Bunker Mulligan "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." ~Mark Twain

Yes, I’m talking about myself.

Today I needed to do some laundry. I thought it would be nice to drive over to Lackland and take care of it. I planned stop in and visit the BX, and drive by to see if my Basic Training barracks was still standing. It was one of the few in a small block of wooden barracks still there in 1983 when I went through OTS.

Before I left for Louisiana, I tried to register my truck on line, renewing my tags. Unfortunately, the bugs are not completely eliminated from the system, so I ended up mailing in the registration. It hadn’t returned before I departed.

I pulled up to the main gate at Lackland, showed my ID, and the Army (Guard or Reserve) MP asked if I knew my registration had expired. I explained my story and he asked for my insurance card. I couldn’t find it right away, and he had me pull off to the side. I went through all my insurance cards (dating back to 1998) and the most current wasn’t there. I walked over to the shack and gave him my previous one, and pointed out the phone number to USAA right here in San Antonio. No dice. “We’re not allowed to call and confirm. Return to your vehicle.”

I did, and heard all the radio calls. It sounded as though they had a real desperado in custody. After about five minutes of waiting, this desperado went back to the shack. “Return to your vehicle, sir!”

“If you’re going to write me a ticket, let’s get it done and I’ll be on my way.”

The Air Force security policeman working with him said, “Get back in your vehicle. And that’s a direct order!” I started to remind him that he could not make a direct order, only a lawful order. But if he wanted to do that, I would ask for some clarification and an explanation. I decided to comply, and wait for his Duty Sergeant to arrive.

When the NCO showed up, he completely avoided me, which really set my teeth on edge as he is the one with some judgement authority. And the entire process took over 45 minutes. Of course, the young Airman wished me a good day and a sharp salute when I finally left.

I thought a lot about this whole thing as I drove back toward downtown. These young men are absolutely indoctrinated to follow process to the letter. One was Air Force, and the other Army, so I know that issue crosses service lines. The NCO, on the other hand, is empowered with the ability to use his judgement, and could easily have made a quick phone call, or simply looked at six years worth of insurance cards and given a nod to scratch that citation. He never came close. Neither did any of them want to make eye contact.

Over the last week we have been continually reminded of MPs who not only failed to follow procedure, but failed to listen to their own good sense. Today’s paper has a headline that says, “Iraq Abuse linked to MP Dissatisfaction.” It was above the fold and I didn’t see the full text, but it appears there was certainly a command breakdown. From various reports I’ve seen, what appear to be simple things to civilians are passed by with little notice–like improper wear of the uniform. It looks like nobody was in control, and that falls to BG Karpinski and every “leader” below her. Those above? That depends on how much they learned from Karpinski, although I would expect a commander to be in command. Her superiors could be expected to trust her to handle her job.

Why are the MPs dissatisfied? There could be many reasons: They feel they don’t get enough recognition, and the shooters are getting all the medals. Maybe some were disgusted with the lack of leadership. Perhaps the job they have is boring, and their off-duty time is no better.

But none of these are reasons for abandoning honor and common decency.

So, I’m mad at myself for being stupid, and have to cut some slack to young men doing a thankless and boring task every day. They followed procedure when some of their counterparts found it just a little too difficult to do.

Good job, guys.

I don’t get much opportunity to talk about #2 Son. He is a cop, and works shifts that don’t often allow for phone conversations, and he doesn’t do email very often. Today, though, I got some sitdown time with him between my golf and his extracurriculars. He’s a top judo competitor, and has won several national tournaments.

As a cop, he’s apparently very good. I rode with him one night, and his sergeant was very complimentary. I would expect that, but the man went out of his way to say something which made me feel it was something more than “make Dad feel good.”

I worry more about him than I do his brothers. They are prepped to expect the worst in combat. He can never tell when a simple traffic stop might turn into something else. And he can’t enter a situation in the aggressive, primed mode. That can cause situations to grow.

Today he had court for a DWI he pulled over, and the man pleaded guilty. So time in court was minimal and he stopped by on his way to work out. We talked a lot about how his job is going, and the issue of Tazers came up. The entire police force is now armed with them, and every officer must experience the device before he can carry one. Matt says they’re plenty painful, but nobody has ever died because they were subjected to the shock (contrary to reports from those who want to see them outlawed). His Judo insructor is a very large man, and challenged Matt that he could use mind power to overcome the shock. He didn’t.

Matt had to use his the other night and got in a bit of trouble for not using his pistol instead. They hit a drug house, and the occupants had (as many do) a pit bull trained to hate uniforms. The dog attacked and tried to hit Matt’s leg. Matt fired the electrodes and the dog went down for the full five second pulse. When it was out, the dog got up and ran into the house. We both laughed, and assume the dog won’t be attacking any policemen in the near future.

The Chief is wary of his officers using this tool too frequently, and thought a gun would have been the better choice. Once he heard the full circumstances, though, he dropped his objection.

The Tazer shock is not the same as a typical electrical shock. This is programmed at a frequency that interferes nerve signals from the brain that control muscle function. Cops still call it “riding the lightning,” but it isn’t quite the same as simply applying voltage to the body. It has been tested on pacemakers the be sure it doesn’t affect their operation, and the current flow isn’t strong enough to do more than put small marks on the skin. Maybe a few of these would be of value in Iraq.

One of Matt’s students is a Marine reservist who is going to deploy to Iraq in the fall. We had a bit of fun with him at his expense tonight. But he’s an eager young man, and is ready to go. It was nice to spend the day with some of my generation and older miltary guys, then meet with this young Marine tonight and know that the values I remember still hold, in spite of what the media would like Americans to believe. The prisoner abusers not withstanding.

Like Wallace, I’ve resisted doing this. But here’s my Page 23 Sentence 5 quote:

“Palace and temple, ‘church and state,’ were thus combined, and the result was a government with virtually unlimited, and usually unquestioned, authority.”

From the Tigris to the Tiber which is an introductory Ancient History text by Tom B. Jones.

Sounds a little like what bin Laden and al-Sadr want.

Last night I heard a reporter in LA talk about the terrorist threat. He said, “If it looks suspicious, it probably is.”

There are almost as many reasons as there are blogs. I do it because it allows me to vent when I need to, it allows me to talk about my kids and golf. If nobody pays any attention, that’s okay, too. I’ve been getting over 100 visitors each day, and the number grows each month. I checked Andrew Sullivan’s site, and he gets about 50,000 visits a day. No thanks. Of those 100 visits, about 2/3 are people who arrive here from a search for such things as mulligan, don bendell, and child molestors. Someone’s apparently been making up stories about me!

That means there are 30 of you out there who actually take time to read what I write. Thanks. I hope it is of value.

This is no ego trip for me. I write what I want to write. Sometimes my vision is consumed, as it has been recently, by things like Kerry, UNSCAM, and Fajullah. I’ve been reading brother Darwin’s book of golf stories, and want to add my own stories to the collection. So, I do that here, too.

But I typically write as my mind works here in front of a keyboard. Which means it can be disjointed, with spelling and grammar errors. In the past, I’ve always written with a pen and pad, then digitized after the fact. Typing rather than writing is a bit different, and what you see is the unvarnished creation of electrical and chemical processes in my brain.

I began reading blogs only about a year ago. It seems many are having their first anniversary this month, so I may have jumped into this at the right time. I look at quite a few, and have a difficult time deciding whether to add one to my list or not. You see, I don’t want to clutter my list with a lot of links. Right now, I feel like there are way too many. The list needs to be pared. My list of links is my connection to those I read regularly, not a “thank you” to someone who has added me to theirs. And as I cruise through links, I more and more that interest me. But I can’t connect to them all, nor do I have time to actually think about what they have to say.

You see, I get most of my news from the internet now. I still watch Brit Hume, but little else on television. If there is something interesting happening, I will surf channels to get the best vantage point I can. I don’t care which network has it. Most of the time they are all covering exactly the same stories with exactly the same angle. They also like to cover celebrities. Tedious.

This is not the same as journalism. The old newspapers just can’t keep up. But what many of them have done is shift their focus to stories television won’t touch. Like the story of soldiers in Kurdish Iraq I posted last. That came from a local Maine newspaper online. I almost always follow a link that references a URL that sings out, and seldom follow links that go to another blog beyond the one I’m reading. Of course, there are some folks who point things out that I will follow regardles. That is a function of my opinion of the blog, and that comes from time spent reading what they, personally, have to say. For example, if Sarah links to something, I will generally follow it because I’ve learned to trust her judgement. But her broader interests are different than mine, so even that isn’t exact.

I like to keep up with print journalists I respect. Some can be found at the Townhall site, some at WorldNetDaily. I found Joe Galloway’s columns through Wallace. I used to read Salon regularly until they began having money problems and went subscription. Besides, Camille quit writing for them. PressThink is a new one I think I’ll continue to follow because it is written by a journalism professor who takes many of his counterparts to task. I don’t connect to the right or left exclusively, although I lean more right than left. I try to link to those who have a libertarian bent, such as Neal Boortz, and others who offer reasoned opinion. Noam Chomsky is there for the same reason as Dave Barry–simply to get a laugh or two. Barry has more reasoned thought on his site.

My blog is my writing pad. It just happens to be open to anyone with an internet connection. It is also my link cache, where I go to connect to other sites I read. Maybe there are one or two that would interest you over there on that list. Like Arts & Letters Daily or Coober Pedy News. Amazing.

On days like today I wonder if I’m just being an arrogant ass. Why do I link to other sites’ posts? Is it because I honestly believe the folks who visit my site won’t see an item unless I point it out to them? If I have a comment on the post I’m linking to, why not simply leave a comment there? Bloggers like Sarah, Michael, and John have far more readers than I do, so do I serve reader interest at all in linking to something they’ve already covered?

I don’t have an answer. I generally write to let off steam, or to let the world know what I think. Does that matter to anyone else? Why should my perspective mean anything to someone else? We all build opinions on experience, and I think my experience is of value. But on reflection, my experience, unique though it is, means nothing more than anyone else’s.

I’ve tried to avoid discussing Kerry and politics, but continue to find myself drawn back. I am more interested in International Relations, the Military, and golf. And not in that order. I am concerned people with no sense of reality will take over our government, so I get mad. I would much rather write about the joy of hitting a pure 7-iron that bounces twice and rolls into the hole for an eagle. I just get upset when people demean my sons and all other folks doing the country’s dirty work. And it is.

I’ll try to stay a little more sane, so bear with me. Next week should help. I’ll play in a Military Retiree Golf Tournament along with my father (if his back holds up), and share a beer or ten with some other old fart GIs from all America’s wars and peacetimes since WWII. It’s a great, diverse crew, and is beginning to attract some of the ladies who’ve served.

So, if there’s not much posted here during the next two weeks, it’s only because I’m very busy enjoying golf and comeraderie, or trying not to vent!

UPDATE: Thanks, Shannon.