How Can America Win The War On Prosperity?
Liberals are waging a war on taxpayers and big change in Washington is needed to save us from bankruptcy!
As America continues on it’s fast track to bankruptcy and complete change in the way taxpaying citizens live their lives, it is time to take a stand and impose our will on politicians to do the right things to get us back to a nation of workers and away from this big government entitlement mentality.
It is time for all Americans to get involved and spread the word!
If you are one of the few Americans actually paying attention to what is happening to our once great nation, it is time to be proactive. Sitting on the sidelines and bitching about the price of gas or the housing crisis is not going to move us forward.
Get off the sidelines and get in the game before it’s too late!
It’s time to get your friends and family to vote. It’s time to get in the faces of these uninformed liberals and dispute their propaganda. Time is running out and if you care about the future of your children and grandchildren you better get off your ass!
Here are my suggestions to get us started. Please feel free to add your suggestions and comments!
1. Cut spending in Washington. The country’s problems are not because people are not paying enough taxes. The problem is all the waste and fraud in our federal government. Sure, millions of unnecessary government workers may get laid off, but if their job is paid for by taxpayers and is not productive, get rid of it! How long would your small business last if you hired people that you did not need or were performing duplicate tasks?
2. Install a Flat tax on all Americans! Stop punishing prosperity and make all Americans pay the same rate. If the flat tax is set at 10%, a family earning $35,000 will pay $3,500 and a family earning $400,000 will pay $40,000. But, we must also get rid of ALL tax loopholes. This will force the very wealthy who do not pay taxes to pay their fair share. The fact is, a progressive tax code punishes success. Why should a hard working person striving to earn more be punished every time he gets a raise?
3. Become energy independent by tapping into our vast oil reserves. Sorry, all you pie in the sky liberals, but this country runs on oil! Everything we buy, make, and drive depends on oil. When we are held hostage by third world nations for our oil supply everyone suffers. Isn’t it sad that communist countries like Cuba and China are drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico while we do not? Isn’t it sad that we have huge oil resources in the ground in one of the most barren wastelands in America (ANWAR)? We have huge reserves of shale oil untouched. I am all in favor of moving forward with alternative energy sources but get real – we are still decades away from real solutions. In the meantime, get the price of gas back down to a reasonable level and watch food prices, transportation costs and everything else go down. I for one do not wish to put my two-year-old and four-year-old in the back seat of a Prius because liberals don’t like my SUV. By the way, Obama’s taxpayer paid for Limo gets 8 miles to the gallon. How’s that for setting an example?
4. Eliminate Public Sector Unions. This is so immoral it is silly! The union leaders negotiate with politicians that are supposed to act on the behalf of taxpayers. They cut sweetheart deals with unions and in return receive millions of dollars in campaign donations. So who is watching out for the people that end up paying for these lopsided pensions and pay plans? No one! Let’s get back to a merit system that rewards good work and allows government employees to contribute to their pension the same way we have to. Even big Government liberal FDR saw the flaws in allowing public workers to unionize. Talk about a conflict of interest!
5. Term limits for all politicians. This is so important if we want to get anything accomplished. Career politicians funded by lobbyists, unions, and corporations often forget what they were elected to do. By flushing the cockroaches out of Washington with term limits they will have less incentive to cut deals with special interest groups. The fact is, many politicians go to Washington with the best of intentions and are corrupted over time. Come in, do your time, and move over for someone else!
6. Lower corporate taxes, decrease unreasonable regulations, and eliminate corporate tax loop holes. We now are a nation of non-producers. We used to build everything and now we build very little. Why? There are many reasons, but the big one is that we are one of the highest corporate tax countries in the world with too many unnecessary regulations. Remember, a corporation is not a person, it cannot be greedy like liberals always say. A corporation is made up of tax paying employees, management, and shareholders. When an over regulating, over taxing government enters the picture and sets up sweet loopholes so left leaning Companies like Google and GE can avoid taxes, it kills shareholder confidence and forces management to lay off employees and in many cases move their company to places like China. It is time to bring back our manufacturing base and put people back to work! High tariffs on China, lower taxes on corporations that bring back jobs, and above all, a moral and reasonable regulation system.
7. Eliminate the Department of Education. This goes back to eliminating public unions. Our schools are no longer run by parents and teachers. They are run by union leaders that could care less about educating our kids. We pay the highest cost per student in the world yet lag way behind most countries. We need to get rid of bad teachers that are protected by unions, reward good teachers and get back to teaching reading, writing, Math, Science, and history. Enough of this multicultural crap and all this pushing kids along so as not to damage their delicate self esteem. Our kids aren’t getting dumber, they’re getting dumbed down by a failed education system run by unions and bureaucrats. Unless we want generations of brainwashed poorly educated kids, we better take a stand now!
8. And finally! Secure the border! The U.S. – Mexican border is no longer controlled by the U.S. It is now controlled by drug cartels and human smugglers. While our politicians are wasting billions trying to help people 5,000 miles away, people are dying on our border. Let’s pull our troops out of the middle east and start taking care of our own country. We won’t need to be in the Middle East if we take care of point 3.
Now, the million dollar question. How can we get some of these important issues resolved?
As long as we vote for a party instead of the candidate we will never get significant change. First of all, the democratic party has been taken over by big government liberals. All you Reagan and JFK Democrats need to wake up and look around. As long as you vote democrat because that is what you always did you will be part of the problem.
Flush out the establishment Republicans!
Republicans, your party has been taken over by big government moderates. These are spineless politicians that are more interested in getting good press from the main stream media than doing what is best for the country. We need to get rid of these guys now!
Who can save this country? We can if we wake up and push hard for change. It will be a tough fight and the corrupt and often violent unions will fight us tooth and nail. You see they don’t care if America goes bankrupt as long as they get their piece of the pie.
The Tea Party (I am not a member) is a group of concerned Americans that woke up and smelled the stink coming out of Washington. This is a group of Americans, Democrats, Independents, and Republicans that see the future and understand it is not looking good.
I know, you think Tea Party only supports republicans. No, they only support politicians that are willing to stand up and fight for the salvation of this country. If the politicians choose the republican ticket who cares? In fact, maybe we can flush all the corrupt republicans out with the next election. The liberals aren’t going anywhere.
The United States is going bankrupt. We can longer sustain the socialist policies and entitlement spending that has gone on for decades. The chickens have come home to roost and unless you want our kids and grandkids to grow up in a very different country than we knew, we better take a stand now!
Join the conversation and share this blog post with your friends!
Please add any suggestions or comments and let’s get the debate going. A note to hateful liberals – please save the vitriol. If you do not have anything constructive to say, and resort to name calling and profanity, you will be neutered (I mean censured).
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people…
They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
The Myth of Peak Oil
For decades, we’ve heard the call of “peak oil”, that we’re facing an ever-decreasing supply of oil. The US simply cannot maintain it’s current usage of oil because we are on the verge of a collapse of apocalyptic proportions because the last oil in the ground is being used right now. Makes wonderful news copy, and is a great way to castigate the energy industry and justify an entire reworking of the economy, but there’s a problem: it’s not true.
The solution actually lies within the US. Actually, within Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. We have 276+ YEARS of 100% of our oil needs within those three States alone. That’s right, we can eliminate 100% of the pumping going on now – Alaska, California, Pennsylvania, Texas, offshore, what-have-you – and supply 100% of our needs with just the states of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.
How? It’s simple. It’s called oil shale. And the US has enough to run 100% of our needs for nearly 3 centuries. There are somewhere between 2.8 an 3.3 TRILLION barrels of oil in shale worldwide, and the US has 62% of that. Assume the middle – 3 trillion barrels. That means the US has about 1.9 TRILLION barrels of shale oil. And nearly all of it is within the three states listed above.
Consider that number. One point nine trillion. 1,900,000,000,000. It’s a mind-boggling number (well, maybe not so much any more, given that our budget deficits are around the same size!). It would be 271 barrels of oil for every single person on the face of the earth, or more than 6,300 barrels per person in the USA. Since there are 42 gallons per oil barrel, this represents about 266,000 gallons of oil per person in the US. Think about it. You know what a gallon of milk is like; imagine just over a quarter of a million of them! If you used a gallon a day every day, it would take 728 years for you to use it all.
What does that scale up to? Well, we use about 20 million barrels a day as a nation. Divide 20 million into 1.9 trillion and we find we have oil for 95,000 days. Or at least 260 years. And remember, this is the middle estimate value. Yes, we have oil shale for 260 years, minimum. A truly staggering timeline. If we started 100% of our consumption of oil from this reserve, and started in 2020, we’d finally be running out around 2250, sometime around the 110th President of the United States is elected.
Many will talk about how it’s too expensive. But is that correct? Consider that today, February 26th 2011, oil is selling for about $98.23 per barrel. Suddenly the estimated cost of $21-$25 per barrel doesn’t seem so high – we could cut our oil expenses by 70% or more. A massive savings for the nation, amounting to over $1 billion dollars a DAY in reduced oil expenditures. Over $400 billion a year in savings, about 3% of our GDP.
And it goes beyond that. Currently the US produces about 8 million barrels a day of oil. Rather than consuming that oil, we could, in fact, sell it (since we get our oil from shale). At a sell price of $98 per barrel, that would represent the ability to export $784 million dollars a day of crude, adding $240 billion to the positive side of our trade deficit. And because we’re no longer importing 12 million barrels a day, that reduces our purchases by nearly $1 billion a day, for a total change in our trade deficit by $600 billion. The US nearly becomes a net exporter, and that would immensely improve our economic standing in the world.
And it goes beyond the change in the trade deficit; we could cut the costs of gasoline and heating oil by 1/4; the boost to our economy by bringing gasoline to less than $1.00 per gallon would be immense. Remember the peak in 2008, when gasoline reached briefly touched the $4.00 per gallon barrier? That – along with the housing crisis – was a prime reason the recession of 2008 hit so hard and so deep. Cutting our internal energy costs by a factor of 4 frees up a massive amount of dollars internally for other economic activity.
The facts are clear: the US has nearly 3 centuries of oil sitting within its shores; we have the ability to tap that massive reserve in 10 years; we could become one of the largest exporters of oil in the world; we could nearly eliminate the trade deficit; and we could severely cut the dollars we spend on energy within these United States. Peak oil – and the hysteria that goes with it – is a myth – at least within the borders of the US.
Remember when…
“Winston, come into the dining room, it’s time to eat,” Julia yelled to her husband.
“In a minute, honey, it’s a tie score,” he answered. Actually Winston wasn’t very interested in the traditional holiday football game between Detroit and Washington . Ever since the government passed the Civility in Sports Statute of 2017, outlawing tackle football for its “unseemly violence” and the “bad example it sets for the rest of the world,” Winston was far less of a football fan than he used to be. Two-hand touch wasn’t nearly as exciting.
Yet it wasn’t the game that Winston was uninterested in. It was more the thought of eating another TofuTurkey. Even though it was the best type of Veggie Meat available after the government revised the American Anti-Obesity Act of 2018, adding fowl to the list of federally-forbidden foods, (which already included potatoes, cranberry sauce and mince-meat pie), it wasn’t anything like real turkey. And ever since the government officially changed the name of “Thanksgiving Day” to “A National Day of Atonement” in 2020, to officially acknowledge the Pilgrims’ historically brutal treatment of Native Americans, the holiday had lost a lot of its luster.
Eating in the dining room was also a bit daunting. The unearthly gleam of government-mandated fluorescent light bulbs made the Tofu Turkey look even weirder than it actually was, and the room was always cold. Ever since Congress passed the Power Conservation Act of 2016, mandating all thermostats—which were monitored and controlled by the electric company — be kept at 68 degrees, every room on the north side of the house was barely tolerable throughout the entire winter.
Still, it was good getting together with family. Or at least most of the family. Winston missed his mother, who passed on in October, when she had used up her legal allotment of life-saving medical treatment. He had had many heated conversations with the Regional Health Consortium, spawned when the private insurance market finally went bankrupt, and everyone was forced into the government health care program. And though he demanded she be kept on her treatment, it was a futile effort. “The RHC’s resources are limited,” explained the government bureaucrat Winston spoke with on the phone. “Your mother received all the benefits to which she was entitled. I’m sorry for your loss.”
Ed couldn’t make it either. He had forgotten to plug in his electric car last night, the only kind available after the Anti-Fossil Fuel Bill of 2021 outlawed the use of the combustion engines — for everyone but government officials. The fifty mile round trip was about ten miles too far, and Ed didn’t want to spend a frosty night on the road somewhere between here and there.
Thankfully, Winston’s brother, John, and his wife were flying in. Winston made sure that the dining room chairs had extra cushions for the occasion. No one complained more than John about the pain of sitting down so soon after the government – mandated cavity searches at airports, which severely aggravated his hemorrhoids.
Ever since a terrorist successfully smuggled a cavity bomb onto a jetliner, the TSA told Americans the added “inconvenience” was an “absolute necessity” in order to stay “one step ahead of the terrorists.” Winston’s own body had grown accustomed to such probing ever since the government expanded their scope to just about anywhere a crowd gathered, via the Anti-Profiling Act of 2022. That law made it a crime to single out any group or individual for “unequal scrutiny,” even when probable cause was involved. Thus, cavity searches at malls, train stations, bus depots, etc., etc., had become almost routine. Almost.
The Supreme Court is reviewing the statute, but most Americans expect a Court composed of six ‘progressives’ and three conservatives to leave the law intact. “A living Constitution is extremely flexible,” said the Court’s eldest member, Elena Kagan. “ Europe has had laws like this one for years. We should learn from their example,” she added.
Winston’s thoughts turned to his own children. He got along fairly well with his 12-year-old daughter, Brittany, mostly because she ignored him. Winston had long ago surrendered to the idea that she could text anyone at any time, even during Atonement Dinner. Their only real confrontation had occurred when he limited her to 50,000 texts a month, explaining that was all he could afford. She whined for a week, but got over it.
His 16-year-old son, Jason, was another matter altogether. Perhaps it was the constant bombarding he got in public school that global warming, the bird flu, terrorism or any of a number of other calamities were “just around the corner,” but Jason had developed a kind of nihilistic attitude that ranged between simmering surliness and outright hostility. It didn’t help that Jason had reported his father to the police for smoking a cigarette in the house, an act made criminal by the Smoking Control Statute of 2018, which outlawed smoking anywhere within 500 feet of another human being. Winston paid the $5,000 fine, which might have been considered excessive before the American dollar became virtually worthless as a result of QE13. The latest round of quantitative easing the federal government initiated was, once again, to “spur economic growth.” This time they promised to push unemployment below its years-long rate of 18%, but Winston was not particularly hopeful.
Yet the family had a lot for which to be thankful, Winston thought, before remembering it was a Day of Atonement. At least he had his memories. He felt a twinge of sadness when he realized his children would never know what life was like in the Good Old Days, long before government promises to make life “fair for everyone” realized their full potential. Winston, like so many of his fellow Americans, never realized how much things could change when they didn’t happen all at once, but little by little, so people could get used to them.
He wondered what might have happened if the public had stood up while there was still time, maybe back around 2009, when all the real nonsense began. “Maybe we wouldn’t be where we are today if we’d just said ‘enough is enough’ when we had the chance,” he thought.
Maybe so, Winston. Maybe so.
Today, Our Country Mourns
Five days before Lieutenant General John F. Kelly gave this staggering speech, his youngest son, 2dLt Robert Kelly USMC, a rifle platoon commander with Lima 3/5, was killed by an IED while on a foot patrol in Afghanistan on 8 November 2010.
He was medivaced in a US Army Blackhawk Helicopter to FOB Bastion. Enroute, Army medics amputated both legs in an effort to stop the bleeding. He never regained consciousness. Following a service in the Fort Meyer Chapel, “Rob” will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery at 12:45 Monday, 22 November 2010.
2dLt Robert Kelly USMC
It would be a good thing if we could all be praying for this family around that time. Rob leaves a young bride of 4 years, Heather, a brother, Capt John Kelly, stationed at Twenty Nine Palms, a sister named Kate, and a mother named Karen.
SEMPER FI SOCIETY OF ST LOUIS SPEECH BY
Lieutenant General John F. Kelly
Nine years ago two of the four commercial aircraft took off from Boston, Newark, and Washington. Took off fully loaded with men, women and children—all innocent, and all soon to die. These aircraft were targeted at the World Trade Towers in New York, the Pentagon, and likely the Capitol in Washington, D.C.. Three found their mark. No American alive old enough to remember will ever forget exactly where they were, exactly what they were doing, and exactly who they were with at the moment they watched the aircraft dive into the World Trade Towers on what was, until then, a beautiful morning in New York City. Within the hour 3,000 blameless human beings would be vaporized, incinerated, or crushed in the most agonizing ways imaginable. The most wretched among them—over 200—driven mad by heat, hopelessness, and utter desperation leapt to their deaths from 1,000 feet above Lower Manhattan. We soon learned hundreds more were murdered at the Pentagon, and in a Pennsylvania farmer’s field.
Once the buildings had collapsed and the immensity of the attack began to register most of us had no idea of what to do, or where to turn. As a nation, we were scared like we had not been scared for generations. Parents hugged their children to gain as much as to give comfort. Strangers embraced in the streets stunned and crying on one another’s shoulders seeking solace, as much as to give it. Instantaneously, American patriotism soared not “as the last refuge” as our national-cynical class would say, but in the darkest times Americans seek refuge in family, and in country, remembering that strong men and women have always stepped forward to protect the nation when the need was dire—and it was so God awful dire that day—and remains so today.
There was, however, a small segment of America that made very different choices that day…actions the rest of America stood in awe of on 9/11 and every day since. The first were our firefighters and police, their ranks decimated that day as they ran towards—not away from—danger and certain death. They were doing what they’d sworn to do—“protect and serve”—and went to their graves having fulfilled their sacred oath. Then there was you Armed Forces, and I know I am a little biased in my opinion here, but the best of them are Marines. Most wearing the Eagle, Globe and Anchor today joined the unbroken ranks of American heroes after that fateful day not for money, or promises of bonuses or travel to exotic liberty ports, but for one reason and one reason alone; because of the terrible assault on our way of life by men they knew must be killed and extremist ideology that must be destroyed. A plastic flag in their car window was not their response to the murderous assault on our country. No, their response was a commitment to protect the nation swearing an oath to their God to do so, to their deaths. When future generations ask why America is still free and the heyday of Al Qaeda and their terrorist allies was counted in days rather than in centuries as the extremists themselves predicted, our hometown heroes—soldiers, sailors, airmen, Coast Guardsmen, and Marines—can say, “because of me and people like me who risked all to protect millions who will never know my name.”
As we sit here right now, we should not lose sight of the fact that America is at risk in a way it has never been before. Our enemy fights for an ideology based on an irrational hatred of who we are. Make no mistake about that no matter what certain elements of the “chattering class” relentlessly churn out. We did not start this fight, and it will not end until the extremists understand that we as a people will never lose our faith or our courage. If they persist, these terrorists and extremists and the nations that provide them sanctuary, they must know they will continue to be tracked down and captured or killed. America’s civilian and military protectors both here at home and overseas have for nearly nine years fought this enemy to a standstill and have never for a second “wondered why.” They know, and are not afraid. Their struggle is your struggle. They hold in disdain those who claim to support them but not the cause that takes their innocence, their limbs, and even their lives. As a democracy—“We the People”—and that by definition is every one of us—sent them away from home and hearth to fight our enemies. We are all responsible. I know it doesn’t apply to those of us here tonight but if anyone thinks you can somehow thank them for their service, and not support the cause for which they fight—America’s survival—then they are lying to themselves and rationalizing away something in their lives, but, more importantly, they are slighting our warriors and mocking their commitment to the nation.
Since this generation’s “day of infamy” the American military has handed our ruthless enemy defeat-after-defeat but it will go on for years, if not decades, before this curse has been eradicated. We have done this by unceasing pursuit day and night into whatever miserable lair Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their allies, might slither into to lay in wait for future opportunities to strike a blow at freedom. America’s warriors have never lost faith in their mission, or doubted the correctness of their cause. They face dangers everyday that their countrymen safe and comfortable this night cannot imagine. But this has always been the case in all the wars our military have been sent to fight. Not to build empires, or enslave peoples, but to free those held in the grip of tyrants while at the same time protecting our nation, its citizens, and our shared values. And, ladies and gentlemen, think about this, the only territory we as a people have ever asked for from any nation we have fought alongside, or against, since our founding, the entire extent of our overseas empire, as a few hundred acres of land for the 24 American cemeteries scattered around the globe. It is in these cemeteries where 220,000 of our sons and daughters rest in glory for eternity, or are memorialized forever because their earthly remains are lost forever in the deepest depths of the oceans, or never recovered from far flung and nameless battlefields. As a people, we can be proud because billions across the planet today live free, and billions yet unborn will also enjoy the same freedom and a chance at prosperity because America sent its sons and daughters out to fight and die for them, as much as for us.
Yes, we are at war, and are winning, but you wouldn’t know it because successes go unreported, and only when something does go sufficiently or is sufficiently controversial, it is highlighted by the media elite that then sets up the “know it all” chattering class to offer their endless criticism. These self-proclaimed experts always seem to know better—but have never themselves been in the arena. We are at war and like it or not, that is a fact. It is not Bush’s war, and it is not Obama’s war, it is our war and we can’t run away from it. Even if we wanted to surrender, there is no one to surrender to. Our enemy is savage, offers absolutely no quarter, and has a single focus and that is either kill every one of us here at home, or enslave us with a sick form of extremism that serves no God or purpose that decent men and women could ever grasp. St Louis is as much at risk as is New York and Washington, D.C.. Given the opportunity to do another 9/11, our merciless enemy would do it today, tomorrow, and every day thereafter. If, and most in the know predict that it is only a matter of time, he acquires nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons, these extremists will use these weapons of mass murder against us without a moment’s hesitation. These butchers we fight killed more than 3,000 innocents on 9/11. As horrible as that death toll was, consider for a moment that the monsters that organized those strikes against New York and Washington, D.C. killed only 3,000 not because that was enough to make their sick and demented point, but because he couldn’t figure out how to kill 30,000, or 300,000, or 30 million of us that terrible day. I don’t know why they hate us, and I don’t care. We have a saying in the Marine Corps and that is “no better friend, no worse enemy, than a U.S. Marine.” We always hope for the first, friendship, but are certainly more than ready for the second. If its death they want, its death they will get, and the Marines will continue showing them the way to hell if that’s what will make them happy.
Because our America hasn’t been successfully attacked since 9/11 many forget because we want to forget…to move on. As Americans we all dream and hope for peace, but we must be realistic and acknowledge that hope is never an option or course of action when the stakes are so high. Others are less realistic or less committed, or are working their own agendas, and look for way sot blame past presidents or in some other way to rationalize a way out of this war. The problem is our enemy is not willing to let us go. Regardless of how much we wish this nightmare would go away, our enemy will stay forever on the offensive until he hurts us so badly we surrender, or we kill him first. To him, this is not about our friendship with Israel, or about territory, resources, jobs, or economic opportunity in the Middle East. No, it is about us as a people. About our freedom to worship any God we please in any way we want. It is about the worth of every man, and the worth of every woman, and their equality in the eyes of God and the law; of how we live our lives with our families, inside the privacy of our own homes. It’s about the God-given rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable right.” As Americans we hold these truths to be self-evident. He doesn’t. We love what we have; he despises who we are. Our positions can never be reconciled. He cannot be deterred…only defeated. Compromise is out of the question.
It is a fact that our country today is in a life and death struggle against an evil enemy, but America as a whole is certainly not at war. Not as a country. Not as a people. Today, only a tiny fraction—less than a percent—shoulder the burden of fear and sacrifice, and they shoulder it for the rest of us. Their sons and daughters who serve are men and women of character who continue to believe in this country enough to put life and limb on the line without qualification, and without thought of personal gain, and they serve so that the sons and daughters of the other 99% don’t have to. No big deal, though, as Marines have always been “the first to fight” paying in full the bill that comes with being free…for everyone else.
The comforting news for every American is that our men and women in uniform, and every Marine, is as good today as any in our history. As good as what their heroic, under-appreciated, and largely abandoned fathers and uncles were in Vietnam, and their grandfathers were in Korea and World War II. They have the same steel in their backs and have made their own mark etching forever places like Ramadi, Fallujah, and Baghdad, Iraq, and Helmand and Sagin, Afghanistan that are now part of the legend and stand just as proudly alongside Belleau Wood, Iwo Jima, Inchon, Hue City, Khe Sanh, and Ashau Velley, Vietnam. None of them have every asked what their country could do for them, but always and with their lives asked what they could do for America. While some might think we have produced yet another generation of materialistic, consumeristic and self-absorbed young people, those who serve today have broken the mold and stepped out as real men, and real women, who are already making their own way in life while protecting ours. They know the real strength of a platoon, a battalion, or a country that is not worshiping at the altar of diversity, but in a melting point that stitches and strengthens by a sense of shared history, values, customs, hopes and dreams all of which unifies a people making them stronger, as opposed to an unruly gaggle of “hyphenated” or “multi-cultural individuals.”
And what are they like in combat in this war? Like Marines have been throughout our history. In my three tours in combat as an infantry officer and commanding general, I never saw one of them hesitate, or do anything other than lean into the fire and with no apparent fear of death or injury take the fight to our enemies. As anyone who has ever experienced combat knows, when it starts, when the explosions and tracers are everywhere and the calls for the Corpsman are screamed from the throats of men who know they are dying—when seconds seem like hours and it all becomes slow motion and fast forward at the same time—and the only rational act is to stop, get down, save yourself—they don’t. When no one would call them coward for cowering behind a wall or in a hole, slave to the most basic of all human instincts—survival—none of them do. It doesn’t matter if it’s an IED, a suicide bomber, mortar attack, sniper, fighting in the upstairs room of a house, or all of it at once; they talk, swagger, and, most importantly, fight today in the same way America’s Marines have since the Tun Tavern. They also know whose shoulders they stand on, and they will never shame any Marine living or dead.
We can also take comfort in the fact that these young Americans are not born killers, but are good and decent young men and women who for going on ten years have performed remarkable acts of bravery and selflessness to a cause they have decided is bigger and more important than themselves. Only a few months ago they were delivering your paper, stocking shelves in the local grocery store, worshiping in church on Sunday, or playing hockey on local ice. Like my own two sons who are Marines and have fought in Iraq, and today in Sagin, Afghanistan, they are also the same kids that drove their cars too fast for your liking, and played the God-awful music of their generation too loud, but have no doubt they are the finest of their generation. Like those who went before them in uniform, we owe them everything. We owe them our safety. We owe them our prosperity. We owe them our freedom. We owe them our lives. Any one of them could have done something more self-serving with their lives as the vast majority of their age group elected to do after high school and college, but no, they chose to serve knowing full well a brutal war was in their future. They did not avoid the basic and cherished responsibility of a citizen—the defense of country—they welcomed it. They are the very best this country produces, and have put every one of us ahead of themselves. All are heroes for simply stepping forward, and we as a people owe a debt we can never fully pay. Their legacy will be of selfless valor, the country we live in, the way we live our lives, and the freedoms the rest of their countrymen take for granted.
Over 5,000 have died thus far in this war; 8,000 if you include the innocents murdered on 9/11. They are overwhelmingly working class kids, the children of cops and firefighters, city and factory workers, school teachers and small business owners. With some exceptions they are from families short on stock portfolios and futures, but long on love of country and service to the nation. Just yesterday, too many were lost and a knock on the door late last night brought their families to their knees in a grief that will never-ever go away. Thousands more have suffered wounds since it all started, but like anyone who loses life or limb while serving others—including our firefighters and law enforcement personnel who on 9/11 were the first casualties of this war—they are not victims as they knew what they were about, and were doing what they wanted to do. The chattering class and all those who doubt America’s intentions, and resolve, endeavor to make them and their families out to be victims, but they are wrong. We who have served and are serving refuse their sympathy. Those of us who have lived in the dirt, sweat and struggle of the arena are not victims and will have none of that. Those with less of a sense of service to the nation never understand it when men and women of character step forward to look danger and adversity straight in the eye, refusing to blink, or give ground, even to their own deaths. The protected can’t begin to understand the price paid so they and their families can sleep safe and free at night. No, they are not victims, but are warriors, your warriors, and warriors are never victims regardless of how and where they fall. Death, or fear of death, has no power over them. Their paths are paved by sacrifice, sacrifices they gladly make…for you. They prove themselves everyday on the field of battle…for you. They fight in every corner of the globe…for you. They live to fight…for you, and they never rest because there is always another battle to be won in the defense of America.
I will leave you with a story about the kind of people they are…about the quality of the steel in their backs…about the kind of dedication they bring to our country while they serve in uniform and forever after as veterans. Two years ago when I was the Commander of all U.S. and Iraqi forces, in fact, the 22nd of April 2008, two Marine infantry battalions, 1/9 “The Walking Dead,” and 2/8 were switching out in Ramadi. One battalion in the closing days of their deployment going home very soon, the other just starting its seven-month combat tour. Two Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter, 22 and 20 years old respectively, one from each battalion, were assuming the watch together at the entrance gate of an outpost that contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines. The same broken down ramshackle building was also home to 100 Iraqi police, also my men and our allies in the fight against the terrorists in Ramadi, a city until recently the most dangerous city on earth and owned by Al Qaeda. Yale was a dirt poor mixed-race kid from Virginia with a wife and daughter, and a mother and sister who lived with him and he supported as well. He did this on a yearly salary of less than $23,000. Haerter, on the other hand, was a middle class white kid from Long Island. They were from two completely different worlds. Had they not joined the Marines they would never have met each other, or understood that multiple America’s exist simultaneously depending on one’s race, education level, economic status, and where you might have been born. But they were Marines, combat Marines, forged in the same crucible of Marine training, and because of this bond they were brothers as close, or closer, than if they were born of the same woman.
The mission orders they received from the sergeant squad leader I am sure went something like: “Okay you two clowns, stand this post and let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass.” “You clear?” I am also sure Yale and Haerter then rolled their eyes and said in unison something like: “Yes Sergeant,” with just enough attitude that made the point without saying the words, “No kidding sweetheart, we know what we’re doing.” They then relieved two other Marines on watch and took up their post at the entry control point of Joint Security Station Nasser, in the Sophia section of Ramadi, al Anbar, Iraq.
A few minutes later a large blue truck turned down the alley way—perhaps 60-70 yards in length—and sped its way through the serpentine of concrete jersey walls. The truck stopped just short of where the two were posted and detonated, killing them both catastrophically. Twenty-four brick masonry houses were damaged or destroyed. A mosque 100 yards away collapsed. The truck’s engine came to rest two hundred yards away knocking most of a house down before it stopped. Our explosive experts reckoned the blast was made of 2,000 pounds of explosives. Two died, and because these two young infantrymen didn’t have it in their DNA to run from danger, they saved 150 of their Iraqi and American brothers-in-arms.
When I read the situation report about the incident a few hours after it happened I called the regimental commander for details as something about this struck me as different. Marines dying or being seriously wounded is commonplace in combat. We expect Marines regardless of rank or MOS to stand their ground and do their duty, and even die in the process, if that is what the mission takes. But this just seemed different. The regimental commander had just returned from the site and he agreed, but reported that there were no American witnesses to the event—just Iraqi police. I figured if there was any chance of finding out what actually happened and then to decorate the two Marines to acknowledge their bravery, I’d have to do it as a combat award that requires two eye-witnesses and we figured the bureaucrats back in Washington would never buy Iraqi statements. If it had any chance at all, it had to come under the signature of a general officer.
I traveled to Ramadi the next day and spoke individually to a half-dozen Iraqi police all of whom told the same story. The blue truck turned down into the alley and immediately sped up as it made its way through the serpentine. They all said, “We knew immediately what was going on as soon as the two Marines began firing.” The Iraqi police then related that some of them also fired, and then to a man, ran for safety just prior to the explosion. All survived. Many were injured…some seriously. One of the Iraqis elaborated and with tears welling up said, “They’d run like any normal man would to save his life.” “What he didn’t know until then,” he said, “and what he learned that very instant, was that Marines are not normal.” Choking past the emotion he said, “Sir, in the name of God no sane man would have stood there and done what they did.” “No sane man.” “They saved us all.”
What we didn’t know at the time, and only learned a couple of days later after I wrote a summary and submitted both Yale and Haerter for posthumous Navy Crosses, was that one of our security cameras, damaged initially in the blast, recorded some of the suicide attack. It happened exactly as the Iraqis had described it. It took exactly six seconds from when the truck entered the alley until it detonated.
You can watch the last six seconds of their young lives. Putting myself in their heads I supposed it took about a second for the two Marines to separately come to the same conclusion about what was going on once the truck came into their view at the far end of the alley. Exactly no time to talk it over, or call the sergeant to ask what they should do. Only enough time to take half an instant and think about what the sergeant told them to do only a few minutes before: “…let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass.” The two Marines had about five seconds left to live.
It took maybe another two seconds for them to present their weapons, take aim, and open up. By this time the truck was half-way through the barriers and gaining speed the whole time. Here, the recording shows a number of Iraqi police, some of whom had fired their AKs, now scattering like the normal and rational men they were—some running right past the Marines. They had three seconds left to live.
For about two seconds more, the recording shows the Marines’ weapons firing non-stop…the truck’s windshield exploding into shards of glass as their rounds take it apart and tore in to the body of the son-of-a-bitch who is trying to get past them to kill their brothers—American and Iraqi—bedded down in the barracks totally unaware of the fact that their lives at that moment depended entirely on two Marines standing their ground. If they had been aware, they would have known they were safe…because two Marines stood between them and a crazed suicide bomber. The recording shows the truck careening to a stop immediately in front of the two Marines. In all of the instantaneous violence Yale and Haerter never hesitated. By all reports and by the recording, they never stepped back. They never even started to step aside. They never even shifted their weight. With their feet spread should width apart, they leaned into the danger, firing as fast as they could work their weapons. They had only one second left to live.
The truck explodes. The camera goes blank. Two young men go to their God. Six seconds. Not enough time to think about their families, their country, their flag, or about their lives or their deaths, but more than enough time for two very brave young men to do their duty…into eternity. That is the kind of people who are on watch all over the world tonight—for you.
We Marines believe that God gave America the greatest gift he could bestow to man while he lived on this earth—freedom. We also believe he gave us another gift nearly as precious—our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Coast Guardsmen, and Marines—to safeguard that gift and guarantee no force on this earth can every steal it away. It has been my distinct honor to have been with you here today. Rest assured our America, this experiment in democracy started over two centuries ago, will forever remain the “land of the free and home of the brave” so long as we never run out of tough young Americans who are willing to look beyond their own self-interest and comfortable lives, and go into the darkest and most dangerous places on earth to hunt down, and kill, those who would do us harm. God Bless America, and….SEMPER FIDELIS!
Conservative vs Liberal – Reagan or Obama – Freedom or Socialism?
You have the power to determine the direction of our country!
Its been over 20 years since America has had a true conservative running our country. Over the years the phrase “conservative values” has been misrepresented, misused, and abused by the liberal media and liberal politicians.
Since Ronald Reagan left office in 1989, we have seen 2 moderate republicans, 1 moderate democrat, and now one true left wing liberal democrat run our country.
So, who do choose going forward? This November 2nd and the year 2012 will truly define the direction the American people want our country to move. Obama is a radical socialist and wants to rule our lives with big government and massive income redistribution.
So before you vote, lets take a look at where we once were in 1984 under Reagan, and where we are headed under Obama.
1984 Reagan ad “Morning in America”
2010 ad “Mourning in America”
The fate of America lies in these fundamental choices:
Conservative Values vs Liberal Values -
Conservatives believe in freedom, limited government, strong defense, lower taxes, self sufficiency, Family values, capitalism, and above all, strict adherence to our constitution!
Liberals believe that the average American is not capable of handling freedom. They truly believe that the government has all the answers and want it to get bigger. They have a deep disdain for our military and believe that if we are just nice to our enemies they will be nice to us.
Family values to a liberal is letting the schools raise our kids and teaching 5th graders how to apply a condom. Capitalism is evil and if you are rich you should have to give it to the government because they know how to spend it better than you do. Ah, that nasty thing called our constitution is a living breathing document to be interpreted however best suits their agenda.
Liberals measure the success of our welfare system by how many people we can get on the dole, while conservatives measure its success by how many people we can help get off it!
If you are concerned about the direction of our country you can do something about it by getting out on November 2nd and voting the liberal democrats out. It won’t solve our problems right away, but it is a start.
If you don’t vote you have nothing to complain about when your taxes go through the roof next year and we continue our fast move towards a European style socialist government.
The fact is, Ronald Reagan did great things for America and today’s politicians are moving us in the opposite direction!
