THE TALL CROSSES

Yesterday we headed home from Maine. There were tall crosses just beyond the Bowman Inn on Route Two. The Vets were out in force as were the vets on bikes. It was raining as we passed.

I have noticed a sad tendency of the bikers to hawk the yellow line over the last few years. Bikers lose confrontations with trucks and cars. Being right on the bright yellow line isn’t a challenge, it’s death. I don’t get why they don’t understand that.  It’s about mass, velocity and attention to detail. Fail at any and fail at all. The biker appears to assume that all the burden is on the truck driver.  I would never make that assumption. I assume they all want to kill me.

The guy on the bike has failed the test of life when that happens. It’s like riding through fast food alley and just assuming that they will see you.

THEY ARE UNBELIEVABLY STUPID

The democrats just threw away the election last night in their second first debate. It appears that they cannot help themselves and have to outstupid each and every one of their opponents in a singular race to the bottom. All of them said they'd rather spend your money on illegal aliens then on Americans.

ALMOST SCIENCE FICTION

I caught an interesting link off Maggie's Farm. It took me a second to orient myself to what it was about and then I read them all because they ring like a bell with me. The fury and intolerance of the woke knows no boundaries and they are just the ones to try to run Big Brother as an industry before using it to run the country and then the world. Right now they are still disappearing people to their little gulags of silence and subjecting the fallen to mandatory self-criticism seminars but they'll be opening the gulags and letting in the silent majority soon enough if they ever take power again.

OBITUARIES FOR THE RECENTLY CANCELED

by SARAH LAZARUS

OH BY THE WAY

I'm vacationing and have been since last Thursday. Internets are sparse and far between when traveling from metroparkcentralis to Maine. Particularly if you stop in Saratoga Springs and then Lancaster before hitting middle coast Maine. We're OK now but still my time is not my own.

WHO COULD RESIST?

How do you attend a Distant Climate Conference Without Flying was the question posed by Eric Worrall at wattsupwiththat. "Swedish climate messiah Greta Thunberg has a problem. She desperately wants to attend climate conferences in New York (September) and Santiago (December), but unlike most greens she is serious about avoiding air travel."

I have come up with a couple of solutions better than any I saw in the comments to the original article.

No carbon footprint at all really. The first method might take the rest of your life to get to New York. The second is almost certainly capable of making landfall in North America, somewhere. Good luck Greta!

IT MIGHT BE TIME

I was out of the country when this was broadcast. I mean to watch it all someday.

ONE TINY LITTLE PROBLEM

The forces of memory tried to instruct a socialist on the meaning of words she really does know. What they still fail to understand is that people like her are the ones bringing the next genocide. Back when we used to fight against them we called them 'fellow travelers but they all fully meant to bring the benefits of soviet agriculture to Kansans and Nebraskans like they did in Ukraine and Cambodia.

THEY LITERALLY CANNOT HELP THEMSELVES

I rarely read the news with the sound loud enough to hear on my computer but tonight I was struck by absolute stupidity of the voice announcer that 'introduced the story' about Oberlin and their recent law debacle. I couldn't believe it and had to listen to it again because it was such complete contradiction of the facts plainly and honestly laid out in the actual Hill article on the case.

I understand how idiots get their jobs but I've never understood how they keep their jobs. This guys was so devoted to virtue signaling that he failed to even glace at the article he was 'introducing.'

It says a lot about modern journalism and journalists.

THE BEST ROOM

Arguably, the Science Fiction Club library housed in the main library at Penn State. It was about 8 feet by 10 feet and yet the thousand or so books in that little room were probably read by more people per annum than the other million books in the library stacks. Credit where it is due, the stacks in the Reading Room on the first floor had the bound editions of every Analog magazine back to the beginning.

I keep seeing and not blogging about the libraries out of history that are just amazing and then I think, I never see anyone in there and certainly nobody reading a book of any kind in hundreds of photos taken in libraries. I get the photos largely thanks to Traditional Vibe and others whose places I visit.

It's funny how libraries work, or don't. I believe there won't be any left in the West in about 16 years. I was sitting in a library about 12 years ago at the top of Washington Street in Mission Hills one day and fell into conversation with another man, about my age. As I recall we talked about some local tax issues on the ballot and the general election and we both agreed on the guy we wanted as President and for just about every sentence we spoke there was louder and louder and louder harrruuuuuuumnnnnph coming from a very unpleasant young woman old enough to share civilization but too young to appreciate it and remained standing behind us to make sure we knew Big Sister was listening.

Now, that said, if you ever find yourself in Columbus, Ohio, leave and go to the next town to the north which is called Westerville and has the best library I have ever been in. Don't worry, they have a little food court, barista, coffee, more computers and high end graphics computers than you can shake a stick at, well behaved youngsters who all get siphoned away from the adult areas with their own books, magazines and game playing computers and a copy of every single one of John Ringo's books. It was amazing. It kind of reminded me about the kind words Queen Anne et al had for Christopher Wren after he built that amazing cathedral. There was a monument outside it somewhere in London that recorded them in stone but I lost it and cannot find the words again. That's OK as what I remember about them is that what was most profound about them was how the very meaning of English words changed over the course of 400 years.

......and no, I don't live there and I'm not in their chamber of commerce or boosters club. We went there so one of us could mess around with clay leaving me at some loose ends for a weekend.

and speaking of Traditional Vibe, this just in as I went to get the link. I really enjoy these picture/memes. I'm sure in a few years this sort of thing will be banned and made punishable with jail and heavy fines.

ON SMOKING

I started for the wrongest of reasons. Still don't regret it. Running back up the pier at Manama with a smoke in my lips (jaunty) while the complete useless asshole skipper was 'working out' on the rowing machine on the stack deck and watching me every inch of the quarter mile while running and smoking: priceless.

Don't worry, I got over it. I still enjoyed the look of incredulous rage on his face as I came up the brow and tossed the butt into the sea though. That alone was worth it.

Tell you what it did though and I think this matters.

Every single day, every hour or two, I stepped away from my desk and went for a smoke. I didn't like to stand and smoke so I walked. I usually did a lap around all of SPAWARSYSCOM or just the hanger my office was located in. One building was a smoke walk, all 3 of them was a 2 smoke walk. It was the first place I ever worked where we had people, lots and lots of people, dedicated to making the PPBS work. A lot of them had charts on the cube walls showing the planning programming budgeting system. I later saw this in another role at NECC and a few other Atlantic commands.  They really really really thought it mattered.

Perhaps it does. It never mattered to me. Either the money would show up or it would not and I would once again accustom myself to doing more with less. It's pretty much how I did things for the first 20 years.

As with smoking, it is a relief to know that if it comes down to it, sometimes you get to shoot the assholes and your country gave you big guns, 50 calibre machine guns, M16s and your stateroom has a  loaded .45 hanging in a holster on a hook on the back of the door.

I found it was preferable to just go outside sometimes, chat with with others, go for a walk and then head back into the office. You don't go to the office to make money.

If someone calls, the machine will take their message
If someone emails, it will still be there
If someone comes by, they will come back or leave a message

The secret lesson was this, if you leave your cover and keys on the desk, people assume you just stepped out for a moment. Having 2 sets of keys and no real need to wear a cover means you can actually be at the beach playing volleyball.

Life is what you make of it.

Captain, USN

THE CHORDS OF MEMORY

I listen to the music on the car radio on the way in and out of Case and not ever the radio again for the remainder of the day. I used to have an extensive collection of records and CDs. All that was left behind without a backward glance. I used to listen to music a lot. To be honest, I still had my walkman and tapes even after I got my 6th dvd portable player, not one of which I have anymore. I go upstairs these days to listen to the rain and the music, quietly because the one I love most is sleeping below. I take the chance on bats flying in though I should really stir myself to put up the damned screen that is lying right there on the stairs but I love to listen to the rain.

As they do, my thoughts turned to the past as a I listened to the rain. My reading tonight led me to a past I had forgotten. I might have mentioned him somewhere near the outset but not since then. He was a rear admiral of the reserve navy and an architect. He was part of the rival organization mine was devoted to killing dead by any means but he was a good man.

The dirtbag then in command of that part of the Navy called on Mark one day and asked him when he planned to resign. What cemented the memory of him for me was his telling me his answer, never.

It really shouldn't take wars to clear out the dead wood at the top. To be honest, right now I don't know anymore. There is just one of my peers still in and he's a 3 star. I think the Army and Air Force have tested leaders who have led in battle, budgets and war. I'm afraid mine is going to be worthless. They got where they did like Dick Marcinko did and it's going to prove painful in the extreme. LCS, DDG crap, F=35, EM catapalts Carriers, Amphibs. Right now we are on a trajectory to the Brewster Buffalos at Wake and Midway.

FISH AND BITS

I realize that some people call it sushi. It is very tasty. We only eat sushi at this one place and last night we ate at the bar wtih panache. Like we do.

Yes yes, I know you think that also means wasabi.

No, no. That stuff is very dangerous. Tasty though.

9 years of doing this blog thing and still I have not given up. Except now I have.

It was ever so nice to know you.

Go with God.

Josie and her mother

DONE PROPERLY

We used to have a saying in the mine battleforce. Done properly, a minesweeper can be used more than once. We also had a photo-engraving of this picture on the door to the Combat Information Center and home to the SONAR and other tools of the trade. We found that it focused the minds of those working in CIC in the Fields quite wonderfully. I reckon they'll be on to something when they figure out how to push the sweep gear in front of the ship.

South Korean Minesweeper YMS-516 Finding a Mine the Hard Way

A NIGHT IN STEAL TOWN

I moved out to the west coast to join a Destroyer and took along an adjunct little brother because, told to. So I did and we shared rooms together in Hillcrest, a neighborhood of San Diego. Yes, we were two lone guys living together in one of the gayest neighborhoods outside the Castro. Boy did we fit in.

I was on the ship in the header in the Persian Gulf when I got this confused letter from my brother explaining as how he tried to write an insurance claim on my account in pencil with USAA because he suffered the loss of his hasselblad camera which he stupidly left in the front seat of the car one night when he drove home in my car and carefully obscured the camera with his leather coat before he got out of the car and went inside for the night, like a complete idiot.

He got a lot smarter later on in life.

At any rate, this reminded me of his idiocy. Srsly, who does this? It shrieks STEAL ME!!!!!

OTGH, if you're not paying the insurance, what do you care when they do a smash and grab on your brother's car?

SOMETIMES THE PRESS IS A LITTLE STUPID

You could put 19,000 pumps in there and not pump the river out. Still, a sorry end for wooden ship.

ON THE KEEPING OF LETTERS

I know who did it. I won't say it's wrong. She kept every single one of my dad's letters that he typed and sent her from Vietnam and all of mine. Yes, he had a portable little typewriter that I would not be surprised to find still in the place they live now. I got a shoebox of all my letters that I sent home from all the way back and I wasn't much of a writer then but still, full shoe box, when they moved out of the family home of 39 years. An awful lot of stuff came out of the place you would not think there was room for. Old letters, old photos, old memories. She kept them all.

I would say I don't have anything like that but I'd be wrong. There's the 4 books, the sword, the dress uniforms, and now a shoebox of letters that go with the shoebox of Civil War letters from my cousin.
I will probably send them to the library where they can mingle with the letters of his company commander.

I was looking at Regensburg/Schweinfurt tonight. It was a very dangerous place to go.

CALIFORNIA

There was the open road, the Grapevine and 101 and 1 and Santa Monica and Malibu. IMHO, all best experienced in a VW.  30 years in that state and most of them with a Mazda, BMW convertible or the ubiquitous bus. I used to commute between San Diego and the Bay. Some people said I should marry. That proved a disaster. Away went the bus, the BMW and the mazda. Somehow, traveling to Dallas, Fort Worth just didn't have the same cachet.

HE DIDN'T HAVE TO LOOK FAR TO FIND A HERO

He didn't have to look far to find hero.

OMAHA

Flyover state, aint it?

ON DETROIT AND COLLAPSE OF CIVILIZATION

A harsh lesson:

Detroit under Coleman Young was a mixture of both philosophies. Young provided the distractions, the belief that the whites in the suburbs were the enemy – Detroit’s mass version of Emmanuel Goldstein. The rest took care of itself. In the link to his Trifecta segment on his PJM blog, Steve Green writes, “It’s Fahrenheit 451 in Detroit — minus the firemen.” There was need for them -- no reason to burn the books if everyone has been convinced that they’re not worth reading; you simply abandon the culture in place and let it rot.

WE WERENT' FUCKING AROUND

Just why it fell to us is the question. I guess now the colleges would say white surpremacy or white man's burden in a hurry.

SOME PLUCK FROM SOME CONSTANT ENROUTE VANCOUVER

WE NO LONGER CARE

I don't have any idea what it was like on the troop ships or the landing craft off that beach. Bravery is something in my experience that one finds in smaller pockets and yet laps around the larger pockets as time wears on and given some time to manifest. It doesn't just stroll in from long asunder and simply dominate the plain. There is a reason men like myself despise what American youth have become with their triggers and raw appeal to being frightened of ancient ideas.

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,

England mourns for her dead across the sea.

Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,

Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal

Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.

There is music in the midst of desolation

And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,

Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;

They sit no more at familiar tables of home;

They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;

They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,

Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,

To the innermost heart of their own land they are known

As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,

Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,

As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,

To the end, to the end, they remain.

England again gave up her young men to keep the stupid fucks on the continent free. And so did we.

Never again. Let them next march into night together and we don't care.

Thanks guys. You did your best and they threw it all away, like they do.

THE INVASION

I like this movie. It captures the essence of going ashore into fire.

CLOCKS

When you look, it is staggering how many Americans died fighting to liberate China from Japan in World War II.

Still, we are counting down the hours to the invasion that set Europe on its present curse of German domination.



did I leave out an o?

THE RAIN BEGAN

RIGHT ABOUT NOW

A hundred thousand men were informed that they were invading the French coast and told to get some sleep before they boarded the assault craft and headed toward Normandy and a rendezvous with destiny. For some, the news came earlier but the following words were probably much the same, try to get some sleep. If there is one thing I can guarantee, the men storming those beaches in Normandy and parachuting into St. Mere Eglise et al were tired.

You have to spend days and weeks staring eternity in the face before you learn to sleep at such news. After you've done it for a month or two you just roll over and try to get a little more comfortable before falling asleep.

WITH DECAPITATION SO CLOSE

I'm sure the SS were thrilled with President Trump trooping the line along with the Guard Commander standing within 3 feet of him carrying on unsheathed sword. I won't look because I don't care, but I'll bet the roiled mass of seething hate and fury over there on the coasts is just flipping out that the guy with the sword didn't do what they all tell themselves they would have done in that position.

I don't know how they pull off these sorts of thing but I'm sure they follow a very strict protocol at a level where all parties know better than to raise any issues or disagreements with the ruling elite.

Nijmegen Company, Grenadier Guards and the President of the United States

When you think about how many top leaders have been assassinated in settings much like this by the ceremonial troops, it's not hard to imagine that somebody from the SS had a quiet word with the guy carrying the naked sword.

It's not just the Gandhis getting killed by their guards, it's all kinds of people ranging all the way from Africa to Afghanistan. It goes without saying that this is not the sort of thing I expect out of the Old Guard or the Guards Regiments guarding the Palace and the Queen. I'm afraid that certain truths about current realities have to pass without being said aloud, even in a whisper so faint you couldn't hear it over the noise of a gentle zephyr playing across the swaying but undisturbed puff of a dandelion.

THE CRAZY EDDIE YEARS

The plunge into the crazy years is well underway. I got a kick out of reading this little trope from The Conversation where the final issue with drugging soldiers came down to this:

A final concern is when performance-enhancing drugs give troops advantages over civilians. Soldiers in the reserves, and those who serve on bases but reside with their families, have both military and civilian lives. What if they compete in sports or intellectual contests with civilians? One solution is to require them to disclose that they are taking enhancement drugs, but this could violate military secrecy and help enemies figure out ways of combating the drugs’ effects.

It's a strange stance to adopt given the current insanity of pretending that biological men can be women and compete against women just because they 'feel' like it and it presents no disadvantage to biological women who want to win.

A GOOD MAN STEPS INTO THE CLEARING AT THE END OF THE PATH

I got sprung from the hospital Thursday afternoon which allowed me to come home and have dinner next door with my sister, her family, Pam and my parents who had come to town on Memorial Day to spend a week with two of their kids and three of their grand kids. They got some of that and Thursday I was finally able to join them for dinner. It was good.

I was up early Friday morning and went next door to chat with my dad over coffee for a couple of hours before they drove off with my sister, heading to the airport and home. It was a glorious morning here in metroparkcentralis. In light of my recent suffering, people assured me I did not have to carry their bags downstairs since they probably thought me carrying those same bags up the stairs on Monday was what set me off. Hah!

On that note, over the last 40 years my mother never traveled to visit her kids without first stopping at the commissary at Carlisle Barracks or Fort Myer and loading up a bag with 40 pounds of ham, bacon and steaks. She would then fly to visit us in California and leave much less lightly loaded then when she arrived. She always thought we were starving. We never disabused her of that idea since none of us are crazy.

After they left for the airport I dressed and we went to the memorial service for a very old friend of Pam's who died in the same hospital I was in, while I was there. He was a little over 90 and a Navy veteran and I was actually surprised when a Senior Chief and two Petty Officers showed up and took part in the service, as they do. They performed the flag ceremony and the the Senior Chief presented it to our friend on behalf of the President of the United States and a grateful nation. For the first time I heard the sound of Taps played with one of those newfangled electronic horns. It sounded good to me. I've been listening to il Silenzio for so many years I had forgotten the sound of Taps. I have no idea where they found sailors with well fitting Service Dress Whites here but they did an outstanding job.

Our friend was one of the classic Americans of his era and played that same role right up until his death. Not for him the long, slow, painless, slide into the dark. He played golf with his gang until he was 88 and only stopped because he thought he was slowing play and as something of a fanatic golfer all of his life that was anathema to him. We went to his 90th birthday party which seems like just the other day and he was as much in the present as he must have been as a Gunner's Mate on USS Dayton in the Mediterranean.

Fair winds and Following Seas, Bob.