Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Military Conversations

I have recently met someone who formerly served active duty military, and we have been able to have some interesting, if not frightening, conversations. One thing he told me was somewhat funny, even if a little disheartening. He was working on an airplane, had one of the wings off of it, and the pilot (keep in mind, this means college educated and an officer) climbed into the plane and was starting it up getting ready to fly. The pilot did not notice he was missing a wing. Boy, would that have been a short flight.

The other two things he told me were more disheartening. We had a carrier, one of the newer ones, over in the area of China. Radar and sonar were running, and helos were doing ASW searches. Undetected, a Chinese sub surfaced behind the carrier, then dove again. They got pictures when it surfaced. Does that scare anyone besides me?

Then he told me that there is a Marine who is currently facing an other than honorable discharge for starting a Tea Party Facebook group and posting anti-Obama comments. Now keep in mind, this Marine has done tours overseas, as I understand it, and is at risk of losing all of his military benefits as a result of this. I did a quick search and found several stories. Here are two of them:
WLTX
CBS

Let me share three of the most important paragraphs from the CBS article to highlight the issue.
"He said it was in that context that he said he would refuse to follow orders from the president if those orders included detaining U.S. citizens, disarming them or doing anything else that he believes would violate their constitutional rights.“I’m completely shocked that this is happening,” Stein told the Associated Press. “I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve only stated what our oath states that I will defend the constitution and that I will not follow unlawful orders. If that’s a crime, what is America coming to?”""Solis said that despite the free speech question, the issue ultimately boils down to preserving the chain of command.“We can’t allow individual soldiers or Marines to be deciding for themselves what orders are constitutional or what national policies are supported by the Constitution,” he said."
Does anyone else see what I see in this? This Marine has simply taken his oath seriously, and now is in trouble for it! And as far as what this Solis guy says, what is the purpose of taking the oath to the Constitution and that oath resting on your conscience if someone else tells you what your conscience should think? I wish every single one of the men and women serving in our military and law enforcement took their oaths as seriously as this Marine. He has convictions and a conscience, and we should stand behind him. These people are trying now to stop any dissent that is starting to form in the ranks, any inkling of duty that the troops have as a result of their oaths. They are doing this for a reason. I no longer think things like this happen by chance or in isolated incidents. I have seen enough the past few years to know that all of this is orchestrated. While we are busy looking at the tactics used by our government, and dissecting them, they are thinking strategy, the end game. Well, their end game is tyranny, via a gradual shift so it's not too obvious. It's like trying to catch an animal - if you just run after it, it knows you are trying to catch it. If you sneak up, one little step at a time, acting as innocuous as possible, you are right next to it before it knows your intent. People, this is another one of their little steps. Let's not waste any more time dissecting these moves to see exactly what their motives are. We know their motives, even if they are trying to conceal them. Let's fight them at every turn so that they cannot get any closer to our liberties through their constant deceit and incremental-ism.

Act Free.