WHY AM I HERE ON A.R.M?

WHY AM I HERE ON A.R.M?

LT Bobby Ross and I go back a long way. I was once a Huey gunship pilot for the 101st Airborne Division, and one of a group that like to be given the hottest missions, that is, flying Long Range Recon Patrols (LRRPs). You’ve seen the movies. Half a dozen extremos in cammo paint, and a couple of ARVN Rangers, get dropped deep in bad guy country. The enemy are very good, very brave, and they are savvy. When they spot the team, they don’t just shoot them up. They put a ring of machine guns and AAA around them, and dare somebody to come get them. A bunch of crazy guys in helicopters come over the hill shooting rockets and miniguns, and they pick up the LRRP team and shoot their way out. As that guy shooting the rockets, I figured there was only one group of troops in the whole war who hung it out farther than we did. Those were the guys we were taking in there, and then going back to pull out. Bobby was one of them, often as not the team leader, the one who had to call the shots men lived or died by, and the last one to get on the helicopter out of there. We never met, but as LRRP guys were a pretty small club, chances are very high we were on some of the same missions.

As though that weren’t enough coincidence, a few years later Bobby was in Nashville making a name in country music, playing guitar and singing songs about being a veteran, and about the things we thought were important enough to put our lives on the line for. I was on the west coast in the wine country, playing my guitar and singing metaphysical hippie love songs, about what I thought was eternally true, and hopefully virtuous. We connected on the internet, and I’ve been on Bobby’s LRRP boards for many years since. Now once again, we find ourselves on the same ground, this time politically. These days America is more and more polarized by the two-product-market techniques of the Right and the Left. Bobby and I are once again on the same page, but it ain’t the right page or the left page. There is more to it than the guns-and-Bibles guys on the right, and the safe-nursery-rules and free-cheese guys on the left, and it is increasingly important that more Americans recognize that. It is going to take some very open-minded and adult thinking to deal effectively with what is real in our complex and troubled world today, and the extremists on both sides are contributing to the problem, not the solution.

These days I like saying, “It takes both the right wing and the left wing to make the Eagle fly.” The system of government our forefathers created is a dialectic, a coordinated and respectful conversation between opposing points of view, exactly like the wings of an Eagle, hopefully led by a clear head with both eyes open to give him a sense of perspective. There are things on both sides of the aisle that a good, honest, and well-funded government can do for a democratically involved public better than we can do independently. These include things like a national highway and power system, the Navy and the Coast Guard, and the VA system of medical care. There are things on both sides of the aisle that the government should keep out of, and let a well-informed and free market of independent citizens take care of ourselves. The trick is to find the wisdom to know which is which, and to progress beyond the left/right paradigm to make the good things work, to quit doing things that don’t, and to serve both the people and the country.

There has never been a more important time for American citizens to become informed, to become involved, and to be heard. Nobody on ARM is asking you to kill anybody or die for us, nor to shell out your money. Just decide where you stand, take a step forward, and sound off like you have a pair

James Nathan Post “Lancer 17” 101st Abn. ’67-’68

Here's one I sent to the Kingsmen (we old rotorheads of the 101st) APR 4, 2010.

I know I like to run my face pretty long and hard, and sometimes I think I would have been smarter to have quit years ago and learned to do something Americans respect and reward, play golf, sell insurance or basketball shoes, but I just can't let our country keep going to the f*ckheads and feather merchants without at least yelling about it. I know we here at what's left of Camp Eagle hold many opinions about how best to help, but I believe we are all singing in the same key. I don't claim to have all the answers, but I do believe those who read this stuff here are intelligent and caring Americans who would still put our lives on the line every day if that were called for. I may be a fringe loony, and our country about half nuts, but I still consider it an honor to be an American and a Kingsman. Best advice I've got is to stay off the credit cards and the stupid-pills Doctor wants to sell you, work hard to take care of your families and your community, respect God in whatever form you know Him, learn what you can about the people who run for office, pick the honest ones (I believe there are some), and vote. Also keep your powder dry and pray we don't have to start shooting each other to keep what our forefathers gave us, and good men like our brothers Cpt. Olson and Smitty Link died for.

La Mantilla De Maria

I once lived in Costa Rica, where they have names for different kinds of rain. I particularly liked the Pelo de Gato, that is, cat fur, which is so fine it was hard to tell if it was really rain, or just falling fog. I am not Catholic, but I also liked Baño de Maria, Mary’s bath, which means rain falling on you while the sun is shining. Today here in Albuquerque, something wonderful happened. First it began to snow, in great big fluffy flakes without a breath of wind to disturb their fall. It snowed just enough to drape everything with a layer of perfect white. Then in minutes, the clouds broke open like curtains to reveal a clear blue sky, a balmy afternoon that quickly flashed the snow away, leaving all the new spring colors wet and bright and alive. I hereby declare that to have been Mantilla de Maria, Mary’s mantle of lace.