Perspectives

Attitudes and Perspective

Last Updated on December 20, 2009


Bad American	The Final Inspection	Happy Memorial Day	Who Packs Your Parachute

Winning the Cultural War	Dale Earnhardt	Flags of Our Father's	Glimpse the future!

Name this Country	Overpaid Military (?)	The Urinal Commentary Continues...	56 Men

Drew Carey on a Roll	Where We're Headed	To be a Liberal	Navy' s Submarine Force in Crisis

Liberal Pop Quiz	New Model Military	TAPS	Twas the night before Christmas

The soldier stood and faced God, Which must always come to pass, He hoped his shoes were shining, Just as brightly as his brass.

"Step forward now, you soldier, How shall I deal with you? Have you always turned the other cheek? To My Church have you been true?"

The soldier squared his shoulders and said, "No, Lord, I guess I ain't, Because those of us who carry guns, Can't always be a saint.

I've had to work most Sundays, And at times my talk was tough, and sometimes I've been violent, Because the world is awfully rough.

But, I never took a penny That wasn't mine to keep... Though I worked a lot of overtime When the bills got just too steep.

And I never passed a cry for help, Though at times I shook with fear, And sometimes, God forgive me, I've wept unmanly tears.

I know I don't deserve a place Among the people here, They never wanted me around, Except to calm their fears.

If you've a place for me here, Lord, It needn't be so grand, I never expected or had too much, But if you don't, I'll understand."

There was a silence all around the throne, Where the saints had often trod, As the soldier waited quietly, For the judgment of his God.

"Step forward now, you soldier, You've borne your burdens well, Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets, You've done your time in Hell."

It was raining "cats and dogs" and I was late for physical training. Traffic was backed up at Fort Campbell, Ky., and was moving way too slowly. I was probably going to be late and I was growing more and more impatient. The pace slowed almost to a standstill as I passed Memorial Grove, the site built to honor the soldiers who died in the Gander airplane crash, the worst redeployment accident in the history of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault).

Because it was close to Memorial Day, a small American flag had been placed in the ground next to each soldier's memorial plaque. My concern at the time, however, was getting past the bottleneck, getting out of the rain and getting to PT on time.

All of a sudden, infuriatingly, just as the traffic was getting started again, the car in front of me stopped. A soldier, a private of course, jumped out in the pouring rain and ran over toward the grove. I couldn't believe it! This knucklehead was holding up everyone for who knows what kind of prank. Horns were honking. I waited to see the butt-chewing that I wanted him to get for making me late. He was getting soaked to the skin. His BDUs were plastered to his frame.

I watched-as he ran up to one of the memorial plaques, picked up the small American flag that had fallen to the ground in the wind and the rain, and set it upright again. Then, slowly, he came to attention, saluted, ran back to his car, and drove off.

I'll never forget that incident. That soldier, whose name I will never know, taught me more about duty, honor, and respect than a hundred books or a thousand lectures. That simple salute -- that single act of honoring his fallen brother and his flag -- encapsulated all the Army values in one gesture for me. It said, "I will never forget. I will keep the faith. I will finish the mission. I am an American soldier."

I thank God for examples like that. And on this Memorial Day, I will remember all those who paid the ultimate price for my freedom, and one private, soaked to the skin, who honored them.

by Capt. John Rasmussen
EAGLE BASE, Bosnia and Herzegovina
(Army News Service, May 22, 2002)

Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important. We may fail to say hello, please, or thank you, congratulate someone on something wonderful that has happened to them, give a compliment, or just do something nice for no reason. Charles Plumb, a US Naval Academy graduate, was a jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy lands. He was captured and spent 6 years in a communist Vietnamese prison. He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience. One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, "You're Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!" "How in the world did you know that?" asked Plumb. "I packed your parachute," the man replied. Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, "I guess it worked!" Plumb assured him, "It sure did. If your chute hadn't worked, I wouldn't be here today."

Plumb couldn't sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb says, "I kept wondering what he might have looked like in a Navy uniform: A white hat, a bib in the back, and bell bottom trousers. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said good morning, how are you or anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot, and he was just a sailor." Plumb thought of the many hours the sailor had spent on a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn't know. Now, Plumb asks his audience, "Who's packing your parachute?" Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it through the day. Plumb also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down over enemy territory - he needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional parachute, and his SPIRITUAL parachute. He called on all these supports before reaching safety. His experience reminds us all to prepare ourselves to weather whatever storms lie ahead. As you go through this week, this month, this year, recognize people who pack your parachute!

I remember my son when he was five, explaining to his kindergarten class what his father did for a living. "My Daddy," he said, "pretends to be people." There have been quite a few of them. Prophets from the Old and New Testaments, a couple of Christian saints, generals of various nationalities and different centuries, several kings, three American presidents, a French cardinal and two geniuses, including Michelangelo. If you want the ceiling repainted I'll do my best. There always seem to be a lot of different fellows up here. I'm never sure which one of them gets to talk. Right now, I guess I'm the guy.

As I pondered our visit tonight it struck me: If my Creator gave me the gift to connect you with the hearts and minds of those great men, then I want to use that same gift now to reconnect you with your own sense of liberty of your own freedom of thought ... your own compass for what is right. Dedicating the memorial at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln said of America, "We are now engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether this nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure." Those words are true again. I believe that we are again engaged in a great civil war, a cultural war that's about to hijack your birthright to think and say what resides in your heart. I fear you no longer trust the pulsing lifeblood of liberty inside you ... the stuff that made this country rise from wilderness into the miracle that it is.

Let me back up. About a year ago I became president of the National Rifle Association, which protects the right to keep and bear arms. I ran for office, I was elected, and now I serve ... I serve as a moving target for the media who've called me everything from "ridiculous" and "duped" to a "brain-injured, senile, crazy old man." I know ... I'm pretty old....but I sure, Lord, ain't senile. As I have stood in the crosshairs of those who target Second Amendment freedoms, I've realized that firearms are not the only issue. No, it's much, much bigger than that. I've come to understand that a cultural war is raging across our land, in which, with Orwellian fervor, certain acceptable thoughts and speech are mandated.

For example, I marched for civil rights with Dr. King in 1963 - long before Hollywood found it fashionable. But when I told an audience last year that white pride is just as valid as black pride or red pride or anyone else's pride, they called me a racist.

I've worked with brilliantly talented homosexuals all my life. But when I told an audience that gay rights should extend no further than your rights or my rights, I was called a homophobe.

I served in World War II against the Axis powers. But during a speech, when I drew an analogy between singling out innocent Jews and singling out innocent gun owners, I was called an anti-Semite.

Everyone I know knows I would never raise a closed fist against my country. But when I asked an audience to oppose this cultural persecution, I was compared to Timothy McVeigh. From Time magazine to friends and colleagues, they're essentially saying, "Chuck, how dare you speak your mind. You are using language not authorized for public consumption!"

But I am not afraid. If Americans believed in political correctness, we'd still be King George's boys-subjects bound to the British crown. In his book, "The End of Sanity," Martin Gross writes that "blatantly irrational behavior is rapidly being established as the norm in almost every area of human endeavor. There seem to be new customs, new rules, new anti-intellectual theories regularly foisted on us from every direction. Underneath, the nation is roiling. Americans know something without a name is undermining the nation, turning the mind mushy when it comes to separating truth from falsehood and right from wrong. And they don't like it."

Let me read a few examples. At Antioch college in Ohio, young men seeking intimacy with a coed must get verbal permission at each step of the process from kissing to petting to final copulation ... all clearly spelled out in a printed college directive.

In New Jersey, despite the death of several patients nationwide who had been infected by dentists who had concealed their AIDs --- the state commissioner announced that health providers who are HIV-positive need not ..... need not .....tell their patients that they are infected.

At William and Mary, students tried to change the name of the school team "The Tribe" because it was supposedly insulting to local Indians, only to learn that authentic Virginia chiefs truly like the name.

In San Francisco, city fathers passed an ordinance protecting the rights of transvestites to cross-dress on the job, and for transsexuals to have separate toilet facilities while undergoing sex change surgery.

In New York City, kids who don't speak a word of Spanish have been placed in bilingual classes to learn their three R's in Spanish solely because their last names sound Hispanic.

At the University of Pennsylvania, in a state where thousands died at Gettysburg opposing slavery, the president of that college officially set up segregated dormitory space for black students.

Yeah, I know ... that's out of bounds now. Dr. King said "Negroes." Jimmy Baldwin and most of us on the March said "black." But it's a no-no now. For me, hyphenated identities are awkward ... particularly "Native-American." I'm a Native American, for God's sake. I also happen to be a blood-initiated brother of the Miniconjou Sioux. On my wife's side, my grandson is a thirteenth generation native American ... with a capital letter on "American."

Finally, just last month ... David Howard, head of the Washington D.C. Office of Public Advocate, used the word "niggardly" while talking to colleagues about budgetary matters. Of course, "niggardly" means stingy or scanty. But within days Howard was forced to publicly apologize and resign. As columnist Tony Snow wrote: "David Howard got fired because some people in public employ were morons who (a) didn't know the meaning of niggardly, (b) didn't know how to use a dictionary to discover the meaning, and (c) actually demanded that he apologize for their ignorance."

What does all of this mean? It means that telling us what to think has evolved into telling us what to say, so telling us what to do can't be far behind. Before you claim to be a champion of free thought, tell me: Why did political correctness originate on America's campuses? And why do you continue to tolerate it?

Why do you, who're supposed to debate ideas, surrender to their suppression? Let's be honest. Who here thinks your professors can say what they really believe? It scares me to death, and it should scare you too, that the superstition of political correctness rules the halls of reason. You are the best and the brightest. You, here in the fertile cradle of American academia, here in the castle of learning on the Charles River, you are the cream.

But I submit that you, and your counterparts across the land, are the most socially conformed and politically silenced generation since Concord Bridge. And as long as you validate that ... and abide it ... you are -by your grandfathers' standards -cowards. Here's another example. Right now at more than one major university, Second Amendment scholars and researchers are being told to shut up about their findings or they'll lose their jobs. Why? Because their research findings would undermine big-city mayor's pending lawsuits that seek to extort hundreds of millions of dollars from firearm manufacturers. I don't care what you think about guns. But if you are not shocked at that, I am shocked at you.

Who will guard the raw material of unfettered ideas, if not you? Who will defend the core value of academia, if you supposed soldiers of free thought and expression lay down your arms and plead, "Don't shoot me." If you talk about race, it does not make you a racist. If you see distinctions between the genders, it does not make you a sexist. If you think critically about a denomination, it does not make you anti-religion. If you accept but don't celebrate homosexuality, it does not make you a homophobe. Don't let America's universities continue to serve as incubators for this rampant epidemic of new McCarthyism.

But what can you do? How can anyone prevail against such pervasive social subjugation? The answer's been here all along. I learned it 36 years ago, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, standing with Dr. Martin Luther King and two hundred thousand people. You simply....disobey. Peaceably, yes. Respectfully, of course. Nonviolently, absolutely. But when told how to think or what to say or how to behave, we don't. We disobey social protocol that stifles and stigmatizes personal freedom.

I learned the awesome power of disobedience from Dr. King....who learned it from Gandhi, and Thoreau, and Jesus, and every other great man who led those in the right against those with the might. Disobedience is in our DNA. We feel innate kinship with that disobedient spirit that tossed tea into Boston Harbor, that sent Thoreau to jail, that refused to sit in the back of the bus, that protested a war in Vietnam.

In that same spirit, I am asking you to disavow cultural correctness with massive disobedience of rogue authority, social directives and onerous laws that weaken personal freedom. But be careful ... it hurts. Disobedience demands that you put yourself at risk. Dr. King stood on lots of balconies. You must be willing to be humiliated ... to endure the modern-day equivalent of the police dogs at Montgomery and the water cannons at Selma. You must be willing to experience discomfort. I'm not complaining, but my own decades of social activism have taken their toll on me.

Let me tell you a story. A few years back I heard about a rapper named Ice-T who was selling a CD called, "Cop Killer" celebrating ambushing and murdering police officers. It was being marketed by none other than Time/Warner, the biggest entertainment conglomerate in the world. Police across the country were outraged. Rightfully so-at least one had been murdered. But Time/Warner was stonewalling because the CD was a cash cow for them, and the media were tiptoeing around it because the rapper was black. I heard Time/Warner had a stockholders meeting scheduled in Beverly Hills. I owned some shares at the time, so I decided to attend. What I did there was against the advice of my family and colleagues. I asked for the floor. To a hushed room of a thousand average American stockholders, I simply read the full lyrics of "Cop Killer"- every vicious, vulgar, instructional word.

"I GOT MY 12 GAUGE SAWED OFF. I GOT MY HEADLIGHTS TURNED OFF. I'M ABOUT TO BUST SOME SHOTS OFF. I'M ABOUT TO DUST SOME COPS OFF..."

It got worse, a lot worse. I won't read the rest of it to you. But trust me, the room was a sea of shocked, frozen, blanched faces. The Time/Warner executives squirmed in their chairs and stared at their shoes. They hated me for that. Then I delivered another volley of sick lyric brimming with racist filth, where Ice-T fantasizes about sodomizing two 12-year old nieces of Al and Tipper Gore. "SHE PUSHED HER BUTT AGAINST MY."

Well, I won't do to you here what I did to them. Let's just say I left the room in echoing silence. When I read the lyrics to the waiting press corps, one of them said "We can't print that." "I know," I replied, "but Time/Warner's selling it." Two months later, Time/Warner terminated Ice-T's contract. I'll never be offered another film by Warner's, or get a good review from Time magazine. But disobedience means you must be willing to act, not just talk. When a mugger sues his elderly victim for defending herself ... jam the switchboard of the district attorney's office. When your university is pressured to lower standards until 80% of the students graduate with honors ... choke the halls of the board of regents. When an 8-year-old boy pecks a girl's cheek on the playground and gets hauled into court for sexual harassment ... march on that school and block its doorways. When someone you elected is seduced by political power and betrays you...petition them, oust them, banish them. When Time magazine's cover portrays millennium nuts as deranged, crazy Christians holding a cross as it did last month ...boycott their magazine and the products it advertises.

So that this nation may long endure, I urge you to follow in the hallowed footsteps of the great disobedience's of history that freed exiles, founded religions, defeated tyrants, and yes, in the hands of an aroused rabble in arms and a few great men, by God's grace, built this country. If Dr. King were here, I think he would agree. Thank you.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has...

On 18 February 2001, while racing for fame and fortune, Dale Earnhardt died in the last lap of the Daytona 500. It was surely a tragedy for his family, friends and fans. He was 49 years old with grown children, one, which was in the race.

I am new to the NASCAR culture so much of what I know has come from the newspaper and TV. He was a winner and earned everything he had. This included more than "$41 million in winnings and ten times that from endorsements and souvenir sales". He had a beautiful home and a private jet. He drove the most sophisticated cars allowed and every part was inspected and replaced as soon as there was any evidence of wear. This is normally fully funded by the car and team sponsors.

Today, there is no TV station that does not constantly remind us of his tragic end and the radio already has a song of tribute to this winning driver. Nothing should be taken away from this man, he was a professional and the best in his profession. He was in a very dangerous business but the rewards were great.

A week earlier seven U.S. Army soldiers died in a training accident when two UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters collided during night maneuvers in Hawaii. The soldiers were all in their twenties, pilots, crewchiefs and infantrymen. Most of them lived in sub-standard housing. If you add their actual duty hours (in the field, deployed) they probably earn something close to minimum wage. The aircraft they were in were between 15 and 20 years old. Many times parts were not available to keep them in good shape due to funding. They were involved in the extremely dangerous business of flying in the Kuhuku mountains at night. It only gets worse when the weather moves in as it did that night. Most times no one is there with a yellow or red flag to slow things down when it gets critical. Their children were mostly toddlers who will lose all memory of who "Daddy" was as they grow up. They died training to defend our freedom.

I take nothing away from Dale Earnhardt but ask you to perform this simple test. Ask any of your friends if they know who was the NASCAR driver killed on 18 February 2001. Then ask them if they can name one of the seven soldiers who died in Hawaii that fateful week earlier. 18 February 2001, Dale Earnhardt died driving for fame and glory at the Daytona 500. The nation mourns. Seven soldiers died training to protect our freedom. No one can remember their names.

Each year I am hired to go to Washington DC with the eighth grade class from Clinton, WI where I grew up, to videotape their trip. I greatly enjoy visiting our nation's capitol, and each year I take some special memories back with me. This fall's trip was especially memorable.

On the last night of our trip we stopped at the Iwo Jima Memorial. This memorial is the largest bronze statue in the world and depicts one of the most famous photographs in history - that of the six brave soldiers raising the American Flag at the top of a rocky hill on the Island of Iwo Jima, Japan during WW II. Over one hundred students and chaperones piled off the buses and headed towards the memorial. I noticed a solitary figure at the base of the statue, and as I got closer he asked, "Where are you guys from?"

I told him that we were from Wisconsin. "Hey, I'm a Cheesehead too! Come gather around Cheeseheads, and I will tell you a story."

(James Bradley just happened to be in Washington DC to speak at the memorial the following day. He was there that night to say good night to his dad, who has since passed away. He was just about to leave when he saw the buses pull up. I videotaped him as he spoke to us, and received his permission to share what he said from my videotape. It is one thing to tour the incredible monuments filled with history in Washington DC. But it is quite another to get the kind of insight we received that night. When all had gathered around he reverently began to speak. Here are his words that night.)

"My name is James Bradley and I'm from Antigo, Wisconsin. My dad is on that statue, and I just wrote a book called "Flags of Our Father's" which is #5 on the New York Times Best Seller list right now. It is the story of the six boys you see behind me. Six boys raised the flag.

The first guy putting the pole in the ground is Harlon Block. Harlon was an all-state football player. He enlisted in the Marine Corps with all the senior members of his football team. They were off to play another type of game. A game called "War." But it didn't turn out to be a game. Harlon, at the age of 21, died with his intestines in his hands. I don't say that to gross you out, I say that because there are generals who stand in front of this statue and talk about the glory of war. You guys need to know that most of the boys in Iwo Jima were 17, 18, and 19 years old.

You see this next guy? That's Rene Gagnon from New Hampshire. If you took Rene's helmet off at the moment this photo was taken, and looked in the webbing of that helmet, you would find a photograph. A photograph of his girlfriend. Rene put that in there for protection, because he was scared. He was 18 years old. Boys won the battle of Iwo Jima. Boys. Not old men.

The next guy here, the third guy in this tableau, was Sergeant Mike Strank. Mike is my hero. He was the hero of all these guys. They called him the "old man" because he was so old. He was already 24. When Mike would motivate his boys in training camp, he didn't say, "Let's go kill some Japanese" or "Let's die for our country." He knew he was talking to little boys. Instead he would say, "You do what I say, and I'll get you home to your mothers."

The last guy on this side of the statue is Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from Arizona. Ira Hayes walked off Iwo Jima. He went into the White House with my dad. President Truman told him, "You're a hero." He told reporters, "How can I feel like a hero when 250 of my buddies hit the island with me and only 27 of us walked off alive?"

So you take your class at school. 250 of you spending a year together having fun, doing everything together. Then all 250 of you hit the beach, but only 27 of your classmates walk off alive. That was Ira Hayes. He had images of horror in his mind. Ira Hayes died dead drunk, face down at the age of 32. Ten years after this picture was taken.

The next guy, going around the statue is Franklin Sousley from Hilltop Kentucky. A fun-lovin' hillbilly boy. His best friend, who is now 70 told me, "We pushed two cows up on the porch of the Hilltop General Store. Then we strung wire across the stairs so the cows couldn't get down. Then we fed them Epson salts. You know what happened. Yes he was a fun-lovin' hillbilly boy. Franklin died on Iwo Jima at the age of 19. When the telegram came to tell his mother that he was dead, it went to the Hilltop General Store. A barefoot boy ran that telegram up to his mother's farm. The neighbors could hear her scream all night and into the morning. The neighbors lived a quarter of a mile away.

The next guy, as we continue to go around the statue is my dad, John Bradley from Antigo, Wisconsin, where I was raised. My dad lived until 1994, but he would never give interviews. When Walter Cronkite's producers, or the New York Times would call, we were trained as little kids to say, "No, I'm sorry sir, my dad's not here. He is in Canada fishing. No, there is no phone there sir. No, we don't know when he is coming back." My dad never fished or even went to Canada. Usually he was sitting there right at the table eating his Campbell's soup. But we had to tell the press that he was out fishing. He didn't want to talk to the press. You see, my dad didn't see himself as a hero. Everyone thinks these guys are heroes, because they are in a photo and a monument. My dad knew better. He was a medic. John Bradley from Wisconsin was a caregiver. In Iwo Jima he probably held over 200 boys as they died. And when boys died in Iwo Jima, they writhed and screamed in pain.

When I was a little boy, my third grade teacher told me that my dad was a hero. When I went home and told my dad that, he looked at me and said, "I want you always to remember that the heroes of Iwo Jima are the guys who did not come back. Did not come back."

So that's the story about six nice young boys. Three died on Iwo Jima, and three came back as national heroes. Overall 7000 boys died on Iwo Jima in the worst battle in the history of the Marine Corps. My voice is giving out, so I will end here. Thank you for your time."

Suddenly the monument wasn't just a big old piece of metal with a flag sticking out of the top. It came to life before our eyes with the heartfelt words of a son who did indeed have a father who was a hero. Maybe not a hero for the reasons most people would believe, but a hero none-the-less.

The two-hour drive from his quarters in the military housing complex in East Los Angeles to the amphibious base out in the desert at 29 Palms allowed Eric Smith-Jones ample opportunity to reflect on his budding military career. After matriculation from the Joint Services Defense Academy located near Little Rock, Arkansas, with a B.S. degree in social engineering, he had been commissioned in the Marine Corps. By that time, in 2010, the armed service academies had already been combined -- that took place during the second term of President Al Gore. West Point became a shelter for homeless veterans; Annapolis was turned into a treatment center for victims of sexual harassment within the defense forces; and the former Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs became the site of all of the war colleges (now called "defense colleges") combined at the site.

Then, in the first administration of President Hilary RodhamClinton, it was determined that the term "Marine" or "Marine Corps" was simply too macho, sexist and violent; the spirited organization became the U. S. Amphibious Corps. Also then, traditional ranks fell to the floor of the cutting room. A civilian bureaucrat in the Pentagon concluded them too elitist, and that they tended to traumatize lower-ranking members of the defense establishment. As a consequence, Amphibians held the rank germane to their position and not a traditional rank. This led to salutes being replaced by the suggestion that juniors merely wave at seniors and offer a cheery, "Have a good day."

Shortly after Smith-Jones' commissioning, the entire First Division, U. S. Amphibious Corps, had been relocated to 29 Palms. For years, hungry environmentalists and real estate developers had cast their eyes on Camp Pendleton because of its pristine location along miles of Southern California's beautiful beaches. This ad hoc group finally won the day, when it convinced the federal government to declare the base a sanctuary for an endangered species, Canus latrans (coyote).

Company commander Smith Jones was met at the company Command Post by an anxious-looking executive officer. "Big Trouble at the Enlisted-Persons Social Center (formerly, the "Enlisted Men's Club" and then later called the "Enlisted Persons' Club") last night, sir. Four of our gay Amphibians were dancing together at the club, and a gang of straight Amphibians jumped them on the way back to the dormitory. The injured gay Amphibians are in the hospital. Battalion and regiment are aware of the incident, and the word is that the Battalion head is furious." "So, tell me some good news for a change."

"I don't have any, company commander. I've had to cancel our company training exercise planned for today, because we simply didn't have enough troops."

"First, division levied a quota of one platoon to work at the homeless shelter in town; I gave that assignment to first platoon."

"Then, the division EAO (ethnic-awareness officer) notified the duty officer last night that the second platoon's EAT (ethic-awareness test) scores had fallen below the division's benchmark. So, an emergency contact team is on its way over, and the second platoon will spend its day in the battalion classroom undergoing remedial EAT instruction."

"The same fate befell the third platoon, because its SAT (sexual awareness test) scores had plummeted sharply. Another emergency contact team is on its way out, and I reserved the regimental classroom for SAT instruction, which should use up the entire day.

The third platoon will participate in a reading and discussion of the book, 'Heather Has Two Mommies.' Then, they will see the movie, "The Gunny Sergeant has a Boyfriend."

"Sir, between the two of them, I can't muster a squad. As you may recall, we were required to stop discharging men and women who were HIV-positive and merely to segregate them. We put all of them in the machine gun section, but today is a compulsory instruction on safe sex for all HIV-positive amphibians. I had no choice but to cancel the machine gun-firing exercise. The headquarters section is also down to almost zero effectives as well, sir.

The Okinawan-spouses, Somali-spouses, Panamanian-spouses, Haitian-spouses, Albanian-spouses, and Kosovar-spouses community clubs are meeting at the main auditorium with their amphibian-spouses, and attendance is mandatory. The remainder of the section is meeting with their attorneys with regard to a host of legal problems and class-action suits."

"Sir, the physical fitness test for tomorrow has been canceled because the attorney for the women-amphibians has obtained a ruling from a federal judge that the test is discriminatory in that it requires the women to achieve the same scores as the men. And, after the other rulings, I thought it best to just cancel the personnel inspection scheduled for Friday."

"Why no traditional weapon and personnel inspection? Aren't we a company of amphibians?"

"Well, sir, if we had such a formation at all, you would be dismayed to see more than a dozen of the troops in strange uniforms. The American Civil Liberties Union won its suit challenging our traditional dress and grooming standards. So, we have amphibians walking barefoot, because they charged that because their ancestors did, and thus they should be allowed to demonstrate their ethnicity. Then, a group of our women challenged the traditional requirement that lipstick and nail polish match the color of the red cap cord on the barracks cap. So, a federal judge has ruled that in order to comply, any color of cap cord may suffice just as long as it matches the color of the lipstick or nail polish. Chartreuse or purple cap cords appear really strange on the uniform. Another of the women has challenged the requirement to wear a skirt, because it is a sexist costume, so all women will wear slacks until further notice. You also have Amphibians wearing ethnic-distinguishing headgear and jewelry.

And, there is more, but that's all I can remember for the moment. The point is that any attempt to hold a traditional weapons and personnel inspection will come off as a bad joke. Besides, you won't want to hear about the lifting of the ban against earrings and nose rings." "Oh, sir, don't forget that you have office hours scheduled for this evening after chow. A group of gay amphibians are requesting that, since they are married, they be granted a housing allowance and permission to live off base.

When our single heterosexual amphibians heard of this request, some of them demanded the right to draw a quarters allowance and to move off-base as well. A civilian lawyer is representing them, and he is prepared to charge discrimination if you deny the request." "Then, if all of these problems aren't enough to shoulder, I have a personal situation that is vexing. Yesterday was the anniversary of my marriage agreement with Samantha. My lifemate and I decided to have dinner at the All-Ranks club at Mainside. I guess that I forgot where we were, because I ordered a split of champagne. A RAAM (roving alcohol abuse monitor) took my name. So, division is cutting orders to send me to month-long alcohol detoxification treatment, followed by an alcohol abuse course."

"Thank you, Jane, for staying on top of the situation. I'm sorry to learn that you were apprehended by a RAAM. The situation reminds of my father's tales of the 1990's, when commanding officers counted the number of drinks or beers an officer consumed at unit social functions."

Company Commander Smith-Jones shook his head and wondered, not for the first time, why he had opted to remain in uniform after receiving his regular commission following a successful trial period of five years as an officer. This wasn't what his grandfather and father had spoken about. Where was the esprit de corps, that comradeship, that feeling of belonging? His grandfather had served as a Marine Corps officer in Vietnam after graduating from the Military Academy; his father took a commission in the smaller of the naval services after matriculating from the Naval Academy. Nothing either of them described resembled what Company Commander Smith-Jones experienced on a daily basis.

"Sir, Battalion telephoned. The CO wants you at 1300 sharp. I'm guessing it is about the ruckus outside the Enlisted Person's Social Club last night."

"Company Commander Smith-Jones reporting as ordered, Battalion Commander." "The incident outside the EPS Club is just another problem in a long list, suggesting that you aren't in tune with the program. I've noted with some concern your declining EAT and SAT scores."

"But, Battalion Commander, what about our record setting rifle, physical fitness profiles, and crew served weapons scores? And, the reenlistment rates for my company are the highest in the regiment."

"Those factors are inconsequential, Company Commander. Your continuing unresponsiveness to the problems of gender and ethnicity continue to cause me grave concern. I have no choice but to relieve you of your command. Division will cut orders sending you to the six month SACA (sexual and cultural-awareness) refresher course. I'm confident that you will shape up as a result of temporary duty at SACA, ex-Company Commander Smith-Jones. If you don't, then your career in the U. S. Amphibious Corps is over."

"Now that's just what I mean. You know that you are never to use that sexist appellation when addressing me."

13 Strategic ballistic missile submarines with 3,114 nuclear warheads on 232 missiles

All the support bases, shipyards and logistical assets needed to sustain such a force.

Well, don't feel too bad if you are unable to identify this global superpower because this country no longer exists.

It has vanished. These are the American military forces that have disappeared since the 1992 election of Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

On 12 Jan, Ms Cindy Williams wrote a piece for the Washington Times denouncing the pay raise(s) coming service members way this year citing that the stated 13% wage gap was bogus. A young airman from Hill AFB responds to her article below....he ought to get a bonus for this....

Ms. Williams I just had the pleasure of reading your column of 12 Jan 00, "Our GI's Earn Enough," and I am a bit confused. Frankly, I'm wondering where this vaunted overpayment is going, because as far as I can tell, it disappears every month between DFAS (The Defense Finance and Accounting Service) and my bank account. Checking my latest leave and earnings statement (LES), I see that I make $1,117.80, before taxes. After taxes, I take home $874.20. When I run that through my Windows' Calculator, I come up with an annual salary of $13,413.60 before taxes, and $10,490.40 after.

I work in the Air Force Network Control Center (AFNCC), where I am part of the team responsible for the administration of a $25,000 host computer network. I am involved with infrastructure management, specifically with Cisco Systems equipment. A quick check of http://www.monster.com under jobs for Network Technicians in the Washington, D.C. area reveals a position in my career field, requiring three years' experience with my job. Amazingly, this job does NOT pay $13,413.60 a year, nor does it pay less than this. No, this job is being offered at $70,000 to $80,000 per annum. I'm sure you can draw the obvious conclusions.

Also, you tout increases to Basic Allowance for Housing and Basic Allowance for Sustenance (housing and food allowances, respectively) as being a further boon to an already overcompensated force. Again, I'm curious as to where this money has gone, as BAH and BAS were both slashed 15% in the Hill AFB area effective in January 00. Given the tenor of your column, I would assume that you have never had the pleasure of serving your country in her armed forces. Before you take it upon yourself to once more castigate congressional and DOD leadership for attempting to get the families in the military's lowest pay brackets off AFDC, WIC, and food stamps. I suggest that you join a group of deploying soldiers headed for Saudi, I leave the choice of service branch up to you. Whatever choice you make, though, opt for the six month rotation it will guarantee you the longest possible time away from your family and friends, thus giving you the full "deployment experience."

As your group prepares to board the plane, make sure to note the spouses and children who are saying goodbye to their loved ones. Also take care to note that several families are still unsure of how they'll be able to make ends meet while the primary breadwinner is gone obviously they've been squandering the vast piles of cash the DOD has been giving them. Try to deploy over a major holiday; Christmas and Thanksgiving are perennial favorites. And when you're actually over there, sitting in a DFP (Defensive Fire Position, the modern-day foxhole), shivering against the cold desert night, and the flight sergeant tells you that there aren't enough people on shift to relieve you for chow, remember this: trade whatever MRE you manage to get for the tuna noodle casserole or cheese tortellini, and add Tabasco to everything.

Talk to your loved ones as often as you are permitted; it won't nearly be long enough or often enough, but take what you can get and be thankful for it. You may have picked up on the fact that I disagree with most of the points you present in your op-ed piece. But, tomorrow from Voltaire, I will defend to the death your right to say it. You see, I am an American fighting man, a guarantor of your First Amendment rights and every other right you cherish.

On a daily basis, my brother and sister soldiers worldwide ensure that you and people like you can thumb your collective nose at us, all on a salary that is nothing short of pitiful and under conditions that would make most people cringe. We hemorrhage our best and brightest into the private sector because we can't offer the stability and pay of civilian companies. And you, Ms. Williams, have the gall to say that we make more than we deserve?

Hoo, the Navy has gone funnier than when Junior put his tadpoles in Aunt Lu's milk. It's wonderful. Headline, the Washington Times: "Navy admiral wants to get rid of urinals." On aircraft carriers. Yep. See, urinals aren't good for gender-equity, which is what the Navy is for. Best I can tell, the admiral figures urinals make the girls aboard feel plumbing-challenged. It gums up their self-concept. And life, remember, is already tough for gals on warships. It's bad enough having those boomy old gun thingies everywhere, and those smelly airplanes. They make a hostile environment and all. But the worst is those disgusting white patriarchy symbols, stuck threateningly to bathroom walls.

Think about it. Every time a woman goes to the men's room, there they hang, row on row, in silent reproach, telling her she isn't Fully A Person. The horror.

But now help gallops over the horizon, thumpety-thump. The help's name is Admiral John Nathman, and (incredibly) he's a naval aviator. Yes indeed. Potty John, the Carrie Nation of urinals, is going to make it all better. He wants "gender-neutral water closets."

When I was a Marine, I always wanted a commander who had an interest in urinals. None of them did, and they probably still don't. But the Navy, as Marines have always suspected, is a little different. And apparently getting differenter. Personally I don't think Potty John has gone far enough in making the military resemble a sorority house. For example, a gal on ship stands out by virtue of having breasts, which must create a hostile work environment. (In fact I've never met a sailor who was hostile to breasts, but I'm being socially progressive here.) I think that as a simple matter of consideration for our warrioresses, men in the services should be required to have breast implants. Gender equity. This is, after all, the New Navy.

If compulsory surgery seems extreme this year, at the very least silicone strap-on mammaries should be mandated. Think of them as pre-loaded bras. Since servicemen have to wear uniforms anyway, minor additions could do no harm. Infantrymen carry packs, don't they? I figure breasts might become insignia of rank. Enlisted men would get small ones. Officers would have big mommas. Potty John, being an admiral, would have three. The Chief of Naval Operations would wear an udder. Look, I'm just trying to be helpful.

Let's be honest. Many unnecessary hardships are inflicted on women by the Navy. It's so...military. I figure the Navy might consider renaming a carrier or two in a more woman-friendly manner -- the USS Daycare comes to mind, or the good ship Terrycloth. Then there are family separations. I'm agin'em. So I figure a carrier's hangar deck could be divided into a labor ward and a nursery. Granted, weapons would have to be sacrificed, but all they do is encourage violence. (Onboard counseling might help to reduce this lamentable side-effect of testosterone. We could have caring, sensitive fighter pilots.)

Fact is, I admire Potty John for his willingness to be different from all those stodgy old male admirals we used to have. Can you imagine Bull Halsey (I guess today he'd be Heifer Halsey, or maybe Steer Halsey) focusing on urinal equity as he led the fleet against the Japanese? How about David Farragut: "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ah...Wait! Let's stop and talk about gender equity!" No. No urinals for them. They were fixated on violence.

My father spent four years at sea during World War II, first aboard the USS Greer in the North Atlantic, and then in the Pacific on DD-554, the Franks. He didn't talk a lot about it. He was there for some of the big assaults, doing close fire support with 5-inch-38s. Those were ugly days when blood ran on the decks and the kamikazes screamed in and you red-barreled everything you had at the nacelles and hoped you hit a fuel tank before the pilot hit you. I bet those sailors, mostly dead now, all of them forgotten, would be proud to know about Potty Consciousness.

Truth is, the military needs to be stripped of all manner of gender-unfriendly trappings. What could be more phallic than a tank gun? The very thought must be offensive to women, and make them Uncomfortable. Submarines are nothing but nuclear-powered phallic symbols. (With a propeller, which is a disturbing thought.) I reckon we ought to have gender-neutral, cubic submarines. Flowered wallpaper would add a homey feel and, if you got rid of those awful male torpedo-things, there might be room for a shopping deck.

The potty problem has reared its genderishly inequitable head for years in the mascara military. You just get in trouble for talking about it. Consider urinals and the Army. They were never a problem, because men regard the entire earth as a urinal in waiting. The side of the road, the middle of the road, a tree, the ocean -- they don't discriminate. The way feminists see oppression everywhere, men see urinals. It's a design feature. Which means that if a battalion of trucks is maneuvering in the desert, guys don't care. Anywhere is as good as anywhere else. Women see things differently. They're embarrassed. They want a bush to go behind. In deserts there aren't any bushes. That's how you know it's a desert. So they want all the guys to stand on one side of the truck while the ladies retire to the other. Of course, if the truck is in the middle of a group of trucks, this doesn't work. And if some dimwitted guy forgets he's not really in the military, and thoughtlessly goes to the wrong side of the truck to check the oil -- that's sexual harassment, buddy. Firing squad to the fore.

I'm dead serious: Research has been done on ways to let female soldiers pee standing up. If that's not gender equity, it's at least comic relief. I have to agree with Potty John: For many reasons, none of which I can think of, men should not be allowed to stand comfortably while making a sacrifice to the Porcelain God. However, the Navy shouldn't simply write off its investment in urinals. Surely unmasculine uses can be found for them. They would make splendid planters for flowers, for example: They have a robust watering system and good drainage. The lighting would have to be replaced with grow lamps, but this requires a mere changing of bulbs. Easy.

We would have a win-win situation: Feminists would get even with men for being able to use urinals, and men would have flowers to look at. A window-box arrangement around them with drapes would be lovely.

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died.

Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured.

Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

What kind of men were they? Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated. But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson Jr, noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later he died from exhaustion and a broken heart.

Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These were not wild-eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security, but they valued liberty more. Standing tall, straight, and unwavering, they pledged: "For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

They gave you and me a free and independent America. The history books never told you a lot about what happened in the Revolutionary War. We didn't fight just the British. We were British subjects at that time and we fought our own government! Some of us take these liberties so much for granted, but we shouldn't. So, take a few minutes while enjoying your next 4th of July holiday and silently thank these patriots. It's not much to ask for the price they paid.

"How many militant feminists does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to change the bulb, and one to kiss my ass."

That's right. I said kiss my ass. 'Cause I've had it. I'm tired of being pushed around. Tired of being grouped in with all the dead-beat dads and rapists and lecherous bosses just because I'm a man. All men aren't "potential rapists." I'm not a potential rapist. But, I am a potential murderer if all of you don't shut up and get out of my face already.

You've ruined it for everybody. Everybody, do you hear me? Men, women, everybody. Because of you and everyone else in this society that needs to play political victim and go to court instead of just dealing with it themselves, no one can have any kind of fun anymore. Men and women can't flirt, or hug, or look at anyone sideways because of you and your lawyers.

Are you happy? You've used a stink bomb to kill a few ants. And while I'm at it... Naval Aviators, who are willing to die so that we can have low prices at the gas pump, should be able to throw the wildest parties they can manage without one uptight biddy coming in and stopping it. There were scads of women at that Tailhook party who were having the time of their lives, voluntarily being just as debauched as any of the men were. Everyone who flew a plane, or even knew someone who flew a plane, knew how wild those parties were and what went on.

What did she expect? A prayer service? And why didn't she just throw some punches of her own when these couple of guys groped her? Why didn't she give them what they had coming and just kick them in the balls? Didn't our tax money go to teach her how to fight? I'm not trying to make the idiotic "she had it coming" argument here, which would go something like "of course they grabbed her breasts, look how big they are." Plus, just reaching out and grabbing some boob is wrong no matter what. When I was in college, even at our most drunken fraternity parties we never acted like that. No matter how hard I try I can't think of an excuse good enough to do something like that.

But it's still nothing to lose a career over. Besides, fighter pilots are supposed to be aggressive assholes. That's what we pay them for. I don't know about you, but I don't want a navy full of fighter pilots who are gifted at giving sensitivity seminars. I want mad-dog, rabid killers going to battle for me and mine. Man or woman. When our stable gas prices are threatened by a Middle-Eastern Madman, when we want to force our form of government on some poor, unsuspecting Latin American country, when uppity foreign diplomats "forget" to pay their parking tickets, I want to be able to call on men and women who like to fight and drink. I want a naval officer who knows how to whack some drunk in the balls when he grabs her tits, not call a press conference and a lawyer. If you're a wimp who doesn't know how to find the exit at a rowdy party, go fly a kite, not a jet fighter."

You're sound asleep when you hear a thump outside your bedroom door. Half awake, and nearly paralyzed with fear, you hear muffled whispers. At least two people have broken into your house and are moving your way. With your heart pumping, you reach down beside your bed and pick up your shotgun. You rack a shell into the chamber, then inch toward the door and open it. In the darkness, you make out two shadows. One holds something that looks like a crowbar. When the intruder brandishes it as if to strike, you raise the shotgun and fire. The blast knocks both thugs to the floor. One writhes and screams while the second man crawls to the front door and lurches outside.

As you pick up the telephone to call police, you know you're in trouble. In your country, most guns were outlawed years before, and the few that are privately owned are so stringently regulated as to make them useless. Yours was never registered. Police arrive and inform you that the second burglar has died. They arrest you for First Degree Murder and Illegal Possession of a Firearm. When you talk to your attorney, he tells you not to worry: authorities will probably plea the case down to manslaughter.

"What kind of sentence will I get?" you ask. "Only ten-to-twelve years," he replies, as if that's nothing. "Behave yourself, and you'll be out in seven." The next day, the shooting is the lead story in the local newspaper. Somehow, you're portrayed as an eccentric vigilante while the two men you shot are represented as choir boys. Their friends and relatives can't find an unkind word to say about them. Buried deep down in the article, authorities acknowledge that both "victims" have been arrested numerous times. But the next day's headline says it all: "Lovable Rogue Son Didn't Deserve to Die." The thieves have been transformed from career criminals into Robin Hood-type pranksters. As the days wear on, the story takes wings. The national media picks it up, then the international media. The surviving burglar has become a folk hero.

Your attorney says the thief is preparing to sue you, and he'll probably win. The media publishes reports that your home has been burglarized several times in the past and that you've been critical of local police for their lack of effort in apprehending the suspects. After the last break-in, you told your neighbor that you would be prepared next time. The District Attorney uses this to allege that you were lying in wait for the burglars.

A few months later, you go to trial. The charges haven't been reduced, as your lawyer had so confidently predicted. When you take the stand, your anger at the injustice of it all works against you. Prosecutors paint a picture of you as a mean, vengeful man. It doesn't take long for the jury to convict you of all charges. The judge sentences you to life in prison.

This case really happened.

On August 22, 1999, Tony Martin of Emneth, Norfolk, England, killed one burglar and wounded a second. In April, 2000, he was convicted and is now serving a life term.

How did it become a crime to defend one's own life in the once great British Empire? It started with the Pistols Act of 1903. This seemingly reasonable law forbade selling pistols to minors or felons and established that handgun sales were to be made only to those who had a license. The Firearms Act of 1920 expanded licensing to include not only handguns but all firearms except shotguns. Later laws passed in 1953 and 1967 outlawed the carrying of any weapon by private citizens and mandated the registration of all shotguns.

Momentum for total handgun confiscation began in earnest after the Hungerford mass shooting in 1987. Michael Ryan, a mentally disturbed man with a Kalashnikov rifle, walked down the streets shooting everyone he saw. When the smoke cleared, 17 people were dead. The British public, already de-sensitized by eighty years of "gun control", demanded even tougher restrictions. (The seizure of all privately owned handguns was the objective even though Ryan used a rifle.) Nine years later, at Dunblane, Scotland, Thomas Hamilton used a semi-automatic weapon to murder 16 children and a teacher at a public school.

For many years, the media had portrayed all gun owners as mentally unstable, or worse, criminals. Now the press had a real kook with which to beat up law-abiding gun owners. Day after day, week after week, the media gave up all pretense of objectivity and demanded a total ban on all handguns. The Dunblane Inquiry, a few months later, sealed the fate of the few sidearm still owned by private citizens.

During the years in which the British government incrementally took away most gun rights, the notion that a citizen had the right to armed self-defense came to be seen as vigilantism. Authorities refused to grant gun licenses to people who were threatened, claiming that self-defense was no longer considered a reason to own a gun. Citizens who shot burglars or robbers or rapists were charged while the real criminals were released.

Indeed, after the Martin shooting, a police spokesman was quoted as saying, "We cannot have people take the law into their own hands." All of Martin's neighbors had been robbed numerous times, and several elderly people were severely injured in beatings by young thugs who had no fear of the consequences. Martin himself, a collector of antiques, had seen most of his collection trashed or stolen by burglars.

When the Dunblane Inquiry ended, citizens who owned handguns were given three months to turn them over to local authorities. Being good British subjects, most people obeyed the law. The few who didn't were visited by police and threatened with ten-year prison sentences if they didn't comply. Police later bragged that they'd taken nearly 200,000 handguns from private citizens.

How did the authorities know who had handguns? The guns had been registered and licensed. Kinda like cars. Sound familiar?

WAKE UP AMERICA, THIS IS WHY OUR FOUNDING FATHERS PUT THE SECOND AMENDMENT IN OUR CONSTITUTION.

"..it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.."

You have to believe that trial lawyers are selfless heroes and doctors are overpaid.

You have to believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding Americans are more of a threat than nuclear weapons in the hands of the Red Chinese.

You have to believe that global temperatures are less affected by cyclical, documented changes in the brilliance of the Sun, and more affected by yuppies driving SUVs.

You have to believe that businesses create oppression and governments create prosperity.

You have to believe that hunters don't care about nature but pasty, euphorians who've never been outside Seattle do.

You have to believe that self-esteem is more important than actually doing something to earn it.

You have to believe the free market that gives us 500+ channels, can't deliver the quality that PBS does.

You have to believe the NRA is bad, because they stand up for certain parts of the Constitution, while the ACLU is good, because they stand up for certain parts of the Constitution.

You have to believe that Harriet Tubman, Caesar Chavez and Gloria Steinhem are more important to American history than Thomas Jefferson, General Robert E. Lee or Thomas Edison.

You have to believe that standardized tests are racist, but racial quotas and set-asides aren't.

You have to believe that the only reason socialism hasn't worked anywhere it's been tried, is because the right people haven't been in charge.

By 2004, the number of submarines available to conduct critical intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions will be at 45 the lowest in decades and a far cry from the 68 submarines Navy commanders say they must have to meet the nation s security needs.

Modern submarines play a vital role in supporting senior government policy-makers and military commanders with real-time signals intelligence and other information about hot spots around the globe. Unlike many other intelligence-gathering systems, the stealthy characteristics of submarines allow them to enter crisis areas unnoticed, deploy a rich complement of surveillance and reconnaissance systems and transmit that information to decision-makers.

Today the Navy operates a force of 56 submarines, down from a Cold War-era high of 99, and the total will continue to decrease. In 2004 the Navy will have 45 submarines but will be able to deploy only nine at a time worldwide because of rigorous maintenance requirements, according to Rear Adm. John Padgett III, commander of Submarine Group Two Navy Region Northeast. According to Padgett, who submitted written testimony this week to the House Armed Services Committee, the shortage of submarines has forced the Navy to "repeatedly say no to important requirements in the interests of long-term sustainability."

In 1999, the Navy decommissioned 20 percent of its Atlantic Fleet attack submarine force, but demands for submarine intelligence and surveillance have more than doubled in the past 10 years, according to Padgett. The result has been that the Navy s Atlantic Fleet has only five attack submarines available for operations at any given time. The Pacific Fleet is facing similar challenges, said Rear Adm. Albert Konetzni, commander of the Pacific Fleet Submarine Force. The United States can deploy 26 submarines in the Pacific, but there are 268 non-U.S. submarines operating in the Pacific, including 19 belonging to nations that would not be considered friendly to the United States, Konetzni said. He said the Pacific Fleet desperately needs at least 35 submarines. "I must forcefully state that 68 [submarines] is the [total] number of attack submarines the nation needs," Padget said in his written testimony.

"I believe that we are at a critical decision point with respect to the Navy s submarine force," said Armed Services Committee chairman Rep. Floyd Spence (R-S.C.). "We must commit to buying more attack submarines than the current budget envisions."

Back to the Top

1. Ted Kennedy, Charles Schumer and Barbara Boxer strongly denounce private gun ownership. Their bodyguards, however, carry:

2. You and your baby daughter are awakened in the middle of the night by your estranged, abusive ex-husband. Although you have a restraining order against him, he is drunk and beats down your front door with a crowbar screaming, "If I can't have you, nobody can!" You should:

A. Call Barbara Boxer
B. Call 911, and tell them that they should arrive within 30 seconds
C. Threaten legal action
D. Grab a ping-pong paddle
E. Reason with him (maybe he was an abused child)

3. Since 1987, 34 states have enacted concealed carry laws. Violent crime decreased in these states and the anticipated "Dodge City" mayhem never materialized. Even critics were surprised. Concealed carry succeeded because:

A. Sunspot activity decreased after 1987
B. Trigger locks rendered guns inoperative and therefore safe
C. Sarah Brady scared the crooks away
D. A healing wave of pacifism swept over the hearts of criminals in these 34 states
E. Janet Reno said that crime should stop

4. Schools, churches, subways, and restaurants have often been assaulted, but rarely military bases, police stations, or shooting clubs. The reason for this is because:

A. The targets aren't sitting or kneeling
B. VA benefits are lost if you shoot a soldier
C. You can't enter an army base without bumper stickers
D. Schools don't threaten felons with detention hall
E. All of the above

A. Are irrelevant if they contradict your feelings
B. Should not apply to firearms
C. Defy opinion polls
D. Pale beside hysteria, fear, and political ambition
E. All of the above

6. Every dictator always disarms his victims, before beginning to annihilate freedom loving people. The reason for this is because:

A. Guns cause crime
B. Guns cause accidents
C. Guns cause suicides
D. Being defenseless is the only way that mothers can demonstrate their love for their children
E. All of the above

Back to the Top

In today's New Model Army, boy and girl recruits go through basic training together. To accommodate the girls, Stephanie Gutmann says, boot camp is beginning to look like summer camp. Instead of breaking individuals down and turning them into killing machines, drill instructors are now supposed to be sensitive, supportive and nurturing. If the sound of that makes you sick, think of what it's doing to the drill instructors.

In today's New Navy, meanwhile, boy sailors and girl sailors ship out together on aircraft carriers, spending weeks cooped up below decks. They're not supposed to be fraternizing-or drinking, or smoking or using cuss-words, or going on shore leave, or reading Playboy, for that matter-but Gutmann says that between the boredom and the repressed hormones there's more sex and necking going on behind the parked fighter jets than there is at the far end of the average high school football field on a Friday night. God forbid there should be a surprise attack; half the crew would be caught literally with their pants down.

This is what Gutmann calls The Kinder, Gentler Military (Scribners, 300 pages, $25). She says it's a military that's been bending over backwards to become "feminized" and almost comically p.c. over the last decade or so. And if we get whipped the next time we go to war, she warns, it'll be precisely because the armed services have gotten so distracted with trying to achieve their goals of gender integration that they're forgetting that their main job is to fight, kill and win.

Gutmann came by my office last week, put her feet up and cracked a Bud Lite-she gets nervous being interviewed, she explained, and hoped it would make her more "garrulous." The Kinder, Gentler Military is, after all, her first book. She's a journalist (The New Republic, Penthouse, Playboy, New York Post, etc.) who started writing about the military in 1995. She doesn't come from a military background; in fact, she comes from the ultra-p.c. college town Ann Arbor, where, she jokes, "I never even met a Republican until I was an adult." It was her interest in tracking what she calls "the mutations of the sexual revolution" in the real world outside Ann Arbor that led her eventually to the armed services-the last sector, she says, of American society that feminists turned their attention to, having successfully brought their agenda to the civilian workplace, the education system and so on.

The 1990s were a rough patch for the military in many respects. The Cold War was over. A boomer Democrat entered the White House, and for the first time ever the majority of the people responsible for setting military policy-in Congress, the White House, even the Pentagon-are people with either no military experience, or military brass with no combat experience. The services were ordered to downscale, and their mission was redefined from simple war machine to the dangerously more vague, touchy-feely role of global constable we've seen them stumble through in recent years.

Meanwhile, they hemorrhaged manpower and talent. It became increasingly hard to attract good recruits or retain the people they'd spent billions training. Gutmann writes: "The services (except the Marines) are meeting recruitment goals by the skin of their teeth, if at all, even though they have been digging deeper and deeper in the potential recruit pool and offering 'recruits everything but a new car,' as one soldier put it...

Attrition is a particular problem in the Navy, where the most experienced people (especially the aviators, who cost millions to produce) are leaving the service in droves." To attract young people and retain the ones they've got, "In the nineties we saw the Army go from combat boots to Nikes, from open-bay barracks to dorms," Gutmann writes. "The Army is so anxious to make new recruits happier that boot camps now offer 'sensing sessions' in which they can complain about the food, their sleeping accommodations, or the conduct of a drill sergeant... The Navy has put masseuses, gyms, psychiatrists, E-mail (the little change that made the most difference), video movies, cappuccino, and soft-yogurt machines aboard ships."

On top of all that, the Tailhook scandal of 1991 reinforced the image of the services as wicked dens of sexist iniquity, society's last strongholds of male culture. The services had in fact been trying to integrate more women in more important roles since the Vietnam era-West Point went coed in the1970s-but the Clintonian feelgood Democrats and feminists wanted the process speeded up; they became set on a kind of affirmative action quota system, applying to the military the sorts of gender equalities they'd brought to the civilian workplace. "They used the language of job opportunity,"

Gutmann says to me. "'This is a job, and women are being denied equal opportunity.'" So, for instance, if there weren't enough women generals, "It wasn't because young female officers were dropping out in their late 20s to have babies and therefore interrupting their careers," Gutmann tells me. "It was because somebody must be persecuting them. So the integration of women got more politicized than it had ever been." And the brass and Congress actually became "more and more hostile to the traditional culture of the military.

The culture of the military is male. It is maleness distilled. It's about aggression. It's the way men relate to each other. The way men relate to each other in the barracks is the way men relate anywhere they'retogether." This policy has been influenced by feminists "who are uncomfortable with sex difference at all," she argues. And because they believe that sex difference is a construct of a wicked patriarchal society, "If the military would endorse the idea that we are all the same, there are no differences, then that would set a very powerful example for the rest of society."

The goal has been to use the military "to bust what they consider masculine stereotypes" and what they call "hyper-masculinity." (In her book, she quotes a very telling passage from Betty Friedan's The Second Stage, written after a visit to the sex-integrated West Point of 1975: "I leave West Point, as the first female cadets are about to graduate, feeling safer somehow because these powerful nuclear weapons that can destroy the world and the new human strategies therefore needed to defend this nation will hence forward be in the hands of women and men who are, with agony, breaking through to a new strength, strong enough to be sensitive and tender to the evolving needs and values of human life-if only the last gasps of threatened machismo do not stop this evolution.") So the brass were ordered to get more women in there, at any cost, and to get themselves nonsexist and gender-neutral on the double. As the military is wont to do, they've applied themselves to this task with a maniacal obsession, and the result, as Gutmann describes it, is a military that's become more absurdly p.c. than Antioch College.

For the average soldiers and sailors, and certainly for midlevel officers who have to enforce increasingly arcane new rules and attitudes, morale is dropping through the floor, she says. More to the point, it is also a military that may be rendering itself less and less able to fight when we need it to. In chapters that would be funnier if they weren't so disturbing, Gutmann describes what boot camp is like at Fort Jackson, where as many as half of new recruits may be young women. "The problem is that from the minute they put men and women together in basic training they saw female failure," she says to me. "It was embarrassing, it was discouraging. One felt bad for the girls." As a result, "they dumbed it down. Everything was reduced to the level of the average woman recruit. And that is not high. It's not high for the men, either. What they say about fat teens is absolutely true."

She says she went to Ft. Jackson expecting to be depressed by being surrounded by hundreds of buff, high-energy 18-year-olds. Instead "I came back feeling like fucking Superwoman," because so many of the recruits were so out of shape. "I could out-climb them, out-walk them, everything." To reduce opportunities for sexual misconduct at Fort Jackson, no recruit can go anywhere alone-they travel in pairs, called "battle buddies," in effect chaperoning each other. Physical activities like rope-climbing or grenade-throwing are "gender-normed"-i.e., scaled down for female physiques. (One can only hope any enemy army they might confront someday is equally p.c.) If you still can't keep up, you're not washed out and sent home, you're assigned to a new "Ability Group," with lowered standards-a sort of boot camp special-ed class. Instead of despised drill sergeants there are "confidence course facilitators" who do everything they can to make all new recruits feel useful and wanted. Boot camp used to be about creating soldier-units to fit the Army's needs; now it's the other way around, and the Army is there to help each recruit be all that he/she can be.

Gutmann concedes that probably half the female recruits she saw at Fort Jackson had the determination and strength to keep up. It's the other half, she insists, who soak up all the time and effort and drag things down for everyone else. She writes about one girl in a wall-rappelling exercise who "is nearly catatonic as she approaches the lip of the platform and the waiting drill sergeant. Her brown face is streaked with tears, and her mouth is quivering. In the old days-we all know the script-the recruit who freezes up would have been humiliated shamelessly for showing fear. A drill sergeant would have 'gotten in the kid's face' and snarled about his loathing for little mama's boys and wusses, et cetera. The sergeant of the nineties, on the other hand, is under strict instructions not to 'abuse the recruits.' Though his degree of nonabuse is supposed to be 'gender neutral,' in practice, everyone says, it always works out that the drill sergeants (terrified of sexual harassment charges, sex discrimination charges, or general trainee-abuse charges, which they believe are more likely to come from women) 'are softer' on the girls-as is this drill sergeant, who murmurs 'You can do it''s to the girl until she shakily steps off the supporting platform and makes a jerky and tearful descent."

The Army integrated boot camps "with the idea that there's no difference," Gutmann says to me. "But all I saw in gender-integrated training was difference. When you put 200 young people in uniform and you put them out in the field all doing the same task, what you see is the difference. I watched them doing an exercise where they had to lift their rifles over their heads [repeatedly], and the people all across the field who dropped out and were having trouble were girls. "This is not to deny that there are certain exceptional individuals who are different," she adds. She cites a female F-18 pilot she met who's a triathlete now training for the Iron Man competition. "I would never say she shouldn't be doing her job."

But that's all anecdotal, I counter. And clearly women have been successfully integrated into law firms and all sorts of other traditionally male professions. Why not the military? "That's not the analogy," she replies. "The better analogy is why haven't we integrated the NFL?" And why not? "Because there are very significant physical differences between men and women. It's true that in a city like New York we have little sense of them, because we work with our heads mostly..." But the military, like pro football, "is still a very physical endeavor," where typical male attributes like upper body strength and endurance are still crucial. This is most true, she says, for ground troops, routinely expected to be able to carry 60-pound packs on their backs, plus 15 pounds of rifle, and run, march, dig holes, change the tires on the Hum-Vee. "Upper body strength is the key to equality" in ground troops, Gutmann says, and only exceptionally large and strong females can keep up.

She cites a study done by a military researcher in which intensive physical training for young women improved their upper body strength to the weakest levels among males. The findings were promptly disavowed by the brass, Gutmann says, because since the 1990s the goal has been not to try to change women to fit the military, which was seen as sexist, but to change the military to suit women. So they've been changing the jobs, lightening the equipment, refitting aircraft carriers to accommodate coed living quarters, redesigning the cockpits of fighter jets to accommodate female physiology (the ejection-seat technology had to be changed because the explosive force that propels the seat out of the jet wreaks havoc on women pilot's smaller-boned bodies).

There have been some interesting repercussions. It turned out that female ground troops were developing bladder infections on long field exercises because they were holding their pee, unwilling to squat and piss with guy soldiers standing around. Researchers developed a funnel device, "the Lady J," that lets you pee standing up, and without removing so many clothes "and showing your butt." The military has not adopted its use, but you see versions advertised in travel catalogs.

When it comes time to ship these coed troops off to war, things will have become much more complicated than they used to be. In the old days you packed a bunch of single young men into ships, trucks and planes and off they went. Now, with all the family, housing and childcare support the new military offers as incentives, the services have become havens for single parents. Which led to tremendous social disruption, confusion and bureaucratic expense when everyone was called up for the Gulf War, for example.

As for women soldiers fightin' and dyin' at the front just like men,Gutmann claims this mostly remains a peculiar feminist dream. When 13 American women were reported to have died in the Gulf War, Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder ghoulishly crowed that "The Persian Gulf War helped collapse the whole chivalrous notion that women could be kept out of danger in a war," and NBC's Naomi Spinrad bizarrely cheered that "It wiped out cultural taboos that American women should not be wounded, captured, or killed facing an enemy." Looking more closely at those deaths, Gutmann lists only one you could say really died in combat (a shot-down helicopter pilot), and one hit by a Scud in her barracks behind the lines, one who evidently stepped on leftover U.S. ordnance and blew herself up, one who crashed her helicopter a day after the hostilities had ended-and eight who were traffic fatalities. (Indeed, more American troops died in traffic accidents than from Iraqi fire.)

For all that, Gutmann concludes with modest-sounding proposals for simply curbing the most egregious excesses of political correctness in current military policy. She suggests that the other services "Follow the lead of the Marines and the Israelis and go back to separating the sexes in boot camp. This would allow drill sergeants to restore discipline and standards because they could train the men as hard as they need to, without worrying about injuring the women..." Eliminate all recruiting quotas for women, she also suggests, and stop pursuing the possibly disastrous goal of having female soldiers in frontline foxholes with males.

"It's not worth the U.S. government spending the time and the resources to try to achieve something that is not really helpful," she says to me, "and that huge numbers of Americans oppose for a million different reasons."

We have all heard the haunting song, "Taps." It's the song that gives us that lump in our throats and usually creates tears in our eyes. But, do you know the story behind the song? If not, I think you will be delighted to find out about it's humble beginnings.

It all began in 1862 during the Civil War, when Union Army Captain Robert Ellicombe was with his men near Harrison's Landing in Virginia. The Confederate Army was on the other side of the narrow strip of land. During the night, Captain Ellicombe heard the moans of a soldier who lay mortally wounded on the field. Not knowing if it was a Union or Confederate soldier the Captain decided to risk his life to bring the stricken man back for medical attention.

Crawling on his stomach through the gunfire, the Captain reached the stricken soldier and began pulling him toward his encampment. When the Captain finally reached his own lines, he discovered it was actually a Confederate soldier but the soldier was dead. The Captain lit a lantern and suddenly caught his breath and went numb with shock. In the dim light, he saw the face of the soldier. It was his own son.

The boy had been studying music in the South when the war broke out. Without telling his father, he enlisted in the Confederate Army. The following morning, heartbroken, the father asked permission of his superiors to give his son a full military burial despite his enemy status. His request was only partially granted. The Captain had asked if he could have a group of Army band members play a funeral dirge for his son at the funeral. The request was turned down since the soldier was a Confederate but, out of respect for the father, they did say they could give him only one musician. The Captain chose a bugler. He asked the bugler to play a series of musical notes he had found on a piece of paper in the pocket of the dead youth's uniform. This wish was granted. The haunting melody we now know as "Taps" used at military funerals was born.

Day is done
gone the sun
from the Lakes
from the hills
from the sky
all is well
safely rest
God is nigh.

Fading light
Dims the sight,
And a star
Gems the sky,
Gleaming bright
From afar,
Drawing nigh,
Falls the night.

Thanks and praise,
For our days,
Neath the sun,
Neath the stars,
Neath the sky,
As we go,
This we know,
God is nigh.