Ah Ed! So much to respond to...I love it!
Ed fires: "Sure Saddam was being a pest and violating UN sanctions but when compared to the very serious and very real threats of Iran and North Korea who are violating many of the same sanctions, I think we could have dealt with Saddam differently for the time being.On the second part, I don't know how good an analogy it is to compare this war with Israel."
Phil returns fire: The difference between Iraq and the others (Iran, N Korea) is that Hussein (sorry, but I refuse to use that tyrant's first name!) had already invaded two other countries and was not showing any inclinations that he had learned NOT to. We very well might end up using the military option with Iran and N. Korea as well. Even a war dog like me believes we must use statesmanship first, before we use the attack card. Hussein was a heck of a lot worse than a "pest," by the way.
I use Israel as an example because they demonstrate two things:
1) The definition of "success." The Israelis might never completely end suicide attacks and other Islamic violence against them, YET they have won. They exist, and they are thriving. For defeatists (like Murtha and Boxer), every time a bomb goes off, they trumpet that event as proof of our impending doom. Most of us are made of sterner stuff than that.
2) Declaring defeat, or mission accomplished, as you say, and leaving.... That is not an option to Israelis since that would mean their end. Unless we return to the isolationism of the 1930s, we don't have that option either. If we call this effort in Iraq too hard and just leave, we might as well bring ALL our troops and citizens in from ALL over the world. That is unthinkable. We must stay engaged and fight this out, forever, if necessary. Quitting is not an option for us, just as it is not for the Israelis.
Phil: "Our job as keepers of Western Civilization is to keep the pressure on these idiots."
Ed fires: When did we ever sign up for that job? I think the reason many countries hate us is because we are the global cops. I'm all for letting countries unravel because they can't help themselves. I would love for the U.S. to become a neutral country."
Phil returns fire: Oh, there's no doubt that we ARE the keepers Ed. The entire free world and much of the rest of it looks to us whenever there is a "problem." Over most of the globe, just our very presence maintains order. We are the counterbalance. I can assure you that if we weren't out here in the Pacific that China would have already over run most of the Pacific, and that is not an exageration. No one signed us up, and we didn't sign up, it's just the way it is.
Whenever the U.N. is called on to intervene in any way, whether militarily or humanitarily, it doesn't happen without us. We have the wherewithal and no one else. I'm proud of the fact that we are the keepers. History placed us in this position. Do you think there would be a Western Civilization without us Ed? How would the world look today if we hadn't finally stepped in and defeated the evil that was sweeping the world in 1941? Heck yeah, we are the keepers!
I really don't care if other countries hate us. Why would I? People despise cops because they resent the authority and the power of the police. It's a natural reaction. I have felt rage against policemen because I felt like I was being picked on or unfairly stopped or disrespected, BUT, do I want to get rid of them? Of course not! Someone has to ride herd on the world. At this time in history we are the ones doing that. We are getting some help from the Aussies, the Brits, the Canadians, and sometimes NATO, but without our leadership you can bet they and others wouldn't be the least bit willing to get involved. Just like the cops, people bash us, but they still need us.
I must speak to your comment about letting countries "unravel." For many countries that might be of little consequence, but is it really? We can't be in all places at all times, but allowing anarchy free reign is not in our best interest and on all levels. The human suffering alone that comes from that unravelling is reason enough to step in when we can, or at least to support efforts to stop it. Being the world's first mega super power comes with a lot of responsibility and we can't just shrug that off.
Phil: "This sounds horrible, but as fast as they convert them and they attack us, we have people willing and able to mow them down." --
Ed fires: Where does it end?
Phil returns fire: You make my point again Ed. It MIGHT never end! The world is imperfect. There will always be evil. There will always be crime, and poverty, and despair. Do we quit because it all seems so endless? I hope not. For every foot that we pull back, our enemies will push forward a foot. Luckily, we have folks willing to push back and to keep pushing. Never say die. Semper Fi.
Phil: "The definition of that mission is being able to ensure that a democratic Iraq, friendly to the idea of tolerance to ALL nations regardless of their religious or secular persuasion, will be able to defend itself from the radicals."
Ed fires: When their religion teaches intolerance, how are we going to accomplish this mission short of converting them to Christianity? We can maybe accomplish the last part and seem to be making progress towards it but I just can't see the first part happening.
Phil returns fire: Such handwringing. There is plenty of reason to hope that not ALL Muslims subscribe to mindless and hateful intolerance. Most Iraqis want peace and prosperity. Most of them want the best for their children. We have defeated Islamic insurgency in the past you know. We accomplished it over almost a decade of fighting in Mindanao. It was a slug match and they were tough opponents, but we prevailed. As I said, the only way we lose is if we quit.
Your always welcome here buddy! I love inviting folks over for stimulating conversation. Unfortunately, most who come here think like I do. Maybe because we all tend to be ex-military, we've lived and served all over the world, and our similar experiences have made us similar. Let me know when you're coming and we'll get together. I look forward to it!
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
The War in Iraq -- Political? Should We Go Now?
Ed Abbey, a good man with somewhat differing political outlooks from mine, responded to my last post called “Demoncraps and Republicraps.” He answered one of my questions and replied to one point I made. Ed always comes through with pointed comments – Good stuff. I’m reacting in this post to his responses, but be advised – my next post will be back on Philippines observations and commentary. It’ll be on the Lazik Surgery I had done more than a year ago just down the road in Makati.
PhilippinePhil: "Can you explain how Republicans are politicizing the war?"
Ed: Every time Bush mentions the war in Iraq and terrorism in the same sentence. Afghanistan was the war on terrorists. Iraq was about settling a score with Saddam. None of the 9/11 terrorists came from or had ties with Iraq and yet Bush insults my intelligence every time he pretends that they did even when his own administration has shown that they didn't.
PhilippinePhil: Ed you are against the war in Iraq, and I can respect that. War is terrible. On this one I’ll agree with you that the administration should never have spent so much time pointing to WMDs and terrorists as the primary reason for the invasion. Those of us who were in service running up to the invasion were not surprised at all that we finally finished what we had started in ’91. In my retirement speech delivered almost exactly one-year before the Iraq invasion, I lamented that I would not be in uniform for the long-awaited final push to end Hussein’s reign.
In effect, that war should have been ended more than 10 years before, if not for the pusillanimity of President Bush I and General Powell, it would have. The long overdue Iraq invasion, when it finally came, was not about “settling scores,” it was about finishing off an outlaw regime that had violated every U.N. Resolution that he had agreed to as terms for our ending the first invasion. Please know that Iraq had NEVER stopped shooting at us; and he did so for about a dozen years AFTER his first surrender – by doing so, he brought on his own end. He miscalculated this president’s resolve to do the “right thing,” even in the face of worldwide subterfuge and international collusion with this nasty tyrant. Admittedly, 9/11 brought the final blow on Iraq sooner than it might otherwise have happened. I don’t have a problem with that, especially keeping in mind all of what I already pointed out above.
Was the war political to begin with? No. Is using the terror tie NOW to substantiate staying IN Iraq until the Iraqis can stand against them on their own – is that political? Not only is it not political, it is a completely valid position to take. We already know what can happen to a place that we simply abandon to Islamic radicals – we did that in Afghanistan in the late 70s and this president is smart not to repeat that mistake in Iraq.
PhilippinePhil: "The Islamicists can always find another brainwashed, brain-dead hopeless fool to blow himself up and take a bunch of innocents with him."
Ed: So if they can always find someone, how exactly are we going to win? I think the only way we can win this war is to kill every last one of them and that will only cause more people to convert so even that would cause failure. I think the best we can hope for is that when we do finally withdraw and declare "Mission Accomplished" that we set them back for a few decades so that we have time to recover for the next time.
PhilippinePhil: I ask this question? Have the Israelis WON? Unequivocally the answer is a resounding YES! Is it an ongoing effort? Yep. The Israelis have a vibrant democratic society and a thriving economy, even in the face of all the vicious suicide attacks; that knowledge drives the Islamicists nuts. Should the Israelis quit because Hamas can always find another goober to blow himself up and kill innocents? The answer is obvious. Just as in Iraq, the ONLY way the Israelis lose is to throw their hands up in failure. They do NOT have that option. A smart people won’t even consider it because the option is to give up on our existence.
To say that WE are the ones causing this skewed suicidal behavior is misguided. As proof, the Israelis left Gaza and now the terrorists have filled the void. If Israel were to disappear and if the USA disengaged entirely from ALL countries Islamic, would that end Islamo-fascism? Nope. They are here to stay, but because its hard doesn’t mean we quit.
Our job as keepers of Western Civilization is to keep the pressure on these idiots. We must stay forward, and YES, continue to TRY to kill every one of them who try to kill us. We can’t stand down hoping that we won’t make new converts by doing so – it just doesn’t work that way. These Islamic terrorists are not wired that way. Their conversion will happen no matter what.
This sounds horrible, but as fast as they convert them and they attack us, we have people willing and able to mow them down. Our continued existence depends on these few willing warriors doing exactly that. I’ve had the honor to meet many of these men, and thank goodness we have them.
Finally Ed, you are right that we should withdraw and declare mission accomplished, but only after we have accomplished the mission. The definition of that mission is being able to ensure that a democratic Iraq, friendly to the idea of tolerance to ALL nations regardless of their religious or secular persuasion, will be able to defend itself from the radicals. This is happening. If it weren’t and our military folks in Iraq thought it wasn’t happening, believe me, you’d hear about it. By and large, my brothers and sisters in uniform stationed there, the ones suffering death and wounds, THESE brave people understand the mission and they ARE kicking butt getting it done. The only ones crying defeat are people NOT there. Give these servicemen and women AND the brave contractors in Iraq a chance, have some patience, and we will CONTINUE to win in Iraq, because we ARE winning.
PhilippinePhil: "Can you explain how Republicans are politicizing the war?"
Ed: Every time Bush mentions the war in Iraq and terrorism in the same sentence. Afghanistan was the war on terrorists. Iraq was about settling a score with Saddam. None of the 9/11 terrorists came from or had ties with Iraq and yet Bush insults my intelligence every time he pretends that they did even when his own administration has shown that they didn't.
PhilippinePhil: Ed you are against the war in Iraq, and I can respect that. War is terrible. On this one I’ll agree with you that the administration should never have spent so much time pointing to WMDs and terrorists as the primary reason for the invasion. Those of us who were in service running up to the invasion were not surprised at all that we finally finished what we had started in ’91. In my retirement speech delivered almost exactly one-year before the Iraq invasion, I lamented that I would not be in uniform for the long-awaited final push to end Hussein’s reign.
In effect, that war should have been ended more than 10 years before, if not for the pusillanimity of President Bush I and General Powell, it would have. The long overdue Iraq invasion, when it finally came, was not about “settling scores,” it was about finishing off an outlaw regime that had violated every U.N. Resolution that he had agreed to as terms for our ending the first invasion. Please know that Iraq had NEVER stopped shooting at us; and he did so for about a dozen years AFTER his first surrender – by doing so, he brought on his own end. He miscalculated this president’s resolve to do the “right thing,” even in the face of worldwide subterfuge and international collusion with this nasty tyrant. Admittedly, 9/11 brought the final blow on Iraq sooner than it might otherwise have happened. I don’t have a problem with that, especially keeping in mind all of what I already pointed out above.
Was the war political to begin with? No. Is using the terror tie NOW to substantiate staying IN Iraq until the Iraqis can stand against them on their own – is that political? Not only is it not political, it is a completely valid position to take. We already know what can happen to a place that we simply abandon to Islamic radicals – we did that in Afghanistan in the late 70s and this president is smart not to repeat that mistake in Iraq.
PhilippinePhil: "The Islamicists can always find another brainwashed, brain-dead hopeless fool to blow himself up and take a bunch of innocents with him."
Ed: So if they can always find someone, how exactly are we going to win? I think the only way we can win this war is to kill every last one of them and that will only cause more people to convert so even that would cause failure. I think the best we can hope for is that when we do finally withdraw and declare "Mission Accomplished" that we set them back for a few decades so that we have time to recover for the next time.
PhilippinePhil: I ask this question? Have the Israelis WON? Unequivocally the answer is a resounding YES! Is it an ongoing effort? Yep. The Israelis have a vibrant democratic society and a thriving economy, even in the face of all the vicious suicide attacks; that knowledge drives the Islamicists nuts. Should the Israelis quit because Hamas can always find another goober to blow himself up and kill innocents? The answer is obvious. Just as in Iraq, the ONLY way the Israelis lose is to throw their hands up in failure. They do NOT have that option. A smart people won’t even consider it because the option is to give up on our existence.
To say that WE are the ones causing this skewed suicidal behavior is misguided. As proof, the Israelis left Gaza and now the terrorists have filled the void. If Israel were to disappear and if the USA disengaged entirely from ALL countries Islamic, would that end Islamo-fascism? Nope. They are here to stay, but because its hard doesn’t mean we quit.
Our job as keepers of Western Civilization is to keep the pressure on these idiots. We must stay forward, and YES, continue to TRY to kill every one of them who try to kill us. We can’t stand down hoping that we won’t make new converts by doing so – it just doesn’t work that way. These Islamic terrorists are not wired that way. Their conversion will happen no matter what.
This sounds horrible, but as fast as they convert them and they attack us, we have people willing and able to mow them down. Our continued existence depends on these few willing warriors doing exactly that. I’ve had the honor to meet many of these men, and thank goodness we have them.
Finally Ed, you are right that we should withdraw and declare mission accomplished, but only after we have accomplished the mission. The definition of that mission is being able to ensure that a democratic Iraq, friendly to the idea of tolerance to ALL nations regardless of their religious or secular persuasion, will be able to defend itself from the radicals. This is happening. If it weren’t and our military folks in Iraq thought it wasn’t happening, believe me, you’d hear about it. By and large, my brothers and sisters in uniform stationed there, the ones suffering death and wounds, THESE brave people understand the mission and they ARE kicking butt getting it done. The only ones crying defeat are people NOT there. Give these servicemen and women AND the brave contractors in Iraq a chance, have some patience, and we will CONTINUE to win in Iraq, because we ARE winning.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Demoncraps and Republicraps?
Here's a recent email string between a comrade and me. I post it to show how so many Americans’ lack of patience and their baseless cynical view of our leaders, especially with THIS administration, has jaundiced their opinion on the conduct of this war we are now fighting AND winning. My buddy, Jack, had sent me a link to a column written by Congressman Craig wherein he castigated the “cut and run crew” in the Democratic Party.
Hey Jack, Good column… thanks for the send...and Craig is right, we DID leave Beirut and Somalia too early, and what’s worse is both times we left AFTER the enemy inflicted notable casualties on us... Both times we cut and ran AFTER we got hurt. The Islamo-nazis know this about us and they believe based on our past that all they have to do is hurt us a good one, get a dip in the opinion polls and the gutless elements in our government will tuck tail and force our brave military to run away yet again.
In Vietnam we didn't leave too early. When it fell, we were ALREADY gone, except for a few advisers and our air and naval support. In effect, we had successfully Vietnamized the war, just as we are now successfully “Iraqisizing” this war. The democrats did something so despicable in 1973 that it has kept me voting Republican ever since... they simply turned off all military and financial support to the South Vietnamese. We had WON the damn war, at the cost of 58,000 precious American lives, and then the liberal DUMocrats gave it back to the murdering communists just so they could "put it" to a beleaguered Nixon, who was trying to survive Watergate....
Howard Dean, John Kerry, Jack Murtha, All the Kennedy’s, Dennis Kucinich, Barbara Boxer.... all perfectly represent the current idiocy of the democratic party.... Unfortunately, politics is cyclic and it looks like these imbeciles are about to take the reins... God help us Jack! We are winning the war, but you'd never know it to listen to these fools. Key elements in the opposition party are determined that we should lose it.... I hope the US voters don't give them the chance, but....... (sigh!)
Hey Phil,
I bet you if the WWII war were run the way they do it today, Gen. Patton, and majority of our soldiers would be prosecuted and jailed for what they did to win the war!!!!
You know Phil; I am neither REPUBLICRAP NOR DEMONCRAP. I am a conservative. I believe this issue of being bipartisan needs to go. I blame the REPUBLICRAPS JUST AS WELL AS THE DEMONCRAPS. They are politicizing the war on both side of the aisle.
I would call these idiots “DEMONCRAPS” instead!
Hey Jacques, speaking historically.... WWII and every war we've ever been in was fought in fits and starts... In my opinion, this is the first war we've EVER fought that we DIDN'T fight incompetently from the beginning. We've always had to learn as we fought, BEFORE we started to prevail... In this war, however, we’ve been kicking butt from the get-go. More on that in a second...
I really don't know why you would blame the administration for the conduct of the war, unless you want to fault them for the level of troops used at the beginning, or allowing all the looting just after the shooting war was won, or perhaps the decision to disband the Iraqi Army and police and start from scratch. If you are, then that is second-guessing.
This administration has pretty much deferred the conduct and operational aspects completely to the military. Admittedly, Rumsfeld has seemingly tried to fight this thing on the cheap; even so, he's given operational theater commanders most everything they've asked for. We are fighting terrorists, insurgents if you will. We are Americans and can't fight dirty in return, and why would we anyway? If we lose our souls, we lose everything! The Islamicists kill 25 innocents in cold blood and declare it a victory. We kill 50 insurgents, and in doing so kill a handful of civilians in the crossfire, and our liberal press crucifies and blames us as being "just as bad as the terrorists."
Can you explain how Republicans are politicizing the war? I don't see it. They are already in power, so they don't have to. The democrats are sick with the need to return to power, thus they feel that they have to undermine this administration, criticize the military and ALL its actions, and feel that ONLY a LOSS in this War on Terror will help them to get what they want. That is immoral and sickening, but that's how I see the Democratic Party at this time.
Jack, we are winning. The ONLY way we can lose is to leave. We've lost 2500 men and women in Iraq, and just over 3000 including our losses in Afghanistan. These are acceptable losses considering that we are fighting bastards that want to destroy our civilization. Could you tell me what you would change, how you would do it differently if you were in charge of fighting them? Simply saying the administration is a politically motivated just tells me how "you feel." Tell me what you see that you think is being done wrong.
If you want to compare this war to WWII, then by comparison we are doing pretty well. Remember how we lost the Philippines? Tens of thousands of men gone in 4 months. Do you remember the losses in our battles against the Japanese? Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima, Okinawa? Thousands of men died for those "victories." And it was worse in the European theater.... thousand of dead in North Africa, Italy and Western Europe. Our liberal defeatist press AND THIS opposition party, if around back then, would be having a field day. They'd be saying we are no better than the Nazis or fanatical Japanese. They’d be spouting drivel like, “President Roosevelt, where is your plan? We don’t see a plan! And what about withdrawal? Where is your “exit strategy!?” Ridiculous? You bet it is.
Here's our problem as I see it: Americans want to win NOW! By winning, they want the killing and dying to end NOW! Well, we can't control that. Unfortunately, that part of the war is completely out of our hands... The Islamicists can always find another brainwashed, brain-dead hopeless fool to blow himself up and take a bunch of innocents with him. Does that make them our superior? It does ONLY if we quit.
We are smarter, higher principled, better led, better fed, better equipped, and more powerful on EVERY level than the people who want to destroy us. The only thing THEY have that we don't is PATIENCE! For heaven's sake, we invaded Iraq just over 3 years ago and look what we've accomplished! The most important thing is we are making positive changes in that part of the world AND we have an effective military presence right in the heart of the enemy!
It's dumfounding that people can possibly say that we are in a no-win quagmire. That kind of talk is just plain stupid and plays into the hands of our enemies. They already have historical precedence to work with.... Reagan ran away from Beirut after the 1983 bombing of the Marine Barracks, and Clinton tucked his tail and scrammed in 1993 when Aidid's forces hurt us in Somalia. So they KNOW how to beat us, or so they think, hurt us and we'll go! Jack Murtha, are you listening, you blowhard, you sniveling fake! So you fought in Vietnam...So what! All you want is power; I have no respect for you at all at this point.
So Jack, can you explain to me how the "Republicraps" are politicizing this effort to preserve Western Civilization? I don't see it... Details and specifics please? Anyone?
Hey Jack, Good column… thanks for the send...and Craig is right, we DID leave Beirut and Somalia too early, and what’s worse is both times we left AFTER the enemy inflicted notable casualties on us... Both times we cut and ran AFTER we got hurt. The Islamo-nazis know this about us and they believe based on our past that all they have to do is hurt us a good one, get a dip in the opinion polls and the gutless elements in our government will tuck tail and force our brave military to run away yet again.
In Vietnam we didn't leave too early. When it fell, we were ALREADY gone, except for a few advisers and our air and naval support. In effect, we had successfully Vietnamized the war, just as we are now successfully “Iraqisizing” this war. The democrats did something so despicable in 1973 that it has kept me voting Republican ever since... they simply turned off all military and financial support to the South Vietnamese. We had WON the damn war, at the cost of 58,000 precious American lives, and then the liberal DUMocrats gave it back to the murdering communists just so they could "put it" to a beleaguered Nixon, who was trying to survive Watergate....
Howard Dean, John Kerry, Jack Murtha, All the Kennedy’s, Dennis Kucinich, Barbara Boxer.... all perfectly represent the current idiocy of the democratic party.... Unfortunately, politics is cyclic and it looks like these imbeciles are about to take the reins... God help us Jack! We are winning the war, but you'd never know it to listen to these fools. Key elements in the opposition party are determined that we should lose it.... I hope the US voters don't give them the chance, but....... (sigh!)
Hey Phil,
I bet you if the WWII war were run the way they do it today, Gen. Patton, and majority of our soldiers would be prosecuted and jailed for what they did to win the war!!!!
You know Phil; I am neither REPUBLICRAP NOR DEMONCRAP. I am a conservative. I believe this issue of being bipartisan needs to go. I blame the REPUBLICRAPS JUST AS WELL AS THE DEMONCRAPS. They are politicizing the war on both side of the aisle.
I would call these idiots “DEMONCRAPS” instead!
Hey Jacques, speaking historically.... WWII and every war we've ever been in was fought in fits and starts... In my opinion, this is the first war we've EVER fought that we DIDN'T fight incompetently from the beginning. We've always had to learn as we fought, BEFORE we started to prevail... In this war, however, we’ve been kicking butt from the get-go. More on that in a second...
I really don't know why you would blame the administration for the conduct of the war, unless you want to fault them for the level of troops used at the beginning, or allowing all the looting just after the shooting war was won, or perhaps the decision to disband the Iraqi Army and police and start from scratch. If you are, then that is second-guessing.
This administration has pretty much deferred the conduct and operational aspects completely to the military. Admittedly, Rumsfeld has seemingly tried to fight this thing on the cheap; even so, he's given operational theater commanders most everything they've asked for. We are fighting terrorists, insurgents if you will. We are Americans and can't fight dirty in return, and why would we anyway? If we lose our souls, we lose everything! The Islamicists kill 25 innocents in cold blood and declare it a victory. We kill 50 insurgents, and in doing so kill a handful of civilians in the crossfire, and our liberal press crucifies and blames us as being "just as bad as the terrorists."
Can you explain how Republicans are politicizing the war? I don't see it. They are already in power, so they don't have to. The democrats are sick with the need to return to power, thus they feel that they have to undermine this administration, criticize the military and ALL its actions, and feel that ONLY a LOSS in this War on Terror will help them to get what they want. That is immoral and sickening, but that's how I see the Democratic Party at this time.
Jack, we are winning. The ONLY way we can lose is to leave. We've lost 2500 men and women in Iraq, and just over 3000 including our losses in Afghanistan. These are acceptable losses considering that we are fighting bastards that want to destroy our civilization. Could you tell me what you would change, how you would do it differently if you were in charge of fighting them? Simply saying the administration is a politically motivated just tells me how "you feel." Tell me what you see that you think is being done wrong.
If you want to compare this war to WWII, then by comparison we are doing pretty well. Remember how we lost the Philippines? Tens of thousands of men gone in 4 months. Do you remember the losses in our battles against the Japanese? Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima, Okinawa? Thousands of men died for those "victories." And it was worse in the European theater.... thousand of dead in North Africa, Italy and Western Europe. Our liberal defeatist press AND THIS opposition party, if around back then, would be having a field day. They'd be saying we are no better than the Nazis or fanatical Japanese. They’d be spouting drivel like, “President Roosevelt, where is your plan? We don’t see a plan! And what about withdrawal? Where is your “exit strategy!?” Ridiculous? You bet it is.
Here's our problem as I see it: Americans want to win NOW! By winning, they want the killing and dying to end NOW! Well, we can't control that. Unfortunately, that part of the war is completely out of our hands... The Islamicists can always find another brainwashed, brain-dead hopeless fool to blow himself up and take a bunch of innocents with him. Does that make them our superior? It does ONLY if we quit.
We are smarter, higher principled, better led, better fed, better equipped, and more powerful on EVERY level than the people who want to destroy us. The only thing THEY have that we don't is PATIENCE! For heaven's sake, we invaded Iraq just over 3 years ago and look what we've accomplished! The most important thing is we are making positive changes in that part of the world AND we have an effective military presence right in the heart of the enemy!
It's dumfounding that people can possibly say that we are in a no-win quagmire. That kind of talk is just plain stupid and plays into the hands of our enemies. They already have historical precedence to work with.... Reagan ran away from Beirut after the 1983 bombing of the Marine Barracks, and Clinton tucked his tail and scrammed in 1993 when Aidid's forces hurt us in Somalia. So they KNOW how to beat us, or so they think, hurt us and we'll go! Jack Murtha, are you listening, you blowhard, you sniveling fake! So you fought in Vietnam...So what! All you want is power; I have no respect for you at all at this point.
So Jack, can you explain to me how the "Republicraps" are politicizing this effort to preserve Western Civilization? I don't see it... Details and specifics please? Anyone?
Friday, June 23, 2006
Running Scared -- A Hashing Story
Before checking out the following little adventure, you might want to read my original post about “hashing” here first.
Starting my own Hash
I had always dreamed of starting my own Hash House Harriers club, and I finally did so in 1989, a few years after arriving in Arkansas. My harriers and I met mostly at my home in base housing on the Air Base. I tried to run a “hash” every Saturday, weather and work permitting. I built up my club from a nucleus of a half-dozen or so steady participants; these hard-core devotees were mostly guys from my unit, the 314th Avionics Maintenance Squadron.
It got easier to get other guys to come out and run with us after the Quality Assurance Office picked me up as an Avionics Inspector. All of a sudden I was the boogey man, a fellow with some “power” and a little influence. Now, when I went on my inspection rounds and asked folks if they wouldn’t like to come over and try a hash run, often some felt pressured to do it. No one wants to make the QA guy mad – after all, they never knew when it would be their time to get an “over the shoulder.” Not coming out wouldn’t have affected my assessment, even a little bit, but I wasn’t going to tell them that. Besides, once they tried it, they were hooked.
On Being the "Hare"
After a year of organizing hashes, I began to search out new and more challenging hashing routes. I took my turn as hare, or "wabbit" as Elmer Fudd says, more often than the others, mostly because I loved the test of being chased. I spent hours exploring and mapping out possible sites that would make the perfect places to “checkpoint” and “false trail.” The important thing for a “rabbit” making a trail to keep in mind is to avoid running through an area where the chase runners can see you from a long way off. If they can see YOU, that means they don’t have to follow YOUR “tracks.”
I was a sassy brassy rabbit. I loved doubling back and going to ground, so I could watch the hounds from up close as they intently strove to run me down. It gave me a strange feeling of power, and it was just plain fun to watch my hounds from as close as possible. Once, I circled around and buried myself under a pile of leaves, and watched barely stifling giggles as the dozen hounds trotted by on both sides of my hiding place. One guy even stepped on my hand as he jogged past my prone concealed body. It was deliciously exciting being invisible like that. Several times they tried to outsmart me by leaving one guy back to try to catch me when I circled around. It was a chess game I almost always won, mostly by just running fast when they got close until I got away. In hashing, being quick is better than being cagey!
Most Memorable Hashing Moment Ever?
I have many pleasurable memories from those days, but perhaps the most memorable of all came about one Saturday when I ran my hounds around the outside of the base golf course. I knew it was going to be risky, because I was going to be visible from a long way off from where I took them past the base’s main gate before ducking back into a large plot of woods. By doing so, I was breaking one of the most important rules of being a hare. When I hit the long scary open area, I ran as fast as I could while still laying spoor, but I wasn’t quite quick enough. For as I made my way, almost at a sprint, halfway to the safety of the woods on the edge of the golf course, I heard someone yell from 100 yards away, “There he is!”
Dang it! I had needed only about 10 more seconds and I would have been out of sight. Now, they were taking a direct line RIGHT at me, and the bad thing is they were running diagonally across the 6th fairway to do so. None of them was a golfer, so they didn’t understand why that was such a big no-no. Some disgruntled linksman, probably an officer, was going to scream bloody murder for sure.
Never mind. Getting away is all I was concerned with at that point. I sprinted into the obscuring safety of the big rectangular patch of woods. I stopped leaving spoor until I was in the trees, since they knew where I was anyway. As soon as I hit the woods line I began tapping my dust sack against tree trunks, rocks, and on the ground every three or four strides. Knowing they were right on my tail, I wasn’t nearly as careful as I usually was about leaving detectable bright white splotches from my sock full of hydrogenated lime dust. Truthfully, I was in a mild panic. After all, the hounds were right on my trail and I could feel their breath on my neck. Awesome! I was in my element. That’s what I lived for!
My plan was to take them all the way up the long side of the woods plot to a paved golf cart trail, and even in my hurried state I kept on that strategy. From there, I stayed on plan and turned right so that I could quickly get The Hash back off the golf course. I knew I was taking a dangerous chance cutting across the course anyway, but what’s life without taking a few risks? I did my thing and continued to lay my trail.
I Zigged, They Zagged
Once I was safely off the golf course, I took an immediate right behind a ridge running parallel with the plot of woods through which my hounds then struggled. I went to ground on top of that ridge, and from my position behind a fallen tree, I could see directly across the 8th fairway at the extensive copse where my hounds had faltered. I could hear them calling to each other unseen in the densely leaved trees. From the sound of it, they had lost the bright white lime dust spots I had quickly left in my wake. In their excitement to catch me they had outrun the trail, so that where I had zigged, that’s probably where they had zagged.
A party of four golfers was just making their way up to take their second shots after teeing off from the 8th tee box. Two of them were riding a golf cart and the other two were pulling their clubs with handcarts. I smirked watching their consternation at all the noise in the woods to their left. Suddenly a raccoon burst out of those same woods and skittered crazily between the golfers toward the far side of the fairway towards me. That crazed coon was merely a foreshadowing of what was to come.
I could hear my dozen confused hounds yelling at each other:
“You got the trail yet?”
“NO! How about any of you over to the right? Can you guys see anything?”
“Not yet! Still looking!”
They Were NOT Amused!
The golfers looked disapprovingly at the trees to their left toward the unwelcome loud voices of my hashing “troops.” One fellow even stopped pulling his cart and walked to the edge of the thick line of trees trying to catch a glimpse of the “big mouths” – I KNEW we were going to hear about it now (and BOY did we EVER!). The angry duffers looked like officers or senior enlisted guys; either way, neither group tends to have a sense of humor – a trait this “foursome” was about to have put to an “extreme” test in just a few more seconds.
My naughty and annoying hounds were now on line trying to find a single lime splotch so they could get back to following my trail of splotches. I cringed as I heard them yelling back and forth, along with the cracking break of branches and twigs as they made their way through the thick foliage.
Then one of the hounds screamed, “Hey, I’ve got the trail! On! On! This way boys!”
About then I heard my guys make a series of excited whoops, and then a God-awful crashing noise as all of them took off at once into the same direction.
No Way! It Can't Be!
That’s when the REAL show started! And I couldn’t BELIEVE what I was seeing – was I REALLY seeing this? EVERY type of forest animal I’d ever imagined living in the State of Arkansas began to pour frantically from the woods across the expanse of fairway to my front. An avalanche of creatures swarmed from out of the tall grass and undergrowth, all of them spooked to flight by MY noisy hounds. I was amused realizing that not one of my harriers was even remotely aware of the mayhem they were causing in that small corner of the animal kingdom.
Amazingly, one of about a half-dozen stampeding deer, a buck with a beautiful six-point rack of antlers, bounded straight out of the foliage. One of the pull cart golfers was directly in its frenzied path. The panicked deer got to within 10 feet of the man before noticing that a human being was right THERE! Once the buck saw the man, it put on the brakes only as a deer can, or maybe an NFL hockey player. Only instead of ice chips flying, a hefty five-foot long strip of sod and dirt was thrown high into the air and all over the startled golfer.
Seeing a 190-pound white-tailed deer bearing down on him, the shocked man cowered, crouched low and covered his head with both arms. The heaving deer fell heavily on its side within a couple feet of the screaming golfer before scrambling back up in a flurry of legs, antlers and hooves. Regaining its feet, the buck continued on its original course, bounding away in incredibly long 15-foot leaps. After seeing that I can assure you that the definition of “fear” is most certainly the sight of a frightened deer! Or, is it the sight of a golfer being frightened by a deer in fear?! Either way.
Furry and Feathered...
For a few seconds, my attention had been completely taken up by the dramatic interplay between the golfer and deer. Now all the other beasts, large and small, mesmerized me. I never imagined that so many critters could live in such a small area. These furry and feathered beings literally streamed in their scores across the short-clipped fairway grass, all of them trying to escape from my hounds. I tried to gather in and catalogue the unlikely hodgepodge of fauna before me – mice, fox, squirrels, opossum, lizards, skunk, deer, a couple of armadillos, even snakes and birds issued forth, and all because of my hounds and me. Cool!
In less than a minute it was over. The torrent of animals gushing across the fairway greenery, through and around the startled golfers, ended as quickly as it began. Even the snakes quickly found new hiding places. The first of my unsuspecting pursuers burst forth onto to the cart trail, and the sight of them only a couple hundred feet away knocked me rudely from my dazed trance. I jumped to my feet and went back to work. I had a trail to put down. There were hounds within sight, I was a rabbit, and within a half hour we’d all be drinking cold beer and I’d be telling them an unbelievable story . . . . About a bunch of other animals, besides me, that they had put on the run … On! On!
Starting my own Hash
I had always dreamed of starting my own Hash House Harriers club, and I finally did so in 1989, a few years after arriving in Arkansas. My harriers and I met mostly at my home in base housing on the Air Base. I tried to run a “hash” every Saturday, weather and work permitting. I built up my club from a nucleus of a half-dozen or so steady participants; these hard-core devotees were mostly guys from my unit, the 314th Avionics Maintenance Squadron.
It got easier to get other guys to come out and run with us after the Quality Assurance Office picked me up as an Avionics Inspector. All of a sudden I was the boogey man, a fellow with some “power” and a little influence. Now, when I went on my inspection rounds and asked folks if they wouldn’t like to come over and try a hash run, often some felt pressured to do it. No one wants to make the QA guy mad – after all, they never knew when it would be their time to get an “over the shoulder.” Not coming out wouldn’t have affected my assessment, even a little bit, but I wasn’t going to tell them that. Besides, once they tried it, they were hooked.
On Being the "Hare"
After a year of organizing hashes, I began to search out new and more challenging hashing routes. I took my turn as hare, or "wabbit" as Elmer Fudd says, more often than the others, mostly because I loved the test of being chased. I spent hours exploring and mapping out possible sites that would make the perfect places to “checkpoint” and “false trail.” The important thing for a “rabbit” making a trail to keep in mind is to avoid running through an area where the chase runners can see you from a long way off. If they can see YOU, that means they don’t have to follow YOUR “tracks.”
I was a sassy brassy rabbit. I loved doubling back and going to ground, so I could watch the hounds from up close as they intently strove to run me down. It gave me a strange feeling of power, and it was just plain fun to watch my hounds from as close as possible. Once, I circled around and buried myself under a pile of leaves, and watched barely stifling giggles as the dozen hounds trotted by on both sides of my hiding place. One guy even stepped on my hand as he jogged past my prone concealed body. It was deliciously exciting being invisible like that. Several times they tried to outsmart me by leaving one guy back to try to catch me when I circled around. It was a chess game I almost always won, mostly by just running fast when they got close until I got away. In hashing, being quick is better than being cagey!
Most Memorable Hashing Moment Ever?
I have many pleasurable memories from those days, but perhaps the most memorable of all came about one Saturday when I ran my hounds around the outside of the base golf course. I knew it was going to be risky, because I was going to be visible from a long way off from where I took them past the base’s main gate before ducking back into a large plot of woods. By doing so, I was breaking one of the most important rules of being a hare. When I hit the long scary open area, I ran as fast as I could while still laying spoor, but I wasn’t quite quick enough. For as I made my way, almost at a sprint, halfway to the safety of the woods on the edge of the golf course, I heard someone yell from 100 yards away, “There he is!”
Dang it! I had needed only about 10 more seconds and I would have been out of sight. Now, they were taking a direct line RIGHT at me, and the bad thing is they were running diagonally across the 6th fairway to do so. None of them was a golfer, so they didn’t understand why that was such a big no-no. Some disgruntled linksman, probably an officer, was going to scream bloody murder for sure.
Never mind. Getting away is all I was concerned with at that point. I sprinted into the obscuring safety of the big rectangular patch of woods. I stopped leaving spoor until I was in the trees, since they knew where I was anyway. As soon as I hit the woods line I began tapping my dust sack against tree trunks, rocks, and on the ground every three or four strides. Knowing they were right on my tail, I wasn’t nearly as careful as I usually was about leaving detectable bright white splotches from my sock full of hydrogenated lime dust. Truthfully, I was in a mild panic. After all, the hounds were right on my trail and I could feel their breath on my neck. Awesome! I was in my element. That’s what I lived for!
My plan was to take them all the way up the long side of the woods plot to a paved golf cart trail, and even in my hurried state I kept on that strategy. From there, I stayed on plan and turned right so that I could quickly get The Hash back off the golf course. I knew I was taking a dangerous chance cutting across the course anyway, but what’s life without taking a few risks? I did my thing and continued to lay my trail.
I Zigged, They Zagged
Once I was safely off the golf course, I took an immediate right behind a ridge running parallel with the plot of woods through which my hounds then struggled. I went to ground on top of that ridge, and from my position behind a fallen tree, I could see directly across the 8th fairway at the extensive copse where my hounds had faltered. I could hear them calling to each other unseen in the densely leaved trees. From the sound of it, they had lost the bright white lime dust spots I had quickly left in my wake. In their excitement to catch me they had outrun the trail, so that where I had zigged, that’s probably where they had zagged.
A party of four golfers was just making their way up to take their second shots after teeing off from the 8th tee box. Two of them were riding a golf cart and the other two were pulling their clubs with handcarts. I smirked watching their consternation at all the noise in the woods to their left. Suddenly a raccoon burst out of those same woods and skittered crazily between the golfers toward the far side of the fairway towards me. That crazed coon was merely a foreshadowing of what was to come.
I could hear my dozen confused hounds yelling at each other:
“You got the trail yet?”
“NO! How about any of you over to the right? Can you guys see anything?”
“Not yet! Still looking!”
They Were NOT Amused!
The golfers looked disapprovingly at the trees to their left toward the unwelcome loud voices of my hashing “troops.” One fellow even stopped pulling his cart and walked to the edge of the thick line of trees trying to catch a glimpse of the “big mouths” – I KNEW we were going to hear about it now (and BOY did we EVER!). The angry duffers looked like officers or senior enlisted guys; either way, neither group tends to have a sense of humor – a trait this “foursome” was about to have put to an “extreme” test in just a few more seconds.
My naughty and annoying hounds were now on line trying to find a single lime splotch so they could get back to following my trail of splotches. I cringed as I heard them yelling back and forth, along with the cracking break of branches and twigs as they made their way through the thick foliage.
Then one of the hounds screamed, “Hey, I’ve got the trail! On! On! This way boys!”
About then I heard my guys make a series of excited whoops, and then a God-awful crashing noise as all of them took off at once into the same direction.
No Way! It Can't Be!
That’s when the REAL show started! And I couldn’t BELIEVE what I was seeing – was I REALLY seeing this? EVERY type of forest animal I’d ever imagined living in the State of Arkansas began to pour frantically from the woods across the expanse of fairway to my front. An avalanche of creatures swarmed from out of the tall grass and undergrowth, all of them spooked to flight by MY noisy hounds. I was amused realizing that not one of my harriers was even remotely aware of the mayhem they were causing in that small corner of the animal kingdom.
Amazingly, one of about a half-dozen stampeding deer, a buck with a beautiful six-point rack of antlers, bounded straight out of the foliage. One of the pull cart golfers was directly in its frenzied path. The panicked deer got to within 10 feet of the man before noticing that a human being was right THERE! Once the buck saw the man, it put on the brakes only as a deer can, or maybe an NFL hockey player. Only instead of ice chips flying, a hefty five-foot long strip of sod and dirt was thrown high into the air and all over the startled golfer.
Seeing a 190-pound white-tailed deer bearing down on him, the shocked man cowered, crouched low and covered his head with both arms. The heaving deer fell heavily on its side within a couple feet of the screaming golfer before scrambling back up in a flurry of legs, antlers and hooves. Regaining its feet, the buck continued on its original course, bounding away in incredibly long 15-foot leaps. After seeing that I can assure you that the definition of “fear” is most certainly the sight of a frightened deer! Or, is it the sight of a golfer being frightened by a deer in fear?! Either way.
Furry and Feathered...
For a few seconds, my attention had been completely taken up by the dramatic interplay between the golfer and deer. Now all the other beasts, large and small, mesmerized me. I never imagined that so many critters could live in such a small area. These furry and feathered beings literally streamed in their scores across the short-clipped fairway grass, all of them trying to escape from my hounds. I tried to gather in and catalogue the unlikely hodgepodge of fauna before me – mice, fox, squirrels, opossum, lizards, skunk, deer, a couple of armadillos, even snakes and birds issued forth, and all because of my hounds and me. Cool!
In less than a minute it was over. The torrent of animals gushing across the fairway greenery, through and around the startled golfers, ended as quickly as it began. Even the snakes quickly found new hiding places. The first of my unsuspecting pursuers burst forth onto to the cart trail, and the sight of them only a couple hundred feet away knocked me rudely from my dazed trance. I jumped to my feet and went back to work. I had a trail to put down. There were hounds within sight, I was a rabbit, and within a half hour we’d all be drinking cold beer and I’d be telling them an unbelievable story . . . . About a bunch of other animals, besides me, that they had put on the run … On! On!
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Back to School – Philippines Retirement, Part III
You might be asking – why talk about school under the topic of retiring in the Philippines? Well, many veterans come here with the intent of using their VA education benefits. I’ve been doing it since June of 2003; I started just weeks after my permanent resident visa came through. Anyhow, here are some thoughts, observations and some personal experiences on the subject.
For this new semester, I waited until the first week of school before even attempting to sign up. Reason being, what a goat rope the sign-up process is! The college I go to, Systems Plus Computer Foundation, or SPCF, runs you all over the place, from window 5 to the department office, to the library, back to window 5, or is it 2? And on and on…
To make things worse, all students are required at the beginning of this school year to have old ID badges replaced with a higher tech version, one imprinted with a scanner readable code. The “line” in front of THAT office was like an African watering hole in the midst of two-year drought, and I didn’t feel like trying to fight my way through the “herd” to get to the “muddy water!” Now, I don’t mind standing in line, but Filipinos DON’T tend to form lines. What they do instead is to mass, push, and reach over and past each other to the front. As an American, I have a hard time dealing with that, so I don’t.
With the kind of disorganization, deficiency of structure, and the seeming lack of line etiquette I describe above, you would think people here would get cross and angry at each other, but no, that’s just how things are done. They expect it, and they are used to it. The only ones who get irked and frustrated are the old American retirees, like me.
Here’s what I do now to help me through this bothersome, but unavoidable, “first week” of college chaos. I employ what I call my “assistant;” in this case, his name is Noli. He’s 19 years old, and the nicest kid you’d ever want to meet. Both of us are Education majors and we’ve been fast buds for over a year. I ask him to help me through the morass of sign-in, and he does so by taking me from window, to department office, to library, to what ever comes next. When my back starts to ache and my feet start to throb, he even waits in “line” for me; or as I hinted above, he pushes my paperwork to the front while I relax on a nearby bench contentedly mopping my sweaty forehead and sipping an ice tea.
Now, why would a 19-year old fellow do this for a guy 30 years his senior? I can’t imagine a kid doing something like that back in the States. But we’re not back in the States, thank God! Noli is a really nice youngster and a good buddy. I help him with some of his assignments, and if he needs a pen or a tablet, or even a textbook (they cost at most $4!), then I help him out. When we are on campus and waiting for a class to start, we sit together in a strategic spot and assess and discuss the qualities of the hundreds of beautiful young co-eds walking about. (Keep in mind, it’s all innocent enough – he’s STILL a virgin! Impossible you say? Well NOT in the Philippines!)
Noli is also interested in working on his “American” English. Particularly, and especially while I am around, he’s always telling his classmates who come up and greet him in a local dialect to, “Hey, speak English!” Through me, he’s mastering all the usual American colloquial phrases like, “What’s up?” or “I’m good,” or “I’m hanging in there,” and “I’m just go’n with the flow!” You know, ridiculous American expressions you don’t just pick up in an English class, unless of course there’s someone “ridiculous” like me in it.
Seriously though, I like to think that Noli looks at me as a mentor. I hate using that term since I grew to despise it in the Air Force. It was “over-used” to the point that I refused to acknowledge it, and insisted on using replacement words, like counselor or guide. Just the same, my young college friend respects the fact that I have life experiences that he can only dream of, and will probably never get to undergo himself. I hope someday he gets his teaching degree and gets his chance to be a teacher in the USA, or some other first world nation.
Aside from being an excellent cultural experience, going to school here is good for a vet’s bank account, especially if the Veterans Administration is paying the costs under Chapter 30. It’s no secret that we are paid much more here than what it costs to matriculate. In the USA it is barely enough, and actually, in most schools back there it doesn’t come close to covering expenses. So, if you want to learn nursing, programming, teaching, business, or the Dewy Decimal System, and you want to make a profit doing it, then come on over and go to school with me.
Before you pack your bags and scientific calculator however, remember that the Philippines will not allow you to sign up for classes unless you have either a Student Visa or a Permanent Resident Visa. I’ve heard that the Student Visa can be difficult and time-consuming to secure. I can’t speak expertly on that, as I didn’t go that route since I am married to a Filipina, but I hear it can be a big headache. I suggest you contact a Philippine Consulate and find out what they require to get one. Or you can email me and I’ll forward your questions to Ernesto, the man in charge of The SPCF Foreign Students Office. He’s a smart guy and works student visas on a continuous basis.
If you are married to a Filipina, even if she already has U.S. citizenship, then you can become a permanent resident. But beware! Permanent residency simplifies SOME things, but complicates others. What I hate about it is I am forced to pay $50 per person for a reentry stamp EVERY time I leave the country. With four souls in the family that means I am rooked out of $200 per trip, not to mention the annual fee I have to pay to keep all four visas valid.
Thing is, if you don’t have a 13A or 13G visa for permanent residency, I’m told that as a tourist you must get your passport stamped every 60 days or so (maybe even less!), and then before the 1-year anniversary of your initial tourist stamp you MUST completely leave the country and return, so that you can continue to live here as a tourist for another year. What a pain. You’d think the Philippines would make it easier for foreigners to live here, since this place can really use the cash we spend and all the local people that it supports.
A final school story: Last Friday I could not find a single class on my schedule. As always, my department didn’t know who was teaching what, or where. My man, Noli, came through for me again. In my personal quest to locate teachers and classrooms, my disabled knees and pain-wracked back simply could not negotiate another step up-and-down the school’s many stairways, some of which go up four floors. Noticing my physical discomfort, Noli told me to wait in the cafeteria while he found exactly the location of all my classes. With people like Noli living here, how could I not love living here myself? Living in the Philippines: Priceless!
For this new semester, I waited until the first week of school before even attempting to sign up. Reason being, what a goat rope the sign-up process is! The college I go to, Systems Plus Computer Foundation, or SPCF, runs you all over the place, from window 5 to the department office, to the library, back to window 5, or is it 2? And on and on…
To make things worse, all students are required at the beginning of this school year to have old ID badges replaced with a higher tech version, one imprinted with a scanner readable code. The “line” in front of THAT office was like an African watering hole in the midst of two-year drought, and I didn’t feel like trying to fight my way through the “herd” to get to the “muddy water!” Now, I don’t mind standing in line, but Filipinos DON’T tend to form lines. What they do instead is to mass, push, and reach over and past each other to the front. As an American, I have a hard time dealing with that, so I don’t.
With the kind of disorganization, deficiency of structure, and the seeming lack of line etiquette I describe above, you would think people here would get cross and angry at each other, but no, that’s just how things are done. They expect it, and they are used to it. The only ones who get irked and frustrated are the old American retirees, like me.
Here’s what I do now to help me through this bothersome, but unavoidable, “first week” of college chaos. I employ what I call my “assistant;” in this case, his name is Noli. He’s 19 years old, and the nicest kid you’d ever want to meet. Both of us are Education majors and we’ve been fast buds for over a year. I ask him to help me through the morass of sign-in, and he does so by taking me from window, to department office, to library, to what ever comes next. When my back starts to ache and my feet start to throb, he even waits in “line” for me; or as I hinted above, he pushes my paperwork to the front while I relax on a nearby bench contentedly mopping my sweaty forehead and sipping an ice tea.
Now, why would a 19-year old fellow do this for a guy 30 years his senior? I can’t imagine a kid doing something like that back in the States. But we’re not back in the States, thank God! Noli is a really nice youngster and a good buddy. I help him with some of his assignments, and if he needs a pen or a tablet, or even a textbook (they cost at most $4!), then I help him out. When we are on campus and waiting for a class to start, we sit together in a strategic spot and assess and discuss the qualities of the hundreds of beautiful young co-eds walking about. (Keep in mind, it’s all innocent enough – he’s STILL a virgin! Impossible you say? Well NOT in the Philippines!)
Noli is also interested in working on his “American” English. Particularly, and especially while I am around, he’s always telling his classmates who come up and greet him in a local dialect to, “Hey, speak English!” Through me, he’s mastering all the usual American colloquial phrases like, “What’s up?” or “I’m good,” or “I’m hanging in there,” and “I’m just go’n with the flow!” You know, ridiculous American expressions you don’t just pick up in an English class, unless of course there’s someone “ridiculous” like me in it.
Seriously though, I like to think that Noli looks at me as a mentor. I hate using that term since I grew to despise it in the Air Force. It was “over-used” to the point that I refused to acknowledge it, and insisted on using replacement words, like counselor or guide. Just the same, my young college friend respects the fact that I have life experiences that he can only dream of, and will probably never get to undergo himself. I hope someday he gets his teaching degree and gets his chance to be a teacher in the USA, or some other first world nation.
Aside from being an excellent cultural experience, going to school here is good for a vet’s bank account, especially if the Veterans Administration is paying the costs under Chapter 30. It’s no secret that we are paid much more here than what it costs to matriculate. In the USA it is barely enough, and actually, in most schools back there it doesn’t come close to covering expenses. So, if you want to learn nursing, programming, teaching, business, or the Dewy Decimal System, and you want to make a profit doing it, then come on over and go to school with me.
Before you pack your bags and scientific calculator however, remember that the Philippines will not allow you to sign up for classes unless you have either a Student Visa or a Permanent Resident Visa. I’ve heard that the Student Visa can be difficult and time-consuming to secure. I can’t speak expertly on that, as I didn’t go that route since I am married to a Filipina, but I hear it can be a big headache. I suggest you contact a Philippine Consulate and find out what they require to get one. Or you can email me and I’ll forward your questions to Ernesto, the man in charge of The SPCF Foreign Students Office. He’s a smart guy and works student visas on a continuous basis.
If you are married to a Filipina, even if she already has U.S. citizenship, then you can become a permanent resident. But beware! Permanent residency simplifies SOME things, but complicates others. What I hate about it is I am forced to pay $50 per person for a reentry stamp EVERY time I leave the country. With four souls in the family that means I am rooked out of $200 per trip, not to mention the annual fee I have to pay to keep all four visas valid.
Thing is, if you don’t have a 13A or 13G visa for permanent residency, I’m told that as a tourist you must get your passport stamped every 60 days or so (maybe even less!), and then before the 1-year anniversary of your initial tourist stamp you MUST completely leave the country and return, so that you can continue to live here as a tourist for another year. What a pain. You’d think the Philippines would make it easier for foreigners to live here, since this place can really use the cash we spend and all the local people that it supports.
A final school story: Last Friday I could not find a single class on my schedule. As always, my department didn’t know who was teaching what, or where. My man, Noli, came through for me again. In my personal quest to locate teachers and classrooms, my disabled knees and pain-wracked back simply could not negotiate another step up-and-down the school’s many stairways, some of which go up four floors. Noticing my physical discomfort, Noli told me to wait in the cafeteria while he found exactly the location of all my classes. With people like Noli living here, how could I not love living here myself? Living in the Philippines: Priceless!
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