Morristown

2007-01-15T10:56:00.000-05:00

Well, I am now officially at Christendom, and have registered and paid for my classes. That calculus last semester got me out of doing Euclid, and some might be surprised to learn that I am taking astronomy this semester. When given my choice of sciences, I figured that would sit better with my interest in mythology.

Last semester I found that the secret to relieving the stress of study is not less reading, but more. Something extracurricular and unconnected to any of your studies except in perhaps a very indirect way. I am fairly well set here with the entire Lord of the Rings series, all four volumes of Churchill's British history, and my entire collection of C.S. Lewis books (sans Narnia). I brought a few Whodehouse books, at least one of which I have already read. Although we have it on tape, I was unable to find a paper copy of Service With a Smile.

On a different note, I found out last night that they are soon to release a movie called 300 about the Battle of Thermopylae. The trailer wasn't promising, far too much lick some fantasy RPG.

2007-01-05T16:14:00.000-05:00

I really don't have any excuse for letting someone else break the news before me, but I have indeed been accepted to Christendom for this coming semester. By way of making things clearer (or perhaps less clear), I was accepted for the fall of '04 and again in '05, having to defer both times. At the time of my last blog post on this subject, I had just submitted a letter declaring my intent to transfer with credits earned this semester at community college. I was notified a few weeks ago that I was on a waiting list and needed do give another statement of intent to enroll. As of yesterday, a spot opened up for me and I sent off this morning what I hope will be my last letter declaring my intent to go there.
I'll try to feel my way along at Christendom. Community college was easy enough, but I only took three full semester classes, and I can't help but think that Christendom will also grade a little harder. Standards are higher, and I can't count on good grades on a paper just because everyone else is a poor writer.
I think this leaves me with about a week in which to prepare and be off. Two days at least do not count, since I have drill this weekend, but at least it's not as bad as it would be if drill was next weekend, if you follow.

2006-11-12T10:52:00.000-05:00

create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

Other countries I would like to add in the future include England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Spain, and Israel.

2006-11-10T19:59:00.000-05:00

Happy feast of St. Leo the Great everyone!

2006-11-09T16:09:00.000-05:00

This is officially cool:

My Motorola Bluetooth headset still works after having gone through the washer and dryer.

Not only does it still work, but now it's clean!

2006-10-28T16:13:00.000-04:00

Well, I meant to post about this the day I saw it, but one thing led to another and I waited a week. I saw that new movie last Saturday, Flags of Our Fathers, about the battle of Iwo Jima and the aftermath of that famous photograph on top of mount Suribachi. I anticipated it having a lot of violence, a lot of swearing, and very little adult content. For the most part that's what I got. The violence is emphasized just enough to be somewhere near accurate, but at the same time restrained enough for the viewer to get a sense that there is a lot more that is not being shown. Japanese soldiers simply do not look pretty after they've blown themselves up with grenades. There is of course a lot of language, including a great many vain uses of the Name, but I was not naive enough to be surprised by it, and except for a brief joke at the beginning, there's no naughty content. I was also satisfied that they represented the Indian member of the company without letting political correctness run amok. They portrayed the unusual liberties of speech that Marines customarily take with each other in a way that I can say was in accordance with my own experience.
I watched the movie from a rather singular vantage point. Not a civilian, but not a combat veteran either, I felt as though I were standing in a doorway between two rooms: I was not fully in either room, but I was able, if so asked, to give each room something of a perspective on the other.
Civilians watching this movie might be a little disillusioned, or at any rate somewhat surprised. It's not mainly about the battle for the island, but about the publicity campaign through which the surviving two Marines and a Corpsman were put through in order to boost national morale and sell war bonds. As such, it is not what you would usually expect from a war movie, but it is interesting that sixty years after it ended, there are still aspects of military life in WWII that are only just now being brought up in a major way. I still regret not having done anything serious in Iraq, but at least now I can be grateful I was not accidentally in some famous photograph.

2006-09-27T20:37:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted in a while, but this business about the Pope's remarks and the fury they evoked in the Muslim world seems something worth coming out of hibernation for. Not that I should even be in blog hibernation anyway, after all, it's not as though I'm so very swamped by studies.

From: Me
To: The Muslim world
Re: Apology on behalf of Benedict XVI

It is with the most heartfelt sincerity that I address myself to you on this subject, in the hopes of setting some things straight on this matter and also perhaps of quelling the indignation many of you have been expressing. As is by now generally known, the pope gave a university lecture in Germany on the issue of God and science, in particular the common notion that considerations of God must be put to the side in discussions of science, like thoughts of differential calculus being put aside in discussion of Roman history. In introducing this theme to his lecture, the pope brought up a dialogue between an Islamic scholar and a Byzantine emperor, in the which the emperor, as the pope quoted, pointed out that Islam, where it had at that time spread, had brought only bloodshed and violent proselytism.

I am sorry that your faith is the most violent major religion in the world, and has been ever since the downfall of the Aztecs in the 1520's.

I am sorry that your faith has throughout history made converts mainly by the sword and kept them through threat of death, and that this fact was blindingly obvious to the Christians of the Eastern Roman Empire.

I am sorry that the violence of your faith, or of many of those who practice your faith, is amply attested to by the reaction to the pope's remarks, which have, according to the National Catholic Register, included the incineration of a Greek Orthodox church in Israel, and renewed call for jihad from those from whom it is no surprise.

I am sorry that many of you are so keenly aware of Islam's violent history that the mere mention of it, through a quotation from a six-century-old conversation, is met with the same wrath and speed of action that one would expect from a religion that had just heard they had been outlawed and would be required to hand over all their scriptures and religious texts.

Lastly, if indeed there is a "soul of Islam" struggling to break free from those who have commandeered it to their violent tendencies, then I am sorry that so far, and for a very long time, the usurpers seem to have been winning hands down.

2006-08-31T13:27:00.000-04:00

I invented another new word today

Vapies: n. A disease which causes one's writings, ideas or creations to be vapid. Potentially infectious after prolonged exposure.

2006-08-24T14:55:00.000-04:00

Today, at about 8:05 EST, after two years of postponement and a few alterations in plan, I officially assumed the title of "college student". My application to Christendom that I thought I had cancelled was in fact, when I last called, merely put on file, leaving me with the option of resubmitting it. All I need to do is stack up a certain number of credits this semester and I can hopefully transfer in January.

2006-08-16T16:08:00.000-04:00

By and large, I think neoconservatives play fair by the paleocons more than is true the other way around. As a case in point, here is an article by Pat Buchanan on WorldNetDaily which I found by way of Mark Shea:

Beat the drum for permanent war for global democracy and against Islamo-fascism, and all other sins are forgiven you.

Such is the state of conservatism, 2006.

Aren't we sort of jumping to conclusions here? The main point here (apart from the fact that Kristol's remarks do not quite support Buchanan's interpretation of them) is that it's a trifle unfair to latch upon a single remark, whether fairly represented or not, and hold it as completely typical of an entire movement. Think about it. A certain paleocon (who will remain nameless and who certainly didn't write the article I link to) could go ahead and advocate torture in the war on terrorism, and neocons will not instantly jump up and shout that this is the state of old-style conservatism in 2004 or whenever. (If anything, it was actually the neocons who got branded en masse as torture excusers).

I guess Buchanan can afford to play this way since there are very few people anymore who can be associated with him politically. I'm probably judging on poor factual basis, but I rather got the impression that many of those rounded up by David Frum in his controversial article of a couple of years ago have moved to other camps, many becoming libertarians. It would also seem from the outset that Frum falls into this same kind of foul play, but for all he accuses many leading anti-war conservatives, he steers clear of indicting an entire movement on the basis of a quote from one prominent member.

2006-08-09T20:59:00.000-04:00

The "historical artifact" that Mrs. MacReady sternly lilts at Susan not to touch as she is showing the Pevensie children through the house in the movie is nothing other than a bust of Dante Alighieri. This is attested to by IMDB's trivia page, but I already knew it anyway. What I didn't know was what the significance was, though I was sure it had to have one. I figured this was just a reference to one writer in the work of another writer, or perhaps there was a reference to Dante in one of the other books. I recently finished reading The Last Battle for the first time (last night actually), and then it dawned on me only after seeing all the eschatological overtones:

What with Narnia one the one hand and The Screwtape Letters on the other hand, C.S. Lewis is the first writer in nearly six hundred years to leave his readers with the feeling that he really has seen Heaven and Hell and come back to tell us about it.

Sorry if this sounds like a blinding flash of the obvious, but I really didn't realize it till now.

2006-08-04T11:07:00.000-04:00

It's rather a pity that the Christendom Commons message board was not up and running several years ago. It might have saved Mike Marshner, at least, a good bit of trouble.

2006-07-30T19:13:00.000-04:00

Movies and Purism
My manifesto on the subject. I worked on this for a week, which isn't too long, since herein may be found the culmination of some thoughts that have been taking shape in my mind for more than four years.

1.
I think it's time to admit that I'm out of humor with purists. For some reason this is a subject on my mind quite a bit nowadays. To begin with, I saw the movie of the first Narnia book, and then sat down to read the only books of that series I could find. I then began reading Lord of the Rings again, much faster than last time but also catching more on the way, and complemented it with a brisk, but not quite end-to-end viewing of the movies. I guess I might as well admit further that I am one of those scorned and outcast creatures who did not read the books until after watching the movie, as is too often my wont. Naturally the comment you'd expect from me on the occasion of my second reading of them would be to say that the books were better than I originally gave them credit for. Though this may be true, and I at least will not gainsay it, the thought that jumped first to mind was actually that the movies were better than I originally gave them credit for.

So much of what is or appears to be amiss in the movies is not without explanation. Many things had to be cut for the sake of time, and of what was left over, much had to be changed to explain over what was cut. This was done very neatly with the hobbits' swords. The Barrow-Downs were cut out, so when the company got to Weathertop, Aragorn summarily gives them four swords wrapped in a parcel. It happens throughout the whole story in dealing with lines. Beregond, Ingold, the gatekeeper at Edoras, Tom Bombadil, and other characters had to be gotten rid of since there was not enough time to meet, deal with, and say goodbye to quite so many people. At the same time, many of them had good lines written for them which would have been a shame to lose, so they were given to other characters. The Gatekeeper's line about "that is one of the Mearas" is given instead to Legolas, while Beregond's lines about "childless lords", "tombs more splendid than the houses of the living" and the "deep breath before the plunge" were given to Gandalf. Some of the lines that I thought were stupid meddling additions, such as "let's hunt some orc" or "do not come between a Nazgul and his prey" were actually taken or closely derived from lines in the books.

Unfortunately, I can't answer all the complaints. The usual objection to the comicalization of Gimli, is, I fear, justified. Many of his lines, such as his contributions to the leaders' debate, are very un-Gimlish, and the drinking contest between him and Legolas takes both of them a little too far out of character. Then of course, there are what I call "the inexcusables", which consist mainly of the tweaking of the dialogue to include the names of the books. But if a movie is good enough, it can still be worth it at the end of the day even in spite of a few inexcusables.

2.
Purists, however, are not going anywhere soon, and we are sure to have bouts of purism every time a well-known book is made into a movie. So far, Narnia was the most recent, and it was given its allotment of purist scrutiny in this review and elsewhere. I found the review to be not a very good one, with too much overstated and many things unnoticed. Lewis wrote a children's book, and just as some things must be changed when pitching an adult story to kids, some other changes must be made when moving in the other direction. The critic's objection to the depiction of Peter rings true on some points, but Lewis' depiction is peculiarly suited to a children's fantasy (in which children place themselves in the shoes of their heroes). It isn't normal to expect instant concurrence when a bunch of talking creatures tells someone he must put his whole family in danger in order to save a country he just found out about. At least some level of reluctance on Peter's part should be expected.

Aslan really does not lose as much as the critic says he does. In the book, the children's nervousness about meeting him is not necessarily due to the fact that Aslan is mighty and majestic. It is simply the reaction we would have at that age (or even now) to meeting a lion we have just been told is not safe. It's all very well to pay close attention to Lewis' Christian symbolism, but there is such a thing as looking too deeply and seeing what isn't there.

The theme of Aslan's executioners balking in terror is not taken out, just a bit reduced. One must remember that children don't grasp subtleties like grown-ups do. They like things overstated, often to the point where they would look silly on screen. This is an important point, and I'll get back to it. Adamson showed at least a few creatures looking scared of Aslan (one backing down and flying away), and that was enough to get the point across. The change in tones in the parley between Aslan and the Witch is really not as harmful as the critic thinks. It simply emphasizes different themes, such as the Witch's insolence in speaking to Aslan (or in her "demand" of an audience, rather than asking safe conduct). On the subject of the Witch's departure, we come again to the fact that things to not have to be as loudly stated as they do in a kid's book. The Witch simply sits down on her chair and is silenced (not to mention jeered at), and we get the point. She does not have to haul ass, and the movie does not lose much from this change. Compare this to the Voice of Saruman. Gandalf (after sounding "indignantly assertive") orders Saruman to come back, at which he casts him from the order, breaks his staff and sends him away. When that parley is over, Saruman crawls away, and if it's more dramatic than the Witch sitting down, it's only because this is the end of Saruman as we have known him. For the Witch, she is simply being silenced (and if Aslan actually does mean to threaten her to the point of fearing for her life, it raises issues of whether he is really respecting the rules of the parley he consented to). We are told that the spell Saruman held over his Rohirrim listeners was broken: "They had seen him come at a call, and crawl away, dismissed." The scene is similar in some ways to the parley in Narnia, and they were both changed a bit in transfer to the screen, but neither suffered greatly, as in both cases the written version was represented well enough for us to get the drift. Finally, this same principle of getting the drift applies to Aslan's walk to the stone table. We can already see how much sadder than usual he looks, so we really don't lose so much from the fact that he doesn't actually stumble and moan, or that he doesn't actually say how lonely he is.

Something the critic failed to notice is that the movie also got rid of a few things that actually would have detracted from Aslan's awe. On at least one occasion, he shakes hands (with Peter), and on another, he claps his hands. Both would have looked a bit silly visually. The parley scene also describes him as sitting on a throne, which on screen would have been difficult to manage without extreme hilarity, and impossible to manage without some sort of unintentional visual humor. This at the exact moment when we should look his most fearsome and solemn. Then of course, there is the very silly scene where Aslan plays ring-around-the-rosie with the girls.

Our critic also turns his guns on Father Christmas' line about winter melting in the wake of the Pevensies arrival. The book leaves us in no doubt that this is because of Aslan's power, but that brings up in our minds the obvious question: Why did he not simply come whenever he felt like it, if the arrival of the Pevensies was not needed in the chemistry? Either the children came to Narnia because Aslan was coming and it was time for the fulfillment of the prophesy (which Lewis just barely hints at but refuses to say any more definitely), or Aslan is on the move because there has been rumor of humans in Narnia and this means that things are now in motion that have been long anticipated. The movie clearly adopted the latter view, and I really think this is the one that makes the most sense. If it is true, then Father Christmas' line in the movie is not so inaccurate after all. The arrival of the kids has indeed brought hope to Narnia (the Beavers certainly seem to exhibit a lot of hope in their arrival) and not the least of which has been Aslan's arrival which ended winter and allowed back in the Jolly Old Elf.

As for the critic's issues with the portrayal of winter melting or the reanimation of statues, this is just plain kvetching. Sorry, my bad. I've already seen burning newspaper, and once I read that bit I had a good image fixed in my mind. In the first place, there is only room for so much repetition of the same action in a movie (with the exception of a running gag). The masters were at work in Return of the King when they showed the beacons of Gondor being lit, but that's because it's a cool chain reaction that we get to follow a good part of the way from Minas Tirith to Edoras. Narnia shows us a vivid reanimation of Tumnus, followed by a shot of a great many others in the final stages of the treatment. Then to close out the theme, we get one more vivid awakening of an undistinguished character on the battlefield. Is this not enough? How many more before it gets tedious? This would be like wishing that we got a close up of each individual Nazgul going down in fire. Secondly, not everyone agrees on what the high points of the book are. "Selection within limits", as it is called, certainly allows a bit of choice regarding what to emphasize. The movie chose to emphasize the relationship and interaction of the four children (Lucy's childlike innocence, Edmund's poisonous resentfulness, Peter's protectiveness towards Lucy, Edmund's ability to change and make the best, and the willingness of all three to forgive him), with quite a few extra scenes and dialogue, and some things had to be shortened for this. The river-crossing scene was included for no other purpose than to contrast the characters with each other; Peter uncertain of what to do about a new threat (but nevertheless in a leadership role), Susan second-guessing him (she's now the reluctant one, not to mention naive enough to believe the wolf-cop), and Lucy implicitly lending her supprt to Peter, whom she seems to trust more. Okaaaayyy, so maybe a few more "thaw shots" were in order, but for what it does give, the movie offers it subtly. The melting motif begins with Peter realizing that they have to make it to the river quickly, and it culminates in a charming little shot of Lucy returning the greeting of a tree-spirit she has just seen.

Maybe there was a little anti-climax in the introduction of the professor, but where should it have been taken? In inking it all up, we must remember that Lewis has quite a few things in his book which don't make much sense or are unexplained. The oft-maligned river crossing scene actually makes good sense. Lewis tells us that winter is melting into spring, but just from looking at a map of Narnia, we can tell that they had to cross a river, which is a scene he did not describe. Neither does he ever tell us where the Beavers got all their food for dinner (which includes wheat, potatoes and oranges at least) in a frozen land, or why there isn't foot-deep mud everywhere after such a long winter finally thawing. Spiritually, we must turn a blind eye to the fact that the Witch wanting Aslan dead makes no theological sense, as the devil certainly would not have desired the Crucifixion (which the writers of The Passion noticed and seized upon as a major permeating theme). This isn't to bad-mouth Lewis, but since we can see he too took significant liberties with a lot of things in order to tell a story, we should excuse more on the part of the filmmakers.

This next bit finishes up the critique (and is also worth being the only part I actually quoted): "All these missteps add up to the difference between what could easily have been one of the greatest family films of all time, and what is, instead, merely a good one." I dunno. I'm trying to imagine the movie with all of this guy's corrections put in place, and I don't see it making too much of a difference in how the movie will stand the test of time. I don't see it being more short-lived than it should be simply because a few things were changed. I make it no secret that I dislike some of what are considered the "greatest family films of all time", such as The Wizard of Oz and It's a Wonderful Life, and it yearns me not if some parents give it a lower place because it lacks the glurge level of some of those movies. I have a different standard, though, and I consider Lord of the Rings to be a family movie, its violence notwithstanding. As for Narnia, it was very well received by both those who knew the books and those who didn't, describing it as upbeat and "hope-filled". It has a good message which was delivered well, with truly outstanding acting, great direction, and the special effects didn't hurt either. That's enough to secure it a place in the top family movie club. What I see in the future for this movie (and most likely, its sequels) is for it to dwell hereafter on most families' DVD shelves not far from Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Although it may be ever the last of these three, it will share that fate with its seven leafy counterparts.

3.
Of course, "purist" is a label people seldom if ever consent to bear. It's probably a little like the guy who talks really loudly on his cell phone; nobody's ever him, but he's everywhere. Sure, purists sometimes object even to departures from the text, but the real characteristic of a purist is one who expects the movie to be almost a carbon copy of the book. In ancient times, long before movies, people were used to the idea of stories being told in different ways. One only has to read some historian such as Livy or a biographer such as Suetonius to see this. Livy has at least two versions of why Romulus and Remus fought, as well as countless other stories of which he tells us there are too many versions for him to write down. Suetonius likewise has numerous versions of, for example, Nero's death, and he was writing about more recent history. In such times, this was partly because technological backwardness made the news more liquid, but it also happened in the case of mythology. Many myths had different versions, and this was at least in part because people had a sense that some stories were too good to be told in only one way, and it never did any harm if details were changed or different themes were emphasized. Heck, even Tolkien himself never had a problem with the fact that his own hobbits had multiple versions of every story.

Much of what is in the movie Troy is excusable on these grounds, such as the dropping of the gods and the apparent agnosticism on the part of some characters. Getting rid of the gods opens the way to a very interesting story told in completely human terms, which the movie utterly failed to follow through on. It is or should be understood that when you downplay one aspect of the plot, you're supposed to make up for it by elevating and emphasizing another theme. That's rather the point of selection within limits. Moreover this is certainly the way selection within limits was practiced by Peter Jackson and Andrew Adamson. Jackson chose to emphasize the relationship of Arwen and Aragorn (which at times is a mistake) and Eowyn's infatuation with him. He chose to play very heavily on the theme of tension between Sam and Frodo over Gollumn, even to the point of having Frodo make the wrong choice between them. This is certainly justifiable, as it creates a pinnacle of tension and makes victory all the better when it happens (or as Sam would say "when the sun shines, it'll shine out the clearer"). Adamson chose to cut a bit through some of the descriptions of things and show us more scenes with the children interacting and at times arguing. As a result, I found them a bit more realistic than in the book. He chose to get rid of the frolic scene to show us more of the battle, and to shorten some other stuff in order to make room for a long beginning sequence which not only provides a good setup for why they were shipped off to the country, but also creates a stronger platform for the numerous and sometimes clever references to the wartime situation: "Mum hasn't had a dress like this since before the war", "Narnia's not going to run out of toast, Ed", or Lucy's willingness to have tea with Mr. Tumnus provided he has sardines (According to World War II "Even in Britain, the wartime diet was far from ideal, however, being short on protein and Vitamins A and D" most of which can be found in sardines, which would have been scarce in England because of blockades).

Purists tend to spoil people's enjoyment of a good movie, with the better ones objecting to many changes in emphasis or focus, and the less mature ones seeming as though all they want is to show off their knowledge of the book in question. The simple fact is that, yes, Jackson and Adamson did in fact take liberties with their materials, but they are reasonable liberties, and they retell the story with enough fidelity to be good, but enough selection within limits to make it look a little fresh. The end result is that we feel almost as if we were watching at once an old story and a new one, and yet when we blink, it's all one story again. If this vexes people, we ought to remember that the best story that ever was or will be told was originally told in at least four different ways, with details and emphases slightly different from one to the other. There were posers, charlatans, and forgers in those days to interrupt that work, but there were no purists.

2006-07-19T14:49:00.000-04:00

Of all the ships that were sunk at Pearl Harbor, only two remain unsalvaged, and these only because, with so many still trapped in them, it was deemed more fitting to let the lay there as memorials.

Now here's something I didn't know: The water is so clear that the USS. Utah and the USS. Arizona are visible in satellite images.

2006-07-04T20:02:00.000-04:00

Let facts be submitted to a candid world.

2006-06-29T22:44:00.000-04:00

So just got back from New York, I did, and the trip was a fairly enjoyable one, and I think one I needed. Here are a couple of things I thought might do well to be cleared up.

Fact 1. Amtrak is a great way to travel.
False: Amtrak does not have jurisdiction of any rails south of Washington, and so from there down one is likely to experience considerable delays. It was, however, probably the best way of traveling in such weather as we were having that day.

Fact 2. Cinderella Man holds up well on a second viewing.
True: Russell Crowe is a good actor, who as far as I can see, has utterly failed to act in anything that sucks (Mystery, Alaska is the closest he's come, and that was one of his earlier roles). A lot of people would not sound as natural with an acquired New York accent. Then of course, the fact of being a true story always makes the difference in a movie that would be stupid if someone had just made it up.

Fact 3. Georgie Henley is the cutest little cupcake I have ever seen on a movie screen in my life.
True: She acts well, has an adorable smile, and that little dagger she carries is just precious. Whether or not she could be called the preeminent character in the book, I think she surely steals the show in the movie.

Fact 4. New Yorkers are proud and don't like giving praise.
False: New Yorkers are extremely effusive in their descriptions of almost anything, especially things they like, and one might almost say too much so. I can't remember how many people I heard described as being simply the nicest, sweetest person in the world, and subsequently wondering where were the cherubs whose job it undoubtedly was to attend these celestially good people while they graced this mortal coil with their presence. It's the same way with descriptions of places and sights. Not that this is a bad quality, simply a cause for being sure to understand who is speaking.

Fact 5. There is a tree in Central Park that looks like an Ent.
True. I mentioned this a couple of years ago in a comment on Mark Shea's blog, although it really had nothing to do with the topic. Now I have the proof.

2006-06-05T20:17:00.000-04:00

Okay, I'll Blog it.

From Cacciaguida comes a link to a story in the Telegraph about the squalor at the Hadithah Dam, so I figured I'd blog about it just ever so.

Let me begin by saying that I really can't shed much light on the issue of what happened on November 19th, because I was at Camp Al Qaim in the far west of the country. The first I knew of it was when the guys from Kilo Company failed on a regular basis to relieve our guys of the duty of internet watch promptly at 2 pm, I eventually heard through the gossip loop that they were all doing legal stuff and filing statements regarding something that involved a fairly signifigant violation of the law of land warfare. It was not even until I got back here that I found out the date of this incident. I guess the way it was told, they made it sound like this was something recent, like early March.

None of the troops wanted to talk, but even a short stay with the men of the 3rd Bn 1st Marine Division in their camp located in Haditha Dam on the town's outskirts, made clear it was a place where institutional discipline had frayed and was even approaching breakdown.

I'll say this now, and probably not for the last time, but I did not learn too terribly much about the rest of the battalion in terms of who was in what company. I got to recognize many of the comm guys since I had dealings with them from time to time. I (and everyone else) learnt the faces and even some of the names of the guys who worked in the chow hall, since everyone saw them. Apart from that, we were a company that tried to maintain our own little bubble and as a result we did not mix a lot with the rest of the guys in the battalion, who I presume were the main ones Mr. Poole is talking about. Nevertheless, I can't really say that I ever noticed institutional discipline breaking down, although I can understand why it might strike him that way. At other, more civilized bases, uniform regulations are more strictly enforced. Desert cammies are the only authorized uniform inside the wire, and the only leeway the individual gets is in deciding whether to wear a floppy cover with the all-round brim of the more stately billed cover with eight corners around it (even this liberty is not unversal, and when the next battalion came to relieve us, they forbade the floppy ones altogether: 8-points only). One could also presumably wear a gore-tex blouse if it was raining, but Iraqi rainstorms cannot always be counted on to last the time it takes you to get to the chow hall and back. At the dam, Marines would go around wearing black, green or tan fleece pullovers instead of blouses, and also dirty coveralls. These were against even 3-1's rules, and every now and then the Sergeant Major, CWO-2 or one of the First Sergeants would call one of them out and tell them this would not fly. Then of course came the memo to all lower-level readers about proper uniforms and things like that. I will also say that a lot of this cleared up by the latter half of the deployment, by which time Poole had been and gone. Crackdowns, not breakdowns, ensued, and by the last few months we were there, you could look at a chow line notice that most if not everyone had a proper uniform that was as clean as was feasible in such conditions.

Such conditions. This brings me right to the next issue. Poole contrasts the Dam with other bases around Iraq, saying that while most places are "almost suburban" with coffee shops, subways and burger kings, the Dam was a "feral place" where Marines hardly washed. To be sure, we were always keenly aware of the fact that things there were of a much lower grade, but we just accepted it as our bad luck. Other Marines had college style chow halls just because they were lucky enough to get stationed on a base that had one (along with more convenient shower trailers), and this was something we just couldn't do anything about. I should point out that the conditions he mentions (hygeine in particular) are a bit exaggerated in the first place, and in the second place, as good as they gould get. The Dam only had three levels that were accessible by truck, and those were therefore the only places where showers and port-a-jons (as polite civilians call them) could be placed. Wherever they could be placed, they were. The biggest shower house was on the top deck, another one on the 7th, and two more on the ground. Berthing areas farther away from the bottom of the dam mostly had their own showers. Although I'm not in a position to say how often the rest of the battalion showered, I know that in my company doing so frequently was encouraged.

I find it strange that in a few places he claims that many were no longer living in their official berthing areas but instead had set up camp in whatever place struck their fancy. Although I couldn't have told you at any given time where each company lived (except for my own), I have to say that this notion of his is almost certainly a misunderstanding. There were a number of places other than the dam where people lived, but they were all that way for a reason. The Motor-T company and most of my company lived in an area near the southernmost gate, and that's where they were supposed to live. The only others who lived away from the dam that I know of were the Northshore folks. Northshore was probably the place Poole says "resembled something from Lord of the Flies", and it was where a certain contingent of my company lived. It really was awful when we first got there, but our folks fixed it up and made it fit to spend a winter in. The summer residence was a shack of waist-high walls and then cammie screen all the way up to the ceiling. Food and ammo were stored in the same (unsecured) hut. When I got back from Al Qaim, that had all been torn down, and in it's place were iso-boxes with plywood doors on the front and heating/ac units installed, as well as a sandbagged and locked enclosure for ordinance and a sanitary chow hall that was cleaned regularly. To a visitor like Poole, it was an image of complete squalor, but in reality, people worked hard to make the best of a situation most others were glad they were not in, or would have been if they knew of it. Most importantly, this was not a bunch of impulsive free-spirited troublemakers who lived out here. At all times at least two boat crews with boats ready to go had to be out there in case there was need of it, and few if any of them actually wanted to live there. Beyond that, I can't seem to remember any such encampments anywhere else. Could Poole have seen the AZ's guard shacks from a distance and thought it was someone's hut?

I remember the story of the guy who shot himself, and Poole should not be surprised that no one wanted to talk about it. I certainly never knew anything at all about it except that he was from supply. I never knew his name, rank, why he shot himself or even what eventually became of the investigation.

I certainly remember the smell, but I never heard anything about it coming from rotten eggs or lubricant. It did not get stronger when one went into a room full of machinery, but it did get stronger whenever a group of Iraqi workers were around. Sorry, that's just the way it was.

2006-05-28T11:40:00.000-04:00

Please join us in yet another Anglo-Celtic folk song adapted for church by the likes of Marty Haugen and David Haas.

2006-04-29T10:07:00.000-04:00

____Okay, so I guess some expected my first post would be dated the day I got home, either to Lejeune or here at home. And I suppose there is no reason why it should not have been, I just didn't feel like it. But what to post about? Can I so easily slip right back into the customary blogging issues like nothing happened? I probably could, but I'm not really in the mood right now. Here's something I can post now: A partial list of things I learned while in Iraq:

1. Troy really,really,really, really sucked.
____When I first saw it in '04, I could tell it was not the best it could have been, but that was because I had not read it in quite a while (not in it's entirety since 8th grade). I reread it on this deployment, and the more I read and recalled, the worse Troy became. It's not the way in which some characters are left out that makes it suck. Homer gave us an interesting story full of complex characters, at least complex enough that Richmond Lattimore felt obliged to include a section in his introduction to expounding on each of the main ones. Agamemnon is a complicated, at times confused king in the poem. As Lattimore points out, he is a little wavering, easily worried by cares or ill turns of fate, and must be braced at times by the ever cool-minded Odysseus, but always thinking of the good of his army when they are in trouble, such as from a plague or lack of Achilleus. In the movie, he is no more than an ogre, selfish, greedy, unfeeling, and seemingly incapable of any sort of loyalty or attachment at all.
____Achilleus is one of the most complex of all. He fights willingly and eagerly, never disdainful of Agamemnon or any other prince. He reacts understandably when Agamemnon tells him to take it in the shorts when someone must give up a prize, and although he cares for his own men and the rest of the Greeks, his prayer to Thetis (in Lattimore's words) amounts to outright treason. Moreover, he is also a little confused, constantly talking about leaving, yet he tortures himself by staying and watching the Greeks lose in his absence. In the movie, Achilleus, like most other characters, is infuriatingly simple. He is simply a belligerent maverick who plays by his own rules and mocks authority. Finally, he freely allows Patroklos to go into battle, which makes his subsequent death something that Achilleus must blame himself in part for. By making it Patroklos' sole (and secret) choice to go into the fighting where men win glory, Achilleus' sorrow is simply due not to his own consequential choice but to a little recklessness on the part of his friend, like that Garth Brooks song, "Beaches of Cheyenne", except that at least a country music singer knows how to add a bit of self-blaming to the mix. Also, the bit about his friend; I didn't like the way Patroklos goes from being Achilleus' friend to being his cousin, although I suppose I can't blame the moviemakers for that. It's the fault of a society that has no concept of Damon-and-Pythias style male-male friendship anymore (or at least not the platonic kind) and cannot understand how Achilleus and Patroklos can be such good friends and still both be straight.
____Hektor is too much of a golden boy, far too perfect and not quite like the Homeric Hektor. It's difficult to imagine the movie Hektor stabbing Patroklos after someone else had brought him down, fleeing from Achilleus before being rallied by a goddess, or vaunting over a defeated enemy, but Homer's Hektor does all these things. As Lattimore notes, some of this could be Homer tinkering with existing legend to make Hektor look bad, but that's only a possibility, and not too likely given that elsewhere Hektor is usually portrayed in a very good light. The movie, like it does for other characters, removes a lot of what makes Hektor complex too. Homer's Hektor knows that Paris is wrong, and that by extension the war is unjust. He fights because he doesn't want to appear as a coward in front of the "Trojans and the Trojan women with trailing garments", which Lattimore finds to be cowardice of a different sort, fear of being called a coward. Homer's Hektor tells Paris that he is selfish, lazy, and allows others to fight his cause. The movie Hektor does not have any of this dilemma, as the Atreides from the movie have already been ogreized to the point where Hektor need only say "we can't give Helen back because Menelaos won't forgive her and Agamemnon want's Troy as a fiefdom".
____Not much to say about Helen, except that unlike the movie, Homer's Helen hates Paris, says so in words, and wants to get away. Menelaos, the poet tells us, is eager to avenge her "longing to escape and her lamentations".
____Then of course, there's Briseis. The female role that was meant in legend and poem simply to be an enabler of the rest of the tragic plotline is made into a romantic heroine. The captive war widow from the poem who had three brothers, lived in a smaller nearby settlement that the Greeks took and only has two appearances and one spoken paragraph is transformed into a Trojan princess, consecrated virgin, cousin of Hektor and Paris and all-round female lead to the detriment of other more interesting characters.
____I realize that Homer's text does not make an ideal script, but they could at least have tried to include some more of Homer's lines for the characters. There are only two lines and one turn of phrase that make it into the movie. The turn of phrase is when Achilleus calls Agamemnon a "sack of wine". Achilleus says "there are no pacts between lions and men", and Priam tells Achilleus "I have endured what no man on earth has endured before" etc.
____Last of all, I really disliked those parts of the movie that could not possibly have been written in Homer's time (that being "pre-1960's) and are only there to cater to the sensibilities of today. Odysseus tells Achilleus "War is old men talking and young men dying. You know this. Ignore the politics." This is not Odysseus talking. It's not even any of Homer's characters talking. This is George McGovern talking: "I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in."

2. Being a lecher is more than just bad for your soul.
____It also prevents you from seeing and appreciating a lot of the great things there are to see in life. Not to mention it restricts your communication abilities, since now just about every word in the language has a dirty second meaning for you.

3. Country music isn't as bad as I used to think.
____To be sure, a lot of it is just wearying songs of tragedy and heartbreak, but there are worthwhile exceptions. "Papa Loved Mama" by Garth Brooks is a retelling of the traditional adultery/vengeful murder story, but told from the kids point of view, and in an upbeat, humorous sort of way that suggests that this is a matter of course in these parts, the sort of thing might happen to anyone. "Little Moments" by Brad Paisly is actually a charming little love song about, well, little moments that really make life beautiful and everything else worthwhile. "Some Beach" by Blake Shelton is a funny song about a day's worth of minor annoyances told with a sense of humor and just a little bit of the woe-is-me tone.

4. XXX: State of the Union also really, really sucked, but even more than I first thought.
____I already touched on one point many months ago, namely that you can't become and officer in the Navy Seals with a criminal record involving grand theft auto. Given the trouble I went through to get a low level security clearance necessary for my job, I can't possibly swallow that idea. And now I'll go ahead and catalog a few more; Civilians cannot get the Congressional Medal of Honor, and when it is awarded, it is not for saving the president's life. If rescuing the President from a dangerous train chase is your job, then it does not count as "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of your own life, above and beyond the call of duty in an armed conflict with an enemy of the United States". And of course, only an historically illiterate idiot would hear a Tupac Shakur quote and confuse it for a Lincoln of Jefferson quote.

2005-09-16T18:21:00.000-04:00

______As the days dwindle down, I find myself feeling, well...a little changed perhaps, and perhaps a little unsure, but certainly very odd. Above all, I find myself reflecting a lot. Like, even for me. One issue that has been very much in my reflections has been why I joined the Marine Corps in the first place. To be sure, this is almost exactly what I envisioned it was like to be in the Marines, that I would go to Iraq almost as soon as I was done with Initial Active Duty Training. Only in time did I realize most other guys have to wait longer. But the question still remains, why did I join? I now see that one of my first posts ever, which touched on this very question, did not quite sum it up as well as I now wish, in part because of the fact that it was written before I was in. Few people I knew or was related to were not surprised to hear about my decision, regardless of how certain or uncertain I was at the time. On my first ever visit to the recruiting station, Msgt. Grim came in and told me that I had a hard sell to pull off with regards to my mom, to whom he had just been talking. Most people figured I'd just get some sort of a scholarship and go to college, and so my plans were proceeding until the first Friday in May of this year. I guess a lot of people figured that I'd end up and art critic or something, but no one expected this, myself least of all. I first became aware of the Marines as a separate service when I was about thirteen. I was reading an article about them and their training. When I got to the part about the Crucible, and it being fifty-four hours with little food and sleep, getting dirty and wet, my reaction was "damned if you're ever going to get me to do that". Later, when I was seventeen and going to the Naval Academy's Summer Seminar, I suffered so much on the runs that whenever we'd sing a Marine Corps cadence or talk about the Marines, I was filled with a sense of inadequacy, certain that I could never hack it with them if I couldn't hack it at this seminar. But when the brochure came in the mail, something spoke to me. I hardly even noticed the many other pamphlets from other colleges I had never heard of. I'm not saying I believe in love at first sight, but something rather like that happened when I got that leaflet.
______First let me say, however much it may disappoint this entire generation of Drill Instructors and MCT instructors, that I did not join the Marines "to kill!". I seriously doubt anyone really wants to take another human life for it's own sake, and if they do, they either underestimate how hard it is to do, or it really is easy for their twisted and perverted souls, and they need to be in prison as a hazard to society. I did not join for the college money, as I had already been offered a partial scholarship at Christendom, and the rest of college could probably have been paid for without the Marines. If I had joined to pick up chicks for an unending series of one-night stands, I would have been, among other things, highly mistaken, as it really doesn't work like that. I didn't do it to get out of the hood, as some of my peers did, because I was not in any danger from rival gangs. On that note, my joining had nothing to do with "getting out of trouble" in any form whatsoever. In some respects, other parts of my life have actually taken a cut after I joined. I am in more difficult contact with family and friends, and as I mentioned, my college plans which were going fine are now returning to the embryonic stage.
______But still and all, something felt like I was being called. My later experiences at boot camp and since, and the number of times my butt has been saved from some disaster, great or small, have only served to strengthen this notion. As a firm, almost fanatical believer in Divine Providence, I felt certain that I had followed down the right path, although at that time I had no idea why it felt right. When I see coincidences that bring about unforeseen results, I actually see Providence at work. I now have a notion what the purpose, or part of the purpose was, but I have to wait until this chapter of my chronicles is fully written (perhaps, as Whodehouse would say, "in book form") before I can see it all make sense. That's one way in which belief in Divine Providence makes a life more stress-free: one is more comfortable with not knowing the reason for what one is doing or how it will work out in the grand scheme.
______I feel, and I think, that I am doing this for the right reasons. I'm not really worried about that as much as for most of the other Marines in this company. A lot of them joined for the reasons mentioned above, (though I hasten to point out that not all of them are wrong reasons), and some others, when they ask the same questions I was asking above, do so with a lot of cursing and grumbling. The ones who think they made the wrong decision are the ones I'm really worried about, though I'm worried about everyone. I'm worried about the ones whose week revolves around next weekend and how drunk they're going to get, because if we are in Iraq and the fan gets dirty, that seems very little to live for. I worry, in short, about those who seem to have less to live for than I think I do. But I would hope that's a moot point, because as I was reflecting on the Sunday I got home on leave, as much as some of these people tick me off, and as much as I hope never to see one or two of them again after this, there's not a damned one of them I don't want to see come back alive.
______My job over there will not be to "win the hearts and minds". If it were, I would have joined the Red Cross or the Peace Corps. It is not to "come back alive" as many of my peers might think. If it were, I would just have given the Marines a pass. My job is not to "bring everyone home alive". If it were, I'd go into Congress as a democrat and vote to curl up in a ball and surrender the War on Terror. In training, they tell us repeatedly things such as "if you do such and such, you're going to get someone killed", or "every month there's Marines getting killed because other Marines were stupid". That is true, but what I wish many of those people to bear in mind is this: Combat is bound to be a dangerous place, and the bitch of it is that even if everyone does their job right (keeping weapons safety, staying awake on watch and on the guns), there is still a chance that one of use could go at any time. At least in this war, that is the nature of the enemy. Treating a combat death as though it is always and everywhere the result of carelessness or laziness on the part of other Marines is detrimental, in my view. It makes dying in battle seem almost lame, pointless and stupid, and it seems to glorify staying alive for it's own sake. There was something more someone could have done? You're kidding me. Welcome to war, welcome to the world.
______My own view, derived from my reflections, is that someone among us dying over there is not the end of the world. The best we can hope for is that it will not be because someone was asleep on post or a driver took a wrong turn. As for the rest, all we can hope for is that our Father will keep us as safe from harm as possible, and should we lose anyone, to give strength and forbearance to those they left behind, until such a time as it shall please Him to send out the laborers for the great harvest of Humanity. When every one will be called to give an account, I hope at least that anyone who loses their life in this mission, should it happen, will have the consolation of not having to worry about whether or not the account they have to render will balance out in their favor.
______And so I believe I must close this now. I would be surprised if I have any blogging time over there, as I place a higher priority on the e-mails that family and friends will be expecting. So this may be my last post (as it were) until I get back. I don't regret it, as I would hope to call this a good note to end on. I wish you all good luck. To those whom I link to who are at Christendom, study hard. To those of you thinking of going on long and indefinite sabbaticals, don't. Congratulations to anyone who graduates high school or college, gets married or has a kid while I'm gone. And last of all, I hope all of you will pray for me and the Marines of Small Craft Company, 2nd Assault Amphibian Battalion until we come marching home in April.

2005-09-12T22:09:00.000-04:00

_____Well, would you look at that. All this free time at home, post training, and so much to talk about, and I say so little. Please at least understand that a lot of what I could have related was of no interest to the civilian, or so I would imagine. Leave certainly went by rather fast, as tomorrow I go back down, this time with our primary objective being not to train, but to wait for the scheduling of a flight to Kuwait. From there I think they have some sort of transport arranged for us. We certainly won't be humping it, at any rate. It used to be not my style to take no interest whatsoever in a problem as logistical as "how do we travel the second leg of the journey", but in the Marine Corps, I at least want to take advantage of the few opportunities I have in which I can shrug my shoulders and say "not my problem". We will definitely get there, and I am sure that if God is willing, the flight back will require just as many seats.

2005-09-03T21:42:00.000-04:00

Sorry I haven't been updating much recently, but things have been really busy. We just got done with what they called the tactical riverine FEX, basically our final field op before going on pre-deployment leave. The first day, I fired the MK-19 which I am in charge of as aft gunner on my boat. This is a fully automatic grenade launcher, which means it shoots grenades rapid fire. We had a lot of wind, and since we were nearly a kilometer away from any land, we all had to tie ourselves to this offshore platform and hold on tight until the wind stopped rocking us. The weather was fine after that. Che bella cosa na jurnata 'e sole, n'aria serena doppo na tempesta. The rest of the time tends to run together in my head. One night we did a night gun run, and I fired the .50 caliber machinegun. I had always heard it was very powerful, but I didn't know the half of it. As I sat six feet away from it, it was deafening even with earplugs. The air around me literally pulsed with each round, and it felt like I was getting a massage just from the shocks.

The sky above a rural area is actually really nice to look at at night. The funny thing about my situation is that although I'm two or three years behind my plans for college and things like that, I've seen some things one simply does not see anywhere else. It's not all backbreaking work, lots of mosquito bites, and stupid working parties. Where else would I have seen the Milky Way galaxy and a meteor shower through night vision goggles?

Most of our time was spent on various patrols, and one simply has to get used to standing up at your gun for periods of multiple hours. On the very last day, Thursday, we had some sort of endurance course. Apparently it served to reassure some people who secretly were not sure if our company had what it would take to be successful in Iraq. Some hours after the endurance course, there was a promotions ceremony, it being the first of the month. We immediately had to get working on preparations for our next and final patrol, but during those preparations, some Marines took a few seconds to congratulate Lance Corporal Pena and Lance Corporal Morris on their promotions. During our final patrol, we ran aground so badly that I would have flown through the coxswain station behind me if I had not been holding on to my gun firmly. I think we're ready. At any rate, I think we've got the hang of this whole boat business. There are some parts that really rather bite, but when think about it, the is just about the most fun thing one could possibly spend an Iraq deployment doing, so I really rather lucked out.

2005-08-27T17:51:00.000-04:00

A Fwd:
>Hey guys, it's worth a try, don't you think?
>
>
>
>
> I hear we are going to hit close to $3.00 a gallon by the summer. Want
> gasoline prices to come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action.
> Phillip Hollsworth, offered this good idea:
>
>
> This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don't buy gas on a certain day"
> campaign that was going around last April or May!
>
> The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't
> continue to "hurt" ourselves by refusing to buy gas. It was more of an
> inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT, whoever thought of
> this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work.
>
> Please read it and join with us!
>
> By now you're probably thinking gasoline priced at about $1.50 is super
> cheap. Me too! It is currently $2.75 for regular unleaded in my town.
>
> Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to
> think that the cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at $1.50-$1.75, we need to
> take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the
> marketplace....not sellers.
> With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to
> take action. The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is
> if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas!
> And we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves.
>
> How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas. But we
> CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price
> war.
>
> Here's the idea:
>
> For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from the two
> biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL. If they are not
> selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they
> reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit.
>
> But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and
> Mobil gas buyers. It's really simple to do!! Now, don't wimp (sic) out on
> me at this point... keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach
> millions of people!!
>
> I am sending this note to about thirty people. If each of you send it to
> at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)... and those 300 send it to at least ten
> more (300 x 10 = 3,000) ... and so on, by the time the message reaches the
> sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION
> consumers!> If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each,
> then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level
> further, you guessed it..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!! Again, all you
> have to do is send this to 10 people and DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from
> EXXON and MOBIL. That's all.
>
> How long would all that take? If each of us sends this email out to ten
> more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could
> conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!! I'll bet you didn't think
> you and I had that much potential, did you! Acting together we can make a
> difference.
> If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on.
> PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $1.30
> RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN. THIS CAN REALLY WORK

I was certain that neither buyers nor sellers controlled prices all the time, but that which one of them did control them depended on supply and demand, and what you couldn't do without. Nevertheless, if you think this is a good idea, go for it. Things like this have been tried before, and worked, albeit it was a different time back then, and people were more accustomed and more willing to do without certain things in order to make the waves they wanted to make.

2005-08-16T15:26:00.000-04:00

Helpful tip to the directors and producers of XXX: State of the Union: You can't get into the Navy Seals with a criminal record involving Grand Theft Auto. The U.S. Government does not employ hardened criminals and thugs as mercenaries to do it's most tricky and sensitive work just because they're good at jumping onto moving helos.

2005-08-07T17:45:00.000-04:00

I wonder if I could get some prayers from you all. I didn't mention this earlier, because I expected it to amount to nothing. The poison ivy sore (or whatever kind of sre it was) I had has become infected, and the infection has spread. Unless I'm overreacting, and I hope I am, the infection is spreading daily, although to be completely accurate, the middle seems to be getting better as the peripheries are getting worse. I've been perscribed antibiotics for it, but even the corpsmen themselves are saying those haven't done a thing. Wrapping it up and cleaning it daily with antibacterial soap seems to help it a bit, the excessive swelling has gone down dramatically, and the draining that was massive a couple of days ago is now greatly slowed down, but it still does not look like disappearing any time soon, and it may have to if I am to deploy. Today, for the first time, I heard someone state like it were a matter of fact that I was going to get sent home. Of course, it was an amateur opinion, and I have been given about a million of those since this sore started, but it still has me worried in that this guy gave voice to something I have been silently fearing for a day or two. Tomorrow, the corpsmen mentioned something about getting me to a dermatology clinic, perhaps for some sort of surgery, and that may very well be when I find out if I go or not.

As I said, please put me in your intentions. It may mean the difference between going to Iraq and going home and not knowing what to do from there. I might suggest asking the intercession of St. Josemaria. I've heard that hands are his area of expertise.

2005-07-20T20:34:00.000-04:00

On this day in two thousand and four...

"You will get off my bus. You will proceed and line up on those yellow footprints and you will not move until I tell you to. Now move. MOVE! TODAY!"

A whole year. Good Lord.

2005-07-17T13:59:00.000-04:00

Pope hates Harry?

I don't know, but I will say that these do seem to be a little more than just a polite response to someone who wouldn't stop writing. The Cardinal did not have the time to respond in great length to everyone who sends him a letter, so the brevity of the response should not raise eyebrows. A polite response would, I believe have been far more neutral. Mrs. Kuby's stance was well-known, if I understand it correctly, and it must have been known that she would be glad to brandish something that looked like a condemnation. For this reason, I am very supicious of the theory that this was meant to be something like a form letter with no specific endorsement. Also, at least according to the story, he gave his permission to publicize it.

"I would like him to read Looking for God in Harry Potter or The Hidden Key to Harry Potter"
First of all, if someone wrote a book called "Looking for Witchcraft and Sorcery in Harry Potter", I wonder how long that book would have to be. Secondly, way to go Paladin! Let's all advise the Pope to shut up and give Eastern Orthodox laymen his undivided attention.

2005-07-16T21:49:00.000-04:00

Back from our field op. Feels good to have changed out of the the same pair of cammies for four days and no showers, and also not to have to wear a flak all the time and maintain eyes or hands on your rifle all the time. I must say I am pleased at how fast the heat rash and "prickly heat" is disappearing. Nasty stuff, pokes you with a hundred pins every times you physically exert yourself in any way, including bending over. The human body was not meant to spend all day in a flak jacket, and skin needs air. At least I take consolation from the fact that the dry heat of Iraq is probably more merciful than the oppressive humidity of Jacksonville.

At least we had fun on the firing line. Got to shoot both of the weapons I mentioned in a recent post, as well as a pistol and my rifle. Even got to shoot at night with night vision goggles. Folks, or at least, guys, take it from me. After the first try, they're not that great. Maybe just for watching the animals and the landscape, but not for anything that requires concentration and spacial judgment. In any case, we must have each shot at least 400-600 rounds in three days of firing. I've never smelt so much burnt powder in my life.

During down time, we practiced disassembly and assembly of some weapons, including racing each other. Dexterity and concentration strongly recommended. I beat my platoon Sergeant on the pistol assembly, and my armorer on rifle assembly, one which I thought was suicide going into.

And I must say the jury has reached it's verdict: The M240G jams way less than the SAW does. On the other hand, my Golf went runaway on me the other night (you tell it to stop firing, but it don't wanna listen).

Time to wind down while we can. Next week is the gas chamber.

2005-07-10T17:49:00.000-04:00

A couple of things.

First of all, I resent the fact that a new hurricane is being named Dennis. We in Virginia Beach had Dennis a few years ago. Get your own 'D' name, Florida.

Then there's the London bombing. Yet more proof that Iraq had nothing to do with terrorism. The terrorists are getting awfully worked up about a war whose biggest flaw, supposedly, was that it didn't target them or their institutions. I suppose it's possible someone might make the claim that the attack proves that the war has done nothing to weaken terrorism, but that's silly, in the face of a remarkable dropoff from 3,000-4,000 on September 11 to about fifty today in London. Apart from that, it still doesn't address the fact that terrorists are still killing on behalf of a defunct regime which we were told did nothing to support or harbor them. I have a feeling I may never be able to watch some Monty Python episodes the same way again. It used to be okay to show things in London randomly blowing up.

2005-07-04T09:45:00.000-04:00

And for the support of this Declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our Sacred Honors.

2005-07-02T08:34:00.000-04:00

Just a couple of pictures here. The first of me with the M249 SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon). It weighs 20 lb. with 200 rounds, and it's my favorite. On the right, I am holding the M240G Medium Machingun. The SAW shoots a 5.56 mm round, same as the M16, but the Golf shoots a 7.62 mm round, same as the AK-47. It's considerably heavier, but they say it works better and breaks less. We'll have to see.

2005-06-19T19:25:00.000-04:00

This will not be my last post ever, or even for the whole deployment, but it will be for a while. I expect to be home briefly for a few days around July 4th. Will be trained on the Small Unit Riverine craft, and I hope there are radio folks there who are more eperienced than me. I'm never sure about exactly how thoroughly a guy fresh out of his first school is supposed to know his job, if he's supposed to wow the Colonel or if he's just supposed to study under the Sergeant like a medieval apprentice. I'm sure I'll find out. Past worrying and experience have taught me to value Matthew 6:27, "Which of you, by worrying, can add one cubit to his height?"

2005-06-19T16:20:00.000-04:00

"Mr. Morris- Who's to say that the founders weren't wrong? This is what we call thinking outside the box. Try it."

The difference between "thinking outside the box" and "being a perfect ass" is that those who think outside the box actually perform the dignified act of thinking. He who does this utters the above quote with the hope of arriving at a conclusion on the subject matter involved. Someone who is being a perfect ass is not interested in finding an answer or exploring the subject. Those who ask questions like "who's to say what is or is not moral" do so not because they want to know so they can consult him. They do so because ultimately they want the answer to be "no one" so that the matter will drop for lack of direction. No matter what the issue is, this is a cowardly way of avoiding discussion. If the answer actually is "no one", anyone who believes that should be ready to demonstrate it.

2005-06-19T16:15:00.000-04:00

My older brother observed this morning that it is a unique brand of foolishness to talk about taking the Church into the outside world and yet to encourage people to spend such a large portion of their time doing parish activities to build a sense of communiy within the parish. Throw that observation back in time and apply Chesterton's vocabulary and word idiom to it, and you have a genuine Chesterton quote, which just goes to prove what I've believed for a good while.

2005-06-17T12:19:00.001-04:00

Why do people do it? I just don't understand it. Maybe it's just the books I've read recently picking apart the Da Vinci Code, but I have just about no patience whatsoever for people who put lies and made-up statistics into opinion pieces. Today on MSN, there was an article about what 30-year-olds should say to people who dare wonder why they are thirty and unmarried. I'll leave other people to pick it apart (if they see it), but I wanted to focus on one main thing. (As an aside, I note this: she claims that the practice of getting married before 25 is a carry over from the days when life expectancy was really short. Sorry to interrupt her pontificating fantasies, but when life expectancies were much shorter, girls got married at around 16, not "25". And people did not live to "40-something. Maximum." unless you're talking about the caves.)

But that's not my main point. She mentions that we don't use the phrase "happily single", and then claims that nevertheless "those words are 100% certified by the US Census Bureau." She doesn't, of course, mention any numbers, preferring simply to claim that "statistics" show us married men are happier than single, but single women are happier than married. It would be fair to point out that she doesn't claim that these are the statistics found in the U.S. Census Bureau which she mentions, but the juxtaposition of the two claims was not accidental.

Whoops! Turns out the U.S. Census Bureau does not keep statistics on how people feel about their marriages or lifestyles. If it can be believed, the U.S. Census is only for ethnic backgrounds, income levels, number of kids, age group cut-offs, employments and other similar things. Of course, it mentions marital status statistics, but only in a yes-or-no respect, with no reference to how people rate their marriages. And of course, although we may not be able to nail her directly on the giving false statistics, her claim that the U.S. Census Bureau even kept such statistics was a lie. Besides, whatever you can argue from technicalities in order to absolve her, remember that people don't usually make such misleading comments in print unless they do so deliberately. Oh, by the way, the website of the actual U.S. Census Bureau is open to the public examination.

In the Marines, we sometimes make reference to "raising the b-lls--t flag". Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. Please remove your hats and place your hand over your heart as we do honor to truth by debunking another e-charlatan. Those in uniform salute.

2005-06-15T17:58:00.000-04:00

Marines pack well. Good Marines pack really well, so if you ever open you purse or book bag and find an elephant or a symphony orchestra, it's a good bet some Marine is playing a joke on you.

Just a seemingly random thought brought about by today's unpacking, checklist, and repacking experiences.

I think the Marines have changed me in a serious way. I didn't always have the guts to sneak into the main admin office when it was temporarily unoccupied and steal some glue from the desk of the company clerk, but when the iron-on nametag in the collar of my blouse came unstuck less than fifteen minutes before an inspection, what else was I supposed to do?

2005-06-12T03:16:00.000-04:00

Read Who, Me?

It's a perfect exposition on how Jack Chick and his people view evangelism, the Great Commission, and themselves.

"Most of us are not real witnesses to those we buy from or sell to". I can't understand this. I love buying from and selling to people who are constantly asking me if I'm saved, because I can be if I read this tract.

I absolutely love the picture of the chinese spy. No one will spot him in his blue Mao suit with a red star on his hat, because he took the trouble of hiding behind the magazine rack. In case his superiors at central control don't believe his story of kids reading comic books at the drugstore, he's taking pictures to prove it.

What's stupidest about it is that they assure us "Chick tracts make witnessing easy!" Of course, after twenty centuries of persecutions in different lands at different times, we've finally learned that missionary work was never meant to be an inconvenience; it was meant to be easy! That must be why Christ specifially warned his followers not to expect welcome or comfort. "Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall put you to death: and you shall be hated by all nations for my name's sake." (Matt 24:9) "If the world hate you, know ye that it hath hated me before you." (John 15:18) along with many, many more examples.

Then again, Our Lord also warned us about Chick. "And many false prophets shall rise and shall seduce many." (Matt 24:11) He didn't say anything about stupid prophets.

2005-06-11T00:36:00.000-04:00

Oh, I almost forgot to mention. I leave home in ten days for the preliminary training in Camp Lejeune. We expect actually to go to Iraq in September.

2005-06-11T00:32:00.000-04:00

Your IQ Is 135

Your Logical Intelligence is Genius
Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius
Your Mathematical Intelligence is Genius
Your General Knowledge is Exceptional

A Quick and Dirty IQ Test

I especially like that picture of me. I look so happy with my big brain clearly visible through my skull.

2005-06-10T21:08:00.000-04:00

There were a couple of things I thought were missing from Amy Welborn, Carl Olson and Sandra Miesel's books dealing with the Da Vinci Code. On the subject of whether or not Christ was believed to be a "mortal teacher" prior to the council of Nicea, I think both books missed a valuable pair of sources. Gaius Suetonius Tranquilus, in The Twelve Caesars mentions that the Christians were practicing a "new and mischievous religious belief". What that belief is, he does not say, but it's a direct hit on the theory that Christianity was at that time (late first century) simply a group of followers of a mortal prophet.

The second is that Josephus writes about Jesus in his histories. He writes that "some assert he actually rose from the dead." This isn't to prove that the resurrection happened, it is to support the fact that early Christians believed in Christ's divinity from the beginning, and the Council of Nicea had nothing to do with it.

What I was wondering is this: Are these passages considered unreliable, or is there some other reason none of those three authors mentioned them?

2005-06-10T20:54:00.000-04:00

Andrew Sullivan opines: "Maybe if the Pope voiced a little more charity and listened a tiny bit more, more people would listen back".

Just wondering Andy, no one listens to you; is that because you do listen or you don't?

The usual catholic response to the "listen", "dialogue" or "open" tropes is to say that the Chuch's teachings are not changeable. While this is correct, it misses a few points worth making. First of all "listening" implies someone is saying something that should be heard. Africans whose habits contract AIDS certainly aren't saying anything other than the African equivalent of "dibs on that one", and I hardly think the pope will derive much openness or enightenment from that. The intellectuals, obviously including Sullivan, aren't saying anything that couldn't be put on a bumper sticker, and that they haven't said a million times before. At least a 2,000 year old Church has an excuse to keep on repeating itself. Even if there were a grand symposium between the Church and the dissenting catholics who talk of dialogue, what would they say at it? More importantly, what would they say if they didn't get their way?

2005-06-08T23:02:00.000-04:00

To follow up on my La ci darem la mano post, it's funny how much more you find when you examine the text carefully. Only yesterday did I realize that even though it is often said that Don Giovanni's conquests number eighteen hundred, his list which Leporello reads to Elvira counts not 1800, but 2065 women. Is that singnificant or just a clumsy mistake on someone's part?

2005-06-08T03:59:00.000-04:00

A typical Twentynine Palms view.

2005-06-07T16:24:00.000-04:00

"Something missing from your life as a couple?"

Um, the boat? I don't get it.

2005-06-07T15:51:00.000-04:00

I just realized that yesterday's post was my 100th. Yet and still, Blogger dashboard insists I have only 50 posts, and I've heard of a few other people whose dashboards suddenly stopped counting the number of posts.

I also recently realized that my post of April 8th marked my blog's one year anniversary. Generally, one's hundredth post comes before the first year is out, but my first year included all of boot camp and MCT, so I get a free break.

2005-06-06T04:47:00.000-04:00

"Where you from, soldier?" "Missouri, sir."

"Go get 'em, Missouri."

2005-06-05T14:16:00.000-04:00

I was just listening to "La ci darem la mano" from Don Giovanni, and I was thinking about how later on Maesetto gets angry at Zerlina for this and she takes offense. I was suddenly struck with a thought that I for my part had never considered before: Are we suppose to be sympathizing with her? She seems to think it's perfectly fine that on the day of her wedding to Maesetto, she should run off and and marry a sweet talking nobleman just because he's got lots of cash and a fancy pad nearby. Although she expresses a feeling of pity for Maesetto, she makes it sound as though the only serious concern is whether or not this rich guy will be faithful to her, not whether or not she is being faithful to a certain young man who has just been deftly moved off the scene by an assistant. She eventually reaches the conclusion that since this cavalier cannot be lying, she'll go ahead and run off with him. I understand it must be hard for her to form an opinion of this stranger she just met and who is trying to marry her, but that should never have been the issue, when all she had to say was "er, I already have an engagement."

If I were Maesetto, the fact that it took Don Giovanni only three minutes and sixteen seconds to change her fidelities would give me serious pause.

2005-06-04T19:32:00.000-04:00

Do you know that feeling you get when you know someone is going to complain about something, or make a certain point, and you're just counting the minutes? When you can recite nearly verbatim what the person is going to natter? And then the eye rolling that comes when someone finally says it and acts like this is some sort of epiphany?

Then you must know how I felt when I looked on the back of the most recent issue of Focus on the Family's Plugged In magazine. Ever since I saw Revenge of the Sith for the first time, I was on tenterhooks waiting for some conservative to cry foul regarding the line where Obi-wan says "only the Sith deal in absolutes." It was a little longer in coming that I expected, but it came. Bob Smithouser was the crack journalist who broke the story first. After the obligatory reminiscing, he invited us to "look at those statements", since I had obviously not already done so and required him to draw my attention to them. I had already been thinking about the meaning of those words long and hard before I read his op piece. I also managed to figure out, quite without out the help of Mr. Smithouser, that Anakin's words sound much like those of Our Lord: "If you're not with me, you're against me".

Maybe it's because I don't make a habit of filling uncertainties in with assumptions, or maybe it's the fact that I don't have an upcoming deadline for a column and an editor waiting, but I was not as fast as he was to assume that Lucas meant this as a specifically anti-Christian, indeed anti-Christ, dig.

Mr. Smithouser, get off the counter, roll your sleeves back down, take your insulin and let's examine this carefully.

Star Wars deals in moral absolutes all the time, and has from the beginning. Even Smithouser realizes this. It's abundantly clear from all the screenplays that everyone, including the Jedi, deals in absolutes. Nor can this be explained by a "worldview shift" on Lucas' part from absolutist in the late 70's to relativist today. Five minutes after seemingly denouncing absolutes, we find Obi-wan dealing in absolutes himself. He tells Anakin that the Sith are evil, and the answer he gets is "From my point of view the Jedi are evil." It certainly appears that through his characters, Lucas is criticizing relativism as a tool for rationalizing evil, which has been the main purpose of relativism ever since it became popular, you might say it's "spe-ci-al-ity" (as Obi-wan would put it).

The line in question was a mistake because it goes against what the rest of the screenplays and their underlying plots make very clear. There is however, a way of looking at it that makes sense of it. One can be an imperfect servant of good, indeed no mortal has ever been more than that. However, being a servant of evil requires complete decision and intent. Anakin is right: he has no use for someone who isn't completely on his side. Obi-wan (who does not contradict or disagree with Anakin's statement) is also right: if Anakin were still on the light side, he would not count someone as an enemy simply because that person was not behind him 100%. Recall that Obi-wan and Qui-gon disagreed about the subject of Anakin, but were not enemies.

To equate Anakin's words directly with Jesus' words requires something like the abandonment of context. Jesus was talking about spreading the good news, not about a battle of political loyalties. When you inject the for-or-against logic into political loyalties, what you come out with is more like the mentality of the Communist party and their class struggle than anything else. Christ's words mean only that you're either working for His mission and His Glory or you're working against them. You're not simply sitting on the sidelines. His words do not mean that you're either His perfect ally or His absolute enemy, just that to a lesser or greater degree, you are on one side or the other. Anakin clearly means that if Obi-wan and Padme aren't gung-ho and entirely on board with ruling the galaxy as a junta, then they are his absolute foes who must be dealt with using what he once referred to as "aggressive negotiations". Christ tells us that you're always moving in either one direction or the other, no matter how far you've gone either way. Anakin is telling us that you're either at point A or point B.

2005-06-02T14:09:00.000-04:00

Africa, Africa, Africa, Africa, Africa, Iraq!

This just in: In my Batallions collective game of duck duck goose, I've been chosen for the Riverine Assault security mission in Iraq. I will not be on an AAV, nor will any of the people trained to drive and fire AAV's be on them. We will instead be doing our mission on some kind of gunboat. I've seen the pictures, but I forget what they are called. I'm not 100% sure of all the implications, but I will soon find out.

2005-05-30T22:10:00.000-04:00

In case any of you have ever gone through your daily lives and suddenly stopped to wonder "gee, I knida wonder what pisses Marines off", this is for you: Being called 'soldiers'. A soldier is an over-promoted, undertrained guy who wears a silly looking green uniform, the most formal of which looks like our service Alphas. The less formal versions of their uniform have a green shirt of a revolting green color. Chicks really dig the slime green shirt. An appalling number of them think the government has issued them a Lightweight, Magazine fed, Gas operated, Air cooled, Shoulder fired backscratcher.

2005-05-25T18:41:00.000-04:00

The Book Meme: "I've been tagged, but it's not bad!"

Total Number of Book I've Owned
Several. Okay, maybe it's higher, perhaps approaching an even hundred. I usually read only the important ones, and it wasn't until recent years that I would have picked up and read a serious, non-school, book except at gunpoint.

Last Book I Bought
Buzz Williams Spare Parts. About being a Marine reservist in the pre-9/11 world, taunted by the active duties as somehow less of a Marine, and looked at askance by a civilian world still somewhat awkward about the military.

Last Book I read
Carl Olson and Sandra Miesel's The Da Vinci Hoax. Good book, and very in depth. The authors would have been able to save a lot of time by simply giving us a list of pages from the book that were completely free of glaring historical errors.

Five Books That Have Meant a lot to Me
Based on the discretion of the others who have played this game, I'll assume the Bible is a given.
1. The Way by St. Josemaria. The best book on personal character and reflection that I have ever read, and I share that opinion with many others. Every time I pick it up for the first time in a while, I think to myself "how did I ever neglect this for such a long time?" I've read some Chesterton, particularly Orthodoxy, but as far as the East is from the West, so much better are the writings of St. Josemaria, which include The Furrow, The Forge, Christ is passing by and some collected sermons, mostly published posthumously. While Chesterton's work centers on what is wrong with the world in general, St. Josemaria's work centers on what is wrong with you in general, and believe me, he knows.
2. The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. This is another excellent meditation book, and it's surprising how real it all feels while you read it. Lewis has some great insight on how the devil tempts us, and how just when we think we have foiled him, we end up being in another one of his plots.
3. Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky. Long, drawn out, at times boring, but ultimately masterful treatise on human suffering and the effects of sin upon same as well as upon the human psyche.
4. Gates of Fire by Stephen Pressfield. Very dramatic, with some scenes young kids are not ready for, but still engaging and enthralling. Pressfield (Tides of War, Bagger Vance) might not be the best in writing style, but that does not matter in a book completely narrated by it's characters, a gimmick also used by Bram Stoker in Dracula. Also includes a book-long discussion on the nature of the opposite of fear, as distinct from simple aphobia.
5. My only toss-up here is the academic area. Although I greatly enjoyed Paul Johnson's Modern Times and A History of the American People, it'll have to be Ann Carroll's Christ the King Lord of History that takes this one. It's rather beneath my level, being mainly intended for eighth through tenth grade, but it was probably this book that really gave me an interest in history strong enough for me willingly to tackle some bigger works.

Tag Five People
I tag John, Shiela and Charlemagne, quite convenient that they are all at the same blog and because they are the only ones who ever post. I also tag Judit, if by some chance she reads this. The fifth person will be tagged via e-mail, because I am taking the liberty of tagging someone who does not blog.

Update: Are people misinterpreting that "Five books" section, or am I? I left out books like the Iliad, the Odyssey and Lord of the Rings because as much as I may like those books, they didn't "mean a lot to me" in the same way that some of the ethical/philosophical/acamdemic/meditational books I mentioned.

2005-05-20T23:57:00.000-04:00

Latest Strongbad e-mail: Hilarious!

2005-05-17T13:34:00.000-04:00

*Whip crack*

What is this laziness? So that's what they've been teaching you in America!

2005-05-14T07:24:00.000-04:00

Gadzooks. A whole week without a post. I hate it when that happens. Last night I read Amy Welborn's Decoding Da Vinci (by "last night", I mean it wasn't a long book). Her writing style reminds me of myself when I was about sixteen or seventeen, but I forgive her for her sassiness on the grounds that she writes mainly for teenagers. For that same reason, I perfectly understand why her book is so short.

I guess I'll post this game that's going around. The last one was ten things you've done that most of your readers probably have not. This one is five things people around you are crazy about, but which you don't see as much in as they do.

1. You probably won't be surprised. Harry Potter. I don't get it. These are kids books written for kids, with kid's plots. So if you've ever wondered why some of the gimmicks were tired or predictable, yeah, that'd be why.

2. Gilbert Keith Chesterton. I know plenty of his devoted fans, and I have even dabbled in some of his works myself, and they were alright, but I fail to understand why some people cannot get enough of them. There's even a Chesterton blog containing quotes of his, resurrected and applied to current affairs; by those who can recite his every paragraph, for those who can't.

3. Rock, especially metal. I bring this up because of still-fresh memories of a rock concert in Indio, Ca, that needed Marine volunteers from Twentynine Palms for security, and which a lot of my until-recent classmates signed up for as soon as they heard about it. And of course some of them came back to base when it was over complaining of various things, like getting stuck at the gate all night. I had little sympathy for them; less, in fact, than I have for one of them who complains about being broke when he not only smokes and drinks, but has an expensive-ass TV in his room. This isn't a fortune 500 company. This is the military, we are the same rank, and I know for certain we get paid the same. (I actually have softened on my dislike of country music, possibly because more than a quarter of my classmates were from Texas, and many of the rest were from the Midwest in general).

4. Yellow ribbons/"support the troops". You may wonder why I of all people would list this, and I admit it is a fair question. I am not a "troop". That's first off. Second is the fact that yellow ribbons are for citizens imprisoned in a foreign country. Huh, that must be why the first time I ever saw yellow ribbons flying was not for the War in Iraq, but for Harry Wu back in the late '90s. We currently have only one serviceman unaccounted for in Iraq, and he is almost certainly dead.

5. Tattoos. Not all tattoos, just the ones that have no meaning whatsoever. I always get pissed off, more than most other things, by phony stuff. It was only recently that I became aware that "tribal" tattoos, as if they were part of an indigenous people's passage into manhood, simply referred to a design with no meaning or significance whatsoever that was easy to draw, because if you messed up, you can just incorporate that mistake, perhaps by repeating it on the other side.

2005-05-06T17:57:00.000-04:00

Not the Shores of Tripoli
But I am going to Africa. They expect it will start this June, but they don't know when they expect it to end.

The trip home was relatively uneventful, because seeing Regis Philbin get off the flight I was about to board counts as a coincidence, not an event.

I need to start getting more sleep. I spilled ice water on myself on the plane when I woke up, and if I remember correctly, I got up and walked the aisle like a dumbass before deciding what to do ("Brush ice off seat, sit on folded blanket" was, I believe, the course of action I decided upon at length). I've never liked the idea of being so delirious or disoriented that I did silly or downright stupid things without thinking about them. That's why I don't drink (well, that and the fact that I enjoy my money, my rank, and my liberty, and have an antipathy towards being deprived of all three if caught.) Alcohol exists to make other people act stupid so that I can laugh at them, and it defeats the object if I incur the effects.

I'll let you know more about Africa when I find out. It is likely to be less violent than Iraq, but on the other hand, the people there probably like us less and are more suspicious.

2005-05-03T20:26:00.000-04:00

"I am the voice of one crying in the desert, 'make straight my way, for I want to get the hell out of here'"

Have yet to pick up my ticket, so I'm not sure when I will be getting home. By the way, I think I may have discerned something: My reserve unit is not overseas at this time, because the good corporal who fielded my call said that the first weekend that I'm home will be a drill weekend. I can't be sure.

I hate softball, and was put in sort of a bad mood when they made us play softball as a class. They pitched not only underhand, but lollypop style. I wasn't sure whether to swing at it or catch it and make an out. People could not believe me when I told them that I was decent at baseball. At least not until I laid down a bunt, which they told me was a) not allowed, and b) a pretty damned good bunt. Softball is for girls, middle-aged men, and anyone who cannot hit or pitch a baseball. We ought to have played soccer, because, though there were few people there that were skilled at it, at least it would have been more fun and more people would have played well. We also played dodgeball the other day, but not the way I was familiar with. Where I come from, (I learned to play at Opus Dei camp) you play in an indoor court, preferably large like a hockey rink, with about twenty balls and a hundred guys. THAT'S some fun right there.

2005-04-30T22:25:00.000-04:00

I officially graduate in five days, at which time I head home to resume living there full time for the first time in nearly ten months. That is to say, nine months and two weeks minus 22 days I took off for leave. In honor of this occasion, I will act very silly indeed on my blog until I get home. The title "Did you shave this morning, devil?" will remain until then, at which time my original title will resume. I wrote an amateur paper on the Da Vinci Code, but since it is not silly, it will have to wait for it's due season. I'm also working on a Homeric epic about two kids in my class who almost got into a fight a few weeks back, and since it is most silly indeed, it will be up as soon as I finish it.

Today I went to the San Diego zoo and saw those pandas. It wasn't hard, since all they ever do is sit around and sleep.

2005-04-23T15:04:00.000-04:00

On the other hand, perhaps it's a good thing I had to miss blogging for a couple of days, because it gave me more of a chance to reflect. I was reading some of Mark Shea's recent posts, one in particular about how both those who like and those who dislike the new pope may be in for some surprises.

I see a lot of giddiness on the blogs, and the Old Oligarch's initial post on the subject did not escape my notice, most especially because included among the "positively frolicking students" were probably some of my personal friends and acquaintances. Some people may wonder why they don't hear the same tone from me.

Many people are acting like their team has won the World Series, and that is to a certain extent what Mark was talking about. Don't get me wrong, I am very glad he was chosen over some of the media darlings like what's his name. I agree with Mark that we shouldn't think of this as a matter of "our guy" winning what Mark calls "the raffle for Power in the great historical process of warfare between race, class and gender."

Truth be known, I was much more relieved to hear of the election of George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 than of the election of Pope Benedict for the simple reason that unlike the papal conclave, the presidential election could have produced the wrong man. The very wrong man indeed. I was never worried that we would get bad pope, much les the "wrong" pope, because whoever we got, we got from God. I suppose that the jumping up and down could be attributed to happiness that God had given us whom we wanted, but are we really supposed to be deciding ahead of time who we really want and then hoping he gets chosen?

From what I can gather, no one I know has been doing this. They have almost all said that they had never dared to hope for Ratzinger, and if they indeed tried to expel their feelings of wishing and hoping, that reflects credit on them.

The words "Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum" struck a cord with me at least, because I was simply so happy to have a pope. The "gaudium magnum" is that habemus papam in the first place, not who papa est. One of the things I liked seeing and hearing in that half hour of coverage before he finally came out was hearing the crowd shout "Viva il papa" without even knowing who he was. I was near tears of joy, watching people running, police trying to control crowd, crowd not giving damn, and imagining what I would do if I were there (probably trying to climb a wall or pillar and get on top of the collonade itself).

I'm not accusing anyone, but this is just my attitude toward the whole thing. The worst that could have happened is that we might have gotten a pope like Arthur Anchovie from Monty Python: "unimaginative, timid, spineless, easily dominated and irrepressibly drab and awful" who nevertheless upheld Church doctrine whenever he was asked to change it. Instead, we got a pope with a proven record of strong leadership who will continue in the path of John Paul II. It's not as though we narrowly missed a Church of women priests and liberation theology.

Just to be extra sure I don't get misunderstood, let me close by saying this: We thank God for giving us gifts from His bountiful hands through Christ Our Lord, even though we had no doubt He would. That is exactly the same way we ought to thank Him for giving us one strong leader to follow another, even though we had no doubt He would ultimately give us the right one.

2005-04-23T13:50:00.000-04:00

Your Linguistic Profile:

50% General American English

30% Yankee

15% Dixie

5% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

2005-04-22T15:59:00.000-04:00

And the blogging world has run wild with the stories and discussions of the new pope, and I had to leave it at one post for an interminable two or three days. I've kind of had my own problems recently. I have a question for all the Yaleies out there. What is the key to staying sane as a smart person when surrounded by complete idiots?
It started when one of my classmates asserted that we all know darn well that Ratzinger was chosen so that there will be another conclave in a few years, and the Vatican can make more tourist money. I did not know where to begin. First of all, every year the Vatican gets millions of pilgrims and only a few tourists. Secondly, they were completely incredulous when I told that the Vatican City has no hotels, restaurants or public transportation to benefit from tourism. At that, they tried to explain to me that they somehow benefit from the 'local economy' by having a conclave in which hotels and restaurants in Rome and outside of the Vatican do a brisk business. It didn't seem any use explaining to them that conclave cost the Vatican quite a bit of money, and that contrary to their belief, the Vatican collects no money at Papal masses because, well, they collect no money. Even if they did, beatifications, canonizations and WYD's would be far more cost effective.
Then came the subject of the Da Vinci code. They must have had a bet for who could use the word 'documented' the most times before I earned my MCMAP grey belt in one afternoon. I think by 'documented',they must have meant 'alluded to in the book itself'. It all reminds me of the famous study conducted by the Lovestein Institute of Scranton PA, finding that Bush had the lowest IQ of any recent President. It was an excellently conducted study with one major flaw: The Lovestein Institute doesn't exist. I'd love to read the Da Vinci code and see his impeccable sources in all their historically accurate majesty and glory.

Speaking of debunking, I realize this is a little late, but I was at boot camp when all this was going on. Time Magazine's end of the year issue mentioned all the important things that had happened in the year, and Swiftboat Vets for Truth got a mention. Time claimed "although their claims were widely debunked, Democrats never knew what hit them". I wasn't able to follow that part of the news. Were their claims widely debunked? Or am I right in my suspicion that by "widely debunked", they mean "vehemently denied by the Kerry Campaign"?

2005-04-19T15:25:00.000-04:00

And to think I almost decided to sleep in this morning. I deeply regretted waking up at 9:30 or 10 on September 11.

I'm really lucky I happened to be in the middle of a phone call home and was thus able to proceed immediately to the lounge to watch it live. I chose Fox since they were the only ones I trusted to cover it like a conclave rather than a watershed election that might drastically change the direction of the Church. I love live TV, and watching the broadcast, I felt like I was really there. Eventually I could no longer stand the suspense and began to say the Rosary. I only got to the beginning of the second mystery when the procession came out onto the balcony.

I have a bit of an appointment at 1415 or perhaps 1430, so this might have to be short. Some women from Michigan were interviewed in the crowd before the name was announced, and one of them astutely observed that the shortness of the conclave showed only that the cardinals were united and had little disagreement.

But what are the progressives going to do. I feel so sorry for them. They shall have to cope without their long hoped for and precious 'dialogue'.

I'll still miss our last pope. His is still the image I summon up when I hear the words 'the pope', but that will probably change.

Well, there is nothing much left to do for now but look forward to the papacy of Benedict XVI.

2005-04-12T16:28:00.000-04:00

Finally, the Lord has sent us something to fisk.

One of the most frequently offered arguments by proponents of same-sex marriage is that it is not gays wanting to marry a member of the same sex that threatens the institution of marriage, it is the high divorce rate among heterosexuals.
One reason this argument is so often made is that it appeals to the religious as well as the secular, to conservatives as well as liberals.
This is too bad, because the argument is a meaningless non sequitur.
First, while divorce ends a given marriage, it does not threaten marriage as an institution. Of course, many marriages fail and end in divorce -- while some other marriages fail and do not end in divorce -- but why does this threaten marriage as an institution? Simple, an individual divorce threatens an individual marriage, the institution of divorce threatens the institution of marriage.
To understand the foolishness of the argument "divorce threatens marriage," let's apply this principle to other areas of life. Let's begin with parenthood. It is undeniable that vast numbers of people fail -- and have always failed -- as parents.
Yet, no one argues that the many parents who fail to raise good children threaten the institution of parenthood. Parenthood is now an 'institution'? Why, then, do marriages that fail threaten the institution of marriage? Why then, would the economy be in trouble if people could simply walk out of contracts and agreements because they got bored or did not like the party of the second part?
When we think of parents failing, we think of ways to improve parenting, and we discourage people from becoming parents before they are ready. Why, then, don't we do the same regarding divorce -- think of ways to improve marriages and discourage people from marrying before they are ready? How do you "improve" marriages as a society? It is what they make of it, not a roll of the dice.
There is a second reason the divorce-rate-threatens-marriage argument is disingenuous: If gays marry, they will divorce at least as often as heterosexuals do. That is why the divorce issue is entirely unrelated to the question of whether we should redefine marriage. The divorce issue is a matter of redefining marriage. The only reason the argument is even offered is because gullible people will buy it. And because, as we just mentioned, it is a very old argument which has been vindicated numerous times. The gullible include well-intentioned centrist Americans who think, "Hey, that's a good point. Straights sure haven't done such a great job with marriage; why not let gays have a crack at it?" And the gullible include well-intentioned religious Americans whose loathing of divorce overwhelms their critical thinking. Or perhaps those whose loathing of divorce is a result of critical thinking, not a cancer on it, thank you very much, oh wise and enlightened one.
A third flaw in the argument is that it presupposes that every divorce constitutes a failure of a couple's marriage. If it constitutes a success, then marriage has already been redefined almost beyond retrieval. Sometimes this is true; sometimes it is not. I know a couple married for 30 years who made a beautiful home for their three now-married children. The couple divorced last year because they had both concluded that they had drifted too far apart to continue living together in any meaningful way (one aspect of the drift was one partner's increasing devotion to religion and the other's decreasing interest in it).
Who has the hubris to call their marriage a failure? I do. Their children surely don't think their parents' marriage was a failure. It produced three wonderful married adults, and it provided them a beautiful and loving home in which to grow up. They split up because their marriage was no longer perfect, not because some unbridgeable gap occurred. One can only wish all marriages so "failed." Or one could wish they all succeeded, if for some reason one doesn't look highly on dying alone.
It is simplistic to maintain that the one criterion of success or failure in marriage is permanence. There are marriages that provided years of comfort to a couple and a fine home to their children that eventually end; and there are permanent marriages that have provided neither comfort to the couple nor a loving environment for their children. If the end of something renders it a failure, every one of our lives is a failure, since they all come to an end. Failure is a relative term. If lives were meant to go on forever, then death would indeed be a failure. Marriages are meant to last until the death of one or the other, so a marriage that ends before then is a failure. If I run three miles, my success or failure depends, among other things, on whether it was a three mile run or a five mile run.
Finally, marriage is threatened not by divorce, but by people not marrying in the first place -- as is increasingly the case in the two European societies that have redefined marriage to include couples of the same sex. Marriage is not threatened by people who stay away from it, it is threatened by people who legally bring it down to a level of parity with something of their own imagination. The economy is threatened by people who counterfeit money, making the fake worth more and the real worth less until one can barely tell the difference. Our present high divorce rate is not stopping the vast majority of Americans from wanting to marry. Nor should it. Nothing provides the antidote to narcissism, or the environment for the healthy raising of children, or the way for people to take care of one another, as does the marriage of a man and a woman. And while most divorces are terribly sad, divorce itself no more undermines the institution of marriage than car crashes undermine the institution of driving. The right to crash whenever you feel like it would indeed put driving in danger. In any case, put driving up there on the list of newly discovered 'institutions'. In fact, the vast majority of people who do divorce deeply wish to marry again; Wonderful, now marriages can be like cars; painful divorce has not undermined marriage even among those who have divorced. Which is why divorcees have such overwhelming success rates in their subsequent marriages.
There may be honest reasons to support the redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples. The argument that heterosexuals divorce a lot is not one of them. It is, in fact, demagoguery.

2005-04-12T16:00:00.000-04:00

Am I being too picky a linguist? It's just that recently I took a little bit of issue with people who translate the title of the Pope's second to last book as "Rise, let us be on our way".

The actual title in Italian is "Alzatevi, Andiamo", which literally means "raise yourself, let's go". The Italian, as you see, consists of just two words and seven syllables. I'm inclined to believe he chose that title specifically because it is short, pithy, and to the point. I would probably have translated it as "Get up, let's go".

2005-04-08T19:18:00.000-04:00

I'm reading the Iliad again, and this time I'm taking notes that I think are interesting. I came upon this one the other day which I had missed every other time I read it or listened to it:

Athene is granting Diomedes request to give him enough strength to continue with the battle, despite having been hit by Pandaros' arrow, and maybe even get lucky when throwing a spear at Pandaros.
Book Five, Lines 129-132.
"Therefore now, if a god making trial of you comes hither,
do you not do battle head on with the gods immortal,
not with the rest; but only if Aphrodite, Zeus' daughter
comes to the fighting, her at least you may stab with the sharp bronze."

Women.

2005-04-05T13:51:00.000-04:00

The colors on the general's lawn run at half mast these past few days, and on Sunday there was a small white pennant underneath it with a blue cross on it symbolizing the navy chaplaincy.

I went down to the base sports field Sunday evening to see what all the noise was about, and it turned out that the 3rd LAR unit was returning from Iraq. I stuck around to get some pictures, including (if it develops properly) a picture of Brigadier General Zilmer, commanding general of the base, personally congratulating Marines as low as Lance Corporal. I had never seen the general in person before, and it was only after a double-take that I noticed it was not a silver oak leaf on his collar (Lieutenant Colonel), but a star.

Interestingly, this unit returning has coincided with the PX being sold out of Purple Heart ribbons.

2005-04-02T17:50:00.000-05:00

It felt so awful going to class last night. I had a gut feeling, without a complete certainty, that he would die sometime in the night. I had finished my dinner in the chow hall but stayed for quite a while just because the news was on.

It's marvelous that he lived this long considering some people doubted his assertion that he would lead the Church well into the next century, and many people suggested he retire, I guess as CEO of CatholicCorp International, as they saw it.

The media have lost a major source of glee now, namely the giddiness with which thy showed pictures of him bent over or staggering and being held up by a Cardinal. It always seemed they went to great lengths to show pictures of him yawning or going red with his mouth hanging open. How unfortunate for them that there is no sadness, sickness or death where he is going. Not only that, but when things are done and this generation moves on, we will not remember the old sick pope who could barely stand up, but will instead remember the vigorous, enthusiastic young pope, who was so loved that even to the day he died, hundreds of thousands of people would stand up for hours just to hear one of his masses or addresses.

2005-03-31T13:57:00.000-05:00

Terri Schiavo died this morning, from what I hear, just a few hours before I go to press, so to speak.

People everywhere are saying that at least this case makes people more prepared for such an eventuality by leaving living wills. I agree with Ann Coulter, who remarks that the only good thing is that we have almost every liberal in the country on record as saying that we can pull the plug on them.

One of the main arguments I hear from people I know is "Just let me die" if they were in that situation. My answer is usually two things: I'll remember that, and you're not the one at the hospice in Pinella Park, Fl right now.

It's not an easy and practical thing to study, and therefore it is almost impossible to get statistics on, but death wishes, even when present, are usually not real. Not many people survive suicide attempts, but when they do, they usually admit that a desire to die is something which disappears completely when it gets down to the wire. Today there are, I think, only two living survivors of deliberate jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge, and both work either part time or full time as suicide prevention counselors.

By far the darkest thing about this whole case is that in their rush to kill her, the courts refused to hear relevant evidence, to wit the refusal to require or even allow a PET or MRI scan, which carried heavy weight on the subject of whether or not she was in a persistent vegetative state. I thought it used to be that however uninformed a judge might be on matters of precedent, the least that could be said is that all the evidence was considered. I think that just might have had something to do with the fact that Justice is painted blindfolded holding a scale.

Another thing that sort of pisses me off is this: Unless I discern a priestly vocation in the next couple of years, I will probably get married. I don't look forward to the meeting with her dad in which he asks me point blank if I'm going to give his daughter an overdose of insulin, live with someone else, and then kill her in order to get medical damages.

2005-03-30T15:27:00.000-05:00

I kind of wonder what this guys deal is.

Just kidding. I don't wonder at all, on the contrary I know all too well. A scorched-earth Bible thumper, usually right on theological matters and often right on political matters, but too quick to pessimism, too slow to optimism, and the obvious solution to every problem is to find someone to denounce in terms as hyperbolic as you like.

2005-03-29T16:07:00.001-05:00

Went to visit some college friends of my parents this weekend. They live in San Diego. If Crowe wants me to blog something non-historical, he is in luck, since there are several things I've got.

First of all is the Matter of Terri Schiavo (SKYAH-vo, not SHIE-vo). Central to the case is that Michael Schiavo's word is apparently being taken for it that she would have wanted to be starved and dehydrated like a stubborn and unbending concentration camp victim (doesn't everyone?). I was thinking: Michael would not be legally allowed to go to the polls on election day and cast two votes, one on behalf of his wife since he knows what she would have wanted. But we can take it from him that she wants to die in a way that would considered 'cruel and unusual' by the constitution even if she had committed a capital crime. I'm still scratching my head about that.

Next thing. After decades of being completely useless and claiming to make it his business to stand up for the voiceless and oppressed, it appears Jesse Jackson is finally doing just that. Now it might be a little better if he had gotten the idea of showing up a little earlier.

How about this: Do you think the left might start fighting for Terri if we told them she could be cured by their precious embryonic stem cells?

Lastly, I've now decided that simply sulking or spending the entire afternoon refuting them in my mind is no longer my method of choice for dealing with those masochistic occasions when I willfully read the letters and editorials in the New York Times. I now simply get it out of my system by scrawling sarcastic comments in the margin. I'm thinking of starting to use the stamp kit I got at boot camp. Of course, it's to the Times' shame that this is so easy for me. Even a slightly less nitwitted liberal paper might at least present arguments that can't be dismissed with a black ink stamp mark saying something like "CANNED" or "BOO HOO".

2005-03-22T16:04:00.000-05:00

On this day in 1519...

Hernan Cortez made landfall in Mexico in his 11 ships and force of 500 or so men.

2005-03-13T22:05:00.000-05:00

I wonder if there is some sort of ribbon I rate for being the last Marine that knows how to write or type. From the base Newspaper: "In lieu of the recent DUI incidents, checkpoints will now be established."

From a much older issue: "Combat Center Morns Fallen Heroes."

2005-03-06T14:20:00.000-05:00

It's been far too long since I've fisked anything. It's starting to wear on me. I'm spoilin' for a fiskin'.

In other news, some drill instructors and an officer on Parris Island are being suspended because during swim qual, a recruit drowned the day after being grabbed by the collar and elbowed in the chest. Wow, drill instructors do that? Sheesh, I could have told you that. I sort of figured something was up when, as we were massing out the door of our squad bay, I saw our senior drill instructor choke-slamming two recruits at the same time against a rack.

I guess it's slightly different in this case, since The yelling and collar grabbing happened to have been caught by a TV crew who were there.

But some of these allegations of abuse are getting out of hand. The media can't get enough of his letters home. He says things like "My health is in jeopardy because we don't have enough time to eat..." Rubbish. I stuffed my face at boot camp.

He also complains of coughing a lot. Oh, I guess that was what I was doing all those times my lungs rapidly discharged air in an attempt to dislodge congestion or something of that sort. It's called 'recruits disease' and we all got it without exception.

He tried to get his parents to arrange for him to be taken out of training and brought home. Because of increasing concern, his DI's let him call home (usually reserved as a reward for high performance), whereupon he assured his parents that he was alright. Apparently his parents and a slew of letter-writers with nothing better to do are now throwing it about as plainly obvious fact that there should be some sort of 'e-z-kwit' program in place for recruits (not 'Marines' folks, recruits) who don't feel like they should be there, or that they 'made a mistake'.

Someone in my platoon peddled the 'made a mistake' line the second or third day we were there, and the female Lance Corporal he had spoken to told all of us, incredulously, "He's saying that this uniform I'm wearing is a mistake".

This all reminds me of a dream I had when I had been there less than a week or two. I've never told this dream to anyone, even in my letters home, but I have still never forgotten it. I was at boot camp, and apparently they had some sort of program where if you didn't like it, you could leave, but have your spot reserved if you chose to return within 48 hours. I took advantage of this program, went home, and began training as a volunteer firefighter. Eventually I decided that although it was easier, firefighting was not for me, I wanted to go back. So I went back to Parris Island. When I got there, however, something had happened. Either they had discontinued the program or it had been more than 48 hours, but when I got there, someone was sleeping in my rack and my stuff was nowhere to be seen. In addition to that, no one even recognized me or knew my name. I had lost out permanently, because apparently in my dream, simply reenlisting was not possible. I only got one opportunity, and now I had lost it. I woke up and experienced a feeling I never expected to feel and will never forget: The relief of waking to find myself still on Parris Island.

2005-03-05T19:51:00.000-05:00

"St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in inspection, be our protection..."

No kidding, I actually prayed this prayed for the first time on Thursday when we had a surprise barracks inspection.

2005-03-05T19:32:00.000-05:00

I already posted this on Cacciaguida, but I'll post it here too. It's my entry in the game of typing up ten things you've done that your readers probably haven't.

1. Saw a movie for the first time starring someone I met the day before. (Forrest Gump).

2. Been a pedestrian bystander at a rear-end car accident involving my dad.

3. Been introduced to Judge Bork at my godfather's Christmas party when I was eleven.

4. Fell partway down a rabbit hole when I was five.

5. Served Mass at the Cathedral of Washington D.C. (Zorak and the O.O.'s wedding).

6. As a kid, played horsey on authentic Civil war cannons at the Manassas battlefield. (What else were they there for?)

7. Been asked by the umpire of my baseball game if I might be interested in playing on his football team.

8. Been to two MOS schools before I was in six months.

9. Scored a goal on my own team. (This is actually not unheard of among soccer players, especially young ones).

10. Played Cassius at age 11.

I'll go ahead and add one or two more, even though it breaks the perfect ten-ness of the list.

11. Been in the room where General Washington resigned his commission.

12. Passed up an opportunity to tour Independence Hall because I was looking for a tavern. (Bear in mind it was Tun Tavern).

13. Worn the same pair of shoes to walk the streets of Washington, New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Cincinnatti, Indianapolis and Rome.

14. Seen the original pen and desk with which Admiral Nimitz accepted the Japanese surrender.

15. Sat down in a chair on exhibit at the Metropilitan Museum of Art in New York because I thought it was for weary gallery patrons. (Again, when I was little).

16. Seen the burial site of John Paul Jones.

That's all I can think of now. Btw, 11, 14 and 16 were when I was participating in a summer program at USNA.

2005-02-26T19:59:00.000-05:00

Another thing that I saw the other day that set me off was the front page of a recent National Catholic Register. The picture which was so good the Register had to use it for the front of their march for life story was one of a young lady holding a sign saying "Pro life: No Abortion, No Death Penalty, No War, No Economic Injustice".

First of all, twits always annoy me. They just do. If you're a twit, try to keep it hidden. It's like when we do formation PT. When we're all tired from running up a hill and we're all out of breath, why should I continue to sound off to the cadence when the people to my left and right don't. If they want us to sound weak, I'm not going to save them. Similarly, why should I spend a lot of time thinking about something only to argue with someone who hasn't, but is simply jerking their knees at me. Until you have compiled an argument that is at least partly difficult to answer, don't bother trying to argue with me.

Saying you are anti-war is like saying you are anti-chemotherapy. I don't want chemo, but I prefer it to it's alternative. Chemo, like war, will exist and continue to be necessary as long as the causes of it still exist.

However, it's not just that people who are automatically anti-war are stupid or that people who think the death penalty is a mortal sin are wrong, or even that people who decry 'economic injustice' are just blathering vague nonsense in order to sound courageous and upright, that ticks me off. It's that, by listing these things in the same litany as abortion or on the same poster, or constantly bringing them up in any discussion having to do with abortion, is completely downplaying abortion. You're saying that abortion is no more evil than the fact that some people get paid more than others, or that the BTK (bind, torture, kill) Serial killer that they just caught will be introduced to his Maker courtesy of the State of Kansas.

2005-02-26T19:38:00.000-05:00

I was thinking the other day about a couple of things that really get under my skin. I was listening to some of my classmates the other night talk about when they went out drinking. They went into minute detail about the various drinks they had, with names like 'red-haired sluts' and 'girl scout cookies'. I was all the while trying to put my finger on what exactly about this just burned me up.

For one thing, it is a subject I take no interest in. I don't drink, but if and when I do, I see nothing about wine, beer or whatnot that absolutely cries out to be mixed with something else, lest it be incomplete. "You ever tried whiskey, tequila, Bailey's Irish cream and Dr. Pepper? That shit strait f--ks you up!" I hear things like this all the freaking time, and my reaction is always the same. "You really need something better to do."

But I think that last sentence really comes to the point of what ticks me off. These are people who are apparently not brain-dead (yet). They have the ability to think about a subject, and I even venture to say, become experts on a subject. Then they waste it on something as momentary and useless (not to mention expensive) as mixed drinks. They could use their brains to better themselves. They could study the way our government, media, political system and electorate work, and thus decrease the number of twits in our voting system. They could do any number of things, but there is no tomorrow. I'm never going to wake up and find that my high school/college days are over. All I want to do with my life is go out tonight and get shitfaced.

2005-02-14T19:58:00.000-05:00

Ah, Valentines Day, another holiday I never celebrate. It is, I believe, my sole concession to those who claim that various Catholic feast days are in fact pagan holidays with a new name.

A lot of stories circulate about the origins of the day, most having to do with a saint named Valentinus or something like that, who sent his flock love notes from a roman prison or who married couples against the wishes of the emperor.

He probably did exist, but the origins of the feast day go back to pre-Christian times. Roman holidays were typically celebrated on the first or the Ides of the month, the Ides of course being the middle day of every month. There was a Roman fertility festival called Lupercalia, and it was celebrated on the Ides of February. I guess it made sense to create a feast day like Valentines Day on the middle day of February.

By the way, here's an interesting note for all of you sick or recently sick people: February is named after Febris, the minor Roman diety whose office it was to protect people from fevers. Even today, the Italian word for fever is 'febbre'.

"Colla febbre, Don Basilio, chi v'insegna a passeggiar?" "Don Basilio, who advised you to go about with a fever?"

2005-02-12T18:46:00.000-05:00

O xein angellein Lakedaimoniois hoti tede

Keithema tois keinon rhemasi peithomenoi.

I just finished reading Stephen Pressfield's Gates of Fire, a book about what the lives of the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae might have been like before, and finally ending in, that famous battle. This book is not for everyone, a lot of people find it hard to read, not because the writing is bad, but because there's an awful lot of bad language and the imagery gets rather brutal sometimes. I've met one or two grown men who stopped reading this book because they found it too much for them, but for my part, I recommend it.

Marines are always said to have a knack for spotting other current or former Marines, and I hadn't read too much of this book before I could identify Pressfield as one. The poorly concealed way he referred to the boys' trainers as "drill instructors", as well as what he described happening to the boys when Alexandros left his shield lying unattended on the ground. He might as well have altered the Riflemans Creed to say "This is my shield. There are many like it but this one is mine..."

The epitaph up top reads "Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here obedient to her laws we lie."

2005-01-29T17:11:00.000-05:00

I'm not usually disappointed with Ann Coulter, but this most recent column, in which she calls opponents of STML abortions a "lunatic fringe" is not like her, or at least I thought it wasn't.

I have a question. Is there any illness, weakness or infirmity in the world that a woman can have whereby giving birth will kill her but a surgically invasive abortion procedure will not? That one's been bugging me for a while.

2005-01-24T14:11:00.000-05:00

The bear went over the mountain,
The bear went over the mountain,
The bear went over the mountain,
To see what he could see.

The great American desert,
The great American desert,
The great American desert,
Was all that he could see.

I've never really thought of myself as much of a naturalist, but the mountains and desert northeast of my barracks lit by the moon and nothing else are something which must be seen. I wanted to get my mind onto something more carefree, so I went up the mountains which stand uphill from the rest of the mainside base for the following reason: Absence of a fence.
I climbed up a steep sandy path (I thought the sandy route would be safer), pausing several times to catch my breath and to regret not bringing any water or wearing sneakers instead of boots. When at the top, I called my brother, who was still busy at work. After that, I decided to explore a bit. Off to the southwest was a certain trail I knew of because we had gone there on a PT run one time. I decided reaching that pass would be my goal. Along the way, I tried to climb every peak I came upon, but I still could not find this place with the naked eye. I felt like Columbus, who kept hoping that his path to the far east would appear right around the next island. Or alternatively, I felt like Balboa looking for the Pacific. Eventually, out of stubbornness more than anything, I finally found this path and took it all the way home. The whole trek, exclusive of the trip back, was probably about 1.5 miles as the crow flies, and as I climbed, ran, walked and slid, probably more like two miles, practically applied.

2005-01-22T16:40:00.000-05:00

By the way, let everyone, including the Old Oligarch, know that I am not 'Defuncti'.

2005-01-22T16:17:00.000-05:00

I finally picked up class a few days ago and things are going tolerably well. We had a Master Sergeants run, and I realized I could be in better shape. It was a mere 2.75 miles, and it just took it out of me. I guess part of that is that the air is thinner out here, and they deliberately took us up as many hills and slopes as they could without going off the course.

My class is a night class, so every night we begin at about 1800 and leave when we're done with whatever lessons we need to cover. So far all they've taught us is some basic principles of electronics, and I'm barely keeping my head above water. If I could change something about my enlistment, it would be to make sure I got lower scores on the tests they gave, so I wouldn't get this school.

I suppose I really ought to get myself moving on the application to Christendom I am in the middle of. I've filled out the main form, now I need to write the three essays and get the two recommendation letters. This year, as last year, I'm having trouble deciding who I should ask to write each one.

I'm also concerned about another thing which pertains to applications and college plans as a reservist: Has my reserve unit (which I shall have to join as soon as I'm done with this school) been deployed overseas? The standard deployment is about seven months, so if it is there but has been there for only a short while, I might as well not apply, since it would avail me nothing.

Besides all that, I'm bummed out about something. I don't like being depressed anywhere, but being in the middle of the desert hardly makes the situation any better.

2005-01-12T20:56:00.000-05:00

Was this a scam?

As I was leaving the PX this evening, I saw a really cool display of swords and a few accompanying shields. I already have two swords, one of them is a Roman sword and the other is a Medieval sword with something like a Jerusalem Cross in the solid brass hilt.

I keep them upstairs in a wooden box I made and painted myself, complete with brass corners and steel hasps for the locks. Sometimes it's nice to indulge yourself a little in a wholesome way. Mom made me build the box as a security precaution, seeing as we were introducing a sword into the house. I didn't want to take any chances either. Once while horsing around, one of my brothers "borrowed" and broke my best hand-made (by me) wooden dagger (he purposely missed my other brother, and it snapped when he vigorously stabbed the floor). If they tried that with one of my real ones, it would be one of them that would get hurt, and me held responsible.

Back to this evenings topic, even though I already had two, I always like to look at other ones (I guess looking at other ones when you already have one is a problem guys have a lot). While I was looking, a representative of this company or firm accosted me and began to explain that the main thing they were selling was not the swords, but the shields. Apparently this was a combination of fine smithwork and genealogical research. They said that what they did was that they take your last name and research, over a period of twelve weeks, one or both sides of your family. The swords and shields, which I saw first hand rather than simply internet pictures of, were certainly of high quality. However, I was not all too sure of his claim that they researched your lineage going back to your European origins.

He managed to gain a little of my confidence when he immediately identified my last name as a German one. However, my bogometer started acting up when he said, in response to my expression of uncertainty that my family had a coat of arms, that every family has a coat of arms and in fact some, because of intermarriage, some have several mixed together. I studied a little bit of heraldry when I was little*, and I was fairly sure that the only families with coats of arms were noble families or ones with a knight or war hero somewhere back in the line. One fact that stands out particularly in my mind is the fact that in most of Europe, a go-ahead from the king or sovereign was needed before a coat of arms could be made. If I have a coat of arms anywhere in my background, it would be on the Irish side, since Mom has from time to time told us that somewhere, long ago on the Irish side of the family, there were some high kings and perhaps other clan rulers.

Whether they were on the level or not, there is plenty of room for dishonesty in that sort of trade, considering that customers must take your word for it that you are not simply telling them something cool about their family that you made up, and handing them a coat of arms you designed yourself.

Eventually, money was the deciding factor. Military discount brought it from $1500 down to $1000. As my active duty ends in May, and so does the active duty pay, I simply can't afford that. Though, if they're still around when I have a little money to blow (and perhaps a mid-life crisis to ameliorate) , I might buy their package deal it they could prove that it was genuine (like, for example, if they could show me some sort of medieval record or stone carving proving this is older than last month).

By the way, what a politically incorrect thing to be selling. Surely they must realize the feeling of isolation and exclusion which African-Americans must feel at not having a coat of arms to speak of, not to mention the fact that their last names are probably younger than 400 years old.

*For those of you that do not know me, when I was young, I gravitated towards obsession. When other boys were interested in dinosaurs, they just bought toys and made roaring noises, whereas I actually studied them and knew them better than I knew living animals. I can still remember things like the difference between a Saurischian species and an Ornithischian species. Likewise, when other little boys were interested in knights and things like that, they just got those little plastic sword and helmet sets and hit each other, whereas I actually studied medieval chivalry and heraldry. I still know all sorts of things like chevrons, cross-quarterlies, and the names of the four different positions in which lions are depicted in heraldry (rampant, passant, sejant and couchant).

2005-01-10T20:48:00.000-05:00

"It's a small Marine Corps" - Senior Drill Instructor Ssgt. Wooten.

Very true. I had known for a while that an acquaintance of mine, John Williams (who lived in Northern Virginia and whom I knew by way of Opus Dei) had joined the Marines. I didn't quite expect to run into him at mass in this rather small, very remote base. He spent some time in Okinawa before going to Iraq. He then came back and now he is going to Iraq again. He is currently a Lance Corporal.

Not only that, but in our conversation, I found that he was also in Golf Company, only about wo cycles before me, and that he had the same drill hat (second drill instructor in command) that I did.

2005-01-02T20:55:00.000-05:00

This morning during his homily, Father read us paragraph 841 from the CCC, which says that Muslims adore with us the one true God. He did this to beat down what he saw as the regrettable tendency for Christians to believe that muslims are going to Hell unless they get their ticket changed.
All well and good, but let's look at Paragraph 987: "In the forgiveness of sins, both priests and sacraments are instruments which our Lord Jesus Christ, the only author and liberal giver of salvation, wills to use in order to efface our sins and give us the grace of justification", emphasis added.
Let us further review. Muslims believe:
That Jesus is not God.
That Jesus is not the son of God.
That God cannot have a son.
That Jesus did not die on the cross.
That Jesus did not rise from the dead.
That we are not God's children.
That a pederast like Mohammed, so far from being a pederast, was very holy.
That Mohammed came and, on behalf of Allah, established a new and pure religion in the midst of a sinful world, and that Abraham was also a Muslim almost 2,000 years earlier.

I'll call this one "What Muslims Believe" after a Rich Lowry collumn of similar name.

2005-01-01T14:52:00.000-05:00

Speaking of tidings of great joy, congratulations to Shalon Spring (Admissions director at Christendom) and her boyfriend Mark, who got engaged on December 4th.

2004-12-26T01:42:00.000-05:00

"Fear not, for behold, I bring you tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For this day in the city of David is born unto you a savior, which is Christ the lord. And this shall be a sign unto you: you shall find the Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and laying in a manger."

2004-12-22T19:19:00.000-05:00

Haircuts

Today for the first time I gave myself a haircut in full conformity with Marine Corps regulations. This is a breakthrough, or at least has a significant impact on my college plans. I may be able to save money by giving myself haircuts rather than spending $5 or more a week for them. It would also solve the problem of haircuts at college. Guys at Christendom are not know for getting haircuts frequently, or so I gathered on my last visit there. In the Marines, it's safe to reckon that a week is the maximum amount of time the should elapse between haircuts. The sides and back of my head have to resemble a bad 5 o'clock shadow. I would like very much not to have to go into town once a week just for the haircut.

2004-12-19T17:14:00.000-05:00

Richard I
You're a great explorer and you're very brave. Sometimes, you're so caught up in exploring and doing your own thing that you neglect the people around you and the things around you. Pay more attention to those parts of your life, like your family and friends. The day will come when you will need more than just your own spirit and drive.
What Monarch Are You?

Cool.

Wait, wasn't this the same King that was the bad guy in Braveheart?

2004-12-17T01:22:00.000-05:00

Had a very good trip home from California. The last leg of the trip was in a fairly small double propeller plane. It was the first time I had ever been in a propeller plane. In honor of this occasion, I will now spend a few minutes making propeller noises.

Eeeeeooorrrrrroooowwwwwwrrrrrrrrrrrrrroooooowwwwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrr.

Tomorrow I think I will go and drop of my film so that I can see all the pictures of the desert which I took while in Twentynine Palms.

It's a lot colder hear at home, but I hear it only got cold recently and was fairly warm before. I'm just glad to breath some normal air. The air in the desert is very clear, but very dry. Just breathing it for a while is enough to give you cottonmouth.

2004-12-13T21:15:00.000-05:00

Well, unless there is going to be a huge appeals battle, it appears that the Laci Peterson murder trial is finally resolved.

Frankly, I don't think they shoud have given him the death penalty. Sure, what he did was wrong, but come on. A man like him supporting a wife and k-...oh wait. As you were, never mind.

I have a barracks roomate here who only recently started listening to music. I took advantage of his impressionability to get him started on classical music. Now if only I could do something about this reincarnation he seems to believe in. He's got at least two books by His Divine Grace, Dr. long-Indian-name-with-many-syllables.

2004-12-11T15:54:00.000-05:00

I suppose I ought to be posting more often, given the fact that I have access to an internet center on base for a reasonable rate.
I'm posting now because I have just gotten through some rather tumultuous planning regarding what I am going to do over Christmas. At first I thought I was going to go home and do a job called recruiter's assistance, but my recruiter took forever just to fax the official request. I couldn't just keep waiting indefinitely. I don't play the princess in distress for anyone. I know they outrank me by far, but if the good folks at the recruiting office want me to help them out over the holiday season, they'll have to get moving while I'm still available.
I saw Harry Potter III a couple of days ago, and I have a question that's been bothering me: Why is Draco Malfoy, the little spoiled kid, the only student in that whole damn school to wear his tie like a tie and not some sort of stupid kerchief?
I also saw The Day After Tomorrow. It was a great movie, and it really educated me on the dangers of using our planet's natural resources with abandon.

Just kidding. I actually watched it almost more as a comedy than a thriller. A thirty story tidal wave drowns Manhattan. Yup.
I'm no climatologist, but I would guess that for that to happen as a result of the polar ice caps melting, the entire ice cap would have to melt in a matter of...seconds. The ice caps melting would be like melting a quart of ice into a nearly full bathtub.
My roommate here, who was watching it with me, assured me that there is a lot of water locked up in the icebergs that float around up in the arctic circle. I reminded him that most of it was already underwater and as a matter of fact, would actually take up slightly less space than when it was frozen.
The inclusion of the Dick Cheney character was pretty cheesy, especially near the end when the moviemakers have him get on TV and eat crow.
The funniest part of all was when the eye of the storm passes over an already frozen Manhattan. The Empire State Building freezes from top to bottom. Inside the public library, where the survivors are hiding, two or three of them get chased down a hall by an oncoming wall of Jack Frost, freezing everything behind them.
If you want to go see some sort of fictional thriller, go see National Treasure. It is every bit as exciting, but it lacks the smug preachiness of TDAT.

2004-11-25T23:12:00.000-05:00

I hope you're all having a happy Thanksgiving. Out here in California, it would be too expensive to fly home when I would have to fly right back three days later. I'm going home for Christmas instead. It reminds me of those political commercials where the old person is trying to decide whether to use their money to buy groceries of prescription drugs. However, I'm not completely alone out here.
I had dinner with the American people tonight. Well, about twenty of them. We were mostly strangers to them. All they knew was that their nephew whom they never met was bringing two Marine friends of his to dinner. They treated us like family, and seemed very glad to have us. We were certainly never in want of anyone to talk to. One guy who talked to us a lot was an 87 year old Army/Air Force veteran who was in China during WWII ("I'm older than the Pope!", he said). They had some other relatives over, as well as the neighbors for about four houses in either direction. We had a great big table outside which we ate on. At first I thought it might be weird eating Thanksgiving dinner outside, but then I thought wait, it's almost certain that they ate the first thanksgiving dinner outdoors. You have to, when you invite the Chief and a couple of braves over for dinner and 90 Indians show up.
We had a really good trip out here to California. We were all traveling in Service A uniform, and everyone knew we were Marines. At every airport, especially Atlanta, people would come up to us and just say thank you for the job we do (It was sort of awkward, given that none of us had been overseas yet). Many would try to pick up our checks. "These two are on me", says the man behind me, as a friend and I buy some ice cream at a TCBY. I heard of one guy who went into a restaurant at the airport and paid for about 20 Marines meals. People are always very nice to us. On Sunday, I was waiting forever for a bus to get to a place called the South Mesa Chapel, which the first bus driver I talked to had never heard of. Eventually a guy on base pulled up and gave me a ride in his pickup. On the way back, I was again waiting for a bus when a lady who sat behind me in church saw me and gave me a lift back. Then yesterday, as we were getting ready to wait for a bus to take us to Oceanside Transit Center, an army nurse on base gave us a lift there.
I like Camp Pendleton so far, but I have to leave. Apparently they jacked up my orders and sent me here to be an amphib assault crewman when my contract assigned me to be a Ground Radio Repairman. I wanted AAV so badly, and now their sending me to the desert to tinker with PRC/19 radios. Not only that, but this school is considerably longer than AAV school. But it doesn't look there is any alternative to 29 Palms for me.

2004-10-25T19:17:00.000-04:00

I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave it at that. I had hoped to do a little more on-leave blogging, but I frittered time away and before I knew it, it was time for my much-looked-forward-to trip to New York to see my Grandparents and two aunts who there reside. It was a fairly nice trip. As usual we had a lot of things to talk about, even more given recent events in my life.
On Friday we went to see the city opera's production of the Marriage of Figaro, and on Saturday we went to see a screening of The Polar Express, a Tom Hanks movie opening November 10 (also the 229th anniversary of the establishment of the Marine Corps. I'll miss going to the birthday ball). Afterwards we got to ask Tom Hanks (and director Robert Zemeckis) some questions about the movie, and I even got to meet him. He seemed a pretty nice guy in person, and he had fun amusing the kids who were there.
The opera production was pretty good, though there were some directorial idiosyncrasies that will never make it into my production. After it was over we got to meet and talk with the main soprano, that is, the one who sang Susanna. She was making her American debut. Also with us was her husband, her mother-in-law (who, her son informed me, was with le Resistance during the war) as well as a British journalist who spent much of the time telling the aged mother-in-law the situation in the Middle East. Another thing I liked about the evening is that it gave me a chance to wear my dress blue blouse, the most formal part of my uniform.
For the next few weeks, starting tomorrow, I'm going to be doing MCT, Marine Combat Training, at Camp Lejeune. I'm sort of nervous, but I look forward at least to getting a rifle issued. I miss the one I had at boot camp. I miss cleaning it, racking it's bolt and so forth.
This period of training is only three weeks long and I will be home in plenty of time for Thanksgiving. The only thing that might keep me from being home for the Festives is that my MOS training school out in 29 Palms, CA, might pick up a new class between the time I get out of MCT and Christmas. I hope very much the next class picks up either while I am at Camp Lejeune or much later. An ideal time would be sometime in February. Next best would be sometime in January. We can hope. I'll try to make up for some of my prodigality when I get back. Right now I have to pack clothes and iron the uniform.
Take care.

2004-10-16T21:46:00.000-04:00

Freude, schoner Gotterfunken,
Tochter aus Elysium,
Wir betreten feuertrunken,
Himmlische,dein Heiligtum.

Deine Zuber binden wieder
Was die Mode streng geteilt,
Alle Menschen werden Bruder
Wo dein sanfter Flugel weilt.

Wem der grosse Wurf gelungen,
Eines Freundes Freund zu sein,
Wer ein holdes Weib errungen,
Mische seine Jubel ein!

Ja, wer auch nur eine Seele
Sein nennt auf dem Erdenrund!
Und wer's nie gekonnt,derstehle
Weinend sich aus diesem Bund!

Just a few lines the sum up how I feel right about now. Thank you to all of those who were praying for or thinking about me over the last three months.

I wish I had time to talk about the whole thing, but I don't have time for a book deal. Over the next couple of days I'll try to blog as much as possible on different aspects of boot camp, becase talking about individual events.

The worst part of boot camp was probably receiving. That is the first couple of days you're there. You're brand new, everything is confusing, and you have no sort of routine to make you feel even the slightest bit at home. During receiving I felt like Dante in the Dark Wood of Error. I could see the light, but the way was blocked by three ferocious beasts. One wore a shiny black leather belt and the other two wore wide green web belts with a very large buckle. All three wore brown leather hats with four depressions around the top.

The best part? Well, I liked qualifying with the M16 rifle. I qualified a Sharpshooter, second only to Expert, which I missed by five points. Am I killing myself over? No, I am simply confident that when I requalify, I will have to go to the PX to buy a couple of Expert badges for my uniform. They were five points stupidly missed and easily recovered. I also liked Team Week, where we got to spend five days doing easy jobs around the island. My job was to clean up and area called Leatherneck Square, where the confidence course is. We picked up a little trash and then found and obscure spot in which to sit down and do nothing. Even so we still took turns watching out for DI's coming. So you see, Marine training and ethos was really sinking in whether we knew it or not. But seriousy, I think the best part was Family day, the day before graduation. They had the emblem ceremony, in which we were in formation on the parade deck, and with our families watching, we were presented with the Eagle Globe and Anchor emblem, whereupon we were officially recognized as Marines.

Here are a couple of interesting coincidences regarding boot camp:
Owing to a rainy day during firing week, I qualified with the M16 on September 11.
The Old Testament reading the first Sunday I was there was the one about Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham asked Gogd if He would punish the innocent along with the guilty. God said no, but the Parris Island answer is "No shit, where do you think you are, boy?"
The Old testament reading the first Sunday I was back was the one about Moses holding his hands out over a battle to give the Israelites the better of it. It was funny for two reasons. First of all, one of the punishments we were frequently given at boot camp was to hold out something heavy like an ALICE pack or a rifle with our arms fully extended until we could barely hold them up anymore. It was also funny because it began with Moses telling Joshua to "choose a few men" to fight against Amalec.

"Ooh, ooh, pick me!"

2004-07-19T12:35:00.000-04:00

There will now be a blogging break while the author attends boot camp.

Fill the comment box below with love, prayers, luck, best wishes and money. (Wait, strike that last one)

2004-07-16T19:28:00.000-04:00

Dang! This new guy they have me working out with, I tell you, he really pushes me. His name is Pfc. Maglaughlin, he got out of boot camp in April and he's in really good shape. There's a machine at the gym on which you can do assisted pull-ups at varying levels of assistance. He had me doing them until I could barely do another one. When we were getting ready to run, my arms were so tired from the workout that when I tried to reach back and grab my foot so as to stretch the leg, I could barely reach it or hold onto it. Pfc. Maglaughlin informed me that that was what he was talking about.

We did our mile-and-a-half run in 9:50. My first time was 12:05, then 13:30, 12:42, and 11:20. After I started working out with Maglaughlin, I went to 10:20, then 9:30, and today we did a 9:50. In spite of the fact that I put 20 seconds onto my last time, the recruiters were still rather impressed. One of them laid it down as a general rule that anything under 10 minutes is pretty good.

I got to meet two of the four people I am shipping out with. They are not certain, but they are trying to arrange for us all to be in the same platoon. The new NCOIC told us that when we get off the bus and step on the famed yellow footprints, we should line up one behind another. We are going in on the "buddy program" (a program that gives friends the opportunity to ship out together and be in the same platoon) in spite of the fact that I did know any of them personally (although I met at least two of them at the statewide function back in April). All five of us being in this program together will mean that while at boot camp we will all be punished for anything one of us does.

We were also told that instead of shipping out at noon on Sunday like I was originally told, we were going to go up to Richmond at about 3:30 Tuesday morning. That's about the time it was when I first went to MEPS back in November.

Oh, by the way, here's the latest Ann Coulter column, dealing with Joseph Wilson and the intelligence regarding the African yellowcake.

2004-07-12T11:16:00.000-04:00

7 more days.

By the way, great collumn by Jeff Jacoby.

Another collumn by John Leo on the growing presence and importance of blogging.

2004-07-10T12:22:00.000-04:00

I found out a few days ago that I would not be shipping out only a few days after passing the test. They told me there is only a limited number of people who can ship in a given shipping week. The next one starts the 19th of this month. I came into the office yesterday and as soon as my recruiter sees me, he says "Hey! July ninteenth."

So in nine days time it begins. Anyway, yesterday I went to the restaraunt I used to work at to say hello and give the news to some people I know who still work there. While I was there, some guy came in who used to work with me at that place (much to my chagrin). He had joined the Air Force and went south to Florida. He told me that not long ago, his Air Force career went south as well. Apparently he was discharged for inappropriate relationship with superior officer. I like to refer to that sort of thing as Persistent Improprieties with Manegerial Personnel, if you get my meaning.

2004-07-05T22:55:00.000-04:00

Well, today was a weird day. I woke up very early before the cock crowed and was back in bed by nine. I had a one o'clock appointment at the recruiting office to see if I could do the pull-ups, so I got up at twelve and got ready.
When I got there, I waited around for quite some time for my recruiter to arrive. They gave him a call, and eventually another of the recruiters there (who has just been promoted to Gunnery Sergeant) decided to administer the test himself.
I got up on the bar and did one. Then a second, and I nearly got the third one. Two are required in order to go to boot camp, but they prefer three (in case the D.I. decides not to count one).
I can theoretically leave in the next day or two. Only thing is, I have hit yet another possible snag. While riding my bike, I passed a used car lot. The jackasses who run it had a sandwich board sign outside on the public sidewalk, conveniently obstructing traffic. The right side of my handlebar banged up against it, turning my front wheel abruptly to the right and sending me flying headfirst onto my hands. I was lucky to fall on the sidewalk rather than the busy street. As you can imagine, I was pretty mad at them, and I picked up the sign, threw it into the middle of their lot and grunted a few profanities to the effect that a public sidewalk was not the place to put large obstacles. The upshot of this is that it might delay me going to boot camp. You can't start training if you have open cuts, so tomorrow I am going to go to the office and find out if my scrapes are small enough not to stand in the way of my going.
Apart from that, I'm waiting to hear back from my recruiter regarding days on which I an ship. I know there are two people shipping out tomorrow, so if the scratch is judged small enough, I could be off tomorrow.