Free Republic

The real base cause of the military's recruiting problem has been building for decades - shortly after the all volunteer force became reality.

Speaking about my families extended service to the Republic:
It was independently documented in 1931 that this military tradition extended back to the 1790s. The tradition of civil service to the Republic extended almost as far. My personal service includes 20 years service as a commissioned officer starting 1970 with almost another 20 years working as a contractor for US Air Force Special Operations Command. When my son asked if he should continue the family's traditions I told him NO!

What I had seen since 1979 clearly demonstrated the Republic's political leadership had no intention of keeping their personal swearing in oaths, voluntarily take (and renewed), as they became national political leaders.

If there is no loyalty down how can those same people demand loyalty up?

My final straw was broken one night when I realized that our entire education system never understood the most unique aspect of the American military — we belong to the people - not the republic, a social class or a political party. That was our backbone since that “Shot heard around the world” at Lexington and Concord greens.

Until that almost 200-year relationship reestablished the Republic will continue have problems maintaining a military force capable of defending itself.

Final a moment of truth instead of political posturing! This is a very accurate statement AND a known medical fact when applied to Covid.

The current generation of masks will filter out some particles; however, the particles they do filter out range from an order of magnitude (10 times the size of Covid particles) to several orders of magnitude (100x or larger than airborn Covid particles.

BLUF any covid particles filtered out by masks, etc, currently in use are caught by chance instead of by design!

A little remembered piece of DoJ/FBI history. J. Edgar Hoover became the FBI's director because its predecessor, the Bureau of Investigation (BI), had lost all credibility because of internal corruption and incompetence.

Now, roughly a century later the FBI was fallen to the same level of corruption and incompetency.

This says nothing good about the veracity of the “Deep State” concept of government espoused by Wilson and the democratic party.

Fortunately (perhaps unfortunately) this cyclic nature of corruption is part of my family's personal history from the 1920’s when relatives were involved in “rescuing” the BI (soon to be FBI) from its self-imposed downfall.

While history may not repeat itself the men who make it do.

Looking at who is supporting this massive invasion of privacy two things come to mind.

1. Given this effort isn’t new are its supporters indicating direct PERSONAL knowledge of what is going on?
2. A similar historical conflict involving tax collections that lead to a real conflict wit real armed forces on both sides in the 18th Century America? Something about taxation without representation?

About the only thing that will create a nation wide political firestorm faster than taxation is religious oppression. Aren’t we seeing both at the same time?

My understanding of the “Debit Limit” law was it was supposed to serve as an early warning that the FEDERAL government was spending too much. And, the FEDERAL government had to either reduce spending or raise taxes.

In short, it would force Congress to accomplish its primary job - govern within the nation’s financial capability. But like the BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure Law of the late 1980s) Congress immediately found a way around the law.

So, instead of exercising their financial duties (like produce a written budget) Congress wants to CHEAT - AGAIN, as NORMAL, by raising the limit and continue spending more than it takes in.

For the citizens of the Republic this results in bankruptcy and loss of everything. For Congress, it is business as usual.

Read, or see, Ann Ryan’s “Atlas Shrugged”.

Like almost all “unexpected” crises the crises began 50 plus years ago.

Questions? Comments?

The root cause of this problem is the American teachers themselves.

In 1966 my new, small, Southern, liberal arts college was written up in a national news magazine (Newsweek?) as having one of the best programs to train new teachers. A decade later the same college had to close their teacher’s education program because there wasn’t enough hours to maintain their standards and comply with the newest educational theories pushed by the educational cabal (teachers unions eta).

My collage education was based on subject mastery. How can you be a good teacher if all you know comes from the same text book series the students are “reading”?

Since 1969 the American education system has adopted and abandoned two theories of education. Dr Spock and Maslow’s theory. Both have been discredited by their authors as failures.

The most recent theory is : “If you have a degree in education you can teach anything.”

25 years ago my children’s high school teachers feared the annual parent-teacher conference with me. My technical reading at the time was “The thermal theory of light metal reactors” - NO it was not related to my duties as a USAF Combat Air Crewmember. That book with my old Florida State Teacher’s certificate for high school history made a mockery of their counter-arguments.

Finally - one of the deep dark secrets about education is the fact that you need only 5 complete annual lesson plans and you are fixed for life. Who is going to repeat a subject the previously failed twice?

Thanks for the bandwidth and reading this post.

An unstated fact about the CRAF program - the short fall is in aircrews, not just pilots.

In the early 1980s while stationed at Mather AFB I was part of a cadre of experienced navigators assigned as CRAF augmentes. Granted this before GPS added navigation, but still it was an interesting additional, on call, additional duty because we reviewed taking various aircraft to remote places with minimal Nav aids, normal flight planning support, and then recovering using World War II era procedures.

On an annual basis I spent a couple of duty days in San Francisco International airport attending aircraft familiarization and currency training - a nice break from teaching student navigators.

Was never activated but it was interesting.

Is CRAFT still active? Until today I didn't know; but now I know and find it worrisome.

A HARSH REALITY folks.

The concept of “shelter in place” assumes whatever is causing the crises is a temporary event.

What is happening Kabul and the rest of Afghanistan is going to be a PERMANENT event. All the “shelter in place” directive does is to make the Talban’s execution/hostage taking squads job easier!

Unfortunately the time to leave Kabul and Afghanistan was NLT 1 February 2021; shortly after the Biden administration took over.

Me? I have been studying Islamic terrorism sine 1979 as part of my duties in AF Special Operations. Our leadership, both in and out of uniform, have never had a clue on how to deal with Islamic terrorism. It is a GENERATIONAL long effort which everyone, on both sides of the issue knew back in 2001.

This shooting event worries more than the latest COVID Fear Porn.

One of the traditional opening moves in a modern (post 1900) coupe is to delegalize the government. The fastest way to do so is prove that it can not protect itself much less its citizens.

Thus it was in Cuba in the mid 1950s (Castro) and South Viet Nam (Vietmin/NVA).

Has it come here?

I find it amazing that all of this talk about reducing the A-10 fleet and fielding the next generation air dominance platforms fail to mention DOD’s own vision of future wars.

About a decade ago a DOD organization called JIFCOM produced its biannual vision of future conflicts. It is a bi-annual document signed off by senior (O-9 (Lt Generals) serving/commanding general officers. In 2009 it stated that Irregular Warfare would be the most likely form of combat faced by the US for the next 25 years. Why? Because it works and it something that DOD refuses to acknowledge since we “Won Vietnam”. I found reading their supporting “Joint Operation Environment (JOE)” very interesting.

BTW within a year of this 2008 document (it was repeated at least twice) by DOD in a DOD Directive that Irregular Warfare was a coequal concern for the US because it works against us. The initial publication of was repeated 3 times at a five year review cycle with each rewrite becoming progressively watered down.

As SOF fighter I have seen repeated attempts to get rid of the A-10 based on staff studies NOT ACTUAL AFTER ACTION REORTS by grunts on the line in combat. It comes down to systemic problems with the acquisition process - the project costs are constantly under estimated and their required combat capabilities aren’t achieved until years after they have been rolled out. In one platform (AC-130U) we worked on that aircraft for a decade to partially achieve what we (I was part of “WE”) said was the actual combat proven needs. BTW the AC-130U (a circa 1991 platform) was retired years before the Vietnam era AC-130H which it was supposed to replace.

Was there any repercussions for this multiple year failure? A stupid question I known.

Me - before I hung everything up (2010) I was recognized as the AF’s TOP R&D Tester out all the civilian contractors employed by the AF. Not too shabby piece of recognition for a retired Major whose orginal commision was dated 27 July 1970!

This taxation concept has been tried before and has failed before.

Go back and look at the taxation rates (per cent age and numbers involve) that made up the ORGINAL IRS legislation. Then compare it the maximum rates that it morphed into and what it is today.

So Sorry professional politicians but you can not tax your way out of the mess you have created over the last century.

Unfortunately the Republic doesn’t have a taxation problem it has a politically driven spending problem. The worse offenders are the American education system and you, the professional political class who get rich (millionaires) on your official salary of a few hundred thousand dollars per year.

It can no longer honestly be said that local police are there to serve and protect the common citizens. This REFLECTS a Supreme Court decision of several years ago. Local police exist to protect the local governments.

Think about the impact of that people!

After I did a quick read of the IG Report something hit me. The 17 instances of mistakes/errors was NOT the total number of mistakes/errors made.

Remember the entire report was extensively reviewed by FIB leadership and then plea bargained.

That number represents the number of “no contest’ pleas by the FBI and its leadership that was accepted by the IG.

I must wonder what othrr issues were “lost” in this “review” process. Unfortunaetly that is something we will never know.

As a SF Sgt told me over 50 years ago: “By the time you start worrying about your creditability, don’t waist your time. You haven’t had any for years. Worse it will be years before you regain a small part of what you have lost!”

At the rate things are going there will be no need for any Presidential debates nor any pre-election campaigning by the dimocratic nominee. We will know their positions on all the “issues” great, small, and invisible.

Unless the dimocrats introduce a “black horse” surprise candidate during their convention the eventual nominee (sacrificial goat” will have nothing new to say.

Hmmm. Perhaps that is the goal of the democratic establishment all along?

1995 to 2030 not a bad SLEP! The AF first tried to get rid of the A-10 in the mid 1990s with the effort getting underway in 1989. Capt “Muck” Brown, assigned to the 422 TES at Nellis came to Hurlburt to see if he could get a gunsip assignment to stay in the CAS community.

I was honored to spend a duty day with him “re-bluing” him. He went back to Nellis and started to good fight to keep the A-10 on active duty.

Fortunately world events provided massive justification for his effort!

Unfortunately, “Muck” passed on several years ago. But, there a whole lot of gruntss made it home because of his efforts.

Good on Y’r Mate!!

Oh yes. An other case of punishing the innocent (other better run credit unions and their depositors) and protecting the guilty.

Personally, I think President Trump needs to change the wording a little.

I recommend that his verbiage accompanying the written directives to be along the lines of:

“We are diverting the previously discussed foreign aid to the these governments to help pay the costs of temporarily housing and caring for people who have left their homelands and illegally entered the United States.

“This will accomplish two things. First, it will ensure that our aid actually reaches the people who need it the most. Second, it will provide some relief to the American taxpayers who have, unfortunately, paid for everything too long.

“This diversion of funds will continue until the flood of people fleeing these nations ceases.”

The last sentence could provide an incentive for the various dictatorships to start visibly and actively working to turn things off. Plus, when (not if) these dictators backtrack we can easily turn the money back off.

Muller had TWO letters of instruction to guide his investigation.

Two?

The first one directed him to explore any possible coordination between Trump, his campaign, and any of his associates and Russian nationals.

Later he received a second letter directing him to explore any possible interferences with his first investigation - “obstruction of justice”.

Why?

If Muller had found any coordination there was no need to expand his probe!

My answer to the question is one week prior to the date of the second letter of instruction from the DAG Muller’s entire team knew there was NO (repeat NO) coordination and to keep the political assault on the Republic alive he needed something else to investigate. That was how many months ago?

The clay feet of advertising and its associated supporting infrastructure was first clearly exposed in early 1973. One of the early Ivory Snow photo moms was Marilyn Chambers.

In 1972 she was the female “lead” in the porno movie “Behind the Green Door.” She was fired about a year later. But in 1980 a 1070s’ Ivory Snow soap box with her picture on it made a “guest appearance’ in the porno movie “Insatiable”. (Thanks Wikipedia”.

What makes you think that todays actors and Hollywood in general is any better?

While you are at it sue the school for maintaining an attractive nuisance.

The college and its administrative policies encourage such attacks. Until the attacks cease the college should have to pay the victims of such attacks. If the college insists on maintaining an open campus then they are responsible for the behavior of everyone on campus. The response ‘They aren’t a student” is bunch of B.S.