Faux Oppression

Your revolution ain’t special. These virtual warriors out there sending out tweets, blurbs, and blogs about how they’re oppressed in America. Get real. There isn’t a group of folks within these borders who even knows what oppression feels like outside of being bullied in a classroom or cyber space.
It’ disingenuous to use race, gender, ethnicity or culture as a victim status in America. There is one exception and you don’t hear from them, that’s the working poor. They don’t scream on social media or protest in popular cities. They live life at a shade grayer than the rest of the country.

These are the folks you call when the dealer wants to much for your oil change. These folks cut your grass when the chain landscapers are cutting into your budget. These folks repair those hot water heaters in your 200 square foot garages for the same price the contractor charges for an estimate. These aren’t the folks sittin around waiting for a go fund me miracle or SSI.

The underground economy is alive and well. It’s maintained with debts and promises of nothing more than a dollar or work. Taxes are not collected, just debts. Fees aren’t levied, but it costs to do business everywhere. Penalties are harsh. Failure to pay debts means I loss of something valuable, even life in some cases.

These folks live on their wits. Nice things have a price no matter where there bought or bartered. The working poor in this country don’t go to the hospital or doctor. The kitchen is the ER. These folks don’t have pain insurance to support a pain med addiction. They use alcohol for minor pains, WD 40 for arthritis, and barter with neighbors for left over meds. They don’t care about Obamacare, Americare, or any care. Their only care is feeding the family and gas to work.

Folks who work and hustle to stay afloat don’t care about schools and funding. They send their kids to school as a place of business. Their kids ain’t there to be politicized or philosophized. They send their kids to school to work. They remind their kids that school is a luxury and not a place to be weak or spoiled. It’s not a fashion show or social experiment, it’s the kids job and they better take it seriously.

You don’t hear from these folks and they like it that way. You see poor working folks are free. They take hard times silently and good times graciously. They take good times in stride and count blessings or luck depending on how tough life’s been. We don’t want your interference in our health, our finances, or our kids life. We just want to be left alone.

So the next time you have an election, raise taxes, or try to usurp the countries health leave us be. We’ll be fine using home remedies, selling something of value, and whipping our kids ass when they forget who they are at school.

You can have this faux democratic system that creates dollars and privilege for some. You can have your checks and programs for those folks who live on a hand out. Our county has walls; it’s right where the pavement ends and the dirt begins. You can step in the yard with a warning, but the porch ain’t for folks like you. You’re not welcome within our borders.

We’re steadily looming for a way to be American outside of your corrupt system. We by houses lease to own. We maintain our vehicles ourselves or barter work with a mechanic friend. We recycle things to improve our lives, not because it’s cool. We repurpose things because everything and everyone can have a purpose, we dislike throwing things or folks away. Most importantly we see right through what our government has become, and instead of making excuses because we could benefit from the government; we learnt the lesson that some things just serve no purpose other than serving itself.

Cooking up the truth!

I hear eloquent excuses whispered in dimly lit corners. Shadows flicker and colors fade to velvet and glass creating mirror images of ancient travelers.

I ignore vernacular reasons sang with a distracting rhythm. Concrete and steel reverberate staccato sounds so fast there’s no time to object, just shake your head and move out into the open air where fresh perspectives leave your head shaking.

I listen to factors that make a man stand tall holding his faults accountable. Clear skies and consciences drift transparent in fields of green. Remorse and regret peel back the truth of what tomorrow will bring. Like the morning dew doesn’t change the flowers I see, patience reveals the withering glory.

If we are what we eat, the we become what we hear. Listening carefully is akin to the tongues wisdom. For a word lasts longer than a meal, and the nourishment absorbed depends on the quality of the listener, as well as the chef.

Open Letter

Open letter:
I’ve never done an open letter before, but I feel a gap in the veteran narrative that’s close to my heart. There’s a group of service members, soldiers in my case, who’ve quietly slipped away beneath the quest of writers, reporters, and business men looking to make a buck trying to turn service members into victims.

I salute those Viet Nam era service members who gave the ultimate for their country. Some joined and some were drafted. I imagine the fought for the person to their left and right, which culminated in a national effort. Our country was a little off kilter then, like now, so many weren’t pleased with the civilian leadership, like now. Regardless, their honor and sacrifice is part of a time honored tradition.

I felt bad for those soldiers coming home to negative publicity and personal attacks. They didn’t deserve that. There was a real national threat, it just didn’t involve any actions by the enemy that folks could foresee, they were just beginning the whole “immediate gratification”thing back then. It’s easy to see how dangerous the world was in light of what we know now about the Cold War.

The folks who slipped through are the ones that didn’t come home. They didn’t die. They saw it through to the end and the lessons they learnt about men, materials, and tactics would stay with them forever. They stayed the course, reenlisted, and began the work of building a professional military.

This is where I came in, 1979. Right before Reagan came into office and these warriors put on their professional hats and used the money and freedom afforded them to train the most feared military in history. This is not an exaggeration, no country would make a move for 30 some years. If they did jump, they were put down with speed, precision, and violence of action, no messing around.

The Viet Nam Era leaders created this military that created years of peace. They spared no feelings or considerations when it cam to training and equipping their soldiers. Most importantly they embedded the “Lead by Example” mentality in generations of service members.

These guys went on to retire and moved into the civilian world quietly and confident that they left things better than they found them. I joined in 79 and retired in 98. I can tell you that it was two different militaries I served in.
My most proudest moment was when our soldiers executed the “100 day war” and again put down aggression with professional speed, precision, and violence of action. I’m proud because I passed those lessons I learnt from the Viet nam Era soldiers onto those soldiers and they performed flawlessly. I was not present at this war. I had retired and was teaching at the time, but I was proud!

If you read this by chance pass it on. There are millions of Viet Nam Era service members out there silently reminiscing in this success. There are millions of relatives that proudly display photos of these leaders in their homes. Let’s not forget them either, they stayed the course and gave us many years of peace through their strength of conviction. For this I am proud to have served under the Viet Nam era soldiers and am eternally grateful for those that humbly served our nation creating decades of peace.

With Respect
A fellow soldier

P.S. Would some leader, historian, or political figure please go back and read over General Powell’s comments on never going into action without an exit strategy. He brought that lesson to light after Mogadishu I believe!!!!

U.S.S. Implosion

The ship lists; the starboard side judges the port with fate, while the port side glares down with contempt and favor. Fore and aft are no longer considered as waves lap at the feet of passengers. Not knowledgable enough to assist, they chatter and regurgitate what deck hands think they know.
The Captain looks to his Lieutenants with hope. Hope that they knew more than how to appease guilded sleeves. Hope that they would glance below and feel something besides the power of privilege. Hope that the reality of the ocean spray would awaken their souls.
Below deck the rabble rouses to their station. Grumbling at the years of toil. It was fine when they had theirs and it mattered not that fools gold and real gold were just a matter of reality both purchased this moment.
When the ship sails there’s hope and dreams. When the ship docks there’s anticipation and wonder. Alas, when the ship sinks there’s realization. Realization that everything sinks, all cloth gets wet, and lungs fill at the same rate no matter the lineage.
Now the playing field is even. This is a dangerous moment. A moment where all that matters is within you. The will to live or die for yourself or something greater. Prayers won’t reach heaven before you’re gurgling salt water and prayers, time has becomes a noose.
The spectrum of human emotion and behavior play out below the Captains Mast as he loses faith in humanity and goes down with his ship and dignity, but go down he will, just like the porter in the bowels of the ship.
The scrim of civility dissipates with a reality that comforts some and destroys others. True colors replace national colors and whip in the wind. No place to hide before deaths grasp. Running within anarchy serves the purpose. Everything is futile but breath and thought.
So here we are in rougher seas in a ship that’s rolling with the sea rather than on it. There is no Captain, no dignity, no order. Humanities become a whirlwind of ignorance within green seas. No more “man overboard!”, it’s every man for himself.
The difference today is the rabble is no longer satisfied with waiting silently below for orders. They know there’s no real captain, just a man with a uniform that sinks at the same rate as their tattered rags. They know because knowledge is the currency of the day, understanding is a myth. Truth is a creation, and lies are tools of the trade.
These times have came before and passed. Many ships lay full of treasures to blind future generations of pirates. There are stories of victories over the sea that are humbly recorded and hesitantly retold, because the understanding that reality has layers that order maintains hinges on knowledge that hides the truth of humanity.