Daily Reckoning theme...political parties, voting, the blah, blah of partisan debates...as well as Paul Krugman...

...they are all almost irrelevant...all “products of the past”...

...relics...emblems...icons...symbols...

...full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing.

The real trends are bigger than that. What is at stake here is a model of government that began with Otto von Bismarck. It is a model in which the state supposedly serves the interests of the citizens. (Under the previous model, there were no citizens...just subjects who owed a duty of obedience to the sovereign...and in exchange received protection.) In Bismarck’s model, citizens give up a portion of their output...and stand ready to protect the state with their lives. In return, the state gives them the right to participate (through elections etc)...provides protection from foreign states and domestic outlaws...and makes sure that their physical needs are taken care of.

This model seems to be headed for bankruptcy. The big question is: when the state is unable to provide the benefits it has promised...what will happen? Will the masses accept less? Or will they revolt? Or will a new model evolve...peacefully?


You can get a free daily email, just google Daily Reckoning and I'm sure somewhere you'll be given an opportunity. Of course you will have to put up with your fair share of advertisements, but, I reckon (poor pun) it's a small price to pay for another view of the world.

Often after reading thoughts that are not programmed into my consciousness by the MSM I ponder how different input requires different outputs.

The question is......"Or will they revolt"?

Not so much of a question as I'm pretty sure they will, just when and how bad will it get seems a more pressing question. Which leads to further questions. Will the military be used against us on our own soil? Will the leaders of the military follow those orders.

Do I have enough of.............. (fill in your own blank)

How safe is my present location? If not how can I get to a better one.......and how soon?

Questions and answers differ.......or is the question relevant?

Friday, January 14, 2011

Noise

Noise is, it seems, increasing every day.

Not only the constant ringing in my ears, the one truly constant companion of the last almost 40 years, but the noise of planes, trains, automobiles and especially the noises from all the electronic devices that we have made such a part of our daily lives over the last 100 years.

We've taken the telephone, that I can remember from the late 50's as being a source of irritation because the curious neighbor from up the street would stealthily pick up when she knew it was our ring, to a constant companion that tracks us every where and is answered no matter where one is, whether in the middle of a conversation to the solitude of the toilet facilities.

Radios which once were listened to only in the evening, or perhaps only on Saturday night when the Grand Ol' Opry came on, to a little bud with wires growing out of them to remain in a persons ears 24/7.

You begin to see the trend?

We've become so interconnected, so used to all the information constantly bombarding us that we lose our perspective.

Last weekends shootings in Tuscon, while deplorable, and tragic to the individuals involved who were killed or wounded, distressing to those that witnessed the violence, horrible to those who's loved ones died or were hurt, has become another source of noise, eagerly jumped on by the media who's only existence it seems is to ensure that not a single, breathing human on the planet has not only heard about it, but is to react to it as if it had happened to their family and made to react in ways that someone else wishes them to react.

Way too much noise methinks.

For I, personally, am not so much moved by this latest event. Indeed had I never heard, read, seen any of the reports my life would not, and has not, really been affected.

I mean really, am I supposed to take upon me some additional burden in my life over a shooting in Arizona? Is this supposed to add to some collective angst we must all share in? Am I to bear some responsibility for what happened?

I think not.

Since before recorded history began, I suspect, there have been those, who for what ever reason, have wanted to pick up a stick, or rock, and bash in the head of someone or destroy something, for reasons the rest of us cannot truly imagine.

Perhaps their wiring is faulty.

So..........I shall continue on my way, vigilant to the same degree as I generally am, as oblivious to the same degree as always, trying to get through the day despite the ringing in my ears and the noisome world around me, living for the now, since I'm convinced that none of us are assured tomorrow, much less the next 60 minutes.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Still Cold

At least more of the ice and snow melted away yesterday.

I was awakened in bliss as only a grand father can be when the youngest grand daughter shook me and said, "Paw Paw I had a bad dream, tell me a story".

How's that for fearless? To have a bad dream and then expect me to tell a story that will make it all better. Truth be told, I can do that when necessary.

The best thing about stories for the g-daughter is that you just ask what story she wants to tell and she'll give instructions on what it is to be about, who the characters are and what they are to do. Simply follow along and the storyline will be given in great detail.

I did doze off a couple of times there and had to be roused by the question, "Paw Paw, what happened then?"

So the day is off to a bright shiny start. I've eaten my two eggs, (over easy) my bacon (not too crispy, just right) cheese grits (yummy).

Ya'll have a good day. I'm off to play.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Cabin Fever

.....May be a complaint more often heard of in the frozen regions of the artic, but coop up a southern country boy with no way to get out short of slippery suicide on iced over streets with other maniacs and the tension builds to almost intolerable levels very quickly.

Thankfully the weather was sunny enough today and enough other idiots had to get to work, or elswhere, that their combined traffic created just enough warming to thaw narrow tracks on the surface streets that I was able to get to Fedex today. Traffic was thankfully light and most people were keeping their hands on the wheel and eyes on the road that I saw no current accidents, although several people were trying to pull their car or truck out of the ditches.

By this evening it was good enough that a couple of people stopped by to see us. Economic necessity will override common sense most days. Let's just hope that the economic necessities of the nation will not cause an overwhelming loss of common sense in the general population.

While many people speak of the problems, fewer have any workable solutions to put forth. The consequences of the necessary tough actions that must be taken if the Republic is to survive, much less return to thriving health, may lead to an even worse situation when so many find out that their make work jobs have just ended or their grip on the public teat is useless as that dug has withered, dried up and fallen off the skinny breast like a three week old umbilicus cord.

It somehow seems almost appropriate that there are so many vampire movies, tv shows and popular book series these days.

Do vampires ever consider what might happen once they have turned everyone into a blood sucking monster? Do they have the foresight to maintain the herd at maximum health even at the expense of controlling their darker nature?

Does the herd have enough understanding of what is happening to it, and more importantly the will to resist the temptation to submit, or the strength to break the ties that bind them?

Despite the blathering and bleating of pundits port and starboard, tv, radio, print and internet all of them claiming that their vision and version of America is right, do we really understand the problems and their potential outcomes?

Do we even really want to know?

Maybe we don't, maybe like Darwin thought, we really are descended from Monkeys.

A good possibility as Fred Suggests.

You should read and ponder whether any of the things he sees coming can be stopped, or even delayed for very long. I'd personally love to hear any of your ideas. Maybe if enough of us put our heads and hearts together we will be able to create a different tomorrow.

If not...................

What???

Monday, January 10, 2011

I knew it

When you have a bit of snow in the South people nut up and use it as an excuse not to go in to work.

I did take the Ram out this morning to carry a package to Fedex with every expectation that they would be open. I mean after all they can get a package around the world overnight and be able to track it every step of the way, you'd think they wouldn't let a few inches of snow stall the works, would they??

Turns out they will.

After careful navigation, with my usual superb driving skills, honed lo these last 45 years, I arrive in front of the building only to find that some people aren't as dedicated to work.

Wussies.

With the freezing over and possible icing this evening it may be a while before I'm able to get out again.

Fortunately, the larder is stocked with comestibles, stores of propane are in readiness, squirrel beds are located and 12 gauge shells loaded, we're ready to withstand at least a 3 day seige.

I'd hate for it to become a Donner party thing though, the ol' Grump would make mighty tough and stringy eating. Perhaps with enough boiling and some dumplings and lots of pepper.........

Nah, better hope we don't run out of squirrels.

More Global Warming

Sheesh, we've about 4-5 inches already and more coming down.



Unusually for me the cold seems to have found it's way into my finger joints this morning. Does this portend worse weather later today? No idea, as this is unusual.




Of course this Global Warming is unusual too. Reckon it has something to do with a lack of sunspot activity the last year or so?

Why haven't we been hearing from that bloated wind bag Albert Gore lately? Even meek little Tipper finally got fed up with his lies and booted his ass to the curb. Of course he can just give her half of everything and still have enough money to draw the bimbo-flies and environmental moonbats to his swollen carcass. A waste of resources to keep him alive, methinks.

Of course, I have been accused of being a little intolerant of idiots. I mean come on, they're fun to laugh as for a while, but you soon become weary of shooting fish in a barrel.

Speaking of shooting.......I finally took the time to peel the camouflaged tape off the barrel of the Ruger Model 77 Mark II I picked up a while back and gave it a good cleaning and lubrication. Nice gun, stainless steel barrel and action with composite stock and topped with Leupold 4 X 12 VX-II scope.



Hopefully, I'll be able to take it over to the ARC range next month and sight it in.

I have no real need for a rifle of this calibre, but, like I've always heard...... you can never have too many guns, or enough ammo.

Well, I've had my grits and hen apple for the morning, I'm sure I have a lot to do if I'll just get too it. Hopefully I'll be able to get to the Fedex office before the icy part of this winter wonderland hits later today. Right now it's fun to look at, but if we get any ice on top of it the pines will start snapping onto the power lines and the real fun will start.

Stay warm and come back now, hear.

Thursday, January 06, 2011

The Last Six Seconds

I read much these days, some of it very discouraging and pessimistic. I find it very easy sometimes to want to throw my hands in the air, take my guns, ammo, such food as we have stored, a few coins of silver, the wife and ol' grump and find a place in the deep dark woods to await the zombie hoards and whatever end may come.

This following account, whether true or not, is part of the reason I do not. Not yet. Not while people such as these are part of our armed forces and citizens of this land. And make no mistake, there are men and women like this out there. They are Tea Party Patriots, Republicans, even some who vote democrat perhaps, people from all walks of life. People who like the signors of The Declaration of Independence, will be willing to Pledge their lives, their fortunes and their Sacred Honor in defense of liberty and freedom.

They do exist......I've met some of them. Let us look for them, challenge them, support them and, if possible, elect them to the highest offices in the land, that this once great nation may remember her heritage and rise taller and stand brighter than ever before.


The Last Six Seconds

On Nov 13, 2010 Lt General John Kelly, USMC gave a speech to the
Semper Fi Society of St. Louis, MO. This was 4 days after his son, Lt
Robert Kelly, USMC was killed by an IED while on his 3rd Combat tour.
During his speech, General Kelly spoke about the dedication and valor
of the young men and women who step forward each and every day to
protect us.
During the speech, he never mentioned the loss of his own son.
He closed the speech with the moving account of the last 6 seconds
in the lives of 2 young Marines who died with rifles blazing to protect
their brother Marines.

"I will leave you with a story about the kind of people they
are...about the quality of the steel in their backs...about the kind of
dedication they bring to our country while they serve in uniform and
forever after as veterans. Two years ago when I was the Commander of all U.S.
and Iraqi forces, in fact, the 22nd of April 2008, two Marine
infantry battalions, 1/9 "The Walking Dead," and 2/8 were switching out
in Ramadi. One battalion in the closing days of their deployment
going home very soon, the other just starting its seven-month combat
tour.
Two Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan
Haerter, 22 and 20 years old respectively, one from each battalion, were
assuming the watch together at the entrance gate of an outpost that
contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines. The same broken down
ramshackle building was also home to 100 Iraqi police, also my men and our
allies in the fight against the terrorists in Ramadi, a city until
recently the most dangerous city on earth and owned by Al Qaeda. Yale was a
dirt poor mixed-race kid from Virginia with a wife and daughter, and
a mother and sister who lived with him and he supported as well. He did
this on a yearly salary of less than $23,000. Haerter, on the other
hand, was a middle class white kid from Long Island. They were from two
completely different worlds. Had they not joined the Marines they would
never have met each other, or understood that multiple America's exist simultaneously

depending on one's race, education level, economic status, and where

you might have been born. But they were Marines, combat Marines,

forged in the same crucible of Marine training, and because of this bond

they were brothers as close, or closer, than if they were born of the same woman.

The mission orders they received from the sergeant squad leader
I am sure went something like: "Okay you two clowns, stand this post
and let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass." "You clear?" I am
also sure Yale and Haerter then rolled their eyes and said in unison
something like: "Yes Sergeant," with just enough attitude that
made the point without saying the words, "No kidding sweetheart, we know
what we're doing." They then relieved two other Marines on watch and
took up their post at the entry control point of Joint Security Station
Nasser, in the Sophia section of Ramadi, Al Anbar, Iraq.

A few minutes later a large blue truck turned down the alley
way-perhaps 60-70 yards in length-and sped its way through the serpentine of
concrete jersey walls. The truck stopped just short of where the
two were posted and detonated, killing them both catastrophically.
Twenty-four brick masonry houses were damaged or destroyed. A
mosque 100 yards away collapsed. The truck's engine came to rest two
hundred yards away knocking most of a house down before it stopped. Our
explosive experts reckoned the blast was made of 2,000 pounds of
explosives. Two died, and because these two young infantrymen
didn't have it in their DNA to run from danger, they saved 150 of their
Iraqi and American brothers-in-arms.

When I read the situation report about the incident a few hours
after it happened I called the regimental commander for details as
something about this struck me as different. Marines dying or being
seriously wounded is commonplace in combat. We expect Marines regardless
of rank or MOS to stand their ground and do their duty, and even die in
the process, if that is what the mission takes. But this just seemed
different. The regimental commander had just returned from the
site and he agreed, but reported that there were no American witnesses to
the event-just Iraqi police. I figured if there was any chance of
finding out what actually happened and then to decorate the two Marines
to acknowledge their bravery, I'd have to do it as a combat award
that requires two eye-witnesses and we figured the bureaucrats back
in Washington would never buy Iraqi statements. If it had any
chance at all, it had to come under the signature of a general officer.

I traveled to Ramadi the next day and spoke individually to a
half-dozen Iraqi police all of whom told the same story. The blue truck
turned down into the alley and immediately sped up as it made its way
through the serpentine. They all said, "We knew immediately what was
going on as soon as the two Marines began firing." The Iraqi police then
related that some of them also fired, and then to a man, ran for safety
just prior to the explosion. All survived. Many were injured...some
seriously. One of the Iraqis elaborated and with tears welling
up said, "They'd run like any normal man would to save his life."



"What he didn't know until then," he said, "and what he learned that very
instant, was that Marines are not normal." Choking past the emotion he said,

"Sir, in the name of God no sane man would have stood there and
done what they did." "No sane man." "They saved us all."

What we didn't know at the time, and only learned a couple of
days later after I wrote a summary and submitted both Yale and Haerter for
posthumous Navy Crosses, was that one of our security cameras,
damaged initially in the blast, recorded some of the suicide attack. It
happened exactly as the Iraqis had described it. It took exactly
six seconds from when the truck entered the alley until it
detonated.

You can watch the last six seconds of their young lives. Putting
myself in their heads I supposed it took about a second for the two
Marines to separately come to the same conclusion about what was going on
once the truck came into their view at the far end of the alley. Exactly
no time to talk it over, or call the sergeant to ask what they should
do. Only enough time to take half an instant and think about what the
sergeant told them to do only a few minutes before: "...let no
unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass." The two Marines had about five
seconds left to live.

It took maybe another two seconds for them to present their
weapons, take aim, and open up. By this time the truck was half-way
through the barriers and gaining speed the whole time. Here, the recording
shows a number of Iraqi police, some of whom had fired their AKs, now
scattering like the normal and rational men they were-some running right
past the Marines. They had three seconds left to live.

For about two seconds more, the recording shows the Marines'
weapons firing non-stop...the truck's windshield exploding into shards
of glass as their rounds take it apart and tore in to the body of the
son-of-a-bitch who is trying to get past them to kill their brothers-

American and Iraqi-bedded down in the barracks totally
unaware of the fact that their lives at that moment depended entirely on
two Marines standing their ground. If they had been aware, they
would have known they were safe...because two Marines stood between them
and a crazed suicide bomber. The recording shows the truck careening
to a stop immediately in front of the two Marines. In all of the
instantaneous violence Yale and Haerter never hesitated. By all
reports and by the recording, they never stepped back. They never even
started to step aside. They never even shifted their weight. With their
feet spread shoulder width apart, they leaned into the danger, firing
as fast as they could work their weapons. They had only one second left
to live.

The truck explodes. The camera goes blank. Two young men go to
their God. Six seconds. Not enough time to think about their families,
their country, their flag, or about their lives or their deaths, but
more than enough time for two very brave young men to do their duty...into
eternity. That is the kind of people who are on watch all over
the world tonight-for you.

We Marines believe that God gave America the greatest gift he
could bestow to man while he lived on this earth-freedom. We also
believe he gave us another gift nearly as precious-our soldiers, sailors,
airmen, Coast Guardsmen, and Marines-to safeguard that gift and
guarantee no force on this earth can every steal it away. It has been my
distinct honor to have been with you here today. Rest assured our
America, this experiment in democracy started over two centuries ago, will
forever remain the "land of the free and home of the brave" so long as
we never run out of tough young Americans who are willing to look beyond
their own self-interest and comfortable lives, and go into the darkest
and most dangerous places on earth to hunt down, and kill, those who
would do us harm.

God Bless America, and....SEMPER FIDELIS!"


This is the nation's Corps of Marines. The feckless leaders in the congress do not deserve such men protecting them. May God protect the Corps from the evil that is being imposed upon it.