JDs Bunker

I am Christian. If that proclamation offends you, then it is you who are insecure certainly not I. I do not shudder at the thought of confrontation with the American Civil Liberties Union, Freedom from Religion Foundation, or any of a number of Godless oriented organizations bent on removing God from American society. I do not support suppressing any group opposed to what I believe. At this stage in American history, Christians better make a stand. For their own sake first, and then to preserve the country that still allows them to freely worship – as long as we do not get too public with it.

Our American revolution began in Churches. These clergy were dubbed by the British as the Black Robed Regiment. They preached about God-given freedom – the very freedoms spoken of in our Declaration of Independence and protected by our Constitution. It is not by accident that America rose so quickly in history to become the most powerful and prosperous nation in the world’s history of nations. Our country was founded on Biblical principles and in our endeavor to be a free people we relied on the protection of divine Providence to see us through. Because we trusted God, he blessed us.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The David and Goliath story is still applicable. Only now, it is the American Christian community that is forced into the David position pitting small communities against well-financed organizations like the ACLU and our pastors against the wrath of the Internal Revenue Service. We need a Black Robed Regiment to take a stand and lead this nation back toward God and it founding principles. But, we also need individual Christians to take a stand. If the forces of government want to arrest you for praying in public, praying where you work, praying in a public school, praying at a public event, or a Pastor who dares preach the truth… then let them send in the troops. Maybe it will take civil disobedience on a large scale just so that disengaged Americans can see how close it is to the end of this country and the end to their freedom.

Every election cycle, we see liberal politicians in certain Churches making political speeches with nary a disparaging word from the government or from a worthless and largely dishonest media. However, if a pastor – other than Jeremiah Wright – takes on the direction of our government his or her Church faces the threat of losing their tax status. “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” I say, let them come. When a government is endorsing ideals in contradiction of Biblical teaching, a Christian Pastor is obligated to share the truth with the congregation. Some Pastors are doing this with Pulpit Freedom Sunday demonstrating that it is the Pastor and God, not the IRS or others who determine what is preached from the pulpit.

Today in America, we have embraced what is written in Romans 1: 18-32. We have a government that is restricting our guaranteed religious freedom – primarily that of Christians. We have a government more protective of Islam than they are of Christianity. Our current government is the most anti-Israel government in my lifetime. We are giving money to Ishmael while abandoning Isaac. I will bless those who bless you…

We are being led down a path to our own destruction. Must we follow? We are giving away God’s gift of freedom and by turning away, His blessings too. The next election will not fix what is wrong with us if we even survive until the next one. Only individual Americans and our Christian leaders, not the pretenders collecting paychecks in Washington, taking a hard stand and declaring that it stops here and now will save us.

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! – Patrick Henry 1775

©2013

How far have we strayed from our founding principles? Read The 5000 Year Leap

Palin’s Cry: Cling to Your God, Guns, Constitution

Last week was a hoot with Americans firing their shotguns into space and off back porches. We could not, however, follow Shotgun Joe’s advice this week. Good steel doors are simply too expensive to ding up with buckshot. Besides, if the bad guy is on the other side of the door I do not need to waste expensive ammunition trying to shoot holes through it. The only thing I have to say about the Vice President’s armed self-defense advice is where are all of those people who were afraid that Sarah Palin might end up only a heartbeat away from the Presidency. Do you feel safer now? Sarah can shoot a rifle. Joe can only shoot off his mouth and he is a lot more dangerous for our country when doing that than is any law-abiding armed citizen.

Now, children are getting themselves into trouble over guns. If only they had followed Shotgun Joe’s advice, they might not now have these horrible blights on their records.

A 5 year old girl threatened to shoot another child with her Hello Kitty bubble gun. She was interrogated by the school administration for three hours, without her parents being notified. She was probably water boarded. Ultimately she was suspended from kindergarten for 10 days for making a terroristic threat – a bubble gun terrorist threat. Not to be out done, an 11 year old 5th grade girl was suspended from school for 30 days for having a piece of paper that happened to look like a gun. She was searched and humiliated in front of her classmates for bringing a gun to school. A 6 year old was suspended from school after pointing his finger and saying pow. A 7 year old boy was suspended from school when he threw a pretend (nothing in his hand, nothing up his sleeve) hand grenade. He threw it at some pretend bad guys in his effort to save the world. Another terrorist leaning 7 year old was suspended from school because the pop-tart he was having for breakfast took on the shape of what appeared to be a gun. His teacher flipped out imagining I suppose the amount of strawberry pop-tart mayhem that may have ensued. She is not doubt a hero.

Call me crazy and dangerous, but one of my proudest days in the fourth grade was going to school with my Lone Ranger duds on, including my six-guns and a silver bullet. Can you imagine the terror I caused? Except for the fact that Bucky was the Rifleman and Bobby was Zorro the rest of the kids may have been intimidated. Fortunately for them, they were all under the protection of Sgt. Saunders and the squad, from the Combat television series. Some days we would have ferocious battles out in the school yard against the pretend bad guys. We always killed them all and saved the town or country, whatever was at stake. Hi Yo Silver!

When we were not shooting up the bad guys, we were playing tackle football with no pads, we were playing basketball on the outdoor court, or we were playing king of the hill and whisper this one – dodge ball. But we called it war ball. I learned some valuable lessons during these intense 15 minute periods. I learned that leverage and a low center of gravity was important if I was going to knock Grant over. Grant was much bigger than me. I also learned that if I cupped the dodge ball between my palm and wrist, I could whip the ball hard enough that my targets hands would clap together just right after the ball hit them. Never in the head though.

I do not know how any of us survived this brutal period in our lives without growing into psychotic killers. Well, yes I do. We were encouraged to get outside and run around like kids should. We were allowed to use our imagination and not fear our shadows. Our heroes were the good guys. They were clean and honorable. They were not tattooed body pierced athletes or rappers with their britches on backwards. They were not two and half stupid people nor were they Will or Grace. Instead of dutifully taking our doses of Ritalin, we burned out that pent up energy by being kids.

Our children are the future of our nation. What we are allowing the public education system and pop culture in general to inflict on them is unforgivable.

©2013

There was real excitement here on the hillside last evening. We have not had such fun since Grandpa grabbed the Ben-Gay tube instead of the Preparation H. We decided to follow Vice President Biden’s advice. The advice he says he gives his wife whenever she hears someone prowling around in the woods out back of the house. We all went out on the back porch with our shot guns. And there are plenty of shotguns here in Wild and Wonderful. We pointed in the general direction of the woods just like Ol’ Joe told us too and fired off a couple of rounds. Keep in mind that the direction of the woods can be just about 360 degrees in these parts. My neighbor Marvin, just up the hill from me, is still digging buckshot out of his vinyl siding. Yes, we have that here in West Virginia. The old lady out the road who is always peeking around the drapes has not been seen near a window for hours. May need to go check on her in a bit, but with all the gunfire it might be wise to call first. We do feel better now Mr. Vice President, especially my wife. She was there on the porch watching all of the excitement leaning on her AR-15. It is much lighter and easier for her to operate. It does not kick like the 12 Gauge.

Of course, just like Ol’ Joe’s story about telling his wife to shoot the double barrel into the woods out back, all of mine was made up malarkey too. You have to admit, it was at least as funny as would be the Secret Service agents running for cover out behind the Biden residence. But is that not typical of the progressive blowhards? Spread a lot of malarkey, get the compliant media to chime in, and then use it to push gun control. And if we ban those bad weapons, get ready here comes the false hope, the lunatics in the world will stop killing people. This plan has worked very well in Chicago. As far as our constitutionally protected and legally owned weapons, what the Spartans told the Persians. Molon Labe!

What is more shocking than the malarkey and false hope con, is the ease with which and how cheaply people want to sell their freedom. A freedom purchased for them with the blood of honorable men and women. They will sell it for a cell phone and a food stamp card. People who do this, do it from a foundation of shocking, glaring ignorance. It is a foundation that has no ties to faith, no ties to family, no ties to American history – true history, and no understanding of their own plight.

How does it happen that people are so willing to enslave themselves to a government master? And do it so cheaply. First, they are fed a load of malarkey and in many cases throughout the entirety of their lives. Someone else caused their problems. Someone else is to blame for their predicament. (Also known as Bush’s fault syndrome.) These people who caused their predicament now owe them. Then someone happens along and offers them hope. Hope that is as phony and fake as Ol’ Joe’s rules for how the women folk should defend themselves.

The false hope con always follows the malarkey. You are in the predicament that you are in because the wealthy people of this nation, excluding of course the Hollywood wealthy and the political wealthy – and the Kennedys -, stole the wealth from you. Support me and I will make them pay a fair share. I promise you free medical care, free college education, good paying jobs and I am going to level the playing field and see to it that you get what you deserve. And just to show you what I can do, take this free phone and debit card. And then, they commit voter fraud to ensure the free stuff keeps coming and the yoke of slavery slips easily around their necks. Freedom ends for them who choose to be slaves.

I saw an article a couple of days ago. It offered a $10,000 prize to anyone who could come up with the best plan for the conservatives to take control of the Republican Party and win the 2016 election. The first thought that came to my mind was, who gives a rat’s rear end about the Republican Party? How about we figure out how to take back the United States of America?

Here is the plan Mr. Viguerie. Run for something. Be out there every day running for something not against something. You ran against Obamacare and what did that get you? Do, you want to take back the party or the country? Every day we should hear from prominent conservatives, other than on talk radio, about the most exceptional nation ever known to man. We should hear about freedom, liberty, life, and abundance and with that your plan to ensure one and producing the other. You can keep your money.

If the communist progressive hold on our country cannot be broken in 2014, there will be no free American nation to worry about in 2016. America the country may be fundamentally transformed, but America the idea will always live in the hearts of free men.

You cannot take freedom. It can only be given away.

© 2013

Not long after I enlisted into the Army, the draft ended. We became an all volunteer force. Many people who might have served time in the Armed Forces, never would again. Army Reserve and National Guard units would no longer be the place where professional athletes, the other wealthy and the sons of politicians spent their service time. There would be no more need for phony deferments that were simply not available to the typically drafted poor or middle-class male. For women, it was always a volunteer proposition. Not long after we became an all volunteer force, the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) was disbanded and the women were integrated into the regular Army although not fully into all branches. They were excluded from the Combat Arms.

By law, women were never required register for a possible draft with the Selective Service because they were, according to a Supreme Court decision, excluded from direct combat roles and the purpose of the draft was to provide men for combat. The Supreme Court obviously did not understand that drafted men served in all branches of the Army. If we follow logically, 18 year old women should move out promptly to their local selective service office and make themselves available for the draft.

I suppose I am trapped in a time when the differences between women and men were distinct. John McCain said he would be proud to see his daughter serve in combat. No one asked him how he would feel about her being tortured for years as a prisoner of war in the Hanoi Hilton.

I want to make my position clear. I believe anyone who wants to serve in the Armed Forces of the United States of America should be allowed to give it a try. I believe that they should be allowed to serve in any branch of the services. What I can never support is changing standards to accommodate those who might not have otherwise qualified and using it to press forward an agenda that has nothing to do with the opportunity to serve. Service in the Armed Forces is not a Constitutional right.

I have a rather cynical world view these days. I believe decisions such as the one to allow women into direct combat roles is to smooth the path way for Hillary -at this point what difference does it make – Clinton to be Commander-in-Chief. Nothing ever turns out to be for the stated purpose. It is most certainly not so that women can have the opportunity to die in direct ground combat. I served a long career in Army combat support units and served with many women. Like men, some were spectacular, some were just average, some were mediocre and some were abject failures at life and at service. I do not recall very many, at least enlisted women, being angry that they were not allowed into the Infantry. A woman in a direct combat role is just another item that has long been on the liberal social engineering shopping list for the military. Like open homosexual service, it most certainly is not about service.

In 2010, I wrote about don’t ask, don’t tell.

Homosexuals openly serving in the military will kick the door wide open to societal acceptance of homosexual behavior as a norm. Homosexual partners will become military dependents, entitled to all of the benefits associated with being a military family member. Homosexual marriage will no longer be an issue. Repeal of don’t ask, don’t tell will make it a non issue. How could it be otherwise? One of our nation’s most trusted institutions does not do anything with half-steps. Using the same energy with which Equal Opportunity and Equal Rights laws and policies are supported and enforced (as they should be), the military will be the leader in bringing us Gay Culture and Gay History Month celebrations and gay affirmative action. There is no sarcasm in that statement. The military will lead the way toward making homosexual behavior normal and acceptable to the greater society and will be pointed toward as the example of how homosexuality should be accepted by everyone. The society, which holds its military in high esteem, will follow their lead.

There have already been homosexual weddings held in Army chapels and Leon Panetta just extended dependent benefits to homosexual partners. It did not require a prophet to see that coming.

Calling it “a matter of fundamental equity,” Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta today signed a memorandum to the service secretaries and the Pentagon’s top personnel official extending benefits to same-sex partners of service members. – American Forces Press Service

It too was never about service.

Open homosexual service is not about service just as homosexual marriage is not about marriage. It is about whether or not American society is ready to accept homosexuality as normal and therefore make homosexuals a protected minority class. The military and marriage are institutions that stand between acceptance and rejection of homosexual behavior as normal. For homosexuality to be generally accepted, these two institutions must be dismantled. They must accept homosexuality as normal.

In the same sense, combat roles for women are not about opportunities for women.

Is American society now ready to accept the real possibility that their daughters will become conscripts for combat roles just to satisfy what may be the last opportunity for a minority of liberal progressives to impose their ideology on the rest of America? Maybe Ellen can make recruiting commercials.

In good conscience, I do not know if I could presently suggest military service to a young man or woman. That saddens me greatly. The Army has been my extended family for most of my life. Army Chaplains are instructed to stand against their faith and not speak out about homosexuality. They are told when giving invocations at events not to pray in the name of Jesus. Men and women now serving are told to embrace homosexuality or leave the service. We are moving dangerously close to gender-norming our direct combat specialties. We continue the dismantling of our military and the destruction of its warrior culture.

The draft will necessarily return to America. The dismantling of the greatest professional military ever assembled will be complete. Utopia achieved.

©2013

It has not been long since much of the country professed outrage over the Patriot Act. Especially the piece of it dealing with wiretaps – or government eaves dropping. Collecting and maintaining information on those of us who are not terrorists or criminals. Loss of privacy for all of us was determined necessary collateral damage – we had to forfeit some freedom to ensure security. Is that not somewhat of an oxymoron? Moronic at least. And, Americans are always naïve enough to think that government will never abuse the freedom we give up.

It was a Republican presidency at the time so the liberal and media outrage was on queue. Not that political party matters. Progressivism rules Washington. I remember writing that we should be as concerned about Google. Maxine Waters, another glittering jewel of intellect, was boasting on the Roland Martin radio program the other day that, “The president has put in place an organization that contains the kind of database that no one has ever seen before in life. That’s going to be very, very powerful. That database will have information about everything on every individual in ways that it’s never been done before.” I feel more secure now. Do you?

The same people had their drawers in a wad because the terrorist killers, combatants, held at Guantanamo might not be afforded the same level of due process guaranteed American citizens. Now, however, they are not too concerned that the President and his Attorney General have decided that execution orders can now be written for American citizens without the benefit of due process. Got to love those drones. Do you know they are making them very small now? About the size of your hand. If you see a toy-like helicopter zipping around the neighborhood and there is no kid nearby with the controls, you might want to take cover lest it fly up and shoot you in the face with a hollow point. We standby, some of us cheeringly, and forfeit more of our freedom and protections in the name of what? Security? Now that it has started, where does executing American citizens without the due process of law end?

Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.” – Benjamin Franklin

My freedom is your freedom. Everyone does not see it that way. Jim Carrey, clown, posted to his Twitter account “Any1 who would run out and buy an assault rifle after the Newtown massacre has very little in the body or soul worth protecting.” Well Jimmy, I suppose you and I have differing views on whom and what we should protect. First, stick to being a clown because you are good at that. Knowing weapons, no so much. There are no assault rifles for the general public to purchase. None of them will fire a burst or on full automatic. No Jimmy, these are rifles cosmetically altered to look, not function like, military assault rifles. The 2nd Amendment is a right that I imagine you can live without. Millions who did not survive in Stalin’s Russia, Hitler’s Germany, Mao’s China, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, etc. might wonder about such thinking.

Maybe you should question why the federal government (not the Department of Defense) is buying up so much ammunition. Is it because of the President’s proclamation that, “We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.” I do not like to make this comparison because it makes me a little ill to my stomach, but read up on why Hitler created the Waffen SS, the armed wing of the Nazi party. Scary times they are Jimmy.

The young men and women who serve in our armed forces might argue with you that every body and soul just like every freedom and guaranteed right is worth protecting. Even the body and soul of a misguided clown. America needs its clowns.

Today, you might not care about the freedom to keep and bear arms. You may cheer taking it away. You may not care about the freedom of religion and prefer to see it put into our now empty closet. But tomorrow when they come after a freedom you do cherish, like getting on to your twitter account and speaking your mind, how will you feel then? Not to worry Jimmy, millions of us will not stand by and let you forfeit freedom nor will we go quietly while you cheer its demise.

©2013

A motivatin’ over the hill…

I like many old rock and roll tunes. On the way home the other night, Johnny Rivers came on singing his version of the Chuck Berry hit, Maybellene. Released in 1955, it was a song from better times in America. At least in my view it was better times. The American foundation was firm. It looked like Normal Rockwell painted it. Much has happened since then.

Do you reckon someone from 1955 would describe 2013 as the American way – and vice versa? In 1955, people with the “right stuff” were starting to fly at twice the speed of sound and were learning how to travel to the moon. Today, it seems, we are content chasing windmills while our space agency does Muslim outreach.

In 1955, it was okay to pray in school. It was not okay to kill an unborn child. We forbid prayer in 1962. That began in earnest the push to remove God, the God of Christianity anyway, from public view. In 1973, the same group of people who took prayer from schoolchildren gave women a choice. Because of the choice, more than 50 million children would never make it to school, much less pray there.

We became involved in Vietnam in the 1960s. It was not good for our country and it was not good for our Armed Forces. It became a war managed by politicians and not Soldiers on the battlefield and as is always the case it was the Soldiers who paid the price for Washington’s incompetence. The same mindset has turned the current long war into Vietnam. Dangerous rules of engagement and Washington incompetence are once again responsible for killing American Soldiers. After Vietnam, our Armed Forces were beat down, hollowed out and not well supported by the Washington ruling class. Not much different from today except now there are more dangerous people ready and capable of taking advantage of that. Soldiers will die again because of Washington stupidity and ideologically and political driven leadership. Our socially engineered military utopia may please some who will never wear the uniform of one of our Armed Forces, but will it be able to defend America – as it stands virtually alone in the world?

Soldiers swore oaths to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. When there is an all out assault on the right of Americans to keep and bear arms and when they are ordered to disarm law abiding Americans, will they consider who is actually abiding by the Constitution and who is not? And act accordingly?

We have learned through time and experience that we cannot count on the Supreme Court of the United States. They have wholly politicized themselves and routinely pulled decisions from their nether regions. I suppose when one sits at the last stop on the line, the power and ability to change our national direction and character with one decision might be too overwhelming for mortal minds – especially ideologically weakened minds.

We cannot rely on the Congress. I believe it is corrupted beyond repair. We have let it become a national ruling class – a wealth producing family industry incapable of producing anything of value for Americans. They have made themselves irrelevant, superseded by executive orders and regulations taking away our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms they are sworn to protect.

Political party affiliation is meaningless. In America, in 2013, there is Washington and then there are the rest of us. How often do you see your Congressional representative in the home district?

As we race up the hill in an old Ford with steam rolling out from under the hood all that truly matters is what you believe and the foundation of those beliefs. How did you arrive at what you hold dear? I wager if you walked down the street where you live and asked people what they believed, you would not get many comprehensible answers. Culture has succeeded in beating those long held beliefs in God, Family, Freedom, and Country out of many of us. Too many Americans do not view the world from that foundation. No, that is replaced. It is replaced with false hopes. Hopes that stem from promises. Promises that come at you from whatever direction and whatever speed the popular culture winds are blowing. The winds shift and the promises are never fulfilled. Then a foundationless people do not know what to believe.

America is “motivatin’ over the hill”… the question is can we and are we willing to slam on the breaks.

©2013

Queen of battle…

Do you know that I have never heard an Infantryman (suppose we may soon be calling them Infantrypersons) complain about their branch being called The Queen of Battle. One of the first marching cadences an Army recruit in training learns is, “Pick up your rifle and follow me. Queen of Battle Infantry.” Queen of Battle may be politically incorrect these days. I do not know. Actually, it is hard to know anything these days. I stand back and observe. Those serving have a lot to deal with. They do not require my help.

America, the largely uninformed America most of whom have never and will never serve in the Armed Forces, is standing by while the organization to which belong the only humans in the world, who have willingly placed their lives on the line to protect the freedom of their countrymen, is being decimated. Decimated by social engineering. Decimated by their civilian leadership that wants to build a model of their utopia inside the services. Because they can. Complicit in this decimation is a collection of head nodding flag officers. The flag officers in disagreement with the direction of our Armed Services are being shown the door. Warrior Generals are being replaced by politically oriented Generals. The people who always pay the price for inept political and military leadership are the Soldiers on the ground.

I was an Army Drill Sergeant for 3 years starting in 1980. The Soldiers I was charged to train, if they remained in the service, have already retired. By now, they may have children serving. We had a fairly significant social engineering project during that time. It was Gender-Integrated Basic Combat Training. No matter what you hear or will hear in the coming days, I can tell you from being there – it was an abject failure then. We tried integrating basic training companies by having male and female platoons. We could not stress male trainees without risking injury to female trainees. I believe we invented the female pelvic stress fracture – caused by females over striding to keep pace with males during the daily road marches. When injuries increased, we placed female platoons in the lead to pace the road marches. We lessened the injuries for females, but we also failed to stress the males. After a few cycles of this experiment, wise leaders returned to segregated companies. All male or all female. Training improved and Drill Sergeants did not have to spend their nights rooting the boys and girls out of the stair wells and other places doing what is natural for teenagers. Discipline also improved. However, some geniuses who had never strapped on a pair of combat boots decided that integrated was best. So to make it work, we gender-normed the fitness standards. Meaning simply that men and women had to complete the same training, but to different standards. For example, a male may not get out of basic training unless he could do 40 pushups, but a female might get by with 10. If you ask any Drill Sergeant today, he or she will tell you how great it is going in integrated training companies. Because they have to. I will stand by for the first reports from gender-integrated (and future gender-normed) One Station Infantry training. And I fully expect that they will be publicly glowing as well.

With homosexuals, it was preached to us about how it was all about service and not having to live a life in secrecy. No, it was about normalizing homosexual behavior. Army Chapels are holding same sex weddings. It was never about service. Those who wanted to serve were already serving. Now, it is the same song. This is about women having the opportunity to reach the highest levels of the service, normally achieved by experienced and accomplished Combat Arms Officers.

My stand is simple. Any woman who wants to be in the Combat Arms should be allowed to try. But, she should meet the same physical standards as do males in the Combat Arms. It will not happen however. We will have a gender-normed Queen of Battle. And our combat effectiveness will suffer.

A thought for you to ponder. GI Jane was a movie as are many other fantasies where 130 pound women beat the snot out of 200 pound men. A 200 pound male Soldier in full combat load will top out at 250 pounds plus maybe as much as 275. The combat load does not get lighter just because you are female. No one is going to carry her stuff. A 200 pound Soldier has the upper body strength to drag a wounded comrade to safety. If his buddy is a female, both may die because she does not have the strength to complete a critical task.

General Dempsey thinks the only issue for the “young ladies” is their privacy, “and we can work that out.” That should be a recruiting poster.

©2013

A Woman Veteran’s View

Questions for Panetta

Clinging to Freedom…

I have a shirt pocket sized New Testament with Proverbs and Psalms. It has a camouflaged cover. I picked it up from an Army Chapel some years ago. It has been with me since. It now fits neatly into a pocket in my day planner. Its edges are getting a little worn. My day planner is secured inside a binder that another Soldier gave to me more than 20 years ago. It is still with me Ricky.

When I pop open the day planner at a meeting or on my desk the little Bible, my old Soldier’s smart book, is plainly visible. I read from it every morning before beginning the day’s work. If you should see me in a waiting room of some sort, at an airport or some other place and I happen to be reading from my Kindle I may be reading my electronic Bible. It is always in the top one or two books on the Kindle menu. I try hard to begin and end each day reading from it. It does not always happen, but it is my aim. I always read something relevant to what is happening in this world. I feel guided and comforted by the words. My President calls that clinging to my Bible. I call it an island of sanity. An island of truth. A peaceful place.

Sadly, I am also and armed citizen of this great nation. I spent much of my life in the United States Army. I swore a solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same. I also swore to obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. To clarify, that means that I swore to obey orders that are legal – those that comply with the law of the land, our Constitution. So help me God.

I still hold to that oath. I never felt that I needed to be armed with personal firearms. I knew that if I was called on to defend the citizens of my country, the unit arms room would supply me with all the weaponry I needed. I whole-heartedly believe that we have arrived at a point in time where our nation is the bat of an eye away from becoming a tyrannical dictatorship. The people we elected to represent us in our free republic are themselves trampling the very thing I, and they too, swore to support and defend. Or they are standing by why the executive branch of our government does it. So, these days I feel the need to be an armed citizen. My President calls that clinging to my guns.

There is something that I want each member of the United States Congress to understand. Under the current leadership of this nation, you have become irrelevant. What have you accomplished in 4 years? All you have managed is to have Americans standing by for the Reichstag fire. While you are strategizing for the party and your piece of the power rather than defending our country others are looking for the final crisis to exploit. The tipping point. You are allowing my freedoms – those given to me by God and guaranteed by the document we all swore to support and defend – to be picked off one-by-one. When the Reichstag is ablaze, who will be standing by to swoop in and save us? You know the answer.

It is the specific freedoms written into and guaranteed us by our constitution that have kept us a free people.

Mr. President, what I am clinging to is freedom.

A real cliff hanger…

Did you ever have one of those falling dreams? One where you always seem to wake up just before experiencing the sudden stop that is at the end. I have. I have also had dreams of being trapped somewhere naked. Like at work. Trying to figure out how I became so exposed.

I am not crazy. You have had those dreams too so go ahead and admit it. I am no oneirologist. That is what the people who purport to interpret your dreams call themselves. No, I do not know if they also read palms. If one was interpreting the dreams of Washington politicians would he be a proctoneirologist. I am just saying, considering where most of those heads are.

I once had a dream catcher hanging from the review mirror of my pick-up truck. I bought it in a souvenir shop in Pigeon Forge. Probably made in China. Can you imagine the Chinese slave laborer wondering what the heck this thing I am making is? I totaled that truck and dang near myself too. Guess it was a nightmare catcher too. I do not know what falling and naked dreams might mean other than highlighting ones insecurity. I have not had such dreams for a long time. Could be that I am growing secure with who I am and what I stand for. Could be because I totaled the dream catcher. Who knows? Ask your oneirologist.

Here in the land of the once free, we are having our own falling nightmare. It is over the fiscal cliff. We are assured if we go over, our national debt will only then become a real problem. Our taxes will go up. Our military will disintegrate and we will have to double up on free cell phones and food stamps.

Washington’s politicians will be left standing. Naked. Exposed. Well, more naked than they believe they already are. As in the band of little misguided emperors with no clothes. They have nothing left behind which to hide their nakedness either. Even their lies are reruns. Maybe they fell. Bumped their pointy heads and cannot remember. Maybe I am confusing that with another naked nightmare. A bourbon soaked naked nightmare. I will have to think on it some more. Politicians, equally guilty of causing our national naked falling nightmare can only blame one another and the toothless woman in Cleveland does not care who is wrong as long as she has her free cell phone and the SEIU can get her to the voting booth. And maybe toss in a bottle of T-bird. Makes you want to stand up and belt out The Star Spangled Banner. Does it not?

Frankly, I believe we have run out of cliffs. We have leapt off so many that we now must make up new names for them. The fiscal cliff? Kind of hard to go over it leaping or otherwise when we are already buried under its rubble. Our great grandchildren will be lucky to dig themselves out.

We jumped off the moral cliff long ago. We live now in the shadow of the valley of moral relativity. Or is it death? The death of a free nation. That valley is filled with broken families and with people who do not know their way out.

Screwtape’s minions no longer whisper evil into ears. They broadcast it over prime time television, the Internet and in theaters with tacky little signs Scotch taped to the doors that remind us “no weapons are allowed in this building”, unless they are producing murder and mayhem on the big screen. With Dolby surround sound. In 3 D. We crash, burn, and destroy families, and abandon children to raise themselves. Or we leave their raising to progressive school teachers and the Internet baby sitter. We turn them loose on society with a shaky moral foundation tempered with a flawed pop culture and over medicated with psychotropic drugs. Then we want to blame inanimate objects for what ails us. Or, much more dangerous than that, we want to blame our freedom. We want to blame the fundamental rights guaranteed to us by the law of the land.

Our country, what remains of it, will not be fixed in Washington. It will be fixed from the pulpit. The same spot where the American Revolution began. It will be fixed by the man in the mirror saying the erosion of my freedom stops now. Squandering of our national wealth stops now. Tyranny stops before it takes hold. There is no compromise.

We better wake up from our falling nightmare before we reach the fatal sudden stop.

©2012

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying

“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived.

Luke 2:1-21 (NIV)

Merry Christmas. May God bless you in the New Year.