Duty First .....But Come Back To Us

An open letter to the children of my Oklahoma friends and neighbors....

My fellow Oklahomans, on your way to the internal screams of battle and a boring sandy mind numbing hell, please go into this with your eyes opened to the paradox of your deployment.



Consider that Bush-Cheney-Rove have shat upon the Veterans of my war, the Vietnam War to gain personal power for themselves.
Consider that they could even drive a wedge between the Vets from Nam, see swift boat stuff.
Consider that what ever their spin, they were cowards and avoided the unpopular war.
Consider that they would "out" or let be "outed" a whole secret CIA operation countering weapons of mass destruction to discredit one of their political critics.
Consider that losing three out of four limbs in Nam is not enough of a hero for them, that they won't lie through their teeth about him, see Max Clealand.
Consider that having the shit beat out of you in a North Vietnam prison is not enough to be a hero in their eyes.
Consider that they are willing to torture the innocent and the guilty and won't listen to military veterans who say that is no more than sadism and does nothing for intelligence.
Consider that your Commander in Chief is a hypocrite, a lire, and self serving to the n'th degree.

Now consider, what do you expect out of these people.
Don't be fooled by the accolades you are receiving now.
Don't be blinded by the shinny bling and the flying flags.
Don't be fooled that any of these people care a whit about you at all.
They are already lying about you. When you come home and are unemployed, you won't even be counted in the unemployment statistics. If you die there your body will be snuck back into the country under the cover of darkness.
If you get PTSD while in country you will probably be sent home with general discharge and no veterans benefits.
And on and on and so forth....

The point is simple: Your duty is your duty.

You took an oath to do it.

So do it.

Do it well.

Do it with pride.

But never believe you will be respected or loved for doing it. As an example, remember how much glory the soldiers who fought against the Red Army in Siberia received when they came home in 1920.
What you have never heard of them?
See if you can find a monument to the cold warriors who died flying secret mission over the Soviet Union in the 1950s.
And so forth and so on.......

It is not the mission, it is the duty.

The mission is a job.

Duty is your honor.

These dorks in the administration are cowards and users. They are using you and squandering your duty.
Don't expect more from them. To them heroes are a stumbling blocks to their goals.
Stick close your buddies and close to your families and expect little from anyone else.
Most, but not all, Oklahomans will support you and love you.
When you look into the mirror and wonder who that is you see there, remember that at your home in Oklahoma your are still loved and welcomed.
You will be welcomed home here.
Come back to us.

I salute you.

The Center of Time and Place

A poetic comment on the 4% versus the 96% versus what it means.


Enigmalls

All of my todays
fall into yesterdays,
and all of my todays
are yesterdays'
tomorrows.
Here is there,
and there is everywhere,
and only Now
touches Eternity.
Now is where I Am,
and where I am too,
and will be
preserved,
saved,
for today.
-----William Sandia

I am a fan of Robert Frost and William Sandia plus other wordsmiths and plan to leave their gifts here from time to time. Poetry doesn't get enough respect for containing the Truth as it should these days.

The Photons are Dark Matter/Energy Hypothosis

Somebody somewhere probably has already thought this one up but I'll throw it out on the web anyway.

It is now believed that 0.4% of the cosmos is composed of the stars, planets, and other objects we see. Also 3.6% is composed of gases and such that we can also see or detect. The remaining 94% is composed of Dark Matter (23%) and Dark Energy (73%). That is the stuff that is not seen or detected.

What is that Dark Stuff, why it is all them photons. It must be. I mean we can't see that 4% until a photon hits it and then the photon must travel all the way from there to here to be seen. Doesn't that mean that there are photons going all over the place in every direction all the time. Space has to be full of these durn things. Dark matter and Dark Energy are Photons. After all you can't detect a photon until it hits some of the 4% so it all makes sense in the Occam sort of way. 96% of the Cosmos/Universe is composed of photons. We can't see them because they are to us kind of like air was to the ancient Egyptians, unknown except when it hit something.

Of course we aren't really sure what photons are otherwise except that if Dark Matter and Dark Energy are Photons then Photons are about three quarters energy and one quarter matter.

Now that is two hypothesises for the price of one.

Drlobojo Hypot-one

Drlobojo Hypot-two

More will come I bet you.

VIETNAM Visuals: Page One

Once upon a time I wanted to be a professional photographer.
Heck, I was even admitted to Brooks Institute in photography but I didn't go.
I did go to Vietnam however and a I took a camera.


In fact I wore out two cameras while there due to the dust grit and humidity.
While doing so I took about 2000 photographs.


Self portrait Lai Khe at 337 RRU


All of the photographs were taken in 1968 and 1969 across South Vietnam.


Convoy gunner. Let's go to Phuc Vinh.

Some are strictly military subjects.


Skeeter my dog.  I had to leave her at Lai Khe when we went TDY with 1st Air Cav.

Some are just human interest.


Cobra fire at Lai Khe

All of them were taken by me and reflect where I was and what I was doing. Time to time I'll post groups of these. I've culled the 2000+ down to about 400 and will only show those.


Starlight scope, me, and my M-16 at the free fire zone.


"Air America" at Quan Loi.



Peat boat on the the Song Dong Nai


Bugs that bit me. The coin is a quarter.


Night soil (Honey) wagon.


Razor wire and sun


Two soldiers (she was our house "girl" and was actually a VC according to CID)


Song Dong Nai

From There On, It's All Gravy

I'm sitting at a table in the Fellowship Hall at Church where we are sharing our Thanksgiving turkey with other people in the community and congregation that did not have family to be with this season. An older gentleman (I'm old but he was older) was sitting across from me when someone asked a question about my Army service. When I used the words security agency his face lit up like a lamp. You were in the ASA? he asked.

The next forty minutes was a delightful trip back into history. He was one of the first 32 soldiers in 1947 to be sucked into the black hole of the National Security Agency and it's auxiliary service the Army Security Agency. As a private and 18 years old, he was one of the agency's first cryptologist.. Twenty years latter I followed him into a full blown agency of a much greater size and scope. And today, after forty years more, well you don't really want to know about what it does.

Our conversation took me back to one of the pivotal points of my life. That was when I left the Army and the agency. From that point on, I knew it was going to be all gravy. I had made it home alive. My mind was screwed up, my soul somewhat tattered, some of my was hearing was gone, had a disease acquired from not drinking enough bad water in Africa and Asia, but I was otherwise intact, and alive. I had beat the odds. From here it was all gravy and it has been. Easy no, but no one has tried to kill me since. No problems, not hardly but no one died when I made a mistake. No responsibility, I wish, but there has been a lot of that. However, since Nam, no one died when I did my job right.

You see it has been all gravy from that point on.

On this day of all days I am most grateful to be here, and that I came home alive.

A Modest Grump Of A Prayer For Oklahoma

My good friend and fellow Blogger The Erudite Redneck who got me into to this shit in the first place has posted a Thanksgiving Centennial prayer on his web site. https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7869981&postID=6435699717604532108
(someday soon I'll learn how to put them blogs out to the side, that I read and recommend)

So he inspired me (that doesn't sound right somehow) to do my own little grump of a prayer.

A modest and alternate prayer:
Lord of Life, maybe we should not look too hard towards Oklahoma's historical past for lessons on how to follow you into the future.

I mean, dear Jesus, we made sure that Jim Crow was alive and well at the State Constitution Convention, and even though the Choctaw and Cherokees were there in force we included a segregation clause against Indians that wasn't repealed until 1969. The five tribes of course traded that clause for their two Indian only colleges in Durant and Tahlequah and because they were afeared of the political clout of them wild Indians to the west in Oklahoma Territory.

Come to think of it Jim Crow himself was a compromise between the separatist Blacks and the separatist Whites. The Blacks traded old Crow for Langston University and autonomy for their black towns. So our history is a series of compromise of the radicals not the wishes of the main steam.

Now we look at today after 100 years Lord and see them radicals at work again race baiting for personal gain and political power.

Dear Jesus as I look at our centennial events and squint just a bit, I see a line that is drawn between them and us. We give them bread and circus in the ball park and reserve the personal close up pleasures for those with the money to buy them and the elite contacts to get the tickets in the first place.

As usual Lord we parade out the required tame Indians and Blacks to ride the required floats, but we are damn sure not going to let them Mexicans get any historical credit for making Oklahoma. Although they owned the place for 200 years, it is not politically correct to remember anything they did here.

As for the French, well we best not bring them up at all.

I do, dear Jesus, give thanks that the Indian Princess bride of Indian Territory this year was not wearing buckskins and moccasins as in former re-enactments and that the White male Oklahoma Territory groom wasn't in his usual boots, spurs,six gun, and other Cowboy attire. I am sorry, Jesus, that we none the less saw fit to do the wedding of the two territories anyway as in the past. Of course what they always leave out is Teddy Roosevelt there with his damn shotgun forcing these two into an illegal racially mixed marriage. I'd like to see that aspect portrayed some day Jesus .

And last dear Lord, I thank you for the near $100 a barrel oil prices recently that allowed us to finance this celebration without a tax increase that we would have never in a million years got through the legislature.

I tell you what, Lord, you give us another 100 years and we'll do better, I'm sure.
Of course, I won't be here to account for it, so I can't make any hard and fast trades offs with you to get your blessings. So I am counting on your advanced sense of humor Lord to make the deal.
---Amen

Oklahoma State Song Needs to Go Away!

It is Time to change our State Song and get rid of this Broadway fiasco of a picture of Oklahoma. We can do a lot better. Our State Song has some real fine lines of dumb in it.
Here is the whole thing. I shall dissect it down page.

OKLAHOMA
Brand new state!
Brand new state, gonna treat you great!
Gonna give you barley, carrots and pertaters,
Pasture fer the cattle, Spinach and termayters!
Flowers on the prarie where the June bugs zoom,
Plen'y of air and plen'y of room,
Plen'y of room to swing a rope!
Plen'y of heart and plen'y of hope.
Oklahoma,
where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain
And the wavin' wheat can sure smell sweet
When the wind comes right behind the rain.
Oklahoma,
Ev'ry night my honey lamb and I
Sit alone and talk and watch a hawk
Makin' lazy circles in the sky.
We know we belong to the land
And the land we belong to is grand!
And when we say Yeeow! Ayipioeeay!
We're only sayin'
You're doin' fine, Oklahoma!
Oklahoma O.K.
Oklahoma,
where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain
And the wavin' wheat can sure smell sweet
When the wind comes right behind the rain.
Oklahoma,
Ev'ry night my honey lamb and I
Sit alone and talk and watch a hawk
Makin' lazy circles in the sky.
We know we belong to the land
And the land we belong to is grand!
And when we say Yeeow! Ayipioeeay!
We're only sayin' You're doin' fine, Oklahoma!
Oklahoma O.K.
###

Let's start with:"Gonna give you barley, carrots and pertaters, Pasture fer the cattle, Spinach and termayters!"

Now damn few places in Oklahoma raise barley, carrots, pertaters, Spinach and termayters. Maybe in in someones urban garden, but everywhere else it is wheat, cotton, milo, broom corn, watermelons, (potatoes maybe, but no pertaters) and such.

"Ev'ry night my honey lamb and I Sit alone and talk and watch a hawk Makin' lazy circles in the sky."

Any damn fool knows that hawks don't fly at night. Obviously what they are looking at is an Owl.And owls don't fly high if there is a moon, so what are they looking through, night vision goggles?

"And the wavin' wheat can sure smell sweet When the wind comes right behind the rain."

If the wheat is ripe enough to wave, the last thing you want is rain. Besides wheat doesn't have distinct smell until you combine it. Alfalfa yes, Wheat no.

"Flowers on the prarie where the June bugs zoom"

The flowers are down in the draws, along the road sides, and the creek bottoms, not out on the open prairie. That stuff out there on the open prairies is called grass. In fact our state flower the parasite Mistletoe grows best in trees. And everybody knows the only place the damn June Bugs zoom is around your yard light.

"We know we belong to the land"

If we don't realize that, our bank will remind us. Just ask ole Tom Jode.

"Yeeow! Ayipioeeay!"

The only time I ever heard anyone in Oklahoma say that other than singing this weird song is when a tractor ran over their foot.

"Oklahoma O.K."

Wow, ain't that just fine I live somewhere that's just OK. I used to love to drive my car into California to see my C.I.O. relatives when my license plate said "Oklahoma is OK" on it.

Put all those song writers we have exported across America together somewhere in Oklahoma and let them write something that reflects their own state. Something with their hearts in it.