From now on, we want to fight where it is to the benefit of the United States of America, not to the benefit of other countries. And we will only fight to win. …
I sign letters, “Dear Mr. and Mrs. Smith from Arkansas. “Dear Mr. and Mrs. Jones from Alabama. Dear Mr. and Mrs. Somebody from some great state, I’m sorry to inform you, your son has been killed in combat.”
And every letter is individually done because sometimes the parents, they’re grieving, and they get together with other parents, and I don’t want to see that it’s like the same letter…
And I sign those letters, and it just, it breaks your heart.
….And sometimes I send letters out… it’s called blue on green… where the people we’re traing how to fight and turn the gun on our soldiers and shoot them in the back. And that’s the hardest thing for a parent because they learn how their child has died. We’ve had a lot of that, a lot of it in Afghanistan, more than we’ve ever had proportionately before. It’s a horrible, horrible thing.
But I have to sign those letters.
Sometimes I go out to a place, Dover Air Force Base, it’s a very tough experience. Mike Pence goes, I go, other people go, Tom Cotton goes. We go out there, and we meet the parents and the families, the wives, the children, the sisters, the brothers. We meet them, and we talked to them, and their son or daughter is being flown in from some far-away place in a coffin…. I don’t know how parents can do it.
We have a particular Colonel, that’s all he does. So good. So professional. That’s what he does. He said, “I greet the dead, sir. I greet the dead.”
What happens is this big incredible machine flies in, this tremendous cargo plane, and it flies in so powerful, so big. I’ll be talking to some of the parents, and they’ll act like they’re fine. I said, “How are you doing?” “We’re fine, sir. We’re fine. We’re really good.” I say, “That’s great.” And I’ll tell the Colonel, I’ll say, “Colonel, I think they’re doing great.”
“No sir, they’re not going to do great. You’ll see.” And I didn’t know what he was talking about, this was the first time.
Then we went outside to the runway. The plane lands and it pulls up, and we have military guards and musicians play. That’s what they do. The Colonel told me, “Sir, when that door opens up, those same people that you think are okay, do things that you’ll never see. You will hear sounds like you’ve never heard.”
I saw that door open up with a coffin with a flag over it. The door was opened, and these beautiful soldiers, five or six on each side, lifting the coffin and walking down onto the runway, off this cargo plane.
And I see parents, that just 20 minutes ago were absolutely fine, make sounds, scream and cry like you’ve never seen before. A mother who was fine 20 minutes ago breaking the military line and then jumping onto a coffin of her son or her daughter, jumping on, lying on top of the flowers, on top of the American flag.”
I’ve seen this.
Then I have all these people that want to stay. They want to stay. And I don’t want to stay.
We were supposed to be in Syria for 30 days. We’ve now been there for 10 years. We were supposed to be in Afghanistan for a short period of time. We’re now going to be there for close to 19 years. It’s time to bring them home. It’s time to bring them home. It’s true. Time to bring them home. We’ve done our job, we’ve defeated everyone that we’re supposed to defeat.
I am deaf to the american communists and their harpy wail, like neglected or abused children at a ghetto day care center. They have no effect on me except even deeper contempt. Exchange their wails for hours on the front line that they demand others to endure. fuk em ded
Auntie AnalogueOctober 14, 2019, 4:41 PM
President Trump gets some things wrong, does some things wrong, yet his heart is in the right place, the good place; and he would get a lot more things right, set a lot more things right, and do a lot more good for the most Americans and thus also for what’s left of what used to be our republic if the Deep$tate/Uniparty/Wall$treet/Re$i$tanceJudiciary/Globali$t $ellout$ would get the hell out of his way and just Do. Their. Actual. Jobs.
HOctober 14, 2019, 6:32 PM
We have been re-arranging the rocks and bombing goat herders and petty tyrants over there since the beginning of Gulf War One. Thirty years, or near enough! To what end. No, no, that was not a question; but fair enough, go ahead and take it as such. There are some really smart people here; one of you explain it to me. Afghanistan was probably necessary, at least at first, but not for quite some time now, a decade or so at least, and Iraq not at all. We won’t even protect our own southern border, what in the pluperfect hell are we still doing over there?
Trump moves 50 troops out of Syria and Turkey instantaneously moves in and starts bombing the rubble. Let those folks over there bomb their own rubble, they seem quite capable of it without our help.
No, no, no! Fuk all! You’re getting it wrong. Trump did not move 50 troops and then Turkey…that is what MSNBC, AP and CNN want you to think. Turkey said, “we’re moving Tuesday” or whatever day it was. We reacted. Media want the narrative to be a shitstain on Trump. It isn’t anything of the sort.
When, in 40 years hence, we will have survived WW III, and historians will be forced to agree that the United States, just like in One and Two, did NOT WANT to get into a world war. Trump is doing what we want him to do: avoid conflicts in the MidEast. We. Want. That.
FUCKCNN seven ways to Sunday.
Also, and for the record, we will have to face off somewhere with Russia, Iran and possibly Islamists, in the future. Why? They have grabbed the initiative in the region of Syria, and Turkey is basically Putin’s butt cuck. But, we’ll want to do it on our terms.
I’ve decided.
When I die put on my stone, “I voted for Donald J. Trump for President of the United States”.
Just that.
NoriOctober 14, 2019, 10:28 PM
He goes to Dover because he wants to. He knows it will be extraordinarily painful.
These people are a big part of what drove him to upend his,and his family’s lives.
Takes guts,and humility,to do this.
I recall, when America first went to war in Afghanistan, the many reminders about previous expeditionary forces that had come to grief there. It’s been asserted by many that the Soviet Union fell, in part at least, because Mikhail Gorbachev decided to intervene there and reaped the whirlwind. While the original impulse to topple the regime that had harbored Osama bin Laden was easy to understand and arguably correct, the notion that we had to persist there for nineteen years in pursuit of an unstated objective is neither. But the people who shape our foreign and military policy aren’t stupid; they must know that quite as well as I. Which raises the question: What are they pursuing there that makes them so reluctant to bring our forces home?
Juan RosarioOctober 15, 2019, 7:11 AM
@F. Porretto
re: your question… “…What are they pursuing there that makes them so reluctant to bring our forces home?…”
well, I don’t have the answer, wish i did… but when pondering this point, the image that comes to mind is Jonathan Swift’s Gullivers Travels, where the Gulliver wakes up and finds the lilliputians have tied him down with string.
With Trump, one could say the USA is Gulliver, and is now waking up (after years of torpor/slumber…), and is in process of ripping away the silly strings the little folks imagined could hold him down.
The JG
ghostsniperOctober 15, 2019, 8:10 AM
“What are they pursuing there that makes them so reluctant to bring our forces home?”
===========
Money. Lots and lots of money.
I saw a list a long time ago, I think over at WRSA, that included all of the people and corporations that are making money of the undeclared “wars”. As I scrolled down the hundreds of names the one that I remember still is Sara Lee, they supply the pound cakes for the troops. Think of undeclared wars as corporate welfare, paid in blood and money.
Juan is talking sense. There is an inertia to war that makes it very hard to end without some uniforms standing on a battleship bow, or a gilded train coach, or a Bedouin tent, and signing a document of cessation. Fuzzy initiatives – fuzzy thinking.
News today that Russian troops are screening between Turks and Syrians. If true, this indicates they want to manage the war at some level. It hints at the truth of Turkey wanting to limit its advance, and their stated goals (publicly stated, anyway) are to DMZ the border to control the Kurdish threat to their border, and to empty out their buttload of Syrian refugees, of whomst they hate as much as Europe does. What does Russia want? To revanche the Crimean War (to make the Black Sea their lake). This means control by coercion the surrounding lands. Look at a map.
What are our interest? NATO to do its job. No interests in Syria other than to not have an ISIS force there and to keep Syria from hurting Israel. Iran: contain them somehow and you conservatives will hate me for saying this but we have to make Iran please our will and nobody else’s. This is called statecraft (of which nobody anymore, including DC, understands. Fucking 12 year-olds in Britain and the US understood statecraft in WW II – now it’s non-existent). Kurds don’t enter the larger picture, unless Turkey actually does conduct an ethnocidal program. I’m having a hard time believing that will happen, maybe especially because the media are promoting it in the news.
Do you see how Turkey is the card table? Who will be the dealer? Putin? Europe? Usens?
Enough with Trump is abandoning the Kurds or Trump is allowing the Turks. Enough with that shit. Use your brains. ISIS is diminished to near-zero. Syria doesn’t matter as a nation to anyone, especially Russia, by the way. They are like a tart on the edge of the table. If I were making our strategy (and BTW, why in the hell aren’t i in charge of everything???) I’d play the big picture and it wouldn’t involve a troop presence in Syria and it wouldn’t involve micro-managing the Turks. I’d put a huge pair of pliers on Erdogan’s nuts, and the same on Putin’s little ones. I’d reserve the kinetics for a soon to be Iranian wrong move.
Anyway, the filter is eating my posts so I’ll stop for now and see what happens. Cheers.
VanderleunOctober 15, 2019, 8:58 AM
I’m here to keep those posts alive in the thread, Casey. I don’t know why the spam filter has a sometimes taste for your posts, but I do keep an eye on it for just that reason.
Juan RosarioOctober 15, 2019, 9:32 AM
@Casey –
You get my vote for being in charge of everything. Just let me handle the Naval Gunfire, Air and Amphibious Support Ops ;-).
Juan / USN/USCG Retired (’76 to ’00)
The JG… the “unhyphenated” Juan 🙂
Bill HenryOctober 15, 2019, 10:09 AM
I think we have ceased to be a nation and have become an empire ruled/directed by a small cadre of people who have nothing but contempt for the blood of our children. They use us and then mock us for our timidity.
We are in the middle east for a very basic reason.. because a loose faction of Israel (see how many congressmen/women have dual citizenship) lobbyists, and liberal elitists want us to keep pressure on the enemies of Israel… and they want to dilute the influence western white men have over the geopolitical landscapes..
Yep.. before anyone says it.. they can call me racist, anti jewish, whatever.. I don’t give a shit..
Bill Henry
HOctober 15, 2019, 4:05 PM
So it wasn’t 50 troops and then Turkey etc etc etc. Fine. You’re probably right, Casey. My apologies. I’ve been dang busy making a living the past week and clearly not paying attention. However. What in the pluperfect hell have we been doing bombing big rocks into liddle ones for thirty years, when we have perfectly good bombing ranges here at home?
The wars in the MidEast have been way too long. We agree on much. But, the media narrative sux tremendously. Anytime I hear their narrative I get a butt spasm.
Take it easy.
Gordon ScottOctober 15, 2019, 7:14 PM
A picked nit: Leonid Brezhnev was running the joint when the Sovs invaded Afghanistan. Gorby got them out ten years later. Of course, Gorby was in charge when Chernobyl happened, and had a big role in the lying and coverup that followed. When Moscow ordered the Kiev party chief to go on with the May Day parade, when they knew the winds were carrying the radioactive particles toward Kiev…that was the moment that doomed the Soviets.
PaulyJOctober 15, 2019, 8:14 PM
We are in all these places because as Major General Smedly Butler experienced and wrote, War is a Racket. Also read Fool’s Errand by Scott Horton. My friend always tells me never attribute malice to that which can be explained with stupidity. The machine isn’t stupid. There is malice in all these wretched, soulless warhawks. I respect the president and any other politician who goes to Dover. If more Americans did that or walked through section 60 of Arlington as I have many times, they too would sound the call to bring them all home. I am a Christian so my wish is for us to kill only when it is necessary for the direct defense of my beloved. That is supposed to be our pact to our countrymen. I pray for mercy and peace for all mankind, but I don’t want any American fighting in a foreign land ever.
Real World Address for Donations, Mash Notes and Hate Mail
Gerard Van der Leun
1692 MANGROVE AVE
APT 379
Chico, Ca 95926
Green Pants Interior by Klahn
Who Am I? by Carl Sandburg
My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I reach my hands and play with pebbles of destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs reading “Keep Off.”
My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive in the universe.
Duty, Beauty, Liberty, Country, Honor, Family, Faith — Plus a few simple easy to follow rules for guys
Men saw the stars at the edge of the sea
They thought great thoughts about liberty
Poets wrote down words that did fit
Writers wrote books
Thinkers thought about it
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
Many’s the road I have walked upon
Many’s the hour between dusk and dawn
Many’s the time
Many’s the mile
I see it all now
Through the eyes of a child
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
And close your eyes
Leave it all for a while
Leave the world
And your worries behind
You will build on whatever is real
And wake up each day
To a new waking dream
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Change, change come over
Change come over
Talkin’ about a change
Change, change
Change come over, now
Change, change, change come over
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
EXCERPTED: Donald Trump Minnesota Rally Speech Transcript: Minneapolis, MN Rally October 10, 2019 – Rev [Edited for length — GV]
Gerard Van der Leun
Comments on this entry are closed.
Bring em home. Bring ALL of them home, right now.
I am deaf to the american communists and their harpy wail, like neglected or abused children at a ghetto day care center. They have no effect on me except even deeper contempt. Exchange their wails for hours on the front line that they demand others to endure. fuk em ded
President Trump gets some things wrong, does some things wrong, yet his heart is in the right place, the good place; and he would get a lot more things right, set a lot more things right, and do a lot more good for the most Americans and thus also for what’s left of what used to be our republic if the Deep$tate/Uniparty/Wall$treet/Re$i$tanceJudiciary/Globali$t $ellout$ would get the hell out of his way and just Do. Their. Actual. Jobs.
We have been re-arranging the rocks and bombing goat herders and petty tyrants over there since the beginning of Gulf War One. Thirty years, or near enough! To what end. No, no, that was not a question; but fair enough, go ahead and take it as such. There are some really smart people here; one of you explain it to me. Afghanistan was probably necessary, at least at first, but not for quite some time now, a decade or so at least, and Iraq not at all. We won’t even protect our own southern border, what in the pluperfect hell are we still doing over there?
Trump moves 50 troops out of Syria and Turkey instantaneously moves in and starts bombing the rubble. Let those folks over there bomb their own rubble, they seem quite capable of it without our help.
No, no, no! Fuk all! You’re getting it wrong. Trump did not move 50 troops and then Turkey…that is what MSNBC, AP and CNN want you to think. Turkey said, “we’re moving Tuesday” or whatever day it was. We reacted. Media want the narrative to be a shitstain on Trump. It isn’t anything of the sort.
When, in 40 years hence, we will have survived WW III, and historians will be forced to agree that the United States, just like in One and Two, did NOT WANT to get into a world war. Trump is doing what we want him to do: avoid conflicts in the MidEast. We. Want. That.
FUCKCNN seven ways to Sunday.
Also, and for the record, we will have to face off somewhere with Russia, Iran and possibly Islamists, in the future. Why? They have grabbed the initiative in the region of Syria, and Turkey is basically Putin’s butt cuck. But, we’ll want to do it on our terms.
I’ve decided.
When I die put on my stone, “I voted for Donald J. Trump for President of the United States”.
Just that.
He goes to Dover because he wants to. He knows it will be extraordinarily painful.
These people are a big part of what drove him to upend his,and his family’s lives.
Takes guts,and humility,to do this.
About that headstone: add “Twice.”
I recall, when America first went to war in Afghanistan, the many reminders about previous expeditionary forces that had come to grief there. It’s been asserted by many that the Soviet Union fell, in part at least, because Mikhail Gorbachev decided to intervene there and reaped the whirlwind. While the original impulse to topple the regime that had harbored Osama bin Laden was easy to understand and arguably correct, the notion that we had to persist there for nineteen years in pursuit of an unstated objective is neither. But the people who shape our foreign and military policy aren’t stupid; they must know that quite as well as I. Which raises the question: What are they pursuing there that makes them so reluctant to bring our forces home?
@F. Porretto
re: your question… “…What are they pursuing there that makes them so reluctant to bring our forces home?…”
well, I don’t have the answer, wish i did… but when pondering this point, the image that comes to mind is Jonathan Swift’s Gullivers Travels, where the Gulliver wakes up and finds the lilliputians have tied him down with string.
With Trump, one could say the USA is Gulliver, and is now waking up (after years of torpor/slumber…), and is in process of ripping away the silly strings the little folks imagined could hold him down.
The JG
“What are they pursuing there that makes them so reluctant to bring our forces home?”
===========
Money. Lots and lots of money.
I saw a list a long time ago, I think over at WRSA, that included all of the people and corporations that are making money of the undeclared “wars”. As I scrolled down the hundreds of names the one that I remember still is Sara Lee, they supply the pound cakes for the troops. Think of undeclared wars as corporate welfare, paid in blood and money.
Juan is talking sense. There is an inertia to war that makes it very hard to end without some uniforms standing on a battleship bow, or a gilded train coach, or a Bedouin tent, and signing a document of cessation. Fuzzy initiatives – fuzzy thinking.
News today that Russian troops are screening between Turks and Syrians. If true, this indicates they want to manage the war at some level. It hints at the truth of Turkey wanting to limit its advance, and their stated goals (publicly stated, anyway) are to DMZ the border to control the Kurdish threat to their border, and to empty out their buttload of Syrian refugees, of whomst they hate as much as Europe does. What does Russia want? To revanche the Crimean War (to make the Black Sea their lake). This means control by coercion the surrounding lands. Look at a map.
What are our interest? NATO to do its job. No interests in Syria other than to not have an ISIS force there and to keep Syria from hurting Israel. Iran: contain them somehow and you conservatives will hate me for saying this but we have to make Iran please our will and nobody else’s. This is called statecraft (of which nobody anymore, including DC, understands. Fucking 12 year-olds in Britain and the US understood statecraft in WW II – now it’s non-existent). Kurds don’t enter the larger picture, unless Turkey actually does conduct an ethnocidal program. I’m having a hard time believing that will happen, maybe especially because the media are promoting it in the news.
Do you see how Turkey is the card table? Who will be the dealer? Putin? Europe? Usens?
Enough with Trump is abandoning the Kurds or Trump is allowing the Turks. Enough with that shit. Use your brains. ISIS is diminished to near-zero. Syria doesn’t matter as a nation to anyone, especially Russia, by the way. They are like a tart on the edge of the table. If I were making our strategy (and BTW, why in the hell aren’t i in charge of everything???) I’d play the big picture and it wouldn’t involve a troop presence in Syria and it wouldn’t involve micro-managing the Turks. I’d put a huge pair of pliers on Erdogan’s nuts, and the same on Putin’s little ones. I’d reserve the kinetics for a soon to be Iranian wrong move.
Anyway, the filter is eating my posts so I’ll stop for now and see what happens. Cheers.
I’m here to keep those posts alive in the thread, Casey. I don’t know why the spam filter has a sometimes taste for your posts, but I do keep an eye on it for just that reason.
@Casey –
You get my vote for being in charge of everything. Just let me handle the Naval Gunfire, Air and Amphibious Support Ops ;-).
Juan / USN/USCG Retired (’76 to ’00)
The JG… the “unhyphenated” Juan 🙂
I think we have ceased to be a nation and have become an empire ruled/directed by a small cadre of people who have nothing but contempt for the blood of our children. They use us and then mock us for our timidity.
We are in the middle east for a very basic reason.. because a loose faction of Israel (see how many congressmen/women have dual citizenship) lobbyists, and liberal elitists want us to keep pressure on the enemies of Israel… and they want to dilute the influence western white men have over the geopolitical landscapes..
Yep.. before anyone says it.. they can call me racist, anti jewish, whatever.. I don’t give a shit..
Bill Henry
So it wasn’t 50 troops and then Turkey etc etc etc. Fine. You’re probably right, Casey. My apologies. I’ve been dang busy making a living the past week and clearly not paying attention. However. What in the pluperfect hell have we been doing bombing big rocks into liddle ones for thirty years, when we have perfectly good bombing ranges here at home?
Time to go home. Way past time to go home.
No offense, Mr. H.
The wars in the MidEast have been way too long. We agree on much. But, the media narrative sux tremendously. Anytime I hear their narrative I get a butt spasm.
Take it easy.
A picked nit: Leonid Brezhnev was running the joint when the Sovs invaded Afghanistan. Gorby got them out ten years later. Of course, Gorby was in charge when Chernobyl happened, and had a big role in the lying and coverup that followed. When Moscow ordered the Kiev party chief to go on with the May Day parade, when they knew the winds were carrying the radioactive particles toward Kiev…that was the moment that doomed the Soviets.
We are in all these places because as Major General Smedly Butler experienced and wrote, War is a Racket. Also read Fool’s Errand by Scott Horton. My friend always tells me never attribute malice to that which can be explained with stupidity. The machine isn’t stupid. There is malice in all these wretched, soulless warhawks. I respect the president and any other politician who goes to Dover. If more Americans did that or walked through section 60 of Arlington as I have many times, they too would sound the call to bring them all home. I am a Christian so my wish is for us to kill only when it is necessary for the direct defense of my beloved. That is supposed to be our pact to our countrymen. I pray for mercy and peace for all mankind, but I don’t want any American fighting in a foreign land ever.