I’m headed over to a meet and greet with Lori Piestewa’s mother, Jessica Lynch and her little ones, and others from the group that survived that day of ambush in the desert seven years ago. (update: didn’t happen. my contact wasn’t able to make it due to a family matter, so i just made the trip there and back without meeting any of them. bummer.)

Last week was the week of car horns. I was at Costco filling up TMBWitW’s car before our road trip to Kingman, and I was trying to get a movie started for MEG in the back seat. I had the back door open, and was leaned in past her to reach the portable DVD player. An older gentleman laid on his horn, hard, as opposed to a quick tap to let me know he was there, and it about caused a heart attack. I came out of the car, looked at him, and he inched by with his window down, so I could hear his sarcastic remark: “Thank you for being so kind and helpful and letting me by!” The car ahead of me had left, and he was in SUCH a hurry to get going that he had to squeeze by me to get started on pumping his gas. Words failed me.

Thursday and Friday I was in a cab, and both days it seemed like the entire area would have been paralyzed without car horns. Normally, people are in a rush, but just swerve around issues and idiots; if someone doesn’t move as soon as the light turns green someone in the line behind is usually in enough of a hurry that a quick tap on the horn is enough to catch the attention of someone daydreaming. I was in a left turn lane, and heard a siren coming from my left. The turn arrow came on, and the guy right behind me laid on the horn, hard, and I lost it. I slammed the cab into park, jumped out, and went back to discuss the proper use of the horn in traffic. Most of my remarks were drowned out by the emergency vehicles going by at the moment, and when I finished yelling the guy looked at me and said, “Sorry, didn’t know there were sirens coming.” I reminded him that if he was in that much of a hurry, his two choices were going around or leaving his house earlier. He didn’t like either one. Later on, I was flagged down by a lady at a bus stop. I was way ahead of the crowd headed down the street, so I pulled to the curb, expecting her to jump in. Instead, she wanted to discuss how much it would cost to get her somewhere. I was just about to tell her to get in when a lady in a minivan behind me laid on her horn. I’d had enough of horns by then. I jumped out, walked back to her and asked her if her horn needed to be fixed? She looked at me like I wasn’t speaking her native language (I wasn’t, but that’s beside the point) and started cussing me out. I asked her what she would have done if it had been a bus, instead of a cab? She looked confused for a moment and then said “well, I guess I would have gone around.” “Bingo, lady. Go around. Quit blowing your horn unless you want to wear it in an uncomfortable position.” I got back in and took my passenger to her destination. On the way, we passed the bus, and the lady in the minivan ended up stuck behind it while the traffic around her zipped by…

One of my last rides on Friday was a non-emergency medical run (also known as vouchers) for an older lady and her mother. WHen they got in the cab, they had a rather distinct odor about them – if you have ever smelled what cat urine on clothes smells like, then you know what I’m talking about. It didn’t seem to affect them. Every time the breeze shifted, it sure affected me. The odor was treatable – that’s why I carry a can of Febreeze in my briefcase. However, when I got to the car wash to clean up before I turned in, I noticed that the back seat floor mats were covered in cat litter. Used cat litter. My guess is they walked through the cat box on their way out the door and didn’t notice.

Chat ya later…

Thank you for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, God bless you all, don’t buy or breed cats or dogs while homeless pets die (spay, neuter & adopt a pet, one by one, until there are none), Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

As this magical hour approaches – magical, for me, since it is the split second shared by both the Marine Corps’ Birthday and Veteran’s Day – I cannot help but stop to think how blessed I am to have had the opportunity to serve my country. A lot of people in the current administration make it seem like it isn’t MY country any more, and in fact they want YOU to feel like YOU don’t own it, either – that you should, in fact, be sharing it with the rest of the poor, undeveloped world because it just isn’t FAIR that there are haves and have nots in this world.

I’ve got news for those who feel it isn’t FAIR – “fair” is a county thing, maybe a state thing, where you show off your livestock and your produce, the product of your own hands and sweat equity and your skills. You know, all those things the intellectuals of the world would have you believe are beneath contempt. If it wasn’t for the ones willing to get down in the trenches, both literal and figurative, the intellectuals would be crying for someone to save them. It is those who are willing, who were willing, and who will be willing in the future to lay there lives on the line for this experiment we call The United States of America that allow the intellectuals the freedom to whine about how unfair it is that we, the United States, have the largest base of manufacturing in the world. Well, we did, until the intellectuals determined that they could make all the icky manual labor jobs go away if the corporations who provided those jobs were forced to pay more for the privelege of operating within our borders.

Sorry – got off track for a bit.

I tend to do that when I think of how many family members, through the years, and tribe members and fellow sheep dogs have forfeited their lives so that We The People could have the life we have, and know that if the intellectuals had their way we would be chasing down the mighty Tofusaurus on the wide open plains for tonight’s supper – since intellectually, farming hurts the earth, and cows hurt the earth, and cars hurt the earth, and breathing hurts the earth…

Sorry, sidetracked again.

To all those who have served and are currently serving: THANK YOU. To the members, the fewer and fewer members, of the Greatest Generation: THANK YOU.

Chat ya later…

Thank you for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, God bless you all, don’t buy or breed cats or dogs while homeless pets die (spay, neuter & adopt a pet, one by one, until there are none), Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

First – and most importantly, go here and check out the line up for an eleven hour marathon of Operation Valentine – sending verbal Valentines for the troops doing the job that needs to be done. Don’t be a weeny – I’ll be checking it out all day, and I really want to see you guys popping in now and again too.

Second – whoever signed me up for Rosanna Pulido’s e-mail list – I appreciate the fact that you think I can do something, but I cannot contribute (no income = no contributions) and I certainly can’t vote – at least, not without ACORN’s help, since I live in Glendale, Arizona and she is running in the fifth district of Illinois. However, if you ARE in the Illinois fifth district, do what you can to support her – she is all for border control, and the invader’s activist’s are fighting very hard against her, proof to me that she is doing good work FOR this country.

Third – check out the blogs listed over in the sidebar under “Daily Read” and let them know how talented and insightful they are.

Fourth – I’ve temporarily halted the auto-play on the BlogTalkRadio widget in the sidebar. Yes, even I got tired of hearing my scratchy throat from so long ago. I suppose this means that I better come up with a new show if I want to have something playing, right?

Chat with you later…

Thank you for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, God bless you all, listen to The O Word on BlogTalkRadio, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

Back in the day (younger readers will refer to this era as “pre-history”) when Marines were Marines and Sailors were afraid to talk to them, yes, back when I served, there was a competition of sorts between the branches of the services. That is to say, each one was sure that the others were mere poseurs, wimps, wanna-bes and wash-outs. I served on several posts where there were multiple services (Presidio of Monterey, for one) and it was quite plain to the eye that the differences between the services were deeply ingrained and would never change. (although, given the choice, I would avail myself of the dining facilities of the Navy and the E-clubs of the Air Force as often as possible)

Something seems to have changed over the years. Looking back through several years of memories, it seems that more and more often whenever I come across a veteran, the difference in branch of service just got less and less important. Not less important to the individual, but less important than the fact that the individual had served this country.

I used to only want to talk to Marine vets. Oh, how many personal histories did I dismiss as “not important” because the speaker was not a Marine? I have learned through trial and trouble, time and temerity, that all service histories, taken together, are what makes up the fabric of the Armed Forces as a whole.

Now, I see every veteran as a brother or sister in arms, a comrade with whom I would share my last dollar or fire my last shot to protect. Marine, Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, or any of the reserve components, have my undying respect and gratitude for their service.

Some might see this as a sign of weakness; other will recognize growth and maturity when they read this. I prefer to think of it as finally realizing that without any of the services, it would be pretty darned tough to have gotten as far as we did as a country.

Although I give my Navy friends grief, they know that I respect them for their service. The same goes for others I have contact with. I may kid and rib, but underneath it all is the basic love for the fellow fighter, the bond that is forged in service for a common goal. We all served this country, in a capacity we thought we were best suited for. The end result is the important thing – freedom still rings.

I’ve said all that to introduce what I’ve been trying to work into a post since I received it almost two and a half weeks ago. The writer is not a Marine (although I think he would have made a good one), and if he had tried to have this conversation with me while we were serving I would have dismissed it and him as irrelevant, since he wasn’t a Marine. A Navy veteran and friend of mine, Gawfer, popped the following piece to me during The O Word on July 11, 2008. I was going to write a post around it, and I have tried (and failed) to expound and expand on the basic idea in this bit of writing, and have gotten nowhere. The original words are the most powerful, and anything I could do to explain it would be an utter failure:

Whether the founders followed the Christian faith or not, they understood that Biblical values formed the basis of the not only the republic but English Law, and that the republic would be destroyed if the people’s knowledge of those values should ever be lost.

This brings me to the head of the spear, so to speak. Understanding that our constitution is man’s interpretation of God’s divine law, one must assume that at times the constitution will fall short of providing adequate solutions to humanistic transgressions. When this occurs, such as the recent ruling against capital punishment extending beyond murder, and the California Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn the vote of the people regarding gay marriage, the solution is not to interject one’s opinion or to seek a populous consensus as was done in both cases, but to go to the source of our constitution; divine law.

Because secularism has pervaded our society and our nation has become mostly agnostic, our appointed judges are ruling based on a popular opinion rather than using fundamental principles of interpretation. It is very clear that in both cases, the decisions would have been exactly opposite had they adhered to the basic truths and applied biblical principles to each case. Thankfully, we are still ‘One Nation, Under God’; but that is slowly slipping away.

So, there you have it. Time and age have taken the age off of the animosity between branches of service, but at the same time it has forged a stronger bond between like-minded people. As I mentioned in a comment, when BZ urged me to keep on keeping on, if we don’t all “keep on” there won’t be anything worth keeping.

I just re-read this entry, before posting it. I realize it’s a bit of a mind-bender, and it doesn’t really flow as cleanly as it should, but I’m going to leave it up. After all, it is Monday, and this is the result of several themes that have been roiling around in my head all weekend. Have fun keening the depths of my mind.

Thank you for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, God bless you all, Time, Inc. is a bunch of weasels, listen to The O Word on BlogTalkRadio, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

Be sure to stop over and listen to (and rate!) the archive of today’s The O Word.

Do you have red on today?

***(confidential note to all the members of the Armed Forces: thank you.)***

Thank you for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, God bless you all, Time, Inc. is a bunch of weasels, listen to The O Word on BlogTalkRadio, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!