Rant of the Day….
09JUN18
Census vs. Con-census
How many piggies do you see next to the sea? You sure? Count again.
I have recently been having a lot of long ago compartmentalized memories come back upon me in tsunami like fashion over the recent weeks. Good news is a life line was used, special thanks to the Veterans Helpline folks posted on the va.gov. What has come upon me as well after equalization of the tremendous amount of information flow moving through my noggin created a near unmanageable amount of cognative dissonance that openly made certain circumstances where decisions were made become self-evident that the choice made placed yours truly on the wrong side of history. Sorry, made the best decision with the limited resources available to protect your investment while attempting to capitalize on its ability to exist by all means necessary Chiefly “Just-In-Case” things in the world become unmanageable which oddly enough meant being there was indeed supposed to be half the battle.
But, there are certain places in the world that require strategic defense if the American Empire of the United States Government intends to continue to project itself into the few yet to be fully conquered remaining conflict zones in the world. Part of the necessary critical requirements is to have a supply chain that reaches all the way around the world. In one case that I have visited on more than one occasion is the Isle of Guam. Actually had a Shipmate on the Usta-Fish hail from such a isolated place. You thought the world was small when you were a kid, imagine what 3 miles by 12 miles as your home. Then take about 4/7ths of the land mass and make them military installations complete with hospitals and golf courses. Played the Air Force course a few times, but not the Navy one.
So you see, when I was in the Navy during the 1990 & 2000 census, both ashore in Connecticut and abroad in Guam, each time one changed course or moored pierside, in this case in Trident Point. Part of the procedure for Indoctrination or a Directive from the local military establishment was to fill out census forms. Let me tell you what, I ain’t never been so fortunate to military exercises with SEAL’s in my life. If it wasn’t for them eating all the food, taking up space in crews mess before the oncoming watchstanders ate, or just in general being onboard to go ashore. Whilst we should be ashore, preparing for sea. As a member of the Navigation team, and doing things loudly and quickly it became exhausting once caught into the midwatch cycle of lost and unrecoverable sleep. Any way great experience openly displaying some of the missions of diversity that submerged warships are capable of conducting off the coast lines of the world.
So I have made the following deductive reasoning using a little bit of critical thinking and understanding of how government actually works. You see part of the ability to be noticed when you are trained to go unnoticed is to pick the time and place of being noticed while at the same time attempt have a successful career, since as you can imagine rocking the boat even slightly could and most times did mean immediate doom, you see one had to bide one’s time, picking and choosing whether or not to engage, encourage, or in the politest and most professional way find a pillar of principal to make an argument against such policy. To the layman, landlubber, well tactical minded landlubbers would understand avenues of approach, ingress, egress routes, mass casualty situations, along with emergency destruct procedures. You see once the mission was defined, providing the paths was up to us, once in our Area Of Operations (AOR). During transit times there was almost always a Return To Port (RTP) provided that forced one to plan the voyage at a tempo assigned by the clock and through interpolation of the lines of longitude to determine the total time of the voyage, known published distances from both commercial and military sources, one could determine what speed would be necessary to cover that distance. From there the Command Staff would establish how many hours of Ship wide training were to be accomplished with each evolution taken into account to ensure adequate dedicated time at reduced speed, or at times purposely placed Dead In the Water (DIW), the rules of the road require a black ball, a black diamond, and another black ball be flown from a mast to notify others that the vessel has lost steerage way. You see it isn’t all bad that I am remembering the nautical aspects of the learning slopes. During my time spent as a pseudo explorer of the sea, what it really did was lift the veil on human nature and how we are all placed in situations that are oddly enough by our own design or so it may seem.
Any who, here is the moral of the story, I was actually deployed and in port in Guam right before super-typhoon paka [sp] hit in what would have been ’97 if memory serves me correctly. Thinking that we were going to be gone a few days I errantly left most of my clean well just most of my clothes in the locker in the barracks room provided to us bubbleheads on the Naval Magazine. That place had earthquakes, horseshoe pits, a softball field, and water buffalo (water buffalo pies a plenty). I tell you it had everything. Including the vast majority of my clothes, which would not have mattered if we returned after the passing of the typhoon. But, do to the carnage left in its wake, things like a tug boat on the beach, etcetera, our destination was redefined as Sasabo, Japan if I recall. Little did I know at the time but other than eating itself into extinction upon the isle, the invasive Brown Tree Snake that near all the flying birds on the island, was about to lose a major part of its habitat. Upon my return to Guam a few months later, it appeared as thought the jungle had gotten one huge haircut with say a #2 or #3 blade depending on location. Back to another Island and a different Nation, one with the biggest bathtubs I have ever seen in a military barracks. Everyone wanted to go out and was in a rush to do what they wanted to do. All I wanted to do was wash some clothes and put some clean underwear on. I picked up some detergent, downy fabric softener sheets, the Stars and Strips propaganda rag, and a six pack of beer. I filled the tub with hot water, placed my clothes in the washing machine, and doaked in the tub, reading the paper and sipping on a beer. You see that isn’t the vivid memory in my mind, that is the back story. The vivid memory in my mind is the 2” blackish – greyish ring I left at the water line when the tub was drained. I mean it was impressive, the tidy bowl man could have used it to make sure his tugging tidey boat had plenty of diesel and required lubricants type ring. Though I have witnessed other rings around the tub, I doubt I will ever be as impressed with another. Somehow, that doesn’t seem like such a bad deal after all.
Digressing back to the moral of the story, yeah it got to the point where from that point on I marked other, and started placing ‘Merican in the nationality box. Often times I would be able to convince folks that we were all one race (other than white), in order to what you inquire? Since population funding data is used in calculating Federal Financial Grants of Privilege, it was to provide funding for the minority voice of the natives living on the lush, tropical island. You see, that is where I was indeed on the wrong side of history, the very thing that I now loathe, the expanse of the central government, I participated in and once endorsed. Just hope the good folks and the minorities got their federal funds. Remember when that Congresswoman made that statement about Guam flipping over, well she wasn’t all wrong, but she might have been fully baked. It stands to reason that there is a big differences in being right, half right, a half wit or a dim wit. That lady should have forced folks in her voting district to reassess, he ability to demonstratively grasp the subjects of human nature, gravity, and geology. As the only thing flipping over in Guam was the amount of folks who were not of her party, nor of her desire to demonstrate need into what is really and will always be tomorrow, in Guam. Ever mention that I was there on the 12thof September in 2001? Talk about seeing things upside down, dealing with the emotions of separation from Family, while at the same time being at the tip of the spear.
As Payne wrote, ‘These are the times that try Men’s souls’” and honestly it was. Having just been an integral spoke in the wheel in maintaining a resemblance of peace in locations of national interest in the rim of the Pacific, it felt as if someone on the east coast had let us all down. I mean we did are stuff on an alert type posture for months on end in a confined space with limited knowledge of the outside worlds current events. How could someone in an airfield, Air Force, Air National Guard of these many States United in the Common Defense, all let their guard down simultaneously? Unless it was by Divine Providence or the design of other nefarious and evil forces?
Having relatively recently again seen my soul, I tell you it has been try’d more than preferred by any standard, most importantly mine.
Census time is a coming, get counted, wherever you are, whenever they count. It is the way of promoting government growth and justifying its very existence. Come out, come out where ever you are, you are needed to be served by your government, they demand it.
For those of you who read this within 12 hours of publication did you get it?
You can’t make this stuff up. Truth stranger than fiction. Besides, who knew census forms were actually read and recorded for real? Wondering what nationality to be in 20/20? ‘Merican leads the odds at the Vegas sports books, with Disable ‘Merican Veteran, Pissed off Disabled ‘Merican Veteran, and Pissed off previously gassed Disabled ‘merican Veteran splitting up the remainder of the top four currently submitted.
Here is an Arizona based youtube channel based out of Kingman that I just came across today while reading “Crucible of War” by Fred Anderson.
Dark Sky Watcher 74
makes sense why there is distance between Veterans organizations when cooperation would make much more sense. If his logic is correct it he might be on to something.
There endith the rant…..
Awesome article.Really looking forward to read more. Want more.