Time passes

 My brother, who lives in Alaska, sent me this claw from an Alaskan brown bear.  He shot it with the Ruger .375 Alaskan that I gave him for his birthday when I flew up to visit him. I should have put something alongside it to show the size but it's about five inches. Definitely do some damage. Those bears will kill and eat people.

I don't know what I am going to do with this thing.  My uncle suggested I put it in a shadow box and hang it in my boys' room, so I may do that. They think it's cool.

Funny thing about men and animal body parts as trophies.  When I shot a mountain lion that was attacking my dog a few years ago my dad, who went and checked the carcass, wanted to cut off an ear and give to me as a souvenir. Fortunately, my mother put the kibosh on that.

And that reminds me that I have suffered more and more-serious injuries since I  have been back on the ranch than I ever did in the service, including in Afghanistan. I've been hospitalized twice since I've been back, suffered broken ribs twice, a lung puncture, broken leg, broken arm, broken wrist, all sorts of soft tissue damage, innumerable bruises, gashes and cuts. This can be a tough life, believe you me.

And now that I think about it, despite the drumbeat of news stories about sexual harassment in the armed forces, the most brutal sexual attacks I've suffered were all carried out by civilians...of the, um,,,,dusky...persuasion. I avoided a third of the same thanks to my trusty S&W snubbie, my pal, my buddy.  

********

I got my trip to Argentina out of the way, finally getting all the holes in the cheese lined up so I could get it done. I couldn't take my uncle or cousin, as I'd planned, because I filled the plane up with men I needed, including a guy who is going to handle building a landing strip on the estancia.  He's the same guy who expanded and improved our ranch strip. I was lucky he was willing to take on the task. He charges a pretty penny but I know I can trust him to do a good job.

Our Chinese buyer, whom I've written about before, visited the estancia and has us on the approved import list or whatever it is, so we have a solid customer, which makes the operation profitable from the get-go. To me, this illustrates the value of relationships.  We knew each other.  We had chatted and eaten and worked together.  He knew how we ran things in the states and had seen that in Argentina, too. So it was easy for us to work together with this new operation. Had he never heard of us, I doubt that would have been the case.

Once I completed my business there, I rushed back home. I only stayed one full day there.  I had meetings set up beforehand, got through those, checked out everything, got a good night's sleep, drove back to the airport where I'd left my plane and took off before dawn, earlier than I had planned, but I had a weather window I couldn't miss.

Besides having a lot to do, managing the ranch and our other interests, I didn't want to leave my kids, especially my two-year-old, alone, er, I mean without me, any longer than necessary. Thank the Lord my mini me is old enough and responsible enough that I can rely on her.  My mother is much improved but she still has some mobility problems. I do think the fact that I have to rely on her for so much has actually improved her mental health.  Busy hands are happy hands.

******** 

I'm due next month and will shortly head out for Destination City and our house near the hospital.  My mother will come with me.  My mini-me wants to as well, and I'd like her, too.  But she may be more valuable looking after the toddler.  My aunt will come up to stay with the boys, but the little one is going to need a familiar face with him.

I'm glad we have a Tesla at the house with it's self-driving capability.  When it's time, my mother can just have it take us to the hospital and let it go park itself while she helps me.  Bless you Elon Musk! 

******** 

This months marks the half-year of my widowhood. The anniversary day was hard on me. It's good that the time has passed, that those worst days are over, but also it's shocking to me how quickly it has passed. It's been a very difficult time for me. That's all I'm going to say about it. I just wanted to note this down for myself.

******** 

I have recovered from my most recent broken rib and lung puncture. I had pain for weeks, had to sleep in a chair, then in bed on my back, no rolling over onto my side, too much pain.  But then, one night, suddenly, I could. No pain. It just  happened like that.  Not gradually.

Bu while it was healing, I was walking outside, trying to exercise and get my lung back to full functioning and I tripped over a root and fell hard on rocky ground, breaking my wrist and arm. Son of a.... But fortunately, the left ones. I flew myself to the hospital, more worried about what harm I might have done to my baby than my own injuries and they were like, oh, it's you again.  What did you do to yourself this time?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Authority

These guys did not resent a woman hanging with them.

 Women serving in the armed forces is an old, old story now, but whenever I am dumb enough to think I will find something worth reading on the social internet I find women saying they oppose women in the military.

Well, okay, fine, don't join.  But no, that's not enough.  They want to forbid other women from serving. They want to tell other women what they can and cannot do. Be the boss of them.  And they don't want women doing things they believe they could not do.

Actually, they probably could.  They could be a PS-1 (Personnel Specialist First Class) screwing up people's careers in Norfolk as easily as they could  be a human resources staffer doing the same thing with Acme Industries in Phoenix.  I mean, come on, it's just a job. 

Civilians seem to have the belief that every person in the military is a Navy SEAL or is Sylvester Stallone blasting away with a belt-fed machine gun in each hand. Nope.

Delta Force G Squadron women operators in
Afghanistan dressed in traditional female garb.

Of course, there are combat specialties and, yes, men fill the majority of those just as they fill the majority of every other position. But there are exceptions, plenty of them. Some of them you never hear about. Some you are not supposed to hear about.

There were plenty of American women in Afghanistan.  At Camps Leatherneck and Dwyer, there were at any given time probably several hundred.  And they didn’t all stay inside the wire.  Female Engagement Teams went on patrol with Marines as did assorted IAs with specialized skills.  There were also female operatives with the SEALs and even with Delta Force.  

As for my own experience with Marines, I visited Torbert when it was just a Patrol Base with one infantry squad — three fire teams — 16 guys all alone against the world (later it was expanded to a Combat Outpost with two rifle platoons when I visited it later on).  The guys certainly did not resent me. I still hear from some of them. Friends for life.

One objection I read from a woman is that females should not serve because men would refuse to obey them. First off, doesn't this person know that women have been serving for decades, issuing orders that were obeyed.  I know of no incident where a male disobeyed an order given by a woman because it was given by a woman.  If he did, he would find himself in a world of hurt.

When I was a naval aviator aboard an aircraft carrier, I was also the assistant maintenance officer.  I gave men orders all the time.  It was routine.  The obeying of those orders was also routine. And sometimes men gave me orders and sometimes women did. And I obeyed them. Without resentment. Of course. If my superior tells me to flemish a line, I flemish it. What's the sex of the person issuing the order got to do with anything?  Until recently, a woman, Captain (now Rear Admiral) Amy Bauernschmidt, commanded the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. I think she gave an order now and again.  None were disobeyed because she was a woman.  She graduated from the Naval Academy in 1994. Thirty-two years ago! Why is anybody still howling about women serving in the military today? They've been serving well, with distinction, for decades, generations.  What the hell is wrong with you people? Are you all resentful, clueless, neurotic losers? Apparently so. 

Nuts.

This is from 1944 for crying out loud.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Test your American ancestry

 I found this quiz on-line.  My answers in italic. Yours?

An identity-classification system relevant to Whites in the USA, aiming not for 1492 but for more like 1892 (ca. 1870s to ca. 1920s):

Questions:

— (1.) Ethno-Identity: In the 1880s, what were your ancestors’ (1a.) ethnic identities, and (1b.) religious affiliations or identities (for 1b., maternal lines more important)? 

1a. American. 1b. Brethren, No-Hellers, Quaker, Methodist, Presbyterian, Evangelical Lutheran. (Why is the maternal line more important? What does it matter?)

— (2.) Languages: In 1910, what language(s) were spoken by your ancestors who were nearest to being young-adults at the time (1910)? (2a.) What language did they speak at home? (2b.) What languages could they understand?

2. English. 2a. English. 2b. Aside from English? I don't know. What they studied in school I guess, probably Latin and French, maybe classical Greek.

— (3.) Cultural-political: In the 1880s to 1910s, what were the (3a.) political- or ideological-identities of your ancestors, wherever they were in the world? (3b.) In the USA, what political party did your ancestors tend to support before the 1960s?

3a. Um...Americanism? Pro silver? Pro gold? William Vaughn Moody anti-imperialists? Teddy Roosevelt imperialists? Prior to the Civil War, I know that at least some were Abolitionists. After it, some were Mugwumps who supported Grover Cleveland. 3b. Some were Taft Republicans and some were FDR Democrats. Some didn't care one way or the other.

— (4.) Economic/Class: What were your ancestors’ (4a.) economic areas of activity, and (4b.) economic classes, in: 1875? 1900? 1925? 1950?

4a. Ranching, farming, mining, soldiering, this and that, I guess. I don't know. 4b. Does America really have economic classes? Isn't that trying to impose British social structure on us? Anyway, some were doing pretty good and others were barely making it in each of those periods. But I'd say, by and large, ever upward.

— (5.) Geography / Length of U.S. nativity: Where were your ancestors, geographically, in the early 1880s?

America, beginning in the early 17th century, scattered hither and yon. 

— (6.) Recent-formative: Where were your ancestors who were then-closest to being young-adults living in: 1925? 1950? 1975? 2000? 2025?

America, scattered hither and yon. Some were in California, some in Montana, some in Wyoming, some in Colorado, some in Texas, some in Pennsylvania, some in West Virginia, some in Maryland, some in New Hampshire, some in New York, some in.... 

 No gol-durned furriners amonst 'em.

_________

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bah, nuts and phooey!

 Feminists claim we are living in an oppressive patriarchy but I know that's not true because I have lived and worked in countries that actually have such a thing. It's horrible and under no circumstances would I dare go out in public in other than the most modest attire.  I recall in Afghanistan a female naval officer, an IA assigned to Camp Shaheen, Mazar-e-Sharif, newly arrived, went for a run wearing a tee shirt and jogging shorts along with two companions.  She was shot and killed by an Afghan army soldier, one of our dear allies.  Dressed that way she was was an offense to Allah or something. That is your patriarchy. 

And, you know what, feministas? American men are like LTjg Francis Toner, God bless him, who won the Silver Star posthumously. Look him up! No woman could ask for a better man, a man, dammit.

To the left is his Silver Star citation.  It is inaccurate in that it states the killer was an insurgent. He was not.  He was an Afghan National Army soldier who shot LTjg Florence Choe in the back after she and her Navy companions had passed by him. No wonder we called that God-damned place Asscrackistan. Those....

 Let it go, Wanda, let it go. 

No.

We have done with Hope and Honor, we are lost to Love and Truth,
We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung,
And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth.
God help us, for we knew the worst too young!
~ Kipling 

By the way, it is common for medal citations to garble the actual events or, as in Toner's case, "massage" them for political purposes.  A few posts ago I reproduced Lt. George Schuncke's Navy Cross citation. It reads, in part, "Lieutenant Schuncke valiantly launched an attack against two Japanese armored cars firing on a U.S. Navy seaplane. Despite the terrific and concentrated anti-aircraft fire he flew in low to attack, holding persistently to the heavily armored targets...." The statement is true with the clarification that he was firing on tanks, not armored cars.  But it doesn't really explain why his command put him in for the Navy Cross.  The actual situation was that a TBM, a plane with a three-man crew, had been hit and ditched close in shore and the PBY, God bless it's crew of nine, went in to try to rescue them. It came under fire from the Jap tanks and LT Schuncke, flying an FM-2 fighter plane, went after the tanks to draw their fire to him.  He knew that his machine guns could do no serious damage to tanks but he did it anyway and it worked. The tanks shifted their fire to him, the PBY was able to rescue the downed airmen and get away. But Schunke was killed, something he had considered, no doubt, accepted, and did what needed to be done, an act those who knew him believed worthy of honoring with the Navy Cross.

Now in LTjg Toner's case, the Silver Star citation is fudged, attributing his death to an "insurgent" rather than to our most worthy and glorious ally so as to avoid telling the public that we were fighting a pointless war with no good guys on either side and nothing to achieve, no victory for truth, justice and the American way to be had. It was all a damned....  Okay, Wanda, calm down, easy there, steady, whoa now...that's a girl.... 

 Ah, phooey.  I should write about sex or politics or some stupid crap like that.

*********

A while ago some dumb broads called me hyper-masculine and I was all like as if I'm sure. But now I've been referred to as "ultra-masculine." Okay, fine.  Whatever. If you say so.  But do please allow me to say in my defense that the other day I went for a walk and passing by two robust young ranch hands said hello and they nodded greetings.  After I had walked on, I heard one say to the other, "I would fuck her shadow on a gravel driveway," and the other guy said, "I would do that in the rain." They  were college guys working weekends, maybe 19 or 20, healthy, fit and, um, gorgeous. Very, very yummy. They didn't think I was ultra-masculine. No siree bob. Maybe I'll contrive to walk by them again, maybe even Mae West them. Heh. Gotta try to kick start this widow's fire thing somehow.

Okay, I won't do that. When it comes down to it, I don't want to. It's kind of fun to think about, though. Fun....

**********

 I discovered I could orgasm just by using my imagination -- no touching! -- when I was a teen. I can't remember what triggered it, so to speak, but it was about the time I discovered boys, as in boys! And they discovered me -- not just boys but males of all ages. They all began directing their male gaze upon me.  Heady stuff, almost overwhelmingly so for my undeveloped brain and naive personality. 

Anyway, some high school dreamboat I had a crush on would be talking to me, maybe while I was leaning up against my hall locker, he looming over me with his arm resting against the locker door and I would be gazing into his eyes, not really listening to what he was saying but enraptured by the sound of his voice, and suddenly everything would go out of focus and I would feel dizzy and then Boom! Orgasm. 

It must have shown in my face or something because the guy would ask if I was okay and I'd drift back to reality and say yes, sorry, and he'd walk away and his pal would ask what happened and he'd say he thought I was trying to hold in a fart.

********** 

All this chatter is a way to distract and amuse myself, so that I don't start thinking too much and sink into melancholia, then depression. It's been a tough year. And it ain't getting any better.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos then and then

 I found another photo from my Afghanistan days that probably needs to be run through ChatGPT to clean it up (left).  I'm posting it just to show you that even one of those early days cheap digital cameras could screw up photos. And to share them we usually had them printed out, which didn't help matters.

So, okay, here's what ChatGPT did with it (right). If you look closely at those trucks on the right they look kinda weird, don't they? But you can see the Danger Ranger on the left pretty clearly.

Why did I take this dumb photo? I don't know, man.  Something must have been going on over there.  But I don't remember what anymore.

This photo (right) is also messed up. Why I took it I have no memory. Again, something must have been going on that caught my attention.

Here's another photo (left) that came out better, but why I took it I have no idea. Maybe I was just trying out the camera to see how it worked. Ya know?  Notice those HESCO barriers have done their job. Probably shrapnel from a mortar attack. Anyway, it looks like marines and Brits, probably from 40 Commando, planning some fuckery.  

Here's yet another photo (right) I have no idea why I took.  It's the interior of a C2A, used for COD -- Carrier Onboard Delivery. I think they've all been replaced by V-22s now. 

I've lost so many photos over the years.  They've been on laptops that failed or have gotten lost in all the moves I've made. Ditto cameras and thumb drives.  Maybe the old film cameras were better. I can find photos from a hundred years ago that relatives took, but I wonder if a hundred years from now any of these digital photos will have survived. A natural disaster or war could bring down the internet, or wipe out all electronic storage, formats could change so that even DVDs could no longer be read.  I remember the trouble I had helping my newsman relative transfer his old articles from 5¼ - inch floppy disks written in Xywrite to thumb drives in Open Apache Writer. In a century....

Now here's a photo (left) one of my relatives took when he was in the army back in the 1930s.  Clear as a bell, just in black and white.  It's survived in perfect condition for some 90 years, perfectly viewable without any need for hardware or software.

And you know what I notice about it? Two things: rifles in the barracks unlocked and unguarded, with no worry that someone would steal them or grab one and start shooting up the place.  A memory of a now-lost high trust society.

The other thing is that the rack appears not to be made up. Oh, boy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He loved his country as no other

 Re-post from Jan. 14, 2022.

A story from the days of the America that used to be and that still lives in the hearts of her native children.  Who punishes treason now?  Is there even such a word, such a concept anymore?  Is the very concept of a country, a nation, a motherland, obsolete? Should it be?

"Remember that behind officers and government, and people even, there is the Country Herself, your Country, and that you belong to her as you belong to your own mother."

 I suppose that very few casual readers of the "New York Herald" of August 13th observed, in an obscure corner, among the "Deaths," the announcement,

"NOLAN. DIED, on board U.S. Corvette Levant, Lat. 2° 11' S., Long. 131° W., on the 11th of May: Philip Nolan."

I happened to observe it, because I was stranded at the old Mission-House in Mackinac, waiting for a Lake-Superior steamer which did not choose to come, and I was devouring, to the very stubble, all the current literature I could get hold of, even down to the deaths and marriages in the "Herald." My memory for names and people is good, and the reader will see, as he goes on, that I had reason enough to remember Philip Nolan. There are hundreds of readers who would have paused at that announcement, if the officer of the Levant who reported it had chosen to make it thus:—"Died, May 11th, THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY."

 Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d,
As home his footsteps he hath turn’d,
From wandering on a foreign strand!
~ Sir Walter Scott

 Radio play:

The Man Without A Country 

 

The original story in the December, 1863, edition of The Atlantic: 

The Man Without a Country

 

 

Devolution

I ain't stoopud.  It's them other guys!

Reading on-line stuff -- which I used to not do and now really need to stop: it depresses me -- I got to wondering if a lot of those posting their laments would have, in the past, died in infancy or childhood.  All the improvements in sanitation and nutrition, as well as medical care, especially antibiotics and vaccinations, have allowed people to survive to reproductive age who would have perished early in past generations.  

We forget how common it was for babies to die even as recently as a century ago.  In the 19th century, a common practice was to photograph your deceased infant in its coffin, as, I guess, a last memory.  You can find the photos on-line.  

One of my great aunts was one of 10 brothers and sisters.  Four died in the influenza epidemic of 1918-19.  Two died of scarlet fever.  One got what was  called brain fever and lived but was "slow" after that, as she said, and had to leave school. He never learned to read or write and lived his whole life on their ranch, a sort of gentle giant who was most at home with animals. He had no children.

Of the three remaining who reached adulthood sound in mind and body, one, who worked on the railroad, was killed in a railroading accident, had three children.The other died of cancer, had one child.  Only my great aunt survived into old age, dying in her nineties. She had three children. All seven children of these three survivors  grew into adulthood and had children themselves.

From what I've read, that sort of family history -- many children, few reaching adulthood --  was more the norm than not.  You could get a minor cut and die from the infection. Women commonly died shortly after giving birth of what was called childbed fever. Giving birth itself often proved fatal. Babies died of whooping cough, measles, mumps, flu.... Tuberculosis was a common killer. In earlier times there were such scourges as smallpox and cholera. 

Then there were accidents.  Children worked on the farm or ranch from an early age, then once the industrial age began in factories. Jack be nimble, Jack be quick -- or die.

Those with weak immune systems, genetic defects, a propensity for cancer, heart disease or other maladies, the clumsy and inept, the uncoordinated, the dull-witted, fell victim to disease and accidents more often than the coordinated and clever, the sensible and strong. Those with disagreeable personalities, an inability to get along and cooperate with others or other social defects were ostracized, killed or driven off. Only the fittest survived it all.  Darwinism in action. 

What I'm getting at is that we are in an era now in which several generations have lived to reproduce who never would have in bygone days.  So not only has the gross rising IQ measure of the Flynn Effect reversed, but we have legions of the inept, incapable, mentally weak and neurotic. When such people reproduce, even though they are terrible parents, cruel, neglectful, incompetent, indifferent, their children survive, carrying on their...deficient...characteristics.

And.... Sigh. 

I was going to write a lot more about this, what I'm thinking, but what's the use? I know I sound like an arrogant snob, writing this stuff, but, honest to God, I think it's true. Devolution in action. It's real.  I know you will mention that movie Idiocracy. I haven't seen it but I have seen clips from it, and the scene with the smart couple deciding to delay having children for rational reasons seems spot on.  The only objection I would have to the movie, from what I have seen of it, is that it scrupulously avoids race.  I need not say more.  

But the solution, if it really is one, is too terrible to contemplate. Mass abortions, euthanasia, or, at least, neutering and spaying on a colossal scale.  It will never happen. If you say war is the solution, I say absolutely not. War takes away lives indiscriminately.