Well, first, let me say this. I am a 21 year old, 3 year US Marine, who's mom is a public school teacher in Michigan, I'm from Michigan and my grandfather was born in Windsor (so I figure that makes me part Canadian---"eh, hoser?"
), I've got family and friends who are veterans and active duty service members of every armed service on the USA (and a few others), several of my family members are teachers and/or professors, my girlfriend is in the New Zealand Army Territorials (sorta reserves), I've voted twice in my life for pres (and that's both times I could)-Dole & GW-, I own an AK-47, I work 2 jobs to make any sort of a decent amount of money, I've been listening to Rush Limbaugh for about 12 years now, and I will NOT be reenlisting in the US Military.
-HIHUM- My mother teaches home economics to 6-8th graders in a public middle school in Hastings, Michigan. She has been doing this for 11 years of her 25 years of teaching now. I can remember lots of times in the last 11 years that she has spent her own money to get stuff for her students. Hastings, and Middleville my hometown, is in Barry County, Michigan. It is a county with nothing in it. Just a few towns, a very, very few small companies, and lots and lots of trees and wilderness. Due to this, the schools there don't get a lot of money from the government. No big corporations to tax and a small population spread out over a large area. When my mother moved into the room she teaches in now, you could smell the stoves leaking gas. She complained about it, and even though that is obviously a hazard, nothing was done about it for 3 months. So for the first 3 months of that school year, she taught her home ec classes in the hall, and they never actually heated or cooked anything. It wasn't safe to go in the room or to turn on the stoves. Finally it was fixed, but the place was still a mess. The next year they paid a contractor an exorbitant amount of money to rehabilitate the room. He estimated 1 month, it took all summer, wasn't done for the beginning of the school year, he ended up going WAY over budget, and when it was all over, my father, a few neighbors, and my little brother and I had to go back through the place and rebuild a bunch of it. The school just cut a check to the contractor, for the full amount he requested, despite the shoddy work, and said "have a nice day!" My mother puts up with rude, beligerant, violent, uncaring, unappreciative, immature kids and their parents for 9 months out of the year, and plans ways to educate those kids 12 months out of the year for far less money than she should for all the work she does and how much s$%t she has to put up with. She has been insulted, spit on, hit, kicked, flashed, mooned, belittled, threatened, and lots of other things by children, only to see them told to "behave themselves" and then sent back to class. Yet year after year, she has returned to her life's work, educating kids. She had to go back to college 20 years after her first graduation, at her own expense, on her own personal time after school, to get another degree in teaching because it was felt that home ec may not be useful anymore, and that her other teaching credentials (4 years of high school, and 10 years of substitute teaching) were not enough to warrant keeping her on the payroll if home ec was done away with. When I was in High School money that could go for modern school books (when I was in government my senior year my text book was from 1981-still talked about the USSR and East Germany), new facilities, computers, building maintenance, etc was instead used to increase the principals pay, by 33% after 2 years on the job. He was fired the following year after he had an affair with the head secretary, a married woman and mom to a friend of mine, that went VERY public. Money is spent to teach 4th graders sex ed. When I was in 4th grade, I didn't know anything about sex, I was just discovering swearing and having a good time at it. Today half the kids that young learn about sex by being sent to sex ed. Sex ed is taught PC, so that homosexuality is acknowledged and treated as an equal to heterosexuality, to students. I am not saying that sex ed is not needed, it opened my eyes to a few dangers, but is it necessary to teach such mature and debatable subjects to children so young? I feel that if we reevaluated our stands on education, what is taught, and maybe better managed how the money is spent, then we could see some improvements. I loved going to public school, it taught me so many things besides the stuff in the books. However, when I have kids, god willing, I don't know if they will go to a public school. I am not willing to send my [future] children in to harms way to receive a shoddy education on subjects that are rewritten to be PC and taught by people who may not be able to pass standard tests and may even be criminals. I'll spend my own money and send them to a good private school where they can learn the truth in a safe environment from people I have full confidence in and can trust. Oh yeah, and my senior class was 165 people. I can't even fathom what my buddies in Compton with a senior class of 2,000+, metal detectors, police and police dogs in schools, teachers that wore bullet proof vests out of fear for their lives, 25% pregnancy rates of girls, guns in school (not hunting rifles in the parking lot), etc went through to get their diplomas. Maybe if we returned to the morals of yesterday, raised our kids right, watched how the money was spent, made sure our teachers knew their jobs, respected our teachers for what they do, and paid them commensurate with that, things would change. Okay, time for me to get off my soap box on education.
-On the military, I say I will not reenlist for the following reasons. I joined the US Military in the fall of 1997 with the full hope of spending 20 years or more defending my country like so many of my heros have and do. The military I knew was the one that I was told of as a kid growing up. Superior in quality and training to anyone, kicked Tojo, Musselini, Hitler and all the like out of power in WW2, defended the people of South Korea against communist aggression, fought against communists and government red tape in Vietnam and then got spat on by cowardly peacenik hippies, defended the innocent everywhere, helped support democracies everywhere, helped free the people of Kuwait and wrested control of a major part of the world's oil supplies from a mad man, and stood up for freedom, democracy, and the American way all around the world for the past 100 years or so. That's all I have ever wanted to do since I was a young boy. I am fascinated by the military machine and the history of warfare. I was brimming with pride as it was announced to my high school in our Senior awards cerimony that I was joining the US Marines following graduation. Well, I am "in" now, and things are FAR different than the old world I knew of. Well, I don't see the respect that my grandfather speaks of. I've seen it from older folks, and former veterans, but some 20-30-and yes, even 40 year old sitting at the gas station could care less what the uniform I'm wearing means. Army, Marines, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard, it doesn't matter. They don't care. They can buy cheap (relatively) gas, read the paper, eat anything they want, buy any car they want, say what they want, ask for anything they want, because of guys who wore this uniform and others like it before me. The gear I work on is missing parts because they aren't made anymore, and the last attempt to get them died because the Democrat congresses of the 80's and early 90's said that military spending package wasn't necessary then. Well, it's been 10 years or so, and the arresting gear at MCAS Miramar and a few other US airbases have springs that don't meet spec anymore in them. I know this for a fact. So we improvise. It works now, but will it work 20 years from now? He(( 2 years from now? No, I don't have to share my M-16, or buy bullets, but I do know from experience that the M-16 is not exactly the last word in reliability, and the last 20 years worth of replacement studies have been either cut from the budget, or porked down with some politician's favorite contributing company's idea of useful. The current replacement candidate design has all kinds of fancy do-dads that I wouldn't trust to be dropped in the mud and still function, and oh yeah, it weighs almost 20lbs. The last M-16 I went on a hump (Marine for cross country walk
) felt like it weighed a few tons more than the 7.7lbs it did after the 10th mile or so. Oh yeah, and on the buying bullets thing, I haven't heard of that, but how about the fact that some Navy squadrons haven't been able to send their jets to training excersises because they didn't have the budget for the fuel it would require. "Sorry guys, guess you can't go learn how to win a dogfight with a MiG since the money had to go to saving the yellow striped pork bellied hoot emu and delivering the pizza to Colonel Scumbag in Upper Nowhere." Oh yeah, and your cruise missiles? Those Tomahawks that are good for blowing Iraqi stuff up everytime Billy gets caught lying or with his "wee willie" hanging out? Well, have you ever heard that we are running out of them? Yep, our national inventory is a fraction of the amount that we had back in 1991 when Saddam was getting them for free, curtesy of the USS Iowa. Clinton kept firing them off, and not replacing them. Ummmmmm.....what else? Okay, aircraft, my specialty. Did you know the AV-8B Harriers (attack jet that can hover, fly backwards, take off straight up, etc), V-22 Osprey (the prop plane with the engines at the end of the wings that swivel so it can take off like a helicopter and then fly like a regular airplane), and the CH-53E Super Stallion (the BIG helicopter that the Marines use to carry all of our BIG stuff into battle) are all grounded right now? You know why? Well, about 10-15 years ago some maintenance and upgrade packages were cancelled by the politicians because they didn't need it back then. Well guess what, they don't work now and aren't safe to fly in. The Osprey's been under development for going on 20 years now, originally was supposed to be in service 10 years ago, because money ment for it's development was put to "social" programs. Instead, the helicopter it is ment to replace, the CH-46 Sea Knight is still soldiering on, almost 40 years after it was introduced to service. All of them are at least 20 years old. The oldest one still in service is here at MCAS Miramar. It's 36 years old! They were doing service on one about two years ago, pulled a panel off, and a bunch of bullets rattled out. God knows what shooting match they came from, or who fired them, in the past 30 or so years of it's service life! The F-22 Wildcat/Raptor (whichever you prefer) is the latest in US fighter aircraft technology. It is capable of flying at over Mach 2 (1,400 mph up high), can out manuover or manuever with anything on the planet, can carry a diverse and highly destructive payload of weaponry, is stealthy, can "super cruise" (cruise-fly at a fuel conserving speed- above Mach 1 (700mph)), and is more than a match for any aircraft that will be flying the skies in the next 20 years or so. Well, guess what? Politicians cut spending on it last year because they felt our F-16's, F-14's, F-18's, and F-15's were doing the job fine now AS THEY WERE CUTTING MORE MAINTENANCE AND UPGRADE PACKAGES FOR SAID MENTIONED AIRCRAFT! Well, what happens in 10 years when Lt Joe Somebody is flying his 30 year old F-16, and he comes up against Abdullah-Invadum-and-Steal in his 1-year old MiG with all the latest technology that was purchased with oil money 3 months before? He dies, that's what happens. It all comes down to skill, but what happens when the enemy is semi-skilled and in a vastly superior weapons system? Your child won't be able to go to that school, and get that "quality education" if "your" US military can't stop our enemies abroad. As soon as we loose 1 battle overseas, guess what? The war is coming home. It gets shown to the world that the US military can be beaten, and no one will fear us, or bother listening to us.
-For all of you who fear nukes, I understand it. I believe in war, it's purposes, it's horrible consiquences, it's mechanisms, and it's costs. IT IS A HORRIBLE NECESSITY OF THE HUMAN BEING! Some things can not be settled with words. If you can go talk Saddam Hussein into stopping attacking the Kurds, hurting his people, bullying his neighbors, threatening our forces in the Mid East, etc withouth making any threats, I will sell my Blazer, leave my girlfriend, give up guns forever, kick my dog, spit on my grandpa, and vote for Al Gore. I detest the idea of using nukes. I doubt the world will end, but it will end as we know it. Nuclear winter, radiation burns, genetic diseases, massive radiation posioning, genocide by the millions, and lots more horrible consequences. Still, if we just went, "Okay, just to prove how nice we are, the good ol' USA will scrap all it's nukes today!" there'd be countries and groups all over the world planning how to get their own nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons into the USA to use against us, because they know we can't use it back on them if we don't have it. Israel doesn't specify anything about it's nukes, but it's pretty much an established and accepted fact that they have them and will use them. Israel has stated for all to hear that if any person, group or country, uses non conventional weaponry against it or it's forces in any way, the capital of every country on it's current "enemy" list goes up in an atomic dust cloud. Funny thing, no one has ever done anything other than regular, conventional bombings on them. Nuclear weapons are an established fact, you can't and won't get rid of something after it has been established for all to see until it has been replaced with something bigger and badder.
My Uncle sent this to me:
I just got an e-mail from a good friend of mine who flys
SH-60B's off the USS Hawes. I thought you might like to
read it.
-------------
"It wasn't until a few days ago though, that we started
doing something that I feel may be the first thing I've
seen in my short Naval career that has truly made a
difference. Right now we're supporting the USS COLE and
her crew in Aden. When the attack occurred we were a day
away. Just by luck we happened to be on our way out of
the Gulf and headed towards the Suez and could get here
in a relatively short amount of time. I know what you
all have seen on CNN, because we have seen it too.
I just want you all to know that what you see doesn't even
scratch the surface. I'm not going to get into it for
obvious reasons. But I will tell you that right now there
are 250+ sailors just a few miles away living in hell on
Earth. I'm sitting in a nice air conditioned state room,
they're sleeping out on the decks at night. You can't even
imagine the conditions they're living in, and yet they are
still fighting 24 hours a day to save their ship and free
the bodies of those still trapped and send them home. As
bad as it is, they're doing an incredible job. The very fact
that these people are still functioning is beyond my
comprehension. Whatever you imagine as the worst, multiply
it by ten and you might get there.
Today I was tasked to photo rig the ship and surrounding
area. It looked so much worse than I had imagined,
unbelievable really, with debris and disarray everywhere,
the ship listing, the hole in her side. I wish I had the
power to relay to you all what I have seen, but words just
won't do it.
I do want to tell you the first thing that jumped out at
me - the Stars and Stripes flying. I can't tell you how
that made me feel...even in this God forsaken hell hole our
flag was more beautiful than words can describe. Then I
started to notice the mass of activity going on below,
scores of people working non-stop in 90 plus degree weather
to save this ship. They're doing it with almost no
electrical power and they're sleeping (when they can sleep)
outside on the decks because they can't stand the smell or
the heat or the darkness inside. They only want to eat
what we bring them because they're all scared of eating
something brought by the local vendors.
Even with all that, the USS COLE and her crew is sending a
message guys, and it's that even acts of cowardice and hate
can do nothing to the spirit and pride of the United States.
I have never been so proud of what I do, or of the men and
women that I serve with as I was today. There are sixteen
confirmed dead sailors who put it on the line for all of us,
and some of them are still trapped here. Please take a
minute to pray for their families and say a word of thanks
for their sacrifice - one made so that we can live the
lives that we do. All of you that serve with me, thank
you. All of you that have loved ones that serve, thank
you."
Please feel free to pass this on to those you think will
appreciate it.
V/R
LT L-----
-----Original Message-----
From:
Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2000 6:29 PM
Subject: Col. Hackworth Says "Clinton/Gore Complicit in
Attack on Warship Cole"
Note: Col. David H. Hackworth (U.S.Army, Ret.) is America's
most decorated living soldier, with more than one hundred
awards, including two Distinguished Service Crosses, nine
Silver Stars, eight Bronze Stars for valor, and eight
Purple Hearts, which he considers the most meaningful
because, he says, "they can't be faked." More than any
other military commentator, he has the trust and confidence
of the millions of soldiers - from foreign armies as well
as our own - who cheered every word of his widely acclaimed
autobiography.
David H. Hackworth enlisted in the merchant marine at age
fourteen and in the United States Army at fifteen. From the
end of World War II through the Korean War and five tours
of duty in Vietnam, he spent a quarter of a century on the
country's battlefields.
Col. Hackworth is the author of "The Price of Honor" (a
novel), "Hazardous Duty" (America's Most Decorated Living
Soldier Reports from the Front and Tells It the Way It Is),
"About Face" (The Odyssey of an American Warrior), "Brave
Men," and "The Vietnam Primer."
He is a brave, outstanding advocate for the men and women
of our country's Armed Forces. In his introduction to
"Hazardous Duty" Col. Hackworth writes "All my life I
thought I loved the Army. Now ... I began thinking, No, I
never loved the Army. What I always loved were the troops.
And I love them still. I love them because they are what
it's all about, soldiers on hazardous duty sharing the
dangers of war, forged strong and pure and true....Because
they do the dying. They are the absolute truth."
---------------------
NewsMax.com
Monday October 16, 2000; 11:08 PM EDT
'Clinton Complicit in Attack on Cole': Hackworth
The Clinton administration was complicit in the terrorist
attack on the USS Cole last Thursday, when a bomb blast
ripped a gaping hole in the state-of-the-art destroyer as
it was about to refuel in the port of Aden, Yemen, leaving
17 American sailors dead and another 37 wounded.
That was the charge leveled by defense expert and military
reporter Col. David Hackworth Monday night, in a heated
debate on the Fox News Channel over whether military
cutbacks over the last eight years have left the U.S.
fleet vulnerable to just such an attack.
"Complicity starts at the top of the chain of command, with
the president," Hackworth told FNC's "Hannity & Colmes,"
"and works down through the secretary of defense, to all
the admirals and generals to the very skipper of that ship."
"Everyone knew that port was a hotbed - it was Club Med for
terrorists," said Hackworth, who is also the most-decorated
combat veteran of the post-World War II era.
His debating partner, House Armed Service's Committee
member Robert Andrews, D-N.J., tried to defend the
administration - saying that Hackworth was "second-guessing
our men in the field." But the old soldier would have none
of it.
"It's not a matter of second-guessing, it's a matter of
fact," Hackworth responded. "Osama bin Laden and his gang,
a month before, announced that 'We're gonna spill some
American blood in the Middle East.' It's a fact that the
intelligence community has known for several months that
an American ship was going to go down. Why did we send a
ship there?"
Hackworth answered his own question: "We sent a ship there,
according to [Naval Operations Chief Admiral Vern] Clark,
simply because, he said, we had no oilers to refuel that
ship at sea."
Hackworth said the Navy's inability to refuel at sea was a
direct result of declining military readiness during the
Clinton-Gore years.
"We go to the point of readiness. Admiral Clark, the chief
of naval operations, said, 'Look, we had to go there because
we couldn't refuel at sea cause we don't have any tankers,
any oilers.' So as a result of that, why don't we have
any oilers? Why didn't the chiefs of the United States
Navy sound off?"
"We've got this argument going on between Bush and Gore,"
said Hackworth. "Bush says readiness sucks. Gore says
everything's peachy keen. All of the brass are sitting there
with their mouths shut. But now we don't have enough oilers
to refuel that ship and we lose those people because our
readiness is not squared away?"
Hackworth confirmed that 22 of the Navy's refueling tankers
have been placed in mothballs since 1993, and that the
overall fleet had declined from 435 ships to 311 during the
Clinton-Gore years.
Rep. Andrews had no explanation for why the administration
had mothballed the oilers, complaining only that "partisanship
should stop at the water's edge."
"That ship that was taken out of the Middle East was part
of a battle fleet," Hackworth responded. "They stripped it
from the battle fleet, they said go all by yourself, stop
at Aden, get some refueling, and then go up in the Gulf.
And that shows you how stretched our United States Navy
and our total military really is."
"It's a national disgrace and somebody should hang," said
Hackworth, who then looked at Andrews and added, "and it
should start right with you congressfolks."
--------------------
The DOD had a picture of the damaged USS Cole...pretty
incredible.
http://dodimagery2.afis.osd.mil/LBOX/mini/270726.jpg
And now it has just vanished off their site. What are
they hiding? Any bets the Why = Bill Clinton for Al Gore
---------------------
Name This Country.
709,000 Regular (active duty) service personnel.
293,000 Reserve Troops.
Eight Standing Army Divisions.
20 Air Force and Navy air wings with 2,000 combat aircraft.
232 Strategic Bombers.
13 Strategic Ballistic Missile Submarines with 3,114
nuclear warheads on 232 missiles.
500 ICBMs with 1950 warheads.
Four Aircraft Carriers.
All support bases, shipyards and logistical assets needed
to sustain a force.
Is this country Russia? ..... No
Red China? ..... No
Great Britain? .... No
USA? ..... Hardly
Give Up???
Well, don't feel too bad if you are unable to identify this
Global superpower because this country no longer exists.
It has vanished. These are the American Military Forces
that have disappeared since the 1992 election
Sleep well, America.
It's time to vote!!!
---------------------------------
Here's my parting shot for this HUGE post. Anyone know anything about Switzerland? Or Sweden? Like the fact that neither of those countries has been invaded, conquered, or had it's territory violated in the modern era? Well, both those countries, while neutral, and officially proclaiming themselves out of Europe's wars, have STRONG militaries. Fully equipped militaries with the best training and technology that they can develop or buy. In Switzerland, every male above the age of 18, I think-it may be 21 or so, serves in the military, and after that, is issued an automatic rifle to take home and keep. He comes in every now and again to shoot it and prove that he is still capable of using it and maintaining it in good working order. He is encouraged to teach his family how to use it. [Women are also taken into the military, but I don't recall if they are given a rifle after they get out or not.] During WW2, Herman Goering, the commander of the Luftwaffe (the German Air Force) asked a Swiss diplomat what he would do if he just suddenly had 40,000 German paratroopers falling from the sky, German aircraft attacking and bombing targets, and German tanks and soldiers invading Switzerland's borders? The Swiss diplomat calmly said the military would be activated and then every able bodied male (and then some) would pick up his gun, grab his ammo, and go and fight them. Over 6 million people in 1942! Strangely, the Nazi's never invaded or messed with Sweden or Switzerland. On the other hand, Austria, Holland, and Belgium, 3 "neutral" countries with weak militaries were all over run and annexed into German territory with little difficulty. As someone on this board's tag line says:
BETTER TO HAVE IT AND NOT NEED IT THAN NOT HAVE IT AND NEED IT!
There, I've said my piece, and while I doubt it will change many people's minds, no one can say I didn't express myself.
Oh yeah, GO GEORGE W!!!!!!!!!!!!
1992 Blazer Sport, 350 TBI, 4L60, 3" Flowmaster, K&N, 3" Rancho, 285/75R16 on 16x8 Baja's
