Mixed Thoughts

I read an article this morning that quoted comedic actor Rob Schneider as saying the US should bring back the military draft.  I have mixed thoughts.

My first thought is that Rob Schneider has no place making this statement because he has not served in the military.  I don't have much respect for people who expect others to do something they would not do themselves.  Now with that said...

Forcing everyone to serve would be expensive.  Do we really want that additional tax burden?

The quality of our military would decline, because the overwhelming majority of people would have no desire to be there.

On the other hand, it would get our youth into better physical and mental shape.

I also suspect that our leaders would be less likely to use military force if their own kids' lives were on the line.  But then again, we know these same leaders would find a way to get their own kids out of the draft... or at least get them into non-combat roles.

What are your thoughts on bringing back the draft? 

Proposed Change to VA Benefits

I read an article this morning about a petition sent to Congress that could change how veterans qualify for VA (Veterans Affairs) benefits.  The idea behind the petition is a change in the definition of wartime service, which is a distinction that determines eligibility for a lot of VA benefits.

This could make a big difference for a lot of veterans, because as it stands today, only veterans who served during officially designated "periods of war" are able to receive certain benefits.  This is important because of how the government classifies periods of war.  For example, a veteran who actively participated in Operation Urgent Fury (Grenada) could be classified as a peacetime veteran, rendering that person ineligible for certain VA benefits, even if he was in active combat, yet another veteran could have served during Desert Shield and Desert Storm, without going overseas, and still be called a wartime veteran.

From my perspective, HOW you served is far more important than WHEN you served, and the current system is kind of backwards.  Furthermore, I believe the burden of proof is absolutely bass ackwards.  With a few exceptions, it's up to the veteran to prove eligibility.  For example, I know a Marine who has cancer, and was exposed to the water at Camp LeJeune but denied benefits because he was there for maneuvers, whereas the rules say that you need to be exposed for a minimum of 30 days.  He had a hard time proving he was there.  He fought for years before finally being approved for assistance and compensation.

Let me rephrasse this in terms the average person will understand.  Only six percent of the current population has served in the military.  If you break this down by age, over 40% of those 75 and older are veterans, but only 3% of those under 35 have served.  The average young adult is ineligible or unwilling to pursue military service.

To take this further, a currently-serving Marine recruiter told me that 75% of people in the age bracket of 17 to 28 are ineligible to serve in the military.  Only 1% of those eligible to serve go on to do so.  (He continues to say that only 1% of those eligible go on to become Marines, but that's outside of the scope of the discussion... just a fun fact.)  Mathematically, this means that .25% of eligible young people enter military service.  We, as a country, need to ensure that it's worthwhile for them to serve.  If we fail to take care of today's all-volunteer military, we won't have an all-voluntary military tomorrow.

Another indisputable point is that today's military professional is pressed harder than those of past generations.  Even reservists and National Guard soldiers can absolutely expect to be called to action.  This was effectively unheard of between Vietnam and the second Gulf War.  Active duty personnel can absolutely expect multiple conflict deployments.  This is hard not only on the person wearing the uniform, but the family as well.

As a capitalist society, we have a mindset of paying the minimum possible in exchange for goods and services.  Translation:  Employers will pay the minimum required.  I ask you to consider the reality that most of our lower ranked enlisted personnel (with families) qualify for food stamps and housing assistance, but we require them to place themselves in harm's way, and to be separated from their families for extended periods of time.  These young men and women experience shit the average person can't imagine.  Yet we thank them by giving them shit wages, and if they come back broken, we don't seem to care.

If we're going to have a society with a separate warrior class, which is how we function today, we need to make sure that the warrior class is overcompensated, not under-compensated.  This is especially important in a capitalistic society.  We have under-served our warrior class for far too long, and I fully support doing anything we can to right that wrong.

Full disclosure:  I am a wartime veteran.  I am in the VA program.  I will not benefit if these changes are implemented, because I'm already qualified.  This is not about me.  This is about my brothers and sisters in arms.  Also, please do not thank me for my service after reading this article.  Again, this is not about me.  It's about the others who also answered the call to arms, but are being denied help by the very system that sent them into harm's way. 

Music Therapy

Not sure if I mentioned it or not, but I dabble in music.  Full Disclaimer:  I am a rudimentary musician.  I can sing, both lead and harmony. (Not at the same time, of course.)  That's what I do best.  I can play some basic guitar chords and can play a couple of simple songs.  I play rudimentary bass guitar.  That's what I enjoy most, because basic bass is instant gratification.  No practice required.

I picked up a new bass last year so I can play in my church band.  When I got it, my younger daughter, who is a high school art teacher, asked to decorate the pick guard.  The instruments sit in my living room as a reminder to not completely neglect them between performances.  I'm sharing this picture to highlight my little girl's art work.  I love that I play in church and the pick guard prominently features a serpent.

 

Wind Therapy

I've been an avid rider for about 20 years.  Most of my riding is in the countryside not too far from home, but I've taken a few longer trips.  I went to Sturgis during bike week.  I rode to Nevada to see my daughter several years ago, and I rode to Nashville a couple of years back for a reunion with my Marine buddies, taking a detour to ride Tail of the Dragon.  Wind therapy makes me happy.

Spring is finally arriving in my neck of the woods.  Last weekend brought record-breaking high temperatures, and I took full advantage of it.  I hopped on the Harley and rode for about two hours on Friday, and five hours on Saturday.  I even got a light sunburn because it was too warm for the jacket.  It was great to get out, and I'm looking to a full summer of riding.  In fact, I hope to go back to Tail of the Dragon this summer.

Bonus entry: Here's a picture of my current bike, which I picked up in October of 2024. The photo was taken shortly after I purchased it.

 

Driving Backwards is Illegal?!?

Today's post is courtesy of a "Florida Man" story...

Once upon a time, a hypothetical situation may or may not have occurred.  For the purpose of the narrative, I will share this hypothetical situation as if it actually happened.

Back in the very early aughts, wife 1.0 and I both worked downtown.  Our respective offices were on the same block, and just a few miles from home.  One particular day, she called me up and asked me to help her out with a car problem.

To make the story significantly shorter, I learned that her Dodge Grand Caravan was having transmission problems.  Reverse worked okay, but the transmission slipped horribly going forward.  Being the problem solver that I am, I sent her home in my car and drove the van home in reverse.

I plotted a course that would get me home with as many back roads as possible, with as few turns as possible, and then waited for the worst of rush hour to pass.  Driving backwards through downtown was pretty amusing.  While I didn't see the facial expressions of commuters and pedestrians for the most part, it was kind of comical when I came to a stop light.  This was before the days of back-up cameras, so I had to drive with my arm over the passenger seat and my neck craned so I could look out the back window.  Stop lights gave me a moment of reprieve, where I could release from that pose and look forward.  But in this instance, looking forward meant that I was directly facing the car immediately behind... er... in front of... me... er... I mean my windshield.  It was always a bit awkward looking directly into the windshield of the next vehicle.  They were inevitably quite confused.  Using the rear view mirror, I'd keep an eye on traffic, and when it was my turn to go, I'd prop my arm back over the passenger seat, turn my head to the back window of the vehicle and proceed on my journey.

Fun fact: cars don't like to go backwards at road speeds for extended periods of time.  I learned this the hard way.  The biggest problem is keeping the engine cool.  The cooling system relies on air freely flowing through the radiator, which, of course, is immediately in front of the engine.  The cooling process is severely undermined when traveling in reverse.  My office at the time was three miles from my house.  The van overheated at mile 1 and I had to pull over and turn the car off to let the engine cool down.

After shutting off the engine, I could clearly hear the coolant boiling.  It sounded a lot like water rapidly boiling in a pan on the stove, only amplified.  The boiling sound subsided in about five minutes, and I waited another ten minutes or so... long enough for the engine to cool significantly, but not enough to cool completely.

I continued driving in reverse for another half mile, at which point the rest of the drive was hilly, but primarily downhill.  I backed into a driveway with a steep uphill incline, waited for traffic to clear, tromped on the gas and continued my journey home, no longer driving backwards.  While the transmission was slipping horribly going forward, it did catch ever so slightly.  Between the slight transmission engagement and the steep slope of that driveway to the street, I got up to speed enough to get home.  It was very much a practical application of gravity.  I picked up speed going down hills, and quickly lost speed on the inclines.  There were about four hills between that driveway and my house.

All said and done, it took me about 30 minutes to drive that 3 miles home.  But I was proud of my ingenuity in getting the car home, and it gave me a story that I still tell, 20+ years later.

Again though, just in case the man is reading this blog post, this is a hypothetical story that may or may not have occurred.

Misplaced Priorities

Over the weekend, our illustrious Commander in Chief signed an executive order blocking college football games from competing with the annual Army-Navy game.

So... we've got our military bombing Iran, the Epstein file scandal, and persistent inflation, (exacerbated by the aforementioned Iran attack,) but our fearless leader is spending his time and energy telling colleges, "You'd better not schedule games that compete with the Army-Navy game, because that would make me very angry." (Imagine the that would make me very angry part in Marvin the Martian's voice.)

As we go into this, bear in mind that I'm not a huge sports fan, but the Army-Navy game is one that I've been known to watch from time to time.  I also think that the idea of having this game not compete with others isn't horrible.  It is, however, completely unnecessary, and is certainly yet another example of the current administration micromanaging stupid $h!+, just because POTUS thinks he can.  Sigh... Talk about misplaced priorities.

Poorly Written Headlines

In case you haven't noticed, I'm a bit of a smart-@$$.  I have a knack for twisted wordsmithing, such tweaking song lyrics like Weird Al (though definitely not as good) or news headlines, like SNL.

Today, I saw an ad on the internet titled How to cut your nighttime bathroom trips in half.  I thought, "Well hell, since I average about one trip per night, that means I'd be doing 1/2 trip per night.  The only way to accomplish that is to only make it halfway before doing the deed.  Sounds messy.  Oh, I get it!  I'm supposed to put a bucket at the halfway mark."