And again....

Off to do my senile Uncle Sam's bidding.  Although this time I get to bring my own computer, so you might actually get some blog posts!

On GEN McChrystal's problems

I have no proof.  I have nothing more than my gut instinct, but my gut has been correct more than I care to count...

GEN McChrystal allowed the Rolling Stone report to occur.  He set in motion the events that allowed that report to be published.  And he did it because Obama is a fucking idiot, and has put even more brainless fucking idiots into Afghanistan, and McChrystal can't win so long as Obama is keeping those fucking idiots in place.

Look, McChrystal knows all about OPSEC, or Operational Security for you civilians out there.  For the love of Pete, he ran the SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND.  The man wears the "Tower of Power" on his left arm, and that's not just baubles they hand out for showing up.  So how could he do something so stupid as to allow a Rolling Stone reporter access to his staff and have unedited comments given?

Answer:  It wasn't a mistake.  It was done on purpose.  I'm willing to bet that McChrystal weighed the consequences of his actions, and he chose to let events unfold as they did.  Because to follow Obama's so-called "leadership" in Afghanistan means letting more Americans die needlessly.  And the only way to change course was to embarrass Obama publicly.  Like with an article in a widely read international publication.

I don't know if I agree with Michael Yon about GEN McChrystal, and if I had to bet my paycheck, I would say that this was a deliberate act.  You don't get to be the commander in Afghanistan by allowing stupid, easily preventable accidents such as this one.  Since Obama doesn't feel the need to communicate with his military commanders, this was a pyrrhic act by McChrystal to change the course of Afghanistan.

Sorry, no free ice cream

Got writer's block, if you will.  But to be honest, if you look at most of my posts you'll see that I blog in the morning.  Normally I get up, I check the news, I comment, I go to work.

This morning I woke to my alarm, hit snooze, and cuddled with my wife for the rest of the morning.  Soooo......  given that I don't have much time to blog at night, sorry folks but this is all you're getting.  Just enough to let me know that I'm alive.

Maybe tomorrow.

I got nuthing today

Although I have found some old photos, some of which remind me that people used to do some really dumb crap.  And that humor hasn't changed much over the years, it's just been done with different props.  And....  hey, is that Godzilla?

Happy Father's Day

Call your fathers, if you can.

And those of you who ARE Fathers, kick back and relax today with your kids.  You deserve it.

Didn't Peggy Noonan vote for Obama?

Yeah, I thought so.  And now she's calling him "snakebit".  Hey, Peggy - he's not snakebit, he's FUCKING INCOMPETENT, YOU WORTHLESS "INTELLECTUAL" PIECE OF CRAP!

Just what the hell is it that makes people with more diplomas than brains swoon over the Marxist Messiah? I think that the big-I Intellectual love affair with Obama is the most damning indictment of our colleges and universities that can be presented.  If educated, supposedly intelligent people are so easily fooled by an empty suit with a fancy teleprompter, then that education obviously doesn't amount to a hill of beans!  And yet these so-called "smart" people like Peggy Noonan and Christopher Buckley and Colin Powell voted for a hard core communist who ran on all hype, no record, and who's greatest accomplishment was voting "present" when he was there to vote at all.

Great.  Just fucking great.  Thanks a lot.  HEY YOU FUCKING JACKASSES!!!!  GUESS WHAT!!!!!  OBAMA IS STILL VOTING "PRESENT"!!!!  THAT'S ALL HE KNOWS HOW TO DO!!!!!

And in the back of my mind, I keep hearing Rahm Emanuel saying "Never let a good crisis go to waste."  You know what?  Once that well blew, I think Obama saw a good way to destroy America, and he let it happen.  After all, successful, independent businesses are antithetical to the state-controlled economy that he wants to impose on America.  So what better way to remove all those independent businesses than just let the oil kill them off?  You want a conspiracy theory?  There's one for you right there.  Now prove me wrong.  Because you can't.  Even if those were NOT the Liberal Lord and Messiah's motivations, his complete and total incompetence will give us the same results no matter WHY.

And I'm not the only one who disagrees with Peggy "I Heart Obama" Noonan about that whole "snakebit" thing either.

No, Mrs. Noonan; I don't call that "snakebit"; I call it stupid.  I call it arrogant and unprepared.  I associate that with lack of experience and vision.

And useful idiots like Peggy "I Heart Obama" Noonan can go take a long walk off a short pier, preferably into a lake of oil that's been siphoned off from the Gulf Coast.

Darn Skippy

Dr. Helen nails it with regards to what's happening with men these days.  Think about this for a second -

The majority of Americans are divorced, at some point in their lives anyways.  Maybe they've re-married, but they've been divorced before.  I mean, we're over a 50% divorce rate in this country right now.

The majority of divorces end up not just badly, but oh-my-god horribly for men.  Alimony, child support, a guy with a divorced wife and two kids that he never gets to see is working 80 hours a week to support both his household and his ex's household at the same time.

Most guys in their 30's have seen this happen their entire lives.  They've watched people that they love and care about go through hell because of marriage and subsequent divorce.  And then people wonder why those guys don't want to get married?  Throw in the fact that thanks to modern feminism and it's abolishment of moral standards, those guys can still get laid on a nightly basis.  Why buy the cow, and the subsequent alimony and child support, when you can get the milk for free?

Had I not found an angel here on earth, I'd still be single.  I honestly believe that.  And had I never met my wife, I think I could have been happy still being single.  I know plenty of guys who are of the same mind.

I'd caught this earlier

But now I've found a blog that has the transcript - Mexican President Caleron blames America for Mexico's drug cartels.

"The origin of our violence problem begins with the fact that Mexico is located next to the country that has the highest levels of drug consumption in the world," Calderón wrote. "It is as if our neighbor were the biggest drug addict in the world."

Right.  The reason that corrupt, third-world shithole of a country has violent drug cartels in control of the upper half of it's territory is because of America.  Gotcha.  It has nothing to do with the corruption that is legendary.  It has nothing to do with weak leadership.  It has nothing to do with decades upon decades of economic failure.  It's all someone else's fault.

Right now, my only response is "Fuck Mexico".  At this point, I say we invade, annex the shit out of them, and turn them into step one of Pax Americana.  I'm actually serious at this point.  They all want to come up here anyways, let's just accelerate the process.  And send in a few BCTs as point, with ROE to kill any coked up cartel boogyman on the way to Mexico City.  Suddenly, all those Mexicans are now Americans, and the drug cartels have a serious shortage of gunmen.  It's a Win-Win!

Big Labor vs. the Gulf Coast

The more we dig on Obama's horrible, terrible lack of response to the oil spill, the more we learn.

Crucial offers to help clean up BP’s oil spill came “from Belgian, Dutch, and Norwegian firms that . . . possess some of the world’s most advanced oil skimming ships.” But the Obama administration didn’t accept their help, because doing so would require it to do something past presidents have routinely done: waive rules imposed by the Jones Act, a law backed by unions.

“The BP clean-up effort in the Gulf of Mexico is hampered by the Jones Act. This is a piece of 1920s protectionist legislation, that requires all vessels working in U.S. waters to be American-built, and American-crewed. So” the U.S. Coast Guard “can’t accept, and therefore don’t ask for, the assistance of high-tech European vessels specifically designed for the task in hand.”

This really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, unfortunately.  Obama is such a radical Marxist that he will choose his ideology and it's allies over America every day of the week.  Bush waived those rules in order to get help after natural disasters.  Obama?  Not so much.  And I bet he has no interest in doing so, either, despite the fact that we could have hundreds of oil-cleanup vessels in our waters that are currently not there.

Yet another example of how Obama has hurt this country.  Of course he wants the Gulf Coast to die.  Successful businesses are normally not dependent on the government.  So kill off the successful businesses, and you have more slaves for the government!

I will say it again - I do not think that this country can recover from the damage that Obama has done to it.


On top of all that, Cold Fury details just how the Obama administration is pushing forward with their Marxist goals at the expense of America.  Once again, ideology trumps country.  Obama doesn't give a shit about American unless he can promote and reward himself.  He's a hard-core communist, willing to excuse any crime if he can gain power from it.  And America voted him into office.  Congratulations.  Pardon me while I vomit, and watch my country die.

So Hey Dave....

"Why didn't you put up a post for the Army's Birthday?"  Because I was friggin BUSY, that's why, and I didn't have the internet!  Didn't you listen earlier?  Luckily, Big Dick put up a post to celebrate the birthday of Our Beloved Army.

Oh, and that post is so NSFW it's not even funny.

One thing I missed

Was Helen Thomas getting canned for her anti-Semetic comments.

Well fucking FINALLY!  How long has it been since Tony Snow thanked that senile woman for presenting the Hezbullah View?  Only now people are waking up to the fact that she's an anti-semetic piece of trash?

Sheesh.

Yeah. I'm back.

For a while.

Give me a bit to re-engage.

HOLY SCHNIKIES!

170 emails?  Ouch.

Sorry if I haven't gotten back to you.  I didn't have internet access for a week and a half.  Now I gotta go through them and see what I missed.

A Cigarette and a Psalm

sorry... I can't offer you a smoke.

"The War Prayer" Mark Twain (kind of long)

My beloved son always enjoys reading me stories. Tonight he read me "the War Prayer" by Mark Twain. It is about 2 pages and really hit me. I hope ya'll enjoy.

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came -- next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams -- visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation

*God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!*

Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory --

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside -- which the startled minister did -- and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

"I come from the Throne -- bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import -- that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of -- except he pause and think.

"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two -- one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this -- keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

"You have heard your servant's prayer -- the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it -- that part which the pastor -- and also you in your hearts -- fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. the *whole* of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory--*must* follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(*After a pause.*) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!"

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

Grand Prairie, Texas

Hot.  Humid.  And the air is brown.  I can deal with the hot and humid.  Not the brown air.  Can't breathe during a run.  That flat out sucks.  By the way, the base I'm on isn't a base.  I don't quite know what it is, but it ain't a base.  I'm sitting in a Starbucks logged on, since there is no internet access on "base".

Had to make a trip to Wal Mart to buy sunscreen and bug spray.  Had flashbacks to Puerto Rico, as I didn't hear a word of English once I passed the greeter.

You want to see fat people?  Wal Mart, baby.  I'm talking the earth-shaking fat.  So fat they have their own gravitational field.  So fat they take up an entire row all on their own.  Rolls upon rolls of fat.  Either that, or they're greasy, dirty, haven't showered, stink to high heaven, and are wearing wife-beater T-Shirts.  If I were from Texas, I'd try to disown Grand Prairie.  I really would.  Walking around here is the greatest motivator for weight loss that I can think of.  "OH GOD, I NEVER WANT TO LOOK LIKE THAT!!!!!  HELP ME JENNIE CRAIG!!!!"

And most of them are Mexican.  I keep hearing about fat Americans.  But the fat people here don't speak English.  Does anyone else have a problem with that?

I've seen more pimped out SUV's than I care to count.  You want to know what I call an SUV with low-profile tires, chromed out rims and shiney paint?  A compensation mobile.  They have a very tiny penis, and they try to make up for it with a big, flashy vehicle.  Men, if you have a truck or an SUV, and it doesn't have dirt or signs of actual use, I am going to make fun of you.  Don't like it?  Then get that vehicle dirty.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I'm out of here.  See you in two weeks or so.

Headed out

Again.

Just.....  well anyways, I'm off again.  See you in two weeks.

And guys, I'm at the point where I wonder if I shouldn't just shut this thing down, seeing as how I'm not going to be posting a whole lot this summer.  I've said before this is the crazy time.  I wasn't kidding.

And this is why

I don't use Google.

Meh.  I have Dogpile set up as my search engine.

Detail

The very first funeral detail I was ever on, I wasn't ready for.  The NCOIC came up to me and asked "Dave......  are your Class A's ready?"  I answered yes, and he said "Good.  You're leaving tomorrow".

And I left, my uniform prepped.  I wasn't ready for it at all.  I'd never done a funeral detail.  I didn't know what was required.  I didn't  know much.  But I learned.

I spend the next two days prepping for the funeral.  Due to circumstances, the pall bearers doubled as the rifle team.  So we carried the casket to it's place, then marched over to the rifles, fired the twenty-one gun salute, and then marched back to fold the flag.  In retrospect, it helped me prepare for all the funerals I would do in the future.  We practiced for longer than I care to remember until we carried the casket and marched to the rifles without a single verbal command.  Once we had the rifles, it was READY!  AIM!  FIRE!  READY!  AIM!  FIRE!  READY!  AIM!  FIRE!  Then we set the rifles back down and marched back to the casket.  After that, all orders were given in a low voice.

Ready.  Down.  Up.  Fold the flag.

The Deputy Commander of US Army South, a Brigadier General whose name I'm withholding presented the flag to the parents.  The father, a retired Soldier himself, was struggling to hold himself together.  The mother and the brother had started weeping long ago.  You want to know the hardest part of being in the funeral detail?  Holding yourself together when the entire family is being ripped apart with grief.  We managed to do it, god only knows how.  When we first arrived, the casket was being moved from the airplane to the hearse.  I almost lost it right then, but it wasn't the parents that got to me.  I expected their grief, and was prepared for it.  No, what got to me the most was this - as the mother was collapsed, crying on the coffin, as the father was doing his best to comfort his wife and contain his grief, the brother was behind them both, with tears streaming down his face.

And that's the most he showed.  He had his hands on his mothers shoulder, and he was leaning against his father, and he was crying hard but without making a single sound.  He had tears streaming down his face, and you could see that he was struggling not to break.  Struggling, and losing that struggle, as he tried to deal with the fact that his brother was dead, only not just dead but dead so horribly that it would be a closed casket funeral, and we only had to carry half the weight of a normal body.  And he was trying to comfort his mother and his father as they wept, and still grieve himself.

I was locked up at the position of present arms, heels together, fingers to my eyebrow, and he was directly in front of me.  And as I watched him grieve and simultaneously try to comfort his parents, I almost lost it.  I had a single tear roll down my face as I watched this family deal with the death of their son and brother, and the only thing that kept me from losing it was the simple fact that this Soldier deserved better than to have some pansy-assed dipshit lose it while escorting him to his final resting place.  I kept that in mind while the hearse was loaded.  It was easier once the actual funeral started, because it's a lot more formal.  You don't have the raw, primal displays of grief that you do when you first off-load the casket.  But it's still hard.  The mother cried the entire time, and the father......  the father, how can I explain this - the father was a retired Warrant Officer in the US Army.  Once he had retired, he joined a volunteer organization who's entire focus and function was to help the families of Soldiers who had been killed in combat.  I can't remember the name of his organization, all I remember is the fact that he was able to give us the instructions he wanted followed, and then he was pretty much broken from his pain.  And the entire time I was doing this, my first funeral detail, the only thought I had in my head was "Don't you dare break.  Don't you dare break down.  You fucking wimp, you haven't gone through one tenth the pain these people have, don't you DARE FUCKING BREAK DOWN!"

But it's hard, when you're faced with the sheer open pain of a family who has just lost their son and their brother or their sister.

We managed to do it, that first time.  I was lucky in that I had excellent leadership who helped guide me through the process.  Shortly after that, I became the leader of the rifle team for funeral details.  I've stood at Parade Rest for over an hour and a half for certain funerals.  You never know what it's going to be like.  I've had the mother grab hold of us and tell us tales of her son, to the point that we were doing footraces in the street with the Soldier's brother, because that's what they used to do as kids.  And when you have a teenager who's just lost his brother in Afghanistan, and he asks you to race, what are you going to do?  Say no?  Hell no.  You kick your shoes off and race him in the streets.  The mother was drunk to high heaven, trying to kill her pain, and we spent hours and hours talking to her.  By the time the night was up we all got maybe three to four hours of sleep, but it was worth it to make sure this mother knew that her son didn't die in vain.

For the record, her son was a medic in Afghanistan, and had saved the lives of too many people to count.  A Sergeant from his unit escorted his body home, and we pretty much press-ganged him into the funeral detail.  The thing I remember most about that funeral detail is that as we folded the flag and prepared to move away from the burial site, this Sergeant knelt down by the Soldier's little brother, and took off his jump wings, his Airborne insignia, and gave it to the Soldier's little brother, and said "These are the wings your brother wears.  You keep them safe."

I don't think a single member of that funeral detail had dry eyes.  And I'm crying as I type this now, and I'm not ashamed to admit it, remembering what happened.

I think I didn't know just how bad the funeral details were effecting me until I found out that my NCOIC was telling the command "Leave Dave alone.  He's done enough."  I can't remember how many funerals I've done.  I just know that I never once, not fucking ONCE did I ever say no to one.  The least I could do for my fellow Soldiers was make sure that they were remembered with respect and reverence.  I stopped counting after about twenty.  At one point I was doing one a week, sometimes two.  And I made damn sure that those families knew that their loved ones were going to the great hereafter in proper style.  Part of the reason I was picked to be the rife team leader was because I memorized the commands and didn't just say them, I barked them out so that the funeral would hear them from a football field away.

TEAM!  ATTENTION!  PORT, ARMS!  HALF-RIGHT, FACE!
READY!  *click*  AIM!  FIRE  *BANG*
READY!  *click*  AIM!  FIRE  *BANG*
READY!  *click*  AIM!  FIRE  *BANG*

HALF LEFT, FACE!  PRESENT, ARMS!

That was my job, and I'll be damned if anyone did it better than I did.  Those Soldiers deserved no less.  The families who wept and grieved deserved no less.  If nothing else, they deserved to know that their loved ones died for something more than just politics, or something more that just the BS that gets presented day after day in the media.  I had a mother grabbing my arms and crying and asking what her son died for, and I told her then, and I still believe it now - her son died a hero, saving the lives of his fellow Soldiers, laying down his life for them, all in an attempt to make this world a safer, better place.

I wish I could put the names of all the Soldiers I've served on this blog.  I hate to say it, but I've done so many that I've forgotten half of them, and that fact makes me ashamed.  I wish I could remember all of them, but my brain just doesn't hold that information and OPSEC stops me from naming the ones I do remember.

I said in the post below that I couldn't find a thing to write.  That's not entirely true.  I couldn't find a thing to write that would be appropriate for the people who I've saluted and respected on their final journey, and to be blunt this post doesn't do them justice.  But it's the best I can do.  And I hope that when I meet them on the other side, they shake my hand and say "Thank you.  You gave me the respect I deserved."

I will try to do so until the day that I die.  They deserve no less.  And I ask you, anyone who reads this blog, to just take a moment to think about all the people who have died in the service of this country, and think "Thank you."  One of the best, and most simple prayers I've ever heard, was from a guy named Pete who used to work at my building.  He was a former alcoholic, an AA member, who did his best to pray on a daily basis.  And he told me once in passing that sometimes the best he could do was "Good morning, God.  It's Pete.  Thank you."  I think that's what our fallen heros need.  "Good Morning.  This is an American.  Thank you."

I know I say that.  How about you?

Memorial Day

I've been trying to come up with a fitting Memorial Day post, and to be honest with you guys, I got bupkis right now.  So many other people have come up with fitting tributes, and pictorial essays, that I look around and think to myself "How can I say anything to match that?"

So let me just be plain and simple, the way I like to be -

I have had excellent leadership in the Army, and I've had horrible leadership.  I've seen selfless service and greedy bastards.  I've spent less time in theater than some, and more time than others.  But we have the best damn military in the world, who does more with less support than anyone could ever dream.  Which might sound trite and cheap when you think about the billions of dollars in the military budget, but we have Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines in over 100 countries around the world right now, building schools, vaccinating kids, teaching people how to farm and how to grow food, setting up water purification sites, acting as deterrents against hostile dictators, rebuilding and strengthening cities, on and on and on and on.  We have Soldiers on six continents full time.  We are spread over the world, and only in a few places are shots actually being fired.

We're not just the world's police force, we're the world's engineering force.  We're the world's construction force too.  We're the world's rescue service.  And we do it better, faster, and cheaper than anyone else.  I'm humbled to be a part of it all.  Grateful as well, because the Army has given me a hell of a lot, starting with the self-discipline I needed when I was a stupid young punk way back when.  But in everything I've accomplished in the military, I did it while standing on the shoulders of the giants who came before me.

There's a Wall of Heros as you enter my building.  It's roped off and lit up, and has the faces of the Soldiers from my unit who have died in combat.  I look at that wall every day, and thank them for what they did and what they gave, so that my wife and I could sit in the comfort of our home here and enjoy life together.  It's a humbling experience to do day after day.  And it's a necessary one, so that the Soldiers and civilians who I work with never forget the sacrifice others made for us.

I won't say "Happy" Memorial Day, because I don't know if cheeriness and happiness is what is required.  So I will simply say to enjoy this day, and remember why it exists.  See you tomorrow.