Sneak preview tickets in hand, I expected to see a good movie, having seen a few commercials. I saw a great movie. Not knowing the details of the real situation, if the movie wasn’t too overly dramatized, it certainly is an inspirational story of an entire community, not just a coach or a team. It is worth your time.

Yesterday I posted how life seems to emulate reality TV. Today I write about how life, in the context of a small West Virginia town should be a model for our nation.

How timely this happens to be, as the theme of the movie: “Yes, we took a loss, but we need to suit up and get back in the game, if we ever expect to win” plays into post III of a few weeks ago, in The Ratchet and the Governor – Tools for Today” series I have been working on. I also commented, just a few days ago, the rough times demand tough men.

The movie is well acted. Be ready to be brought into the emotions of a town who loses all but 4 of their football players, the college athletic staff and several of the key (read big) supporters. The big picture of the movie is it took many from the College and town, as well as a coach, who knew nothing more about the school than they were in need of a coach, and they made things happen.

They set a goal, first by the desire of one of the four players, who had not gone on the trip due to an injury, who thought the honor was not in shutting down (the equivalent response at our national level is the “withdraw and redeploy” concept), but by standing tall, and getting the student body to support a message to the school administration and the board, that they wanted to honor the dead by staying the course until victory. It was not an unruly crowd that gathered to get the point across, but a large one, willing to make their presence know in support of continued effort in the face of disaster.

They couldn’t find a coach in the long list of alumni. It was looking bleak. A coach called and when asked in the interview why he wanted the job, his answer was to look at his three children and his wife, running around the front yard, then tell Marshall’s President it was because of them, and then he paused and said he couldn’t imagine being without them and he figured a whole town was hurting and he thought he might be able to help. What a concept: You do it for your children, and along the way, you do it for everyone else, and their children so to speak.

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I have long thought the “Survivor” series was pretty worthless and conveyed a bad message, but it seems to be a replication of the current political, and cultural landscapes these days.

So they start out “teams,” which don’t really have anything to do with forming teams, because, at the end of the day (season), the goal is to not only beat the other team, but out maneuver each and every one of your team mates, just so you can walk with the prize.

Between elected and governmental, as well other supporters of the President, it seems “Phase II” has begun, where, after getting somewhere as part of the “team,” then the backstabbing begins, so there are sufficient bodies to stand upon to reach what you desire.

Noting more profound than that, but it seems my view of the “Survivor” model had come to be the dominant methodology in the upper levels of our government….sad, but, we will pay.

In the meantime, check out “Lifestyles of the Rich and Fascist.” (Speaking of life imitating TV…)

Consensus? You’ve got to be kidding me. Maybe I can give John Gruden a call and offer my services, and those of several of my friends, who think his record this season sucks, so we can have a commission to tell him how to do it “in a different direction.”

Oh, yeah, I was tall and skinny. I never played football, but I did swim, play baseball and basketball. Much like the Baker Commission, I complee people to look upon me as qualified to discuss detailed NFL lavel football.

And, like a snowball’s chances in hell, I’m sure I’ll get a call back from my buddy John…..

I have come to pretty much emlininate profanity from my discussions, but this entire set of current events has me toying with dusting off the mental bookshelf that holds some more of the more choice sayings I learned in many years as a sailor….

Pardon me, but times like these demand those people, who are so unpolished in polite company during peacetime that they are excluded, passed over and shuffled off to assignments far from where they can embarass the “chosen ones,” who will one day be admirals and generals. I had a few friends like this during my service time. Brutally effective as leaders in the simulated combat conditions we could muster, and constantly considering the options/scenarios for war at sea. They stayed near the waterfront when not on sea duty, in jobs to helpp the fleet get better, and turned their noses up at Pentagon assignments. They knew the profession, on it’s worst day, would require every bit of sea going and combat/damage control/engineering experience they could immerse themselves in, and that’s what they did, to the detriment of their careers.

One man, a mentor to me, who could tell you when you screwed up and make sure you understood the newest tactics, had played many sports, including football and baseball, and it was always with a go for broke, victory if the goal attitude. He carried that attitude into everything he did. He made O-4. He was shuttled off to the side. He retired and, having been noticed by a reservist who drilled with them, was sought after for that very spirit, and now he does in the business world what his senior officers thought was too much out of the question.

Look at the changes of command at the outset of WWII? Those who had grown up and comfortable in the extended peacetime were tossed out to the curb and the agressive, loud, we’re here to kill the enemy and break things crowd was installed. Yep, you need those guys when the light is dim and the casualties are high, caused by the lack of understanding of those who got you there in the first place. But then, after the conflict, the war fighters are, once more, pushed aside and the politicians rise again.

One man I worked for was the most brilliant tactician, in both exercise, and also in a real world multi-month operation, but his “interpersonal skills” left just about everything to be desired. I’d go to war with him in a heartbeat, but count me out if he need administrative support. It’s men like this that carry the day in the times of challenge, not those who refuse to get their hands dirty in understanding our enemy, much less history.

Take your stinking “consensus” and stuff it. Get me a hard nosed, hard driven, focused person, who will lead and make the hard decisions, knowing full well the gravity of the situation. Side Note: Dr. Gates sure isn’t striking me as one of these guys, no matter how many Aggies had has run with and talked to. Being a friend is one skill set, being a leader is another altogether. You can be both, but the leader aspects need to be exercised first.

We don’t need smooth and polished, with the right color tie, and a manicured metrosexual type running the show right now. We most certainly don’t need unelected people to demand the President take orders from them.

We need Bucks and Bills to be put in place, with orders to “retake the Falklands” type direction from the Commander-in-Chief. Along the way, the rules of armed conflict and rules of engagement will be followed, because those seemingly troglodytes are the consumate professionals. But if they need an ROE changed, they’ll be stating their case.

Better yet, men like Bill and Buck would come home victorious, with a simple request: “What next?”

Update 12/11/2006: Looks like Rick Santorum and I are of one mind…

In Part III, I discussed how, if you have an understanding of organized sports, then you can use that understanding to look at the cultural, strategic and tactical issues we currently face.

As I have thought about this series more, I see something about sports we come to accept that provides more of the “governor” on our actions. This is the concept of “rules.” One of the things we do do well is translate our set of rules from the stadium to the field of actual conflict. We have a clear concept of some “authority” that contains the conflict to morally acceptable boundaries. In this same mold, we have, for a very long time in history, understood the “enemy” would be bound by the same rules. Not that sometimes there wasn’t a foul or penalty, but until the widespread introduction of guerrilla warfare in the post Korean War era, we could count on some gentlemanly (as difficult as it is to associate that adjective to this situation) acceptance and we went on with our wars.

So, here we have a governor on our actions and we are baffled when the other side completely disregards the rules. More amazingly, we have been in the state of shock since sometime in the 1960’s, and, our enemies have caught on to our befuddled state and then begin the pull tension on the cable, and we have long been hearing the ratchet click, all the while, wondering what “that clicking noise” is.

Now, toss into the mix that the referees and umpires, which we acknowledge their authority, have decided any action we take in the battle is certainly unacceptable, yet the activity of the enemy is accepted, as it is our use of force from decades gone by (disregarding much of it has been in response to aggression against us) calls for atonement now, and breaking the rules is the remedy.

In various sporting events, we have been know to wonder out loud(ly) if the refs are on the payroll of the other team. We are certainly in that situation, and not even having to wonder about one ref, the United Nations administration that accepted kickbacks in the Oil for Food scam. No wonder we can’t get a reasonable “call.”

Our feet are stuck in the sand (maybe concrete, hopefully not dry yet), awaiting the arrival of a fair umpiring staff to arrive, and it’s not looking good. While we know the calls are bad, we still stick to the rules we believe are acceptable. Not to imply we shouldn’t, it’s just that the rest of the world has thrown out the Laws of War and the Geneva Conventions, which took many millenina to make for humanity in thge first place.

But, I merely state the obvious.

This very week (how nice of them to comply with my blogging schedule), the Iraq Studies Group (ISG) will approach the President and make an attempt to open the hood and adjust the governor down below where it already is, further limiting our ability to continue in the conflict. I take issue with the composition of that body, for it appears only Chuck Robb has any combat experience, and he wasn’t a career military officer, able to gain significant hands on experience in the management of large scale battles that might help formulate a reasonable and achievable course of action. Certainly the inclusion of those with high level State Department and White House Cabinet level jobs on their resumes is good, but I’m not sure what Supreme Court Justices can bring to the table other than a legalistic set of blinders.

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BFO moment.

Why are we still looking at war strategies for Iraq? Not to say there isn’t a need for such thinking, but I think it’s better applied to the larger issue of worldwide terrorism.

As far as Iraq, we need to be face down into how the Marshall Plan and General McArthur’s methods for Germany and Japan were formulated and then put into place….

This is a teaser. I have to hit the raod, but I’ll be working on this thought much, much more!

I found this posted on Sea Witch’s blog, and since my version of WordPress has and “issue” with YouTube, just head over to her place and see how two brave West Point wanna be officers display their finest special ops intel collection skills in order to win the game this weekend….

Oh, yeah..BEAT ARMY!

Part II left you wondering what the answer is to the condition, where the Islamofascists are turning the crank, gleefully listening to each metallic *CLICK!* and the pawl first backs off, and then engages, one notch higher. The cable being pulled along is growing every tighter, symbolizing our emotional condition in regard to the GWoT.

I postulated before, that the carnage will grow worse. It is. It will, certainly through the installation of the newly elected Congress persons come mid January. “They” (the enemy of all that is western in nature) will continue to turn the crank to make sure we are not turning our gaze away from the humanity being sacrificed for the sake of a few who desire to stay in power…in positions so they may trade in human currency, much cheapened from anything we value it at, here in the civilized world. It is time for “them” to sprint to the finish line, which will be a few months into the Democrats control of both chambers of Congress, long enough to force a showdown (and in their mind a victory over) with the President by the Pelosi/Murtha/Rangel raging idiocy, which calls for more troops, while calling as loudly for the end.

The 21st Century is seeing but the leading edge of the Killing Fields, not witnessed since the mid-70s. Maybe we have forgotten what genocide is. Maybe “we” can turn a blind eye (no, we can’t we’re rubber-necking at the horrific nature of this equivalent of a bad car wreck on the Interstate) to what is more properly termed fratricide – the killing of your own. Mark my words. Short of the President stepping forward and emulating the vision and compassion of John F. Kennedy in the name of freedom, the death of many Iraqis is closer at hand than we care to accept.

We, particularly as an American culture, know exactly how to fathom and manage all of this. We practice it almost daily, some might say religiously, and accept it wholeheartedly for adults. For children, we have paved a road for future mediocrity in the same arena, at the hands of the Liberals and their “touchy feely” mindset.

So, what is it we know? Sports. We know it, we love it, we live it and breathe it. What is there in this analogy that can help us:

• A tough as nails coach is to be revered, for we know the outcome. The results are not today, or tomorrow, but across a lifetime;
• Strength is required. No excuses, get it or crawl to the sideline/bench in tears and get out of our way;
• Endurance is mandatory. Who likes a team who does great for the first period, and then looks like they got run over by a train for the rest of the game?
• Courage. Another ingredient, not in the same vein as in a war, but the desire to take risks when you see an opportunity;
• Refs make bad calls. Shout a few bad words and deal with it. Then, get back in the game, and re-double your efforts;
• We.Love.Winners. We don’t recall the losers, because it’s about winning;
• The “12th Man” can save your butt on a bad day. The fans, wearing your jerseys, the band, the cheer leading squad, the water boys, the managers and the groundskeepers all have a hand in your victory.
• We want to be around winners. We disregard our “personal space” to crowd our bodies together for a glimpse of them, and reach out to get their autographs;
• Entire media outlets, let alone time slots are dedicated to these pursuits. We strain to hear over “those rude people, who don’t get it” to hear the highlights of the game and the latest stats;
• We have people emulate entire league sports in a fantasy world, and use performance statistics (you know, TRUTH!) to estimate the outcome of the teams played in a virtual sense;

Need I say more? From this list, a thinking person could work through it and see where we are not doing that in this war, which, unlike sports, does have an effect on our ability to be able to put this amount of energy into the past-time of sports for a major portion of the population.

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Batteries Released! Put your links here!

Dateline: Just before Independence Day, 1973, Charleston Naval Base, Charleston, SC, aboard USS CONE (DD-881).

The ship has been to sea for two weeks, playing “Orange Force” (polite way during the Cold War of not offending our enemy by calling our seaborne aggressor units, something other than “red forces.”) surface units, catching up on their Naval Gunfire Support (NGFS) qualifications by sending round after round of 5″/38 cal (54 lb projectiles) at the Carribbean isle of Culebra.

The long weekend was coming, there were 6 third class (“3/c”) midshipmen aboard, the crew had recently returned from a year off the coast of Vietnam, providing real world NGFS services for the Army and Marines, and the stacks needed a good going over with haze gray and the Ship’s company deserved some “R&R” after a hectic operating schedule.

I certainly wasn’t privy to the discussion, being a guy wearing dungarees for 6 weeks, as my first hands on educational experience as a one day to be Naval Officer, but I know this: Someone up the chain of command had the brilliant idea of letting the crew take off early for the really long weekend (Wednesday was the 4th that year), and deemed that the 3rd Class Middies, already with some practical experience handling painting implements in the fire rooms and the interior of the ARSOC launcher, as well as on the Signal Bridge, would be tasked to remain behind and be supervised by the duty section.

So, there we hung in Bos’n’s chairs from the fore and aft stacks, armed with brushes and rollers and prodigious amounts of haze gray, on the morning of the 3rd of July, we went about getting either the Engineer Officer’s of the 1st Lt’s “to do’s” knocked out.

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Short theoughts on Charlie Rangel’s selective service plan:

He wants a shared sacrifice? I guess he has to force the young, disconnected, apathetic, and just plain rebellious to take a part in defending their future?

And, let me get this straight: In an “unpopular war,” we’ll just go out and rake them in off the streets, as they won’t come in on their own? Then we have a larger military (gutted by President Clinton, btw), yet we’re going to pull out of Iraq, just what do we need them for?

Mr Rangel, do you have imperialistc visons dancing through your head? If not, I see no reason to add more forces, while you cut funds for the forward deployed units, so they’ll “redeploy” and thereby need less manpower and less munitions to sit in garrison camps thousands of miles from the current combat zones.

I’m just way too slow to keep track of these wonderous plans of the Democrats to fight the war on terror…

Update: Maybe I have figured it out: Draft troops, then you don’t have to pay them well, since they have to be there any way (Hey, Senator Kennedy: Will they at least get the new minimu wage per hour?), and then, all the extra money in the Food Stamp Program will be used! Just think: The Dems can then say they spent more for social progrrams, while giving to the low ranks for the enlisted military, all the while it never showing as an increase in the military budget. That’s a win-win, huh?

(disclaimer: may not be in the exact chronological order, and will not list each and every act of terror, but a good list is linked here)

*click!*
The Olympics in the 70s.
*click!*
The US Embassy in Iran.
*click!*
Marine Barracks, Beruit
*click!*
Leo Klingenhoffer on the Achilles Lauro
*click!*
Lockerbee, Scotland.
*click!*
Discos in Germany where US Service members congregate
*click*
Bombing of embassies in Africa,
Swarming over the “Mog”
USS COLE
9/11
Madrid
7/7
*Click!*
*CLICK!*
*CLICKKKK!*
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