Tag: Military

Random Musings on Current Events 6.10.22

Once again it is time for some Random Musings On Current Events from the mind of a quiet, unassuming (at least in my own opinion) person observing the ramblings, rumblings, rants and revelations in the media. Additionally, I know, and it has been proven that Twitter and Facebook would censor what I have to say so I will say what I feel the need to say in this medium. However, with Elon Musk purchasing Twitter perhaps I will have to take Twitter out of my introduction but not just yet. Time will tell I suppose and for that reason I will not remove Twitter just yet from my Random Musings On Current Events introductory paragraph.

Why is an attempt on the life of a Supreme Court Justice not being decried from every corner of the land? Why is it that none of the liberal media outlets made this their top headline? Who really are the violent ones in our society? Congressional Democrats block bill to provide Supreme Court Justices additional security yet at the same time want to limit my ability to protect myself? Does anyone else see a pattern here? A pattern of subjective application of logic and law. A subjective application in which chaos, is being fomented and allowed to flourish.

I cannot believe that I am paying more than $5.50 (now it is $5.70 since I wrote the initial draft four days ago) per gallon for low grade gasoline and now I am also having to increase my food budget more than $200/month! This is happening while the Congressional January 6th committee hearings are happening. Hey Congress and media! Do you think I give a rip about this committee and its televised broadcast with commercials? No, I will be too busy working extra hours to make ends meet thanks to you! Besides it really is just a bone being thrown to the media by Congress to boost some ratings. Nothing substantial will come out of the Kabuki Theater show being put on because there is nothing to it. If something does come out of it it will just be further proof of how corrupt the ruling elites, Democrats and RINO Republicans, truly are.

Another item closer to home is my local newspaper/media outlet that happens to be a Gannet owned rag and an article on their website yesterday. The headline mentioned that Democrats are turning out more early voters that the GOP in the county that I live in. I read the article and there is much speculation and reasoning as to why this is the case but I will not go into detail. However, call me cynical, I cannot help but think what a bunch of bull or how meaningless all the debate can be. My state’s Legislature used COVID to pass an initial mail in ballot law and then made it permanent in the most recent Democratic majority legislature. I cannot help but wonder if we will ever see a Republican win in this state again considering that we are neighbors of the one party Peoples Republic of California and the power hungry elite that controls the Golden State. This on top of the rumors that Speaker Pelosi and her minion, Governor Gavin Newsom, have funneled large quantities of campaign money to the Democratic coffers of my state’s Governor and other Democratic candidates.

What I would have considered, at one time, my two favorite basketball teams are playing for the Nike Basketball Association’s (NBA’s) championship, and I will not watch a game. The NBA’s self-congratulatory statement of feigned pious self-appreciation explaining how the NBA has lost hundreds of millions of dollars due to being shut out of the Chinese market after the former Houston Rocket General Manager Daryl Morey’s “Fight for freedom, stand for Hong Kong” Tweet does not elicit one tear from me. Mr. Silver, you and your advertisers do not deserve my attention let along my financial support. I have been to Hong Kong and what was once a free, healthy and vibrant city is no more. There are more important things in life than a sport created by Naismith to keep his students occupied during the cold Massachusetts winters. You may want to explain that to your boss, Mr. Knight, as well explain that my Constitutional Freedoms far outweigh any entertainment product that you offer. I only wish that Mr. Morey had stood his ground and not apologized. After all, despite his groveling, he still lost his job.

President Biden said, “enough is enough” regarding gun violence in this country. I agree Mr. President, when will you support the right for all law abiding citizens to carry firearms whenever and wherever they choose? Because, as I saw in Uvalde, Texas, I cannot rely on law enforcement to protect me and my family. Mr. President, give me a break! 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis vetoing a bill earmarking $35 million for a Tampa Bay Rays facility days after the team went on an anti-gun tirade. I think this is awesome!

The US Department of Justice announce they will not prosecute Scavino and Meadows but Navarro is arrested on the same day this is announced. I must agree that there is a witch hunt underway, and people will continue to be arrested until finally a charge sticks somehow and somewhere to someone. Talk about the rotten politicization of what should be an objective law enforcement organization. Can anyone say GESTAPO, STASI, KGB, or FSB?

I watched “Top Gun Maverick” the other day and have to say that I enjoyed it. It was a fun movie to watch, and it even elicited some emotion, like movies did in my youth. This without the overtly political garbage being pushed by Hollywood these days. Sure, there was some changes from the original such as female fighter pilots which certainly different than the US Navy that I joined shortly after the first Top Gun was released. However, this is the new reality, and it is my understanding that some of the female pilots are good. I think the Vice Admiral Beau “Cyclone” Simpson played by Jon Hamm is actually an accurate representation of most flag officers in the US Navy today. That of being risk adverse and valuing their careers more than mission. Of course, there were the stretches, for example stealing an F-14, pulling 10 g’s as a 50+ year old, and location realism, however, I really did not care. It was an entertaining movie that I did not mind paying to see in a theater. Additionally, judging by the reports, I am not alone as revenue records are being broken by the movie.

Early results are coming in for the first round of primary elections and it does look like left wing cities may have pushed too far to the left. This is most evidenced by the recall of San Francisco’s District Attorney. Maybe there is a ray of sanity left in the world and in this nation’s once vibrant and healthy cities, but I am not going to hold my breath. San Francisco keeps reelecting Nancy Pelosi, so they have a long way to go to recapture its lost brilliance.

I went to a high school graduation ceremony for a niece and a nephew and it was held in one of the local auditoriums in the city nearest me. It was full of people with no regard for social distancing or vaccination status. Albeit there were still a few people wearing masks, but they were doing so of their own volition. For my wife, daughter, and myself, however, there was a cloud over the ceremony because our youngest daughter, who graduated two years ago from high school, did not get to have this experience thanks to the COVID scam. She and countless others missed out on their graduation ceremony’s along with however many others missed out on events thanks to the mass hysteria created, generated, and foisted upon us by our so called leaders in politics, the press, and bureaucratic institutions. Let me say that I am happy for those who get to have ceremonies this year, but it is a bittersweet moment for myself, my family, and others like us whose children did not get to have this experience.

In closing this week I have only one thing to say, “God bless America and to all who are in this country both patriots and enemies equally.”

Memorial Day 2022

Each year as Memorial Day and its associated weekend comes around, I take time to pause and reflect upon my service; the service of others that I know; the service of those before me; and most importantly the ultimate sacrifice paid by many of those who served. I will, however, be the first to admit that as a child and young person I looked forward to Memorial Day as a three day weekend in which I hoped that the weather would decide to be summer instead of winter as can happen where I lived and grew up. After all, Spring is nothing more than an increasing number of summer days interspersed with a lessening number of winter days in the inter mountain west of the United States of America. I do not remember my parents or family acknowledging Memorial Day much besides flying of the US flag except for one time. This one time my parents went to one of the local cemeteries and visited the graves of my father’s grandparents and put flowers on their graves.

The Memorial Day prior to the COVID scam being unleashed on the world I went to my first Memorial Day ceremony at the Veteran’s Cemetery closest to me and found it to be a terrifying, moving and somewhat healing experience. Walking into the cemetery I found myself instinctively pacing and separating myself from my wife as if I was on patrol despite myself never actually participating in a combat patrol. I was deep in thought remembering the time I spent in Afghanistan, those who I knew and those who I did not know that perished in Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. I also thought about those who I had worked with who served in WWII, Korea and Vietnam and my late Grandfather, a WWII vet, who is buried in the same cemetery that I was entering. It must have shown on my face and or countenance because my wife forced me to hold her hand and I soon realized that I was holding her hand tightly when one of the workers at the ceremony, a Vietnam veteran, looked at me and said, “welcome home”. It was like having water thrown on me as I suddenly came into the presence of that moment, and I thanked him in turn. Interesting enough I am wiping away a tear or two as I type this paragraph.

This year will mark the first year that I plan to attend the annual Memorial Day ceremony at the Veteran’s Cemetery as COVID marred the previous two years; the fist being canceled; the second year by my refusal to wear a face diaper outside in fresh air and the natural anti-microbial light of the sun. This year, as I reflect on the death of my child I also reflect upon the needless loss, in my opinion, of the twelve marines, one sailor and numerous civilians at the Abbey Gate of the Hamid Karzai International Airport last August. Twelve families, like me, who mourn the loss of their young, loved ones. Young lives needlessly cut short by the ineptitude of senior political and military leaders who placed their careers over proper planning and execution of an organized and planned withdrawal from a combat zone and or their out and out disregard for the lives of those who served under them.

The first place that I place responsibility is with the senior political leadership of the United States of America starting with the President and Secretary of Defense. I know that they were not responsible for the actual planning and execution of the withdrawal, however, it is my belief that they set the tone for the withdrawal that made what was a difficult situation a worse situation. I believe they most likely understood this because of the warnings prior to the attack and the lack of action in holding anyone including themselves accountable for the botched withdrawal. I say this considering the Commander of the US Central Command at that time, General Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., was allowed to serve his tour out and the Commander on the ground at that time, Maj, Gen. Chris Donahue, has since picked up another star and is now the Commander of the XVIII Airborne Corps. It amazes me how a young officer or junior sailor, airman, or soldier can have a career ruined by one alcohol related offense and or failing to adhere to the politically correct agenda being foisted upon them by senior civilian and military leadership. Yet, commanding generals who lose lives in a combat zone are promoted and allowed to serve their combat tours out.

This leads me to the failure of these senior military leaders and what to me constitutes a failure to take responsibility for their failures as was done in bygone eras in which senior leaders, being honor bound to “falling on their swords”, would take responsibility for their wartime failings. Yes, I do not know what sort of, if any direction, these senior military leaders received from their senior civilian leadership, but it is my opinion that these military leaders failed not only their civilian leadership (or maybe they didn’t and were following orders) but they certainly failed those who served underneath them. I say this because I believe that most who have spent any time in Afghanistan knew or should have known how corrupt and fragile the government was and how deep the Taliban had penetrated the government and country at large. I cannot believe knowing the US was pulling out of Afghanistan that the military leadership allowed the base at Bagram to be evacuated prior to the remaining troops and diplomatic personnel being evacuated from the country. True, they may have been ordered to evacuate by senior civilian leadership, but they could have easily resigned their post rather than execute a bad order! Again, I will say these Generals would not have lost their pensions had they resigned and so really had nothing to lose financially with their prides being the only item to lose. Instead, lives were lost so that they could maintain their pride, egos, and military careers which is a complete tragedy and failure of honor at the highest level. I would expect more from those who wear the uniform regardless of service branch.

In summarizing my thoughts for this Memorial Day, it is hard for me to be angry anymore as I feel a sense of defeat. Yes, our senior civilian and military leadership are nothing but a bunch of self-serving, sociopaths who have no honor. Quite honestly, in my opinion, it is just a reflection of society and where we are as a country, and it makes me sad that we as a people have allowed and given people of this ilk positions of power and influence in our country. I will salute those this year who have paid the ultimate sacrifice and as usual I will salute those who have served and those who do serve. For the civilians who died in the bomb blast “ta didar bad”, for the Marines and Sailor who perished “Semper Fi and Fair Winds and Following Seas”, and for the United States “God Bless”.

A Crisis in Confidence with National Leadership

I have a crisis of confidence in the leadership of my country to effectively lead on my behalf and the behalf of the majority of Americans. This has been further exacerbated in the last week with the apparent failure of senior leadership to effectively and orderly pull out of Afghanistan followed by their inability to assume responsibility whatsoever for their failures.

First, what has happened throughout Afghanistan in the past several weeks that has culminated with the fall of Afghanistan and the debacle at the airport falls squarely on senior political, civilian, and military leadership. As Joe Biden has pointed out the “buck stops here” and now the question is how big or epic will this “blunder” be. I have no illusions that the Joe Biden made this decision in a vacuum as his handlers, I am quite sure, made the decision. From this day forward I will refer to Joe Biden as the Joe Biden Cabal (JBC) because in his dotage I seriously doubt he has one shred of independence of mind left. It is time for some resignations, retirements, and quite honestly some criminal investigations.

Secondly, how am I to support and believe any of these leaders when they are now pulling out every conceivable card in the effort to make me a test subject in a mass gene therapy experiment? I was totally disheartened when Lloyd Austin claimed that every member of the armed services will be subject to the experimental shot by September 15, 2021. The jab has not even been approved by the FDA yet for goodness sakes. Mr. Austin that in not a lawful order and you should, if you were still in service, face a court martial if you make in mandatory. The military leadership appeared to have spent more time figuring out how to give an experimental jab to all sailors, airmen, and soldiers than ensuring the safe exit of Americans out of Afghanistan. I can only wonder what is being done to thwart any military planning against the Peoples Republic of China.

Speaking of the FDA and their corruptions. I find it interesting that they will push through testing on experimental gene therapy and its acceptance for a disease that really poses no more threat to the population than a flu yet they will not approve CBD, which is not marijuana, for use in food. I really find it interesting that now a pharmaceutical company is claiming to have a patent on CBD, which I thought one could not get if it is a naturally occurring substance, and the marketing of CBD will become illegal. Hmmm, does this smell of corruption to anyone else but me?

Of course, do not let me get started on the EPA which has essentially become a tool wielded to shake down industry and business in the country along with the various other bureaucratic government institutions. How did we get to the place where government agencies choose who can succeed and who cannot in our economy? I must wonder about the type of person who would aspire to positions of authority in these organizations. Are they power hungry mediocrities or useful idiots for those in the businesses who use the government to protect and gain favorable market conditions?

Lastly, for today, is the utter contempt I have for the media and big tech in this country mainly for not holding the leadership of the country accountable and, in fact, blatantly supporting the leadership’s information operation. It has become so obvious that the system has become or is so corrupt that honor no longer is present amongst these vipers and they will do whatever it takes to provide cover and concealment to the crooked political class, the crooked senior military class, the crooked business class, and especially themselves. I no longer consider any of you authorities in your so called areas of expertise. You may have power and can wield in the material world more so, but you do not in my mind which is the real seat of my power.

Random Musings 1.6.21

Once again it is time for some Twitter (for those with a litigious bent there is a trademark symbol just after the “r” in the previous word) like random musings from the mind of a quiet, unassuming, at least in my own opinion, person observing the ramblings, rumblings and revelations in the media. Additionally, now I know that Twitter and Facebook would censor what I have to say any way.

I heard today that Lin Wood may have evidence of child molestations up to and including murder being used to blackmail prominent members of the political and executive elites in this country. Just the thought of this disgusts me and if it is true these people and people who would condone and carry out this sort of act to gain political leverage should be held accountable. My stomach roils at the thought of this happening and if someone has this evidence they should be releasing it so the light of day can shine of this utterly despicable atrocity. I mean having an affair with a consenting adult whether of the same sex or not is one thing but this is a crime against the innocent which to me is unpardonable.

The news was just turned off in my house and I screamed when I learned that voting is Georgia has been halted for the night. You have got to be absolutely kidding me!?!? What happened did all the cheats move from Fulton County to DeKalb County because they knew the light was shining too bright in Fulton County? Yet another you have to be absolutely kidding me moment!

I have to admit that when I tuned into FOX News at 9 PM EST I was pleasantly surprised that they had not called the election yet. Although I am sure Paul Ryan and Rupert Murdoch are giggling as they go to sleep tonight knowing that counting has ceased.

Rasmussen Polling keeps calling me and I keep ignoring the call. To be honest I am ignoring everything remotely “mainstream” and especially all requests for money. I am one step away from divorcing myself and declaring myself independent in mind if nothing else. Quite honestly I am asking myself why I even waste my time listening to such drivel when there are so many other things I could do. For instance read some Aristotle and other Western classics.

On that note, I will place equal blame on President Trumps election trouble and the fact the elections is so “close” in Georgia at the feel of Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, Mike Lee, Tom Cotton, Ben Sasse and other milk toast, greedy, and corrupted Senators who will not stand for the sanctity of my vote. I have heard others say and I agree that the GOP is on life support and thanks to President Trump it is not dead. I for one will never support a GOP lead by any of these corrupt politicians who seem to profit from public service nor will I any candidate regardless of party who profits from public service. If they are profiting they are stealing from me and now I am convinced of it fully.

On a more international note has anyone noticed that both China and Iran have stepped up their bellicose rhetoric in the last week? I also see that Saudi Arabia is reducing their production of oil. I find it fascinating that over the past four years their rhetoric has quieted and they have, in fact, been put in their place more than once. Now, on the eve of what many believe will be a change in the Presidency they have become bolder. Is there anyone else drawing a similar conclusion? I would imagine it will be even worse if Joe Biden becomes President as the rogue actors who have lost money and power the last four years work to refill both their financial and power coffers. In fact, they cannot even wait for an inauguration!

Scam at the Fringes

I remember many years ago reading a newspaper, when there was still some actual journalism happening and not propaganda, about some people who were arrested for a unique scam. In the scam, if I remember right some bankers and or accountants set up a scam in which they shaved fractions of cents off of financial transactions which in large transactions or spread over a huge amount of transactions and deposited these fractions of cents were deposited into bank accounts controlled by the scammers. At first glance one would not think that would amount to a whole lot of money but since I am an engineer and work with numbers I will provide an easy example. Let me state that these are not the actual figures of the scam but for the sake of this argument I am presenting a simplified example.

Say for instance one is brokering a $1,000,000 transaction in which their firm charges a 10% commission. That means the brokerage firm that the accountants and bankers work with will get a $100,000 commission. If say, for instance, 1/10th of a cent is shaved digitally during the transaction of the commissions then if a penny is 1/100 of a dollar then 1/10th of the 1/100th means 1/1000th of the $100,000 is shaved or $100 is shaved. From this I say ok, no big deal, a hundred dollars will fill two of my cars up with gas with some left over to get a weeks’ worth of groceries. Please do not get me wrong I would not be happy losing the $100 but compared to the overall transaction the $100 is actually 1/10,000 of the original $1,000,000.

Where this scam becomes interesting is when there are many separate and un related transactions occurring in which this 1/10th of a cent is shaved and collected into this account or several accounts controlled by the same group of scammers. In the United States I am sure there are more than hundreds of millions if not billions of transactions happening on any given day. For the sake of this argument let’s say a $100 million dollars is transacted and 1/10,000 or this $100 million is $10,000. If a billion dollars is transacted in a day 1/10,000 of the one billion is $100,000. Now we are looking at some serious money that was made in a single day by shaving off the edges of the hundreds if not thousands of financial transactions occurring without anyone really noticing for a significant length of time. The malfeasance and illegal activity of the conspirators did not attract the notice of regulators and law enforcement for significant amount of time.

Why do I bring this scam up on a blog dedicated to the Constitution you may ask? Well, I will answer your question, it is because I cannot get this scam out of my head observing the events of the past months that have culminated with the election this past week. Specifically, the calls by the press and Democrats asking for proof of election fraud and making statements that there is no wide spread voter fraud. When I began to hear of this the previous mentioned fraud was the first thought that came to mind. Number one there is increasing evidence of election fraud. This is substantiated by the fact the numbers of people beginning to sign affidavits to the fact that they witnessed fraud, coercion, and lack of transparency belies this fact.

Secondly, I would like to posit that there may be wide spread and organized fraud hid in plain sight. Hid in plain sight similar to the fraud committed by bankers, computer programmers, and accountants in the scam I mentioned. It is just too convenient that a voter machine switched votes from President Trump to Joe Biden in Michigan that would not have been caught had it not switched a traditionally Republican district and someone actually looked into the switch. It is my understanding that this machine is used in over thirty states and let us say for instance 1/10,000 of the votes were switched to Joe Biden. Would anyone notice?

To imagine a scenario in which 30 states has this happen and 140 million people total in the country voted. If 3/5 of the states have this machine this would mean 3/5 of 140 million people is 84 million people. If 1/10,000 of these 84 million votes were switched this would mean 8,400 votes were switched and no one would notice. If 1/1,000 of the votes were switched this would mean 84,000 votes were switched and no one would notice because they are spread over thirty states and multiple counties. In this election there are more than thirty states who used this machine and in states with large populations.

Now, we have in some of the large cities controlled by Democratic Party machines where there are allegations of so many different types of fraud and we can see that taken each type of fraud individually it does not appear to include large significant numbers that could change the outcome of the election. You know the argument that 10 votes here and a 100 votes there will not be enough to change the election.

What bothers me is like the scam I presented below we may not be looking at the forest because looking at only the 10 votes here and the 100 votes there we are just looking at trees. These 10 votes here, 100 votes there, 12,500 votes dumped overnight in a counting center, 4,500 votes flipped by a computer program written by a company with definite managerial ties to prominent Democrat politicians, who knows how many votes counted without Republicans able to verify a legal count, states changing laws to benefit mail in ballots which are subsequently counted without signature verification without observation, states Attorney General’s changing signature verification requirements, a complicit Twitter, Facebook, Amazon and mainstream media, COVID and it becomes easy to see that there is a pattern. A pattern in which suddenly, to me, it becomes plausible and within the realm of reason that the criminal Democratic Party organization could be pulling of a massive fraud against our country. This vote is so close that all of these seemingly unconnected “small” events could add up and that we of the United States are being duped and having our freedoms being stolen from us in broad daylight.

I do not accept the results of this election as it stands at this moment. This apparent fraud must be investigated and shown to not be fraud for me to accept the results. Do I expect the DOJ to open a RICO Investigation? No, I would imagine there is a snow ball’s chance in Hawaii of that happening. I notice the press is ramping up their reporting of the COVID spike on the heels of the COVID immunization announcement. States are beginning to shut down again and I cannot help but be cynical that the political class is using COVID yet again to shut down large public gatherings as opposition to the election results grows.

Now I hear calls to just accept the elections and agree that changing the voting process needs to happen from conservative sources. What?!?!? No! This is the type of acquiescing that has gotten us into this situation. Do you think the Democrat Socialists will allow the voting process to be changed in a way that disfavors them? It will be uncomfortable to stand up to the thugs, crooks, and bullies. Let me tell you that it was not comfortable for me to train, go and live in Afghanistan wearing my countries uniform. To you conservatives who want to just throw in the towel I say grow some fortitude because if you do not my time in the military for nothing!!!

The Vietnam Veteran: The Forgotten Generation of American Patriots (Originally Posted on Veteran’s Day 2018)

When I was young, I started out in the work force and considering I was born when the Vietnam War was in its heyday, I could not help but find myself working along many Vietnam War veterans. In the eighties at a time that the end of the Vietnam War was slightly over a decade in the past. I can remember a gentleman who hid a beer can inside a hallowed out seven up can and could not get through the day without a couple of beers. I learned later that he had gone out on a patrol and was the only survivor of his squad. Another gentleman picked up a stick and within two days carved out a k bar knife in excruciating detail. He had been a US Navy SEALS and did not talk too much about what he did, but he did share a couple of telling items. The first was a story was about being dropped off in Seattle after his enlistment. In the story he was in a bar and someone called him a baby killer. He said within seconds he had the person on the ground and was about to tear the guys throat out when someone pulled him off. In retrospect how grateful he did not kill that man. The other about how one of his teammates had gone completely off the grid somewhere in the Northern California woods and would only talk with his Vietnam team mates. Yet another gentleman that I worked with woke up at 4:00 every morning to take care of farm animals before coming into work for a long day of sometimes manual labor. His eyes would at times go far away and mist up. He had been in the US Army Special Forces and he did not talk about what he had done or saw.

Moving forward slightly over a half a decade later I worked with a gentleman who had served in Cambodia and Laos in the US Marine Corp. He too almost killed someone when he returned home because he had been spat on. This, of course, was in California. He credited the Marine Corp with getting him some psychological help that calmed him down. He made the comment that if he had not been on active duty at the time and had not received the treatment, he probably would have killed someone and ended up in prison.  Later in life, when I was preparing to go to Afghanistan, a gentleman that I had met as a professional insisted that he meet with me before my deployment. A person who I had known for more than ten years and had worked on several projects with confided in me that he had served as a young enlisted man in the US Marine Corp doing a tour in Vietnam. During the conversation he asked me to keep confidential that fact because the people in the industry that we were professionals in would have, in his opinion, not favored his service favorably. He too mentioned the shame that our country showed toward these returning veterans upon their return from Vietnam.

I have spoken with many Vietnam Veterans and they all seem to have had some variation of the same story.  This was the shame that was heaped upon them when they returned home. Fortunately for me many lessons were learned and upon my return from war it has been so much easier to talk about PTSD and the lingering effects of being in a war zone and etc. I thank heaven this is the case because it is not easy and it is real, speaking from personal experience, and I now have a small glimpse about what they went through upon their return and what they probably still experience. I say this because being a uniformed member of the armed services in a war zone has changed me in ways that I would have never expected.

Yesterday I went to my first Veteran’s Day parade and I must admit I was nervous about attending. For many reasons I was fearful about what my emotional response would be. I experienced a spectrum of emotions including, as previously mentioned, fear, stoic tension, anger, laughter, and relief. I will not go into details, but I am glad that I went. Next year I may even try to cajole my family along since after all they are a veteran family.

What struck me is the overwhelming majority of Vietnam Veterans in the parade. I am pumped up that some many of them are stepping up to keep the tradition alive considering what they went through upon their return and in the years afterwards. What I believe is somewhat of a lost generation of men in this country is and has found its way back into society. It saddens me that essentially some of the best years of their lives were wasted thanks to Hollywood figures such as Jane Fonda and the leftist antiwar movement demonizing the everyday soldier. However, thanks to their sacrifice I and others of my generation did not experience that. I was heartened to see one banner that essentially said though the Vietnam Veterans are the lost generation we will never leave behind another generations. They truly are living up to that and I thank them for that. Happy Veterans Day to all the veterans and their families and thanks to all for their service.