Taco has asked me to upgrade his WordPress install to the latest stable version of 2.9.1. There shouldn’t be any problems and this shouldn’t take any longer than 10-15 minutes. During this time you may notice some funky stuff. Please stand by if you do notice. I’ll publish and update once complete.

Update: Upgrade complete and while none of you should see anything different, Taco has a whole new admin interface to learn! I wished him “good luck, old man” over email and I have a feeling the beers he offered in DC at the conference will wind up on my head.

Semper Fi!
Marcus

ABC newsThe Poser Posse at work (Mil Bloggers) has helped nab another fine douche bag and contributed to his arrest by the FBI.  Michael Patrick McManus was arrested last night by the Houston FBI on charges related to the Stolen Valor Act.  Mrs. GreyHawk at the Mudville Gazette made a nice “Wanted, Dead or alive” poster on this guy and soon the hunt began.  Some folks in Houston came up with his identity followed by CJ Grisham identifying all the different medals and awards McManus was wearing on his uniform. Turns out that he served in the Army from 1984 to 1987 and never passed the rank of Private first class.

If I was King for the Day, I would send this Turd over to Major Pain in Afghanistan, put him on the front of the line and make him walk a patrol down the middle of some God forsaken road, endure IED’s, and firefights along side of real hero’s so that he can earn the medals he was wearing.

ABC News did a great piece on this guy… check it out here.  

 PS, on a side note, John (EX-Marine) Murtha died today at 77.  Back to the main news though, McManus will face a Federal Judge in the next few weeks down in Houston TX.

BRAC

The Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission http://www.brac.gov (BRAC) is just another form of “Fraud, Waste and Abuse” in my mind.  For those of you new to this, every politician out there with a military base located in their state wants government funds and support people to go with the funds.  The base personnel spend lots of money in the local economy so it only makes sense to keep your people happy which means you get re-elected every couple of years.

Here is the latest example of F/W&A.  I called up to MOBCOM, that is a place where all Marine reservists check for things dealing with pay, points etc.  They are located on a former Air Force base called Richards-Gebaur which was nicknamed “Dickey Goober”  and BRAC’d in the early Nineties. When I moved from Okinawa in May of 1995 to Kansas City, the Ninth Marine Corps Recruiting District HQ was on the west side of Kansas City and we moved from our location to the old Air Force HQ on Dickey Goober.  The 14^th Marines moved upstairs from us, and we had this wonderful new space to work in.  Mind you, the Air Force does a nice job on their buildings, and for a Marine it was first class.  The Marines built a brand-new four or five story office building to house MOBCOM down the street while the rest of the base was turned into some sort of college.  Our Marines were able to live in the base housing there and it was a nice deal. 

I digress as usual, but when I called up there for a set of orders, I was told that due to being BRAC’d, that part of MOBCOM was moving to New Orleans and the other half to Indiana.  I was shocked because that building was no more then fifteen years old.  What in the world is the Marine Corps thinking?  Now they have to spend money in New Orleans, a total crap hole where the Marine Forces Reserves (MarForRes) is located to build new office space.  Probably the same thing going on in Indiana.  I asked what was going to happen to the spaces there and was told the Army was moving in.

It was then that the “Fraud, Waste and Abuse” light went off in my head!  BRAC is nothing more then a government shell game used to create jobs in one place while showing a decrease of troops in another.  Think about it, now they can show that the Marine Corps is saving money by moving the Marines out of Kansas City and consolidating them in New Orleans, a city so plagued by crime that the police won’t report the statistics. And—lets’ not think about the wasted man $$$ days when the threat of a hurricane approaches and they have to evacuate all personnel from that fine city to neighboring states. 

In the late nineties, Brunswick NAS was closed as part of a BRAC recommendation http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/brunswick.htm that just took away the states second largest employer.  As I remember, this was done because some congressman there didn’t want to play on President Bush’s party line sheet of music.  Same thing the current President possibly threw out to Representative Nelson from Nebraska when talking about BRAC’ing Offutt Air Force Base if he didn’t tow the line on his health care bill. 

Once again, nothing is new in the world of “Fraud, Waste and Abuse.” See, the Military is a pawn that can be moved around when needed.  The politicians can justify this by claiming that consolidating forces will save money.  On the other sheet of the books, they can claim “look at all the jobs I created over here in this state” during the next campaign to get re-elected, while ignoring the hundreds of millions of dollars spent to build new buildings, move the personnel to staff it (consider moving 4,000 folks at an average cost of 15K each equals about 6 million just for the household move) just in the name of saving the taxpayers money. 

So we spend hundreds of millions to save a few million!  BRAC should be shown for what it really is–a political leverage arm of the government that is, in fact, costing us more than we care to really know.  I just wanted you to know that your taxpayer dollars are hard at work.  If your life was tossed upside down due to a move, loss on a house from the forced move, city turned into a ghost town from the loss of personnel there, feel free to leave a comment below, I’d be interested in what you have to say.

S/F

Taco

There are times when you receive an email that draws such raw emotions out of you that it’s possible to cry over your keyboard.  This past July, I opened my mailbox to read one of those emails, and it was titled A burial at Sea (hyperlinked here) by LtCol George Goodson USMC (Ret). This article was written around 2004, not long after the war began and I wondered if this was a true story or just another well-written Internet piece that was circulating in the ethersphere from one mailbox to another, constantly forwarded, for good reason, as people recognize a well put together memoir from long ago.  I felt the power of his message so much, that I published it right away.

I experienced emotions buried deep in my conscious from over twelve years ago when I, too, was tasked to deliver the news to the spouse of one of our Marines who was killed the night before in an auto accident.  You never forget putting on your Dress Blues, rehearsing what you will say to his wife or the gut punch as his young son opens the door to greet you while you stand there in Uniform.  George’s article brought all that to my forefront as I sat weeping in front of my computer.

I felt the urge to track him down one morning and talk to him about his time in the Corps.  Putting on my past hat as a private investigator, I found him at home with his wife enjoying a nice cup of coffee, oblivious to how his piece had affected thousands across the nation.  I have to admit that I was a bit tongue-tied as I stumbled through my introduction as to why I was cold calling him.  He was very humble about his service in the Corps and receptive to my call.  I set up a time to call him back that afternoon to catch up.  The hours slowly passed as I tended to our sick kids suffering from Strep throat and later while they napped, I dialed his number.

Now we are the same rank, but somehow I feel as though I’m speaking to a former General thus my conversation is laced with “Yes Sir’s” etc. to which George says, “Quit calling me Sir, you can call me George.” This makes me smile, and I reply “Ok George, you can call me Taco, all my friends do and it’s better than Tinker Bell.”  George is 81 years old now and has had some rough patches with his health but I imagine a man 6’4 who is still in great health in my mind’s eye.  He laughs and reminds me he is about 5’9 and not a superman but his wife is, as she teaches water aerobics every day. 

George grew up in the rural south, in a depression era family where one child was the norm and comes from a long line of Americans as one of his ancestors arrived in 1656.  His father, a machinist, had a strong influence on his upbringing, making George the man he is today and unfortunately he died from a heart attack shortly after George joined the Marines in 1951.  I asked him what the deciding factor was leading him to service in the Corps.  Was it a family member, or growing up watching John Wayne movies?  George was quick to point out that he just wanted to shake the dust of that tiny little town off of his legs and see the world.  He despised John Wayne because he never served in the Great War but he did admire the stars like Jimmy Stewart and Ty Powers who fought in combat.  (I too despise some of the stars of Hollywood today for their lack of backbone and apparent greed, and love the few that go support our troops in the war).

As we spoke, George reflected on his “I Love Me Wall”, (most of us have such a spot in our offices where we display awards and unit plaques).  His first MOS was in demolition and he attended school in Camp LeJeune followed by an opportunity to serve in more specialized warfare.   He attended Army Special Forces training in the fifties and rates both the Army and Marine Jump wings, with over 139 jumps, many in combat, and has earned several awards including the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star with Combat V, Purple hearts and even an Air Medal. 

I asked about some of his wounds and if they all came from Vietnam.  He then told me about an operation in 1965 when President Lyndon Johnson sent 42,000 Marines and Soldiers down to the Dominican Republic to restore peace and ensure there wasn’t a second “Cuba” on the doorstep of the United States.”   It turns out that he was shot in the head and the bullet didn’t penetrate that deep in his skull because the fella that shot him was in the surf on the beach and his gun was half submerged.  The Surgeon used a pair of pliers to remove the bullet and sent him on his merry way to rejoin his unit. (with a splitting headache I imagine)

This wasn’t the first time he had been shot or blown up.  While he was attached to the U.S. Military Assistance Command (MACV-SOG) Special Operations Group, he was billeted at the Victoria Hotel in downtown Saigon.  The VC detonated a bomb at the hotel on April 1^st 1966 while he was asleep.  A combination of luck and his own strength allowed him to make it out of the hotel and to the US Embassy not far away, where his wounds were treated.  He wrote a story titled “September Song” detailing that experience.  He read some over the phone and after I type it up, will publish a few excerpts which will be in a future post.

He and his wife have children from previous marriages, and felt that it was important to put some of his experiences on paper so they would understand what war was about and the emotions he still feels today. Especially when he looks at the pictures on the wall in his study which include one of two crying Marines, sitting on “G.I.” cans.  He has it on the wall to remind him what war is about, and in his words, “it sucks!”

George is extremely proud of his time in uniform and his service throughout the world and doesn’t regret anything.  He is an icon in the internet world of electrons and doesn’t even realize it.  His prolific writings resonate with so many of us who have served in the military, and will be a timeless reflection on the price of war and what it extracts from our men and women.  LtCol Goodson, your service in the Marine Corps for our country will be remembered in the words you so eloquently expressed when you penned A Burial at Sea and will be for many generations to come.  For that, I think I can speak on behalf of the thousands of readers out there when I say, “we thank you Sir!!”

It was a real honor to speak with him, and I look forward to more conversations with this Great American!  I hope all of you deployed overseas have a calm and peaceful day on the 25^th and I want to wish all of you reading this a very Merry Christmas and God Bless you all.

Semper Fi,        

Taco