[Milsurplus] With appreciation

[Michael Tauson]

Hi, Mark ... and thank you.

On 11/11/07, Mark Richards <mark.richards at massmicro.com> wrote:

> They did not decide the battlefield.  Instead, they pulled their boots on and
> marched.

In his novel "Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen", H. Beam Piper offers this
note: What happened in the cloisters and the guild-halls and the
parliaments and council-chambers was important, but none of them went
into effect until ratified on the battlefield.

Carl von Clausewitz's version was a bit more simplistic but no less
accurate: War is a continuation of politics by other means.

And Tennyson had the soldiers' response: Ours not to reason why, ours
but to do and die.

It has been going on forever, and there's no indication that the human
condition (that being stark raving insane in come cases) will change
any time soon.  On the other hand, out of some 200,000 years of Homo
Sapiens Sapiens' existance and a few million years of Homo
Neanderthalis (sp?), this whole "civilization" thing is a pretty new
invention and is still pre-Beta test.

> There are lots of young pickup-truck-borne, cammo-wearing, Lee Greenwood-
> listening flag-wavers these days, but few who drive on down to the local recruiter
> and sign up.  Those who do have my greatest respect.

"Patriots" vs Patriots.  The latter ... well, we don't see ourselves
so much as patriots as believing in our country and the Constitution
enough to put our lives on the line for them.  At least I didn't.  Out
of high school and into the Navy ... and now 100% disabled, service
connected.  And if I knew then what I do now, I'd join up anyway.
(Doesn't that fit under Einstein's definition of insanity?  :-) )

The former I've got no use for.  They see plots and conspiracies in
everything, a "commie pinko" (or, now, a jihadist) in everyone who
doesn't automatically agree with their line of BS, something like the
"patriots" during the McCarthy era.  Having a father born in the
Ukraine put me at odds with them, something that followed me up to
when I joined the Navy.

Best regards,

Michael. WH7HG