We've been searching for an analogy to the Bush guest-worker proposal, the better to test the proposal and find where people's objections to it truly originate. So how about this?
Imagine that a class of foreigners seeks to enter the United States because they see opportunities for themselves that do not exist in their home countries. Brokerages arise to match the foreigners to such positions. The positions are plentiful but the cost of the transaction, increased artificially by US immigration controls and delays, makes recruitment unaffordable for most US firms who would otherwise offer these positions: pent-up demand.
Comparably-qualified native US citizens are not filling all of these positions because the compensation and perks are widely variable. The lowest compensated positions are going vacant and even many middle-level ones if the perks aren't quite right. They are satisfied with the tight immigration controls that keep foreign candidates out and artificially increase the aggregate price of the positions they do take.
Like it or not, this is an Econ 101 question graphing supply against demand.
Are we discussing peach pickers on the Western Slope? Framers and landscapers on the Front Range? Meatpackers in Fort Morgan? Pakistani software engineers on H1Bs?
No. Mail-order brides.
Bonus points if you can draw a parallel with the Bush proposals to "promote healthy marriages."
Discuss until I get back. Will be below radar until after some exercises and the birthing of one Tadpole; posting will remain light.
20040122
It's rather small, really
If my friend Joe convinces me to run for the US Senate, I'd rather be interviewed by Howard Stern than Connie Chung.
Found via Buzzmachine, via Instapundit.
Found via Buzzmachine, via Instapundit.
20040119
"It's too scary"
Firstborn is now watching the DVD of Frodo and the Fellowship slogging through the mines of Moria. She has to turn away and cover her ears from time to time, such as when the Nazgul stabbed Frodo at the watchtower of Amon Sul.
We warned her.
We just finished reading The Hobbit to her and Middlechild so she had an inkling of what she'd be getting into.
What's amazing is what she already knows about the story, from her buds at school, who have already watched the DVDs or seen the movies in theater. In a way, this father feels a little jealous, that she's learning these things from her friends instead of from me.
What scares me, then, is that there are a few topics that we'll have to accelerate a bit so she definitely does learn them from us instead of her friends.
We warned her.
We just finished reading The Hobbit to her and Middlechild so she had an inkling of what she'd be getting into.
What's amazing is what she already knows about the story, from her buds at school, who have already watched the DVDs or seen the movies in theater. In a way, this father feels a little jealous, that she's learning these things from her friends instead of from me.
What scares me, then, is that there are a few topics that we'll have to accelerate a bit so she definitely does learn them from us instead of her friends.
Political plug---Arapahoe County
Travis Nicks seeks to be elected to the office of Clerk and Recorder for Arapahoe County, Colorado. Please go read up.
20040116
It isn't the rifle, it's the cartridge
StrategyPage notes that Uncle Sugar is going to give the Heckler und Koch G36 a go (no permalink, look under 14 January 04), under the designation XM8.
Civilians in the less afflicted provinces can sample a functionally identical rifle in the XL8T.
It's all very interesting, Uncle, but the new platform sends the same booolet at the same velocity---or if even shorter barrels than that of the M4 carbine are considered, even less velocity.
Clearly the light and short weapon is needed, for mounted troops, rear-area troops who need to be armed but are not constantly engaged in fighting, and so forth. But there's no need to stay wedded to the weaker cartridge that comes along with today's carbines.
The proposed 6.8mm Remington SPC cartridge is headed in the right direction, using a case that is slightly larger in diameter than the 5.56mm, giving it slightly more propellant capacity, to push a .270" bullet.
This .270" bullet must be short and squat to fit the entire cartridge within the 5.56mm envelope around which modern carbines are built. This short, squat bullet has a poorer ballistic coefficient than it needs to have, so it will lose velocity faster and drop more as it travels.
So a counter-proposal: take the 5.45x39.5mm cartridge case of the AK-74. It has the same case head dimensions of the 7.62x39mm AK-47 round, in fact is is mostly the same case, but the Soviets "Ackleyed" it by forming the case walls straighter, eliminating the case's body taper to increase the propellant capacity.
Just don't neck it down to 5.45mm, stop at 6.5 or so.
The resulting cartridge case will be about 6mm shorter than the 5.56mm original, but have the same or better propellant capacity because it's fatter. Use the shorter case with a longer, higher-ballistic-coefficient bullet, seated out in the case. The resulting cartridge will fit within the 5.56's overall length. Drive a bullet of smaller caliber but higher BC and figure it will retain its velocity better than the 6.8mm.
Instead of 115 grains at 2800 fps, try 140 grains at 2300, assuming the case propellant capacities are identical, and a given mass of propellant delivers the same weight-velocity product whether it's in a longer, narrower space versus a shorter, wider space, which of course it doesn't.
Update: Hornady's Fourth Edition of their Handbook of Cartridge Reloading consists of two volumes, one of load data for various cartridges, and the other of ballistics tables. Lessee: their 6.5mm 140-grain spire point bullet has a ballistic coefficient of .465. When thrown at 2300 fps, it will hold on to 1513 of them at 500 meters. With a rifle zeroed at 200 meters, it will fall almost 71 inches at 500. A 129-grainer (BC=.445) at 2500 fps retains 1633 fps at 500 yards and drops almost 60 inches from a 200-yard zero.
Hornady did not even catalog a 115 grain bullet for .270 in their Fourth Edition handbook. The lightest they go is 130, with a spire point whose BC is .408. Sierra lists a 110-gr spitzer with a BC of .375. With muzzle velocity at 2800 fps, it still has 1717 fps at 500 yards and will drop 76 inches.
I just have a thing for long, narrow bullets with high ballistic coefficients.
Civilians in the less afflicted provinces can sample a functionally identical rifle in the XL8T.
It's all very interesting, Uncle, but the new platform sends the same booolet at the same velocity---or if even shorter barrels than that of the M4 carbine are considered, even less velocity.
Clearly the light and short weapon is needed, for mounted troops, rear-area troops who need to be armed but are not constantly engaged in fighting, and so forth. But there's no need to stay wedded to the weaker cartridge that comes along with today's carbines.
The proposed 6.8mm Remington SPC cartridge is headed in the right direction, using a case that is slightly larger in diameter than the 5.56mm, giving it slightly more propellant capacity, to push a .270" bullet.
This .270" bullet must be short and squat to fit the entire cartridge within the 5.56mm envelope around which modern carbines are built. This short, squat bullet has a poorer ballistic coefficient than it needs to have, so it will lose velocity faster and drop more as it travels.
So a counter-proposal: take the 5.45x39.5mm cartridge case of the AK-74. It has the same case head dimensions of the 7.62x39mm AK-47 round, in fact is is mostly the same case, but the Soviets "Ackleyed" it by forming the case walls straighter, eliminating the case's body taper to increase the propellant capacity.
Just don't neck it down to 5.45mm, stop at 6.5 or so.
The resulting cartridge case will be about 6mm shorter than the 5.56mm original, but have the same or better propellant capacity because it's fatter. Use the shorter case with a longer, higher-ballistic-coefficient bullet, seated out in the case. The resulting cartridge will fit within the 5.56's overall length. Drive a bullet of smaller caliber but higher BC and figure it will retain its velocity better than the 6.8mm.
Instead of 115 grains at 2800 fps, try 140 grains at 2300, assuming the case propellant capacities are identical, and a given mass of propellant delivers the same weight-velocity product whether it's in a longer, narrower space versus a shorter, wider space, which of course it doesn't.
Update: Hornady's Fourth Edition of their Handbook of Cartridge Reloading consists of two volumes, one of load data for various cartridges, and the other of ballistics tables. Lessee: their 6.5mm 140-grain spire point bullet has a ballistic coefficient of .465. When thrown at 2300 fps, it will hold on to 1513 of them at 500 meters. With a rifle zeroed at 200 meters, it will fall almost 71 inches at 500. A 129-grainer (BC=.445) at 2500 fps retains 1633 fps at 500 yards and drops almost 60 inches from a 200-yard zero.
Hornady did not even catalog a 115 grain bullet for .270 in their Fourth Edition handbook. The lightest they go is 130, with a spire point whose BC is .408. Sierra lists a 110-gr spitzer with a BC of .375. With muzzle velocity at 2800 fps, it still has 1717 fps at 500 yards and will drop 76 inches.
I just have a thing for long, narrow bullets with high ballistic coefficients.
20040114
I am going to proselytize an E-9 tomorrow (shop talk)
I already proselytized an O-6 yesterday, so might as well go for the trifecta and get the base civil engineer too. I'll either get fired or get my tour extended to end of FY.
Get this through your heads: in the USAF C-CW CONOPS, the unit has a lot of work to do, to integrate itself into the chain of command. This is traditionally where NBC exercises have fallen down---the gulf of nescience that ebbs and flows between the endlessly drilled airman, and the thoroughly indoctrinated wing commander. The links in the chain of command connecting the two is only now getting hard, legible, usable guidance on how to operate an airbase under NBC conditions.
When you have an operational readiness inspection due at your doorstep in 30 days, your first reaction should not be to suddenly shift to 6 days at 12 hours each, to hone individual skills for said inspection. Individual war skills are about as good as you will ever get them in 30 days.
Your reaction should be to get your flight chiefs and the unit control center staff together to mesh the UCC checklists against the SRC's expectations. Then trickle the findings down to your workcenter supervisors and make sure their actions and timelines are congruent with the UCC's checklists. Have a long look at your functional area's TTP section in Appendix 4 of AFMAN 10-2602. The essentials are all there.
Then you practice several Alarm Reds, a few post-attack reconnaissance runs, and several gear-shifts from Green to Yellow to Red to Green.
Simulate shifting from MOPP Four to MOPP Four Mask Only, or to MOPP Two. Find out where your comms break down.
Rehearse managing an asset under the Ten Foot Rule.
This is a martial art, folks. Anyone who has studied a martial art understands that mastery comes only after assiduous, repetitive drilling, punctuated by examination of purpose and intent of each step of the drill, sample applications of the drill under time pressure, role reversals to teach the anticipation of counters, free sparring to see if the student can apply the drill against an opponent, then more repetitive drilling. Your CE Readiness Flight handles the repetitive drilling part, like upper-belt students at a dojo. Squadron leaders---the masters of the school---teach the rest.
A knife-hand is a knife-hand is a knife-hand. It's a fundamental. Now look at which targets are vulnerable a knife-hand, which stances can deliver it, when it will work and when it won't.
The ORI is coming and it's too late to drill your Expeditionary Airmen in how to make a knife-hand strike. You'll just burn them out.
Now they need to learn what to hit with it. You will see the lights turn on. Trust me.
Get this through your heads: in the USAF C-CW CONOPS, the unit has a lot of work to do, to integrate itself into the chain of command. This is traditionally where NBC exercises have fallen down---the gulf of nescience that ebbs and flows between the endlessly drilled airman, and the thoroughly indoctrinated wing commander. The links in the chain of command connecting the two is only now getting hard, legible, usable guidance on how to operate an airbase under NBC conditions.
When you have an operational readiness inspection due at your doorstep in 30 days, your first reaction should not be to suddenly shift to 6 days at 12 hours each, to hone individual skills for said inspection. Individual war skills are about as good as you will ever get them in 30 days.
Your reaction should be to get your flight chiefs and the unit control center staff together to mesh the UCC checklists against the SRC's expectations. Then trickle the findings down to your workcenter supervisors and make sure their actions and timelines are congruent with the UCC's checklists. Have a long look at your functional area's TTP section in Appendix 4 of AFMAN 10-2602. The essentials are all there.
Then you practice several Alarm Reds, a few post-attack reconnaissance runs, and several gear-shifts from Green to Yellow to Red to Green.
Simulate shifting from MOPP Four to MOPP Four Mask Only, or to MOPP Two. Find out where your comms break down.
Rehearse managing an asset under the Ten Foot Rule.
This is a martial art, folks. Anyone who has studied a martial art understands that mastery comes only after assiduous, repetitive drilling, punctuated by examination of purpose and intent of each step of the drill, sample applications of the drill under time pressure, role reversals to teach the anticipation of counters, free sparring to see if the student can apply the drill against an opponent, then more repetitive drilling. Your CE Readiness Flight handles the repetitive drilling part, like upper-belt students at a dojo. Squadron leaders---the masters of the school---teach the rest.
A knife-hand is a knife-hand is a knife-hand. It's a fundamental. Now look at which targets are vulnerable a knife-hand, which stances can deliver it, when it will work and when it won't.
The ORI is coming and it's too late to drill your Expeditionary Airmen in how to make a knife-hand strike. You'll just burn them out.
Now they need to learn what to hit with it. You will see the lights turn on. Trust me.
20040110
Should guest workers pay into Social Security?
"Paying into" it implies that in the future one will be "withdrawing from" it. And there's the rub. Michelle Malkin panics that guest workers will be drawing funds out of our treasured nest egg of Social Security, rapidly depleting it. Aside from the fraudulent conditions under which these workers have been paying already, which should be punished, we can only reply, Well dammit, if guest workers are being FICA-d at the same rate as I am, they ought to be able to get out of it what they put in.
. . . beginning the day they're legitimized, of course. Losing all of the contributions they've made prior to that day is ample penalty for working here illegally. Let our laws change to let them re-enter the United States to work as guests, and from that day onward, we can be explicit that they get ownership in the new contributions.
Without any mechanism to return these monies (but no more) to the people who earned them, Michelle is conceding that Social Security is and ought to be income redistribution, not a safety net or a pension.
Imagine the outrage if we concede that we need the forced contributions of foreign workers just to keep our own system afloat, or to forestall the day it ultimately sinks. We gringos will take their money and keep it. In any language other than Democrat, that is represented by the noun "theft". The "forced" aspect of Social Security will be harder for Americans to ignore, hastening the day we have serious discussions about making it fair or eliminating it.
Look at the political implications of not compelling guest workers to contribute. All other things being equal, guest workers' labor will be about 12 percent cheaper than that of native US citizens. If we agree to design a guest-worker system at all, and we want to structure it so that it does not displace native US labor, this 12-percent disparity must not stand. We would have to collect the same FICA tax from them that we require of native workers.
Then it will be easy to persuade native workers to demand rights to FICA distributions in relationship to their own FICA contributions----the "wetbacks" are putting in their 12 percent and they'll get that 12 percent back at the other end of their working lives (if they live that long, and the typical Mexican or Guatemalan probably does not, which is another matter).
I didn't even have to complete this thought to a friend of mine. He saw where I was headed with it and completed it for himself: "I'll be damned if I can't get my twelve percent back too!"
If Uncle Sugar remits these FICA funds to the guest worker's government, instead of directly to the guest worker himself, that foreign government is bound to piss that money away before a significant amount of it gets to the workers who earned it. In the short term this is a good thing, because it will either incite them to revolt against the corrupt government, or cool their interest in guest working. Still, WUTT! proposes that the remittances be made directly to the worker, deposited into an account of the worker's choosing in their home country and currency, or even made toward the purchase of an annuity that will be worth more if they leave it untouched---exactly the kind of annuity that our own workers ought to be paying forward. It will be their property, it will be part of the estate if the worker croaks early, and the worker can borrow against it, none of which Social Security allows today.
We'd have to structure a guest worker system to collect Social Security taxes from them just to get the legislation through Congress and past the labor unions. In karmic return, the guest workers will be able to claim a right to the monies collected from them. Once they claim such a right, native workers will too.
This could spell the doom of Social Security, at least as an income redistribution mechanism.
At that point, privatization will be an easy sell too. Joe Sixpack, over your life you put $125,775 into Social Security. Here it is back, to the penny, minus some adminstrative charge you didn't have a choice not to incur. Had this money been invested in mutual funds over the years you worked and contributed this $125,775, today it would have been worth four times that. It's your money, it should have been making more money, and more jobs (for gringos or immigrants, doesn't matter) while you were waiting to get it back.
In short, I'll entertain Bush's guest-worker program, even if it is a cynical attempt to buy the Latino vote as Laura Ingraham asserts, if it can be a lever with which to wreck out Social Security. I'd like the program even better if it followed Citizen Smash's blueprint.
. . . beginning the day they're legitimized, of course. Losing all of the contributions they've made prior to that day is ample penalty for working here illegally. Let our laws change to let them re-enter the United States to work as guests, and from that day onward, we can be explicit that they get ownership in the new contributions.
Without any mechanism to return these monies (but no more) to the people who earned them, Michelle is conceding that Social Security is and ought to be income redistribution, not a safety net or a pension.
Imagine the outrage if we concede that we need the forced contributions of foreign workers just to keep our own system afloat, or to forestall the day it ultimately sinks. We gringos will take their money and keep it. In any language other than Democrat, that is represented by the noun "theft". The "forced" aspect of Social Security will be harder for Americans to ignore, hastening the day we have serious discussions about making it fair or eliminating it.
Look at the political implications of not compelling guest workers to contribute. All other things being equal, guest workers' labor will be about 12 percent cheaper than that of native US citizens. If we agree to design a guest-worker system at all, and we want to structure it so that it does not displace native US labor, this 12-percent disparity must not stand. We would have to collect the same FICA tax from them that we require of native workers.
Then it will be easy to persuade native workers to demand rights to FICA distributions in relationship to their own FICA contributions----the "wetbacks" are putting in their 12 percent and they'll get that 12 percent back at the other end of their working lives (if they live that long, and the typical Mexican or Guatemalan probably does not, which is another matter).
I didn't even have to complete this thought to a friend of mine. He saw where I was headed with it and completed it for himself: "I'll be damned if I can't get my twelve percent back too!"
If Uncle Sugar remits these FICA funds to the guest worker's government, instead of directly to the guest worker himself, that foreign government is bound to piss that money away before a significant amount of it gets to the workers who earned it. In the short term this is a good thing, because it will either incite them to revolt against the corrupt government, or cool their interest in guest working. Still, WUTT! proposes that the remittances be made directly to the worker, deposited into an account of the worker's choosing in their home country and currency, or even made toward the purchase of an annuity that will be worth more if they leave it untouched---exactly the kind of annuity that our own workers ought to be paying forward. It will be their property, it will be part of the estate if the worker croaks early, and the worker can borrow against it, none of which Social Security allows today.
We'd have to structure a guest worker system to collect Social Security taxes from them just to get the legislation through Congress and past the labor unions. In karmic return, the guest workers will be able to claim a right to the monies collected from them. Once they claim such a right, native workers will too.
This could spell the doom of Social Security, at least as an income redistribution mechanism.
At that point, privatization will be an easy sell too. Joe Sixpack, over your life you put $125,775 into Social Security. Here it is back, to the penny, minus some adminstrative charge you didn't have a choice not to incur. Had this money been invested in mutual funds over the years you worked and contributed this $125,775, today it would have been worth four times that. It's your money, it should have been making more money, and more jobs (for gringos or immigrants, doesn't matter) while you were waiting to get it back.
In short, I'll entertain Bush's guest-worker program, even if it is a cynical attempt to buy the Latino vote as Laura Ingraham asserts, if it can be a lever with which to wreck out Social Security. I'd like the program even better if it followed Citizen Smash's blueprint.
20040106
FLASH PRECEDENCE---DHMO USE CONFIRMED---PACIFIC NORTHWEST
Courtesy of Dogtolusba, an Observer's Initial Report of terrorist use of dihydrogen monoxide has been confirmed in the Seattle area. This ruthless attack represents First Use in Theater, and has been reported by Flash precedence to the National Command Authority.
NBCREP Two to follow . . .
NBCREP Two to follow . . .
20040104
Finally found the term I was looking for
In a Liberty magazine review of Christopher Hitchens's biography of George Orwell, a paragraph seemed dissonant to me. The term "working class" and the term "middle class" appeared in the same sentences, several sentences in sequence, as the reviewer compared them. (Sorry, Liberty has no web presence so I can't offer a link.)
Perhaps my lack of a formal university education has allowed some misuse of terminology to enter, perhaps not. But to me, the middle class is the working class: people who get out of bed each weekday, pull on clothes that serve to identify a worker's purpose as well as to facilitate that purpose, report for work that is only nominally physically exerting, and come home with only nominal concern that their expenses are being met or they'll be mugged as they enter their homes. They work, at jobs that allow them to live within their means.
So who was the reviewer, or Hitchens, talking about in the term "working class"? To me, most of these people don't work, or many of them don't, because they are recipients of various forms of government charity. Of course there is a class of people who work their tails off, and seem to be slipping backwards into deeper poverty---our Church has connected a few of us with such a family, whom we sponsor, and that's what I've gathered about them. They're "working poor" and they are one doctor bill or uninsured car accident away from not being able to work any more.
What shall we call these people?
The term is "client-class," discovered among the comments to Armed Liberal's post on the Democrat Party's war stance. I'm not using the term here as the commenter, Trent Telenko, did, but who's the master, me or the word?
Perhaps my lack of a formal university education has allowed some misuse of terminology to enter, perhaps not. But to me, the middle class is the working class: people who get out of bed each weekday, pull on clothes that serve to identify a worker's purpose as well as to facilitate that purpose, report for work that is only nominally physically exerting, and come home with only nominal concern that their expenses are being met or they'll be mugged as they enter their homes. They work, at jobs that allow them to live within their means.
So who was the reviewer, or Hitchens, talking about in the term "working class"? To me, most of these people don't work, or many of them don't, because they are recipients of various forms of government charity. Of course there is a class of people who work their tails off, and seem to be slipping backwards into deeper poverty---our Church has connected a few of us with such a family, whom we sponsor, and that's what I've gathered about them. They're "working poor" and they are one doctor bill or uninsured car accident away from not being able to work any more.
What shall we call these people?
The term is "client-class," discovered among the comments to Armed Liberal's post on the Democrat Party's war stance. I'm not using the term here as the commenter, Trent Telenko, did, but who's the master, me or the word?
20040101
Complaints that your wea^pon is to.o small? (updated)
Not your 'nads, mate, but the US Military.
No, it isn't too small. WUTT! disagrees that we haven't enough men. We have just about enough to do the work, if we can deploy them all. For starters, the ratio of officers to enlisted is out of whack.
We're kicking some good enlisted men out because they've been at a particular grade for too long instead of getting promoted. There's nothing wrong with a Staff Sergeant remaining a Staff Sergeant for ten years, if he's a good Staff Sergeant. He may make a lousy Master Sergeant, but we'll always need some number of Staffs, and if this one's mission-capable and bought-and-paid-for, keep him. The same is happening, in tragic proportions, with stiffer formality, and at loss of a greater investment, among the commissioned ranks. Up or out at O-5.
The massive Guard and Reserve call-ups to support OEF, OIF, and upcoming O-star-Fs, are being cited as reason to add heads to the active military branches. Y'all have got that wrong. So many military skills such as public affairs, inflight refueling, military police, and theater airlift were given to Guard and Reserve elements on purpose, to make sure the public noticed, painfully (employers, stock markets, banks, churches), if a large-scale US military campaign ever launched.
Guess what: the public noticed. They looked long and hard at the justification for and cost of this war, and they chose to support it. Those who didn't support it found themselves in the minority, and public support ebbed away from them.
Transferring these missions back to the active branches undermines that balance, and muddles the signal of popular support, up or down, that a war needs. Note well, I say this at personal expense. Transferring these skills back to the actives would make it less likely I'd ever have to deploy again. My family would be happy with it. But I'm against it, for big-picture public-policy reasons.
WUTT!s editorial board are also not interested in a return of the draft. Ask any of our fine folks downrange today whether they would be comfortable showing the ropes or trusting their backs to young enlistees who didn't seek to be in uniform.
What we do need, however, is better training, in marksmanship to name one area, and more thorough exercises to galvanize that training, and more money to convoy or airlilft our forces to the RTSs, CRTCs, CTCs and so forth where the exercises can be conducted. Here is where we find out who deserves to be promoted from Staff to Tech to Master, who deserves to be kept as a Major, and who needs to get the hell out of Uncle Sugar's service. This is also where we find out where we can or must transition to specific COTS items, such as GPS receivers, boots, and other individual equipment.
(Added) Taking one step further back, let's have a real foreign-policy dialog about using our military as Meals-on-Wheels. Deployments to the republics that used to comprise Yugoslavia have arguably trained us for the pacification of Mesopotamia, but the optempo required to keep it manned at the same time as Southern and Northern Watches has driven many good servicemen out.
So no, we're confident that size is not the problem right now. Anyone with experience will assure you it's how you use what you've got, that counts.
No, it isn't too small. WUTT! disagrees that we haven't enough men. We have just about enough to do the work, if we can deploy them all. For starters, the ratio of officers to enlisted is out of whack.
We're kicking some good enlisted men out because they've been at a particular grade for too long instead of getting promoted. There's nothing wrong with a Staff Sergeant remaining a Staff Sergeant for ten years, if he's a good Staff Sergeant. He may make a lousy Master Sergeant, but we'll always need some number of Staffs, and if this one's mission-capable and bought-and-paid-for, keep him. The same is happening, in tragic proportions, with stiffer formality, and at loss of a greater investment, among the commissioned ranks. Up or out at O-5.
The massive Guard and Reserve call-ups to support OEF, OIF, and upcoming O-star-Fs, are being cited as reason to add heads to the active military branches. Y'all have got that wrong. So many military skills such as public affairs, inflight refueling, military police, and theater airlift were given to Guard and Reserve elements on purpose, to make sure the public noticed, painfully (employers, stock markets, banks, churches), if a large-scale US military campaign ever launched.
. . . the reserve components connect thousands of communities to the active duty military forces. If the reserve components don't go to war, the American people will not "go to war."
Guess what: the public noticed. They looked long and hard at the justification for and cost of this war, and they chose to support it. Those who didn't support it found themselves in the minority, and public support ebbed away from them.
Transferring these missions back to the active branches undermines that balance, and muddles the signal of popular support, up or down, that a war needs. Note well, I say this at personal expense. Transferring these skills back to the actives would make it less likely I'd ever have to deploy again. My family would be happy with it. But I'm against it, for big-picture public-policy reasons.
WUTT!s editorial board are also not interested in a return of the draft. Ask any of our fine folks downrange today whether they would be comfortable showing the ropes or trusting their backs to young enlistees who didn't seek to be in uniform.
What we do need, however, is better training, in marksmanship to name one area, and more thorough exercises to galvanize that training, and more money to convoy or airlilft our forces to the RTSs, CRTCs, CTCs and so forth where the exercises can be conducted. Here is where we find out who deserves to be promoted from Staff to Tech to Master, who deserves to be kept as a Major, and who needs to get the hell out of Uncle Sugar's service. This is also where we find out where we can or must transition to specific COTS items, such as GPS receivers, boots, and other individual equipment.
(Added) Taking one step further back, let's have a real foreign-policy dialog about using our military as Meals-on-Wheels. Deployments to the republics that used to comprise Yugoslavia have arguably trained us for the pacification of Mesopotamia, but the optempo required to keep it manned at the same time as Southern and Northern Watches has driven many good servicemen out.
So no, we're confident that size is not the problem right now. Anyone with experience will assure you it's how you use what you've got, that counts.
20031231
New Year's Eve haircut, need it or not
Boy's hair was getting a bit shaggy, and I needed some Daddy time, so I took him the whole way to Buckley's barbershop to get all of our ears lowered.
I hardly ever put a good photo of him here, it's time you get a good look. He's the one on your right. Ignore the ugly fellow with him.
20031230
Rocky Mountain Blog Roundup Eye-Eye
Please visit RMBR II at Andrew Olmsted's place. My blogrollee Walterindenver started it.
Why an almanac as a terrorist indicator?
��It's not as ��������risible as NPR finds it to be.
So all you folks who don't understand why DHS is interested in suspicious persons using almanacs, now you do, so you can now stop your tittering and pay serious attention.
My regular readers, all five of them, will tell you I'm no regular defender of nor apologist for DHS. However, their concern about almanacs, and their willingness to mention them in the clear, appear to me to be signs that they are in earnest search for something very specific.
BTW, the word almanac is a cognate from Arabic, isn't it?
Update: OK, perhaps it isn't an Arabic cognate. Of the three definitions cited by dictionary.com, one's etymology led to Greek and possibly further back to Coptic, one said "unknown" and a third offered no etymology at all. So I say "perhaps," and refuse to blink.
- an almanac would serve well as a key for a book code. For a good example of a book code in use, read Thomas Harris's Red Dragon. Hannibal Lecter and the darkroom serial killer communicated by citing a specific paperback edition of The Joy of Cooking. That's the catch, though: both users must have copies of exactly the same key. DHS didn't mention a specific edition of a specific almanac, nor do we think they'd be so stupid that they would release that information to the public.
- Islam keeps the lunar calendar. For widespread underground cells to limit their communication, it would be advisable to coordinate their actions or their infrequent communications in advance with a calendar that they understood more intimately than their intended victims do. A genuine almanac offers a lunar calendar, among many other useful data.
- a mathematical construct of both Item (1) and Item (2). Base your cipher on a table of tides or phases of the moon, or know which cipher to use on which date. The exact same edition or even brand of almanac would not be required for the cipher to work.
So all you folks who don't understand why DHS is interested in suspicious persons using almanacs, now you do, so you can now stop your tittering and pay serious attention.
My regular readers, all five of them, will tell you I'm no regular defender of nor apologist for DHS. However, their concern about almanacs, and their willingness to mention them in the clear, appear to me to be signs that they are in earnest search for something very specific.
BTW, the word almanac is a cognate from Arabic, isn't it?
Update: OK, perhaps it isn't an Arabic cognate. Of the three definitions cited by dictionary.com, one's etymology led to Greek and possibly further back to Coptic, one said "unknown" and a third offered no etymology at all. So I say "perhaps," and refuse to blink.
20031228
I can visualize what would prompt my father to have done this
He regularly complained that steel tape measures were too easy to damage by retracting them at full speed. This steel tape measure must have been the proverbial straw; we found it when we went through his belongings after he died. I can see him cursing, then reaching for the tools.
He bent some brazing rod into a crank, drilled a hole, removed the broken spring and replaced it with the crank. It would have taken him as much time and forethought as it would for you or me to de-staple a document and feed it into a copier.
We propose airships again
DenPost's lettitors once again discuss the problem of threading heavy recreational traffic from Front Range cities through a narrow mountain pass to the ski resorts.
There's not enough room through the passes for extra lanes, and one writer rightly concludes that if you build them, the traffic will increase to absorb the added capacity. Sinkholes in those stretches can close I-70 for days at a time. And at the times when the supply of snow is best, the road conditions can be at their worst.
A monorail will not be the answer either, especially if it's operated by the Denver public transit monopoly. The monorail will take up some of the space that extra road lanes would need. Sinkholes would still imperil a monorail, though snow probably would not.
The towns delicately perched along the route would also suffer if the highway is widened or a monorail is added to it.
All economic problems are put in terms of scarcity and how to manage or circumvent it. What is scarce in this case are surface routes from Front Range communities to the resorts.
We submit, then, a mode of transportation that doesn't need passes or tunnels through the mountains, and that does not need to strand huge costs (compared to rejiggering an Interstate highway) before it carries its first passenger.
This mode of transportation would generate some of its lift with a conventional wing, making it capable of payloads on the scale of seventy-five tons; it would offer the choice of transporting the passenger only, or the passenger with his or her vehicle and gear to further explore Colorado once they're on the other side of Route 9.
The extreme Green folks would love it because it burns less fuel per ton-knot than the privately-owned vehicles that are driven through that stretch today, it will be quieter and less disruptive than the surface autos, and it needs no large, wasteful asphalt runway---it can operate vertically. It could dock on Dillon Reservoir, whether it's full or empty, watery or frozen. At the other end, plenty of soccer complexes could accommodate the airship itself, the parking and the traffic.
The moderate Green folks would ride it just for the view on the observation deck.
Boeing and LockMart would love it because it's a new market for aircraft.
We'd like it because it offers somebody an opportunity to solve the problem without a government mucking it up. The people who are creating the traffic---the ski resorts---can solve the traffic problem and make themselves some money besides. Who loses?
Get some former Broncos in as financiers, along with the ski resorts, and they can operate sports bars and nightclubs aboard to entertain the passengers on their way up and back. They'd be cramped and noisy, but that's their purpose. Joining the Mile High Club will get a hell of a lot easier.
The only serious impediment to such a venture is not economic or technical, but political. The Transportation Security Administration will insist upon Dominating, Intimidating, and Controlling the ships, crews, passengers, ports, and cargo.
Earlier post, related topic, here.
There's not enough room through the passes for extra lanes, and one writer rightly concludes that if you build them, the traffic will increase to absorb the added capacity. Sinkholes in those stretches can close I-70 for days at a time. And at the times when the supply of snow is best, the road conditions can be at their worst.
A monorail will not be the answer either, especially if it's operated by the Denver public transit monopoly. The monorail will take up some of the space that extra road lanes would need. Sinkholes would still imperil a monorail, though snow probably would not.
The towns delicately perched along the route would also suffer if the highway is widened or a monorail is added to it.
All economic problems are put in terms of scarcity and how to manage or circumvent it. What is scarce in this case are surface routes from Front Range communities to the resorts.
We submit, then, a mode of transportation that doesn't need passes or tunnels through the mountains, and that does not need to strand huge costs (compared to rejiggering an Interstate highway) before it carries its first passenger.
This mode of transportation would generate some of its lift with a conventional wing, making it capable of payloads on the scale of seventy-five tons; it would offer the choice of transporting the passenger only, or the passenger with his or her vehicle and gear to further explore Colorado once they're on the other side of Route 9.
The extreme Green folks would love it because it burns less fuel per ton-knot than the privately-owned vehicles that are driven through that stretch today, it will be quieter and less disruptive than the surface autos, and it needs no large, wasteful asphalt runway---it can operate vertically. It could dock on Dillon Reservoir, whether it's full or empty, watery or frozen. At the other end, plenty of soccer complexes could accommodate the airship itself, the parking and the traffic.
The moderate Green folks would ride it just for the view on the observation deck.
Boeing and LockMart would love it because it's a new market for aircraft.
We'd like it because it offers somebody an opportunity to solve the problem without a government mucking it up. The people who are creating the traffic---the ski resorts---can solve the traffic problem and make themselves some money besides. Who loses?
Get some former Broncos in as financiers, along with the ski resorts, and they can operate sports bars and nightclubs aboard to entertain the passengers on their way up and back. They'd be cramped and noisy, but that's their purpose. Joining the Mile High Club will get a hell of a lot easier.
The only serious impediment to such a venture is not economic or technical, but political. The Transportation Security Administration will insist upon Dominating, Intimidating, and Controlling the ships, crews, passengers, ports, and cargo.
Earlier post, related topic, here.
Blogging responds to even a modest increase in bandwidth
It's those little things that you see in the corner of your eye that distract you. Like this one:
It was just this evening that a married couple, good friends of ours and partners in The Cause, took dinner with us, as the airbreathing offspring units fell asleep to the Rocky and Bullwinkle DVD, while I explained how Pretty Good Privacy made their lives better, and made the life of a keynote speaker at an upcoming LP state convention tolerable.
It's not the hardware, it's the people using the hardware whom you must choose to trust. PGP's manual is explicit on this point, as it describes a Web of Trust.
[T]he average user", he says, "has little to hide, and so hides little". The other side of this equation is the effort demanded of the average user in order to use encryption properly. Even the simplest of the good encryption programs have a real learning curve.
...
PGP represents the other end of the spectrum. It's free, and quite secure, but you'll need to take the time to read the manual and understand it. You'll also need to convince others to take that time, too, or else you won't have anyone to send encrypted messages to.
It was just this evening that a married couple, good friends of ours and partners in The Cause, took dinner with us, as the airbreathing offspring units fell asleep to the Rocky and Bullwinkle DVD, while I explained how Pretty Good Privacy made their lives better, and made the life of a keynote speaker at an upcoming LP state convention tolerable.
It's not the hardware, it's the people using the hardware whom you must choose to trust. PGP's manual is explicit on this point, as it describes a Web of Trust.
20031227
Quote of the day
From Lexington Green at ChicagoBoyz:
Update: It reminds us of another quote, which we could not find last night when we first posted:
Jeff Cooper said that in the foreword to The Modern Technique of the Pistol, to establish a similar point: if human civilization could have made evil go away, we would have done it by now. Of course we haven't, and we must still deal with it in our personal lives. Evil must be opposed, and it is opposed most successfully by the intended target or victim of that evil. A society- or state-sponsored third-party interdiction of evil is a distant second best.
Evil is not a metaphor which can be dispensed with by some rhetorical gimmick. Nor is evil a psychiatric or social condition which can be resolved by the march of progress. Evil is a permanent element in human affairs.
Update: It reminds us of another quote, which we could not find last night when we first posted:
" . . . while times change quickly, people change slowly. Abraham would be astonished at electricity, but not at Ceausescu. Lifestyles in Elizabethan England were very different from ours, but Shakespeare's characters viewed life just as we do."
Jeff Cooper said that in the foreword to The Modern Technique of the Pistol, to establish a similar point: if human civilization could have made evil go away, we would have done it by now. Of course we haven't, and we must still deal with it in our personal lives. Evil must be opposed, and it is opposed most successfully by the intended target or victim of that evil. A society- or state-sponsored third-party interdiction of evil is a distant second best.
The blood of heroes flows in our veins
My ancestors receive overdue recognition by Ralph Peters:
Found via Instapundit.
It's a mistake to over-idealize any nation. But if there's a land of heroes anywhere between the English Channel and the coast of California, it's Poland. Our Polish allies have taken a brave, costly, principled stand for freedom and democracy in Iraq. They desperately want to be seen by Washington as reliable friends in this treacherous world.
Found via Instapundit.
20031225
Nobody gets to see the wizard!
We have pissed off at least three Comcast customer service reps, two at BestBuy, and even one at Circuit City, by trying to find a self-install CD for a cable modem.
We ran the cable ourselves---we know what we're doing with that spool of quad-shielded RG6 in the garage---and all we needed was the installer wizard CD to turn the service on with the modem I bought. Nobody had them. The wizard isn't downloadable from Comcast's web site either.
It turns out that Comcast does not allow self-installs, in this region at least. Installer appointment is tomorrow.
Then I'll be able to download James Rummel's Christmas present in less than half an hour.
Update: We is up, five-by-five, the tech even respliced my drop and put a new 3-way on the garage for me. No charge (not surprised---they save themselves $125, the cost of a truck roll, with five bucks worth of parts and fifteen minutes of labor). Now I have parts to take back to Home Depot.
The only hitch was getting Earthlink's mail servers to accept outgoing messages from outside their modem pools. The solution was right there on their support site.
I'll have to do some sleuthing with Norton Personal Firewall too, to make sure it doesn't interfere with getting a new IP lease every 4 days.
Oh she's WickedFast.
Next up, the 802.11g router. I wanna blog from bed on the Portable Subrosa Media Access Platform. Anybody ever get Linux to play with an 802.11g PCMCIA card?
Update 2: There is no wizard. It's only an http secure site that the tech logs into, and enters the modem's MAC address and his password, which then lights up the modem.
Note, there's an IP address that Comcast DOCSIS subscribers can hit, to see their upstream and downstream frequencies, modulation formats, SNR, signal levels and so forth, that is read directly from the registers of the DOCSIS cable modem termination system (the hardware at the receiving end from the cable modem).
We ran the cable ourselves---we know what we're doing with that spool of quad-shielded RG6 in the garage---and all we needed was the installer wizard CD to turn the service on with the modem I bought. Nobody had them. The wizard isn't downloadable from Comcast's web site either.
It turns out that Comcast does not allow self-installs, in this region at least. Installer appointment is tomorrow.
Then I'll be able to download James Rummel's Christmas present in less than half an hour.
Update: We is up, five-by-five, the tech even respliced my drop and put a new 3-way on the garage for me. No charge (not surprised---they save themselves $125, the cost of a truck roll, with five bucks worth of parts and fifteen minutes of labor). Now I have parts to take back to Home Depot.
The only hitch was getting Earthlink's mail servers to accept outgoing messages from outside their modem pools. The solution was right there on their support site.
I'll have to do some sleuthing with Norton Personal Firewall too, to make sure it doesn't interfere with getting a new IP lease every 4 days.
Oh she's WickedFast.
Next up, the 802.11g router. I wanna blog from bed on the Portable Subrosa Media Access Platform. Anybody ever get Linux to play with an 802.11g PCMCIA card?
Update 2: There is no wizard. It's only an http secure site that the tech logs into, and enters the modem's MAC address and his password, which then lights up the modem.
Note, there's an IP address that Comcast DOCSIS subscribers can hit, to see their upstream and downstream frequencies, modulation formats, SNR, signal levels and so forth, that is read directly from the registers of the DOCSIS cable modem termination system (the hardware at the receiving end from the cable modem).
20031223
I'll be home for Christmas, part IV
(This story begins here.)
It is now Saturday, 22 December, in Atlanta. Advon and I wheeled our bags out to the hotel's courtesy shuttle and rode back to the airport. We had confirmed seats ATL - DEN - CYS, changing from Frontier to United at Denver.
I declared unloaded firearms in checked baggage to the Frontier check-in agent, a woman who knew what to look for in a "show clear" and asked to see it. We could feel all the eyes in the terminal turned toward us as I unlocked, unpacked, and racked the rifles, then the pistols, turning the pieces so she could see into the chambers.
* * * *
Time again for security screening, but this time the Swiss Army knife and autoinjectors were stowed in checked bags. I still got stopped. Maybe it's the surgical staples from the splenectomy. Those plus my dental fillings.
Ten minutes later I caught up to Advon. "Metalhead," he said again.
* * * *
Denver by about 1030, some idle time in the cattlepen commuter gates at DIA. Bitter cold weather had moved in, and was bound to be colder still in Cheyenne.
Two Noble Eagle soldiers greeted the plane as it stopped at the gate in Cheyenne.
Our super, our commander, and our MPF contact greeted us.
The 20-minute flight to CYS was a regional commuter that codeshared with both Frontier and United, but the DEN-CYS leg was ticketed United, so of course they had to misplace a bag or two because there was an airline change. It says so in the Secret Airline Manual. During high security periods when 100-percent baggage-to-passenger matching is required, they are allowed to lose only one fewer bag per passenger than usual.
The bags they lost? The rifle cases, plus a few of Advon's. We watched as the belt ground past, until we saw the same pattern of scratches and gummed-fast discarded luggage tags roll past five or six times, then we and the Noble Eagle guys concluded that we should start asking after the four US Government-property firearms.
Oh, they're in Denver, the agent told us after calling around with the tag numbers. We'll get them up here on the next flight.
When is that?
Six PM.
It was about 1300 Mountain on the 22nd of December. Weather here was sunny, clear skies, but below-freezing with winds that chilled below zero. I was watching the weather back East also, where a lake-effect storm was brewing.
Advon's Christmas was an hour down the Interstate. Mine was looking far away in spite of the remarkable distance we had covered in only 3 days. We were cut loose until 2 January, when we had to inprocess; no one was around to inprocess us today, and we had to inprocess to get ourselves back off CENTAF's headcount. Whatever I was going to do, wherever I was going to go, I had to be back here by 2 Jan.
The first problem I had to solve, after receiving the weapons and checking them into our arms room, was to get from here to my house, 200 km away. I had no car here, because Barbaloot came up weeks after I deployed, to retrieve the sedan I had driven up.
Advon did one of the biggest-hearted things that a silent-type will ever do. "Take my car. My family is coming to get me, we'll drive you down to Fort Collins, then you take my car the rest of the way."
But the weapons and the rest of Advon's stuff wasn't going to get here for another four hours at the earliest, and I had to check them back in personally. Our Commander told me to get lost, go, somebody from the airport would call when they show up. "Drive, Fûz, drive. Go home and get to your family."
* * * *
And a good thing, because they didn't call until Sunday morning, 23 December. I had spent the last night, the first night back in my own house, rattling around it, feeding cats, and scrounging for airfares to get from DEN to BUF. Barbaloot had used up all of the frequent traveler miles to get herself and the offspring units to Buffalo days before, so there weren't enough left for me (maybe enough for a drink coupon).
United offered a roundtrip for just over $200, and warned me that securrr'ty had become still more Anal about short-notice tickets for metalheaded passengers with no checked baggage.
The only seats left were first-flight-out on 24 December, through IAD.
Weather was still sunny but cold and windy as I drove up to Cheyenne, signed the weapons and ammo back in, brought Advon's bags back to him, then headed back home. More rattling around in an empty house, a quick call to Barbaloot with my itinerary, then to sleep for another early wakeup.
* * * *
A major snowstorm was gathering moisture from Lake Erie and would begin dumping it on Western New York that day. Could I be stuck in Dulles? Yeah. Wouldn't be so bad, though, since both Barbaloot and I have family in the area---oh yeah, forgot, half of them will be in Buffalo.
After I checked in at Denver, I noticed two rows of OCR-font capital "S"s printed across the boarding pass stub. Now I would learn what that means. The secondary gate screening flagged my boots, my rigger's belt buckle, wedding ring, dog tags, sunglasses, and on and on. My surgical staples were beginning to tingle when another gate agent came up, the same person who had checked me in, in fact. She noticed the short hair, the desert boots, and the grimacing War Face and recognized me as a serviceman, since I had shown my military ID and leave form when I checked in.
"You're military on leave. You're not supposed to be subject to secondary screening."
Fine time to find that out. Am I going to make this flight?
* * * *
Of course I did. The storm over Western New York had worsened by the time I reached Dulles. The flight was delayed, then delayed again. I was reaching for a phone when they announced boarding. We would arrive at Buffalo at about dark, on Monday, 24 December.
As we descended we entered a cloud layer that had no bottom, only some gaps through which we could see patches of the runway and bits of Tonawanda, Cheektowaga, and Lancaster. This was wet, heavy snow churning beneath us.
The landing was slow and rough. The pilot announced during taxiing that we were the last plane in, Buffalo Airport was now closed.
I had checked no baggage, but the only place to meet anyone was at baggage claim anyway. I headed there, and stood around, looking at the families reuniting at the belts.
Then I felt a tug at my right hand. Middlechild, wearing glasses I had only seen in photos until now, had found me and now held my hand, but stared straight ahead with a faint smirk. She never has been big on eye contact. As I was turning to her, I felt another cold hand take my left. It was Barbaloot. She didn't say anything, didn't need to. We just looked at each other for a moment, holding one hand, each making sure it really was the other.
* * * *
I felt guilty, knowing that I came home from a huge military undertaking while tens of thousands of others were going to stay for months longer than I, and of them many would not come home alive. Pure dumb luck precipitated our release, and purer dumber luck, some of it made by ourselves, got us home in time to take advantage of it.
Eventually Advon and I deployed again, and made up for this release as well as our 365-day orders would allow. This makes me feel only slightly less self-conscious.
I felt guilty that I could join my extended and generous and loving family for Christmas, and they could not. In telling this story, that guilt has been revived somewhat, because another huge campaign has called servicemen away for another Christmas, while I write about my own experiences from the comfort of my home, on a computer where I can email or browse for hours at a stretch.
There is no question, between Advon and me, that our services will be needed again. And maybe this time, we'll stay in theater so somebody else can try to rotate back to the World in time for a busy holiday, and write about it.
* * * *
To the men and women who are still in the AOR, I wish a sincere Merry Christmas.
It is now Saturday, 22 December, in Atlanta. Advon and I wheeled our bags out to the hotel's courtesy shuttle and rode back to the airport. We had confirmed seats ATL - DEN - CYS, changing from Frontier to United at Denver.
I declared unloaded firearms in checked baggage to the Frontier check-in agent, a woman who knew what to look for in a "show clear" and asked to see it. We could feel all the eyes in the terminal turned toward us as I unlocked, unpacked, and racked the rifles, then the pistols, turning the pieces so she could see into the chambers.
* * * *
Time again for security screening, but this time the Swiss Army knife and autoinjectors were stowed in checked bags. I still got stopped. Maybe it's the surgical staples from the splenectomy. Those plus my dental fillings.
Ten minutes later I caught up to Advon. "Metalhead," he said again.
* * * *
Denver by about 1030, some idle time in the cattlepen commuter gates at DIA. Bitter cold weather had moved in, and was bound to be colder still in Cheyenne.
Two Noble Eagle soldiers greeted the plane as it stopped at the gate in Cheyenne.
Our super, our commander, and our MPF contact greeted us.
The 20-minute flight to CYS was a regional commuter that codeshared with both Frontier and United, but the DEN-CYS leg was ticketed United, so of course they had to misplace a bag or two because there was an airline change. It says so in the Secret Airline Manual. During high security periods when 100-percent baggage-to-passenger matching is required, they are allowed to lose only one fewer bag per passenger than usual.
The bags they lost? The rifle cases, plus a few of Advon's. We watched as the belt ground past, until we saw the same pattern of scratches and gummed-fast discarded luggage tags roll past five or six times, then we and the Noble Eagle guys concluded that we should start asking after the four US Government-property firearms.
Oh, they're in Denver, the agent told us after calling around with the tag numbers. We'll get them up here on the next flight.
When is that?
Six PM.
It was about 1300 Mountain on the 22nd of December. Weather here was sunny, clear skies, but below-freezing with winds that chilled below zero. I was watching the weather back East also, where a lake-effect storm was brewing.
Advon's Christmas was an hour down the Interstate. Mine was looking far away in spite of the remarkable distance we had covered in only 3 days. We were cut loose until 2 January, when we had to inprocess; no one was around to inprocess us today, and we had to inprocess to get ourselves back off CENTAF's headcount. Whatever I was going to do, wherever I was going to go, I had to be back here by 2 Jan.
The first problem I had to solve, after receiving the weapons and checking them into our arms room, was to get from here to my house, 200 km away. I had no car here, because Barbaloot came up weeks after I deployed, to retrieve the sedan I had driven up.
Advon did one of the biggest-hearted things that a silent-type will ever do. "Take my car. My family is coming to get me, we'll drive you down to Fort Collins, then you take my car the rest of the way."
But the weapons and the rest of Advon's stuff wasn't going to get here for another four hours at the earliest, and I had to check them back in personally. Our Commander told me to get lost, go, somebody from the airport would call when they show up. "Drive, Fûz, drive. Go home and get to your family."
* * * *
And a good thing, because they didn't call until Sunday morning, 23 December. I had spent the last night, the first night back in my own house, rattling around it, feeding cats, and scrounging for airfares to get from DEN to BUF. Barbaloot had used up all of the frequent traveler miles to get herself and the offspring units to Buffalo days before, so there weren't enough left for me (maybe enough for a drink coupon).
United offered a roundtrip for just over $200, and warned me that securrr'ty had become still more Anal about short-notice tickets for metalheaded passengers with no checked baggage.
The only seats left were first-flight-out on 24 December, through IAD.
Weather was still sunny but cold and windy as I drove up to Cheyenne, signed the weapons and ammo back in, brought Advon's bags back to him, then headed back home. More rattling around in an empty house, a quick call to Barbaloot with my itinerary, then to sleep for another early wakeup.
* * * *
A major snowstorm was gathering moisture from Lake Erie and would begin dumping it on Western New York that day. Could I be stuck in Dulles? Yeah. Wouldn't be so bad, though, since both Barbaloot and I have family in the area---oh yeah, forgot, half of them will be in Buffalo.
After I checked in at Denver, I noticed two rows of OCR-font capital "S"s printed across the boarding pass stub. Now I would learn what that means. The secondary gate screening flagged my boots, my rigger's belt buckle, wedding ring, dog tags, sunglasses, and on and on. My surgical staples were beginning to tingle when another gate agent came up, the same person who had checked me in, in fact. She noticed the short hair, the desert boots, and the grimacing War Face and recognized me as a serviceman, since I had shown my military ID and leave form when I checked in.
"You're military on leave. You're not supposed to be subject to secondary screening."
Fine time to find that out. Am I going to make this flight?
* * * *
Of course I did. The storm over Western New York had worsened by the time I reached Dulles. The flight was delayed, then delayed again. I was reaching for a phone when they announced boarding. We would arrive at Buffalo at about dark, on Monday, 24 December.
As we descended we entered a cloud layer that had no bottom, only some gaps through which we could see patches of the runway and bits of Tonawanda, Cheektowaga, and Lancaster. This was wet, heavy snow churning beneath us.
The landing was slow and rough. The pilot announced during taxiing that we were the last plane in, Buffalo Airport was now closed.
I had checked no baggage, but the only place to meet anyone was at baggage claim anyway. I headed there, and stood around, looking at the families reuniting at the belts.
Then I felt a tug at my right hand. Middlechild, wearing glasses I had only seen in photos until now, had found me and now held my hand, but stared straight ahead with a faint smirk. She never has been big on eye contact. As I was turning to her, I felt another cold hand take my left. It was Barbaloot. She didn't say anything, didn't need to. We just looked at each other for a moment, holding one hand, each making sure it really was the other.
* * * *
I felt guilty, knowing that I came home from a huge military undertaking while tens of thousands of others were going to stay for months longer than I, and of them many would not come home alive. Pure dumb luck precipitated our release, and purer dumber luck, some of it made by ourselves, got us home in time to take advantage of it.
Eventually Advon and I deployed again, and made up for this release as well as our 365-day orders would allow. This makes me feel only slightly less self-conscious.
I felt guilty that I could join my extended and generous and loving family for Christmas, and they could not. In telling this story, that guilt has been revived somewhat, because another huge campaign has called servicemen away for another Christmas, while I write about my own experiences from the comfort of my home, on a computer where I can email or browse for hours at a stretch.
There is no question, between Advon and me, that our services will be needed again. And maybe this time, we'll stay in theater so somebody else can try to rotate back to the World in time for a busy holiday, and write about it.
* * * *
To the men and women who are still in the AOR, I wish a sincere Merry Christmas.
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