Welcome back to "Ask Alex", where I answer all of your stupid questions with even dumber answers. Have a question you need answered? Tweet it, email it or submit it here and I will get to it (maybe) next week.
-------------------------------- Welcome to this week’s Ask Alex! Before I start, I am going to turn the tables and pose a question for you! In a couple of weeks, I am going to be indisposed for most of an entire week and unable to write. I can either a) just skip that week and pick up the following week, or b) deputize one or more people to answer questions on my behalf. Which do we think sounds better, and if it is the latter, who do you think I should draft? Comment, email, or Tweet me with your suggestions... On to your questions! There is a lot to cover this week, including crazy women, reality TV, Daryl's college plans, career advice, avocados and Rex's Big Break. So, let's get started! Submitted by: Hair Why are women crazy? Have you ever tried to date a man? You’d be crazy, too. How can a reasonably responsible adult reach maturity and still not understand the importance of and/or technique required to get all of their pee into a toilet? It’s not like the target is that small, guys. You spend your entire lives throwing trash at imaginary basketball hoops disguised as waste baskets, but can’t be troubled to learn how to consistently pee in a two foot circle 18 inches away? You all think it is totally normal to “adjust” yourself in public, to hang out doing nothing other than resting your hands in your pants, wear Axe body spray and blow terrible burp breath after belching. And the manspreading? Seriously, it’s not working...we don’t think your penis is really that big, bro. And in order to perpetuate the species, we need to somehow put up with you...if you don’t think you’d go a little crazy, you’re fooling yourself. I’m not trying to pretend that women don’t have their own idiosyncrasies (hi, I hold several degrees but still need a friend to take me to the bathroom…) but it seems to me like the man-pots are ignoring their own blackness in throwing accusations at the lady-kettles. That said, I have often thought that you can explain at least 92% of humanity if you keep two simple facts in mind:
Submitted by: CDP What is the correct ranking of Alaska-based Discovery Channel shows from just trashy (Alaskan Bush People) to kind of 21st Century Walden (the last Alaskans). The entire premise of your question is garbage and I reject it...Alaskan Bush People “trashy”?!?! How dare, you, sir...what holy hell could have afflicted you so badly as to make your standards of television so indefensibly outrageous?!?! I am LITERALLY shaking with outrage right now. *Two hours later* OK, I have settled down and I am ready to write again. First, it is worth noting once again how many shows Discovery has based in Alaska. They have no fewer than nine Discovery Channel reality shows that are full-time Alaska based, employing what I believe to be 40% of Alaska’s eligible workforce. That is not even the whole picture, since Life Below Zero (“Sue Aikens Mansplains Everything”), Ice Road Truckers, Alaska State Troopers, Alaska’s Ultimate Bush Pilots, Slednecks, Wild West Alaska, Out of the Wild, Alaskan Women Looking for Love (which technically took place in Miami but was absolutely the trashiest of all of these shows), Mountain Men, Tougher in Alaska, Mounted in Alaska (get your mind out of the gutter, it is about taxidermy you perv!), Yukon River Run, Coast Guard Alaska, Big Hair Alaska and at least one season of Ax Men all either appear on other networks or no longer appear on television. Shows like Dirty Jobs, Dual Survival, Dude You’re Screwed, Frozen Planet and Great Bear Stakeout may all be in Alaska at times, but aren’t really based anywhere. If we stop and take a second, let’s remember that the population of Alaska is about 700,000...if we assume that every one of these shows introduced us to an average of 20 Alaskans (it is probably more, but we’ll go with that) then nearly 1 in 1,500 Alaskans has appeared on a reality television show. I am going to go ahead and guess that this far and away dwarfs the likelihood of a resident of any other state appearing on a TV show. I would guess that California (where probably at least 60% of reality shows are based and cast) may be close, but to reach the same proportion of residents as we get from Alaska, you’d need over 25,000 Californians to have appeared on a reality show. It is a staggering number. That settled, I’m going to go through the nine currently airing shows, from best to worst. 1) Alaskan Bush People - There are so many reasons why this is the single best terrible show on television. Let’s start with the obvious: they are all actors who live nearby and are spotted in town talking on cell phones regularly. If they spend any time on their “homestead” at all, it is pretty limited. And if it weren’t, it would almost certainly be a combination of child abuse and super-weird cult formation. I’m also not sure that they are all actually related...the kids look very little alike, and none of them look like the parents. Shit, they all have different accents!!! They also tend to ruin most everything they do: their boats sink regularly, their houses get ransacked by bears and a lot of their grand ideas tend to collapse into the swamp. This might be because Billy comes down with a sudden disk-slip or a “spring flu” every time there is any actual work to be done. Noah thinks he is a weird cross between Cyrano de Bergerac, Thomas Edison and P.T. Barnum. Matt is most definitely a serial killer. Bam needs to lighten up, like a lot. Bear is a seven year old in a 30 year old’s body. Ami forgot to brush her teeth for like 25 years. They got braces to fix Gabe’s barely-crooked teeth and yet won’t get Birdie’s hideous front tooth fixed and she would be so darn cute if they did!!! But obviously, the very best reason is Raindrop, which should be no surprise coming from the founding member of #TeamRainy. They claim that she is like 14, but that doesn’t seem right...she looks like a really gorgeous 19, she doesn’t talk like someone that young, and there appear to be baby pictures of her when her sister (who is allegedly 8 years older) seems to be a toddler. Frankly, I can’t understand why the show isn’t mostly about her, with the rest of them appearing just as "Holy shit, where did she come from?" background. In fact I would like to re-propose two separate spin-offs starring Rainy. In the first, she wakes up one day, announces “You people are fucking insane!” and moves to New York to be a model. I’ll tell you about the second in a minute... 2) Alaska: The Last Frontier - You probably know this as “Jewel’s Family’s Show”. It features her brother, sister-in-law, Father, Aunt and Uncle, and some cousins. It can actually sort of be a snooze, and it casually hides the fact that they are basically pretty rich (and not just from the show, or from the prodigal daughter - they are large landowners and have timber and cattle interests as well.) So, why does it earn the #2 spot on my list? Because of the most adorably crunchy non-hipsters on the planet, Eve and Eivan (Eivan is Jewel’s cousin). These are the people that organic, free-range, vegan, fair-trade artisanal vegetable growing hipsters all across America imagine themselves as, only with worse plumbing. Which gets to my second Rainy spinoff: Rainy leaves the Wolfpack and moves in with Eve and Eivan as their surrogate little sister/nanny. She helps with the kids, but also pitches in with the hunting and fishing, appears on the cooking show (it’s in development) and befriends the animals. In exchange, she gets to live closer to a real place, go to an actual school and learn about what it is like to live with normal people. Bonus: Jewel comes to visit and steals her away to Los Angeles to become a model. Hey...guess what? You can stay on the Homestead with them if you’d like! 3) Gold Rush - The Gang that Can’t Shoot Straight! The never-ending adventures of the Hoffman crew as they try and try and try again to find some gold in the wilderness that they are so totally close to getting if only they can just get that goddamn wash plant to run for more than seven minutes. The show has gotten a little more boring as they have actually gotten better at finding gold and stopped talking constantly about The Glory Hole, but they still manage to get themselves upside down and twisted sideways trying to do what an unintelligible Dutchman and a pouty teenager seem to have very little trouble doing regularly. Nothing will ever top Jack’s great getaway on the excavator in Season 2… My biggest question here, other than “Why don’t we get more Bailey?” is about the economics of the whole operation. They love to get all excited about things like “There’s a MILLION DOLLARS in there” but compared to the scope and cost of their operations, it is hard to see how they make any money (other than, obviously, being on a TV show). Take the Hoffman’s best season, for example, where they found like $3 million in gold (minus the $450,000 they had to pay the land owner). But to do that, they needed two bulldozers (that they bought for $125k each) a couple of excavators, four dump truck, giant pumps, a massive wash plant that cost like half a million bucks, fuel to run all of that equipment all day and night and the compensation for 10 guys for four months. That doesn’t even begin to get into the question of how you get fuel and food for those ten guys all the way out to Buttfuck, AK in the first place and where the random pieces of highly specialized equipment that they find on every show come from. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that it wasn’t very realistic at all!!! 4) Bering Sea Gold - There are two kinds of people on this show. First, there are people who never, ever find any gold. Second, there is Sean Pomrenke, the prison-going, bar-fighting, Emily-banging, disk-slipping man’s man that they call Mr. Gold. The real star of this show, though, is Nome, AK’s status as a desolate, barren, end-of-the-line hell hole. A friend once told me, after living in the northwest, “Everyone I ever met on their way to Alaska was running from something,” and judging by this show, Nome is where they end up when they have run out of other places in Alaska to run to. 5) Yukon Men - I’m not sure what the purpose of this show is, to be honest. It is where I learned what a Fish Wheel is, so that’s good. And they spend a lot of time talking about dogs, so that’s good, too. Joey Zuray could be Lou Diamond Phillips son, and Courtney Agnes is kind of a boss, too, so maybe there is more going on here than I am giving it credit for. Also, I am wondering how subsistence livers can be that fat..? 6) The Last Alaskans - Why are they the last Alaskans? We've already met literally hundreds of other Alaskans, all gainfully employed in the state's second largest industry: reality television. And, if the gold shows are to be believed, lots of people are still moving to Alaska ever day to see if they can find their own Glory Hole somewhere in the wilderness. I can't really see how this is any different that Yukon Men, but it's got fewer dogs, so it comes in one spot below. 7) Edge of Alaska - This show is kinda weird, and thoroughly contrived. The premise seems to be that this tiny town near the interior Canadian border is torn apart by one guy seeking to modernize the town as a tourist destination. Lots of contrived conflict and poorly acted reality ensues. No one ever stops to ask two really key questions. First, why would anyone want to come and visit McCarthy, Alaska? It is accessible only by a 60 mile gravel road that is not maintained in winter and and it’s major tourist attractions include “being on the way to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park” and old, condemned copper mines. So, basically, Disneyworld! 8) Deadliest Catch (and Dungeon Cove) - Meh. This is kind of the Grandfather of “Dangerous Job Reality TV” but I never really got into it. Just a bunch of smelly guys living on miserable boats. The show would be dramatically improved with the addition of angry whales intent on gaining vengeance. Also, crab is tasteless and thoroughly overrated...come at me bro. 9) Buying Alaska - It’s like House Hunters (which is far and away the most hate-watched show on television) except every home comes with 22 acres and instead of running water, you get a grizzly bear. Which reminds me of a joke...if you are being chased by a bear, how can you tell whether it is a Grizzly bear or a Black Bear? Easy...you climb a tree. If the bear comes up the tree and eats you, it was a Black Bear. But Grizzlies can’t climb trees, so if it knocks the tree over and eats you, it was a Grizzly. Submitted by: Timothy E. Miller If you saw Robyn and I talking about the hypothetical presidential run, would you accept a nomination to be my Treasurer?" Treasurer of the campaign? Or Secretary of the Treasury? I don’t want a temporary job dialing for cash from fat cat donors just to be first in line for a potential appointment should this long-shot campaign succeed. But if you win (or if Robyn wins, since she is clearly the top of the ticket) I’ll take the Secretary of the Treasury job. The pay cut would be a pain in the ass, but I’d justify it by the ability to make serious bank when I’m done. Tim Geithner was one of the poorest Treasury Secretaries on record (his last pre-Treasury salary was a paltry $411,000) but rolled right into an MD job at Warburg Pincus, a book deal and six figure speaking fees. The Secretary may be underpaid, but the job dramatically increases one’s earning potential immediately afterwards. This is some good career advice, by the way: you better have a really good reason to take a pay cut. If you are switching jobs and switching firms and they are going to pay you less, then the job is almost certainly a step backwards and you should be wary. And if it’s not a step backwards...why are you getting paid less? You’re not worth any less than you are today, and in fact you may be worth more. Not that there are no good reasons to take a pay cut; in fact there are many. Just as one example, a very good friend of mine just left her job as an Associate for a top tier law firm to take a job as the General Counsel or a small biotech, a move that included a pretty big pay cut (almost $100,000). But she did it because she didn’t really want to be a partner (and wasn’t sure they would make her one), didn’t want to work the hours she was working and wanted to travel less. So, in giving up the money, she got a much less stressful environment, a much better schedule, and an office right near her house (also equity, but ignore that for now:-)). The key point being that she is not trying to take a step back in hopes of taking two steps forward, she is taking a left hand turn into an entirely different direction. So, let that be a lesson to you, kids...don’t take a pay cut unless you know exactly why it is that you’re being paid less and you are very consciously trying to get away from doing those things. Submitted by: Anonymous I just found out that I am getting my first big promotion in a couple of months. It comes with a big raise and I’m not sure what I should prioritize with that raise. Help me, Alex! Definitely better drugs. What is the point of getting a raise if you’re not gonna use it to buy a better cut of cocaine?!? What perfect timing, two money and career questions in a row! It’s almost as if I order these questions in a way that makes them tell a continuing story… Not to sound redundant, but you should prioritize it based on your priorities (SWIDT?). Most likely, you have some personal list of wants and needs that may include a bigger house or apartment (either buying or renting), or a car or new clothes or a vacation or whatever. I can’t tell you which of those things matters most to you, so I can’t tell you what you should spend your increased salary on. Nor did you include anything about debts, current expenses vs. the size of the raise, etc...so, I will limit this to broad ideas. As a general rule, if you aren’t saving enough (or anything), this is a great time to fix that. If your salary is going to go up by $1,000 a month, then increasing your savings by $500 still means that you will get a $500 raise in discretionary income. It is the least painful time to do so, since it doesn’t involve elimination of any current spending. Basic thought process, though. First, if you are not taking advantage of any company-match for a 401K or 403B plan, you should fix that immediately. That is salary that you or foregoing, and you should capture that. It may well make sense to up your retirement contributions by even more than that, but at a minimum that makes sense for almost everyone. Second, tackle bad debts. If you are carrying interest-paying credit card debt or personal loans, pay those down as quickly and as aggressively as you can. It is good for your credit, it is good for your financial safety and it is a good way to prepare yourself to tackle bigger and more beneficial commitments in the future. Bonus, in doing so, you will cut down on interest payments and minimum payments and free up even more cash flow, which sort of leverages up your raise. Third, work on an emergency fund. Financial planners are all over the place on this and suggest that most people aim to hold anywhere from 2-12 months of expenses in a no-risk cash account, but the specifics are less important than the existence. You sound young, employable and likely without too many dependents, so you probably don’t need more than a couple of months, but if you can put yourself in a position to survive 3-4 months without drawing any kind of a salary or depleting other savings, you will be in pretty good shape. After that, tackle the big things! Thinking of buying a house? Start diverting some portion of the raise into a savings account for a down payment. Want to buy a car? Maybe you can assign a portion of that raise to take on a car payment. Have some dental work you’ve been putting off? Take care of that! I tend to be a pretty responsible spender: I save a lot before I start spending money on stupid shit. But don’t be afraid to spoil yourself a little bit. You’ve worked hard and done well to earn the promotion and the raise, and you are entitled to waste some of it even if you are intent on being a grown-up. Whether that means taking a big trip, buying a super expensive bag or shoes, blowing an absurd sum on a fancy dinner...whatever it is, live a little, you’ve earned it! Submitted by: Gringo Suave There are two Western Civ classes that I have to take in order to graduate. They are at the Community College Level. If I run out of financial aid...I would rather pay for [Community College] classes out of pocket than [Four-year college] classes. Should I just concentrate on my [college] classes and leave the Western Civ classes until the end? I feel like you have kind of answered your own question here. Sketch out your schedule to complete your degree requirements and figure out whether or not all of the classes fit in. If they don’t, you know which ones to take elsewhere. As background, Daryl served in the Army when he was younger, and is now attending college in preparation for his post-Army career. He has completed his Associate's degree at a Community College (Congrats, Daryl!) and has just been accepted as a Junior in a four year college. He asks this question in reference to mapping out his course load to complete his bachelor's degree in political science. The requirements are broken down into classes that have to be taken at the school issuing the degree (which cost about $1,500 each) and classes that can be taken at a Community College and transferred ($300 each). First of all, it is fun to note that I was a PoliSci major, which totally explains how I have worked in private equity since the day I graduated...right? It seems like you should be able to tell now, though. Just take stock of the graduation requirements, map out when you will take all of those classes and see if you can fit them all into your financial aid package. If not, then take those two for the short money and pay for the more expensive ones with your financial aid. I have a bunch more questions about the nature and type of financial aid and your capacity to pay out of pocket, but I will leave those for another time:-). Submitted by: The Irreverent From peas in guacamole-gate to avocados oppressing millennials, why has the lowly, delicious fruit come to symbolize cultural/economic gap? This is a good question...avocados do seem to have been at the center of a whole bunch of controversies of late. To recap, Australian Tim Gurner (who is unquestionably a talented entrepreneur with a mostly self-made fortune of near $350 million dollars) suggested that the reason Millennials are not getting ahead financially is because they eat Avocado Toast and drink coffee from Starbucks. Putting aside the obvious - that young people do often spend money on frivolous things - it is utterly preposterous to suggest that a couple of dollars a day is a more important economic drag than massive student loan debt and a series of policies that make houses substantially more expensive than they were for previous generations AND makes rent more expensive on a relative basis (artificially low interest rates, government-backed mortgages, strict environmental and zoning laws, slow permitting of new home construction…) Also, there were an alarming number of people in my timeline who didn’t seem to know what avocado toast is...how is that possible? For starters, it’s not like it is a newfangled, cutting-edge culinary invention, it’s been a pretty normal snack for like 40 years. And second, it’s avocado spread on toast, it’s not that fucking confusing. “Bertha, have you heard of this crazy new thing the kids are drinking? They call it ‘chocolate milk’.” “Chocolate milk, Seymour, what on earth is that?!?!? Is it a Google Computer thing?” “I believe it is some kind of sorcery or smart phone pad thing. It makes brown cows give brown milk. It probably comes from the World Wide Intertwitter thingy Book.” “Maybe they feed cocoa leave to the cows to get the milk that way? I’ll send an email from our shared Compuserve account to Kathy and ask.” “Whatever it is, it’s the reason these kids today can’t get ahead like we did. By the way, did both pension checks and our Social Security come in? We have to pay the property tax bill...the bill keeps going up because this house is now worth so much goddamn money and they only let us poor old folks skip out on half the bill! And I want to go to the doctor 11 times next month for $5 copays because I am lonely and he gives me lollipops.” I’m not real sure that there is a specific reason, other than sheer happenstance, that avocados have been at the center of so many interesting stories. I do know that their rising cost is probably a sign that younger people eat a lot more avocados than their parents did, mostly because they are really good for you and taste delicious. In other words, because they are better foods than the jello molds and ham salad that old people ate when they were younger. But one thing that I think we can all agree on: putting peas in your guacamole is a crime against humanity and should be punishable by death. Submitted by: Lunatic Rex My question was more about being excited about being invited onto a show to talk about my memoir. Something like “I’m going on a radio show on Monday, what should I wear?” Space Ghost Jimmy wants to know if this is a question or a story. This is really just a shameless plug for Rex’s witty, interesting and downright fun memoir, unfolding in bi-weekly parts as we speak (that link is to the seventh installment, which has links to the first six). Rex is going to appear with George Templeton and Krayon Pundit on Foreign Matters this coming Monday, May 22 at 10:00 p.m. on Vigilant Liberty Radio to talk about this and anything else that comes up. If you want to make a cranky, cantankerous old man swell up with mushy love, just ask him about his wife;-). And, is there really anything else to wear other than your dress uniform? I mean, either that or nothing. Submitted by: Patriot Musket Will [David] Clarke change to a straw hat when he moves to DC? Unless he changes into manacles and an orange jumpsuit, he will be improperly dressed. I can think of almost no one in public service who is more of a lecherous cancer on America than David Clarke (other contenders: Anthony Weiner, Joe Arpaio, Dennis Hastert, Fred Richmond). David Clarke is the tough-talking Law-and-Order sheriff of Milwaukee County who rose to fame by being an unabashed supporter of Donald Trump and consistently shouting things far below the dignity of his office. Not surprisingly, Donald Trump loves him, cites him repeatedly as evidence that he is loved by “the blacks”, and just rewarded him with a job as the Assistant Director of Homeland Security. There don’t seem to be many people in Milwaukee upset to see him go...and, in fact, there seem to be a lot of people wondering whether he even remembers where his office is. He also, to Musket’s question, inexplicably wears a cowboy hat wherever he goes. It is part of his childish need to play dress-up in a manner that makes him seem like someone he clearly is not. I don’t know how or why this became his thing, but he is from the Davy Crocket school of “If you are gonna be known for something, be known for your stupid hat” school of thought. He’s the Lisa Loeb of stupid racist sheriffs, only instead of wearing the same pair of glasses for 25 years and singing angsty songs about reluctant boyfriends, he wears a cowboy hat and shouts about poor oppressed police officers and lazy black people. He is also currently being sued for harassing a private citizen (who’s crime was criticizing Clarke’s Dallas Cowboys jersey) and for instructing his staff to abuse inmates in jails. An infant may have died because the mother gave birth alone in her cell without assistance. Oh, and this is super cute: he may have ordered his employees to turn off the tap water in a mentally-ill man’s cell for a week, causing him to die of dehydration. But, you know, “tough on crime” and Blue Lives Matter and all that. I famous hat wearers for a second. There is Lincoln and his stovepipe, and the aforementioned King of the Wild Frontier. Speedy Gonzalez and his sombrero - wait, can a cartoon character be a racial slur, because I think Speedy may have been one. Oh, who am I kidding, of course a cartoon can be a racial slur. Yasser Arafat had a pretty famous hat, and so did Gilligan, but only one of them ever won a Nobel Peace Prize. Indiana Jones had a really famous hate, as did Charlie Chaplin and they both had their own interesting Nazi ties. In fact, has there ever been a more retroactively unfortunate fashion choice than Charlie Chaplin’s mustache? (Quick, someone find me an early Three Stooges clip where Moe sports a Ho Chi Ming beard!) What was I talking about again? Oh, right, what a total dirtball David Clarke is! Let’s go back to the harassing of a private citizen. Clarke was on a plane in January wearing a Dallas Cowboy’s jersey (which is, I believe, punishable by death in Wisconsin during the playoffs). A random passenger shook his head at Clarke’s attire. After trying to confront him on the plane, Clarke ordered six officers and two German Shepherds to take the man off the plane, detain him and (Clarke’s actual words) “interview him, but not arrest him ‘unless he becomes an asshole with your guys’. Question for him is why he said anything to me? Why didn’t he just keep his mouth shut?” It should be worth noting that Clarke has largely confirmed this story. So, he either still thinks that this is a legitimate use of police resources and a reasonable reaction, or he knows it isn’t and just doesn’t even care to hide it. Either way, it might be a good time to remind you that Donald Trump is going to give him control of a Department with 240,000 employees and a whole bunch of tanks, helicopters and other things that no thinking person would ever let David Clarke anywhere near. Hmm...it’s almost like someone tried to warn you once about Donald Trump’s fitness as an executive...
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A Memoir: Part Eight
"The Pragmatic Volunteer" is a twice weekly series. Check back every Wednesday and Friday for the latest installments!
Author's Note: What follows is the poorly thought-out and loosely examined history of the life of a guy who didn’t much matter in the grand scheme. But he mattered. We all matter. And I had a hell of a lot of… fun and such along the way. I intend to chronicle some of the experiences of a 23-year career in the United States Air Force.
In the office one day, I had just gotten off the phone and my boss, a captain who sat directly across from me (our ‘Air Force anchors’ abutted each other), said “You should work on your people skills.” Ma’am? “You are too gruff. When you answer the phone, you should add ‘Can I help you?’ to the end of your greeting.” My habit was to give my rank, last name, and duty section. So I said to her that since I already told them everything they would need to figure out whether I could help them, I didn’t see a need to ask the question. She shrugged in grudging agreement. I didn’t change my phone-answering habits.
I worked in the Exercises and Plans shop, so coordinating and helping run the annual exercise I spoke of earlier (TEAM SPIRIT) was a large part of what I did for a living. It was at this point called ‘Ulchi Focus Lens’ (though we came up with some other things “UFL” could mean). As the players were arriving from all over the theater, one day a guy I didn’t know approached me and asked if he could stay at my place off base during the event. Negative. Also, how did he know I lived off base? Finally, my place was hot all the time. No AC, and a window unit was not an option because there were security bars in all the windows (a requirement that had to be met for military personnel to be allowed to rent a place). This dude stayed in a big tent. OK, it was on the base and there were other people in it with him. But it had cold AC. I knew this because part of my job had been ensuring all the tents were cool enough for the players to sleep. I mention this because it was just so odd of him to ask. A lot of other stuff happened while I was in Korea, but that’ll stay between me and the wall. After ‘Rex Does Korea,’ my next duty assignment was to an Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) base in northwest Florida. I was assigned to a tenant unit (not a SOC activity) there whose mission was training warfighters and running an exercise called BLUE FLAG, which was the control part of Exercise RED FLAG, the annual ‘poke holes in the sky’ event at Nellis AFB just outside Las Vegas. We also wrote scenarios for RED FLAG and trained up intel folks at the schoolhouse. My old friend Jo was stationed there and made sure she was my sponsor when she saw my name on the incoming personnel roster. A sponsor is the person who helps a member transition to a new base (PDS), answering questions and giving advice on different issues in the local area. Jo mentioned to me in her welcome letter (while I was still at Osan) that “The people speak English down here (after a fashion).” Not sure if she knew I was from around the area, but in any case I don’t have a strong Southern accent. She was not to be my supervisor; her husband was. He was a desk-bound pilot who ran the operations shop. We had many different specialties in that school: Operators, intel folks, an Army shop, and even a couple JAG guys (lawyers). Teaching war is complicated. For the first several months, I didn’t really have any idea what my job was. It was a new activity, and my boss, the pilot, didn’t really seem to know what he wanted me to be doing. Not a slam on him; no one really knew what we were doing. So he had me doing all manner of stuff, not much of it to do with my specialty code (intel). And that was fine, if confusing and a bit frustrating. He did get me to help him with issues when he had questions relating to intel guy stuff (he had an actual job and reported to the squadron CO). The school finally started jelling up and we all figured it out. A new CO had come in, and he called me into his office one day to tell me he wanted me to be his targeting intelligence instructor. We would be teaching in a formal classroom setting, and our students would include officers and enlisted people from all four branches, as well as officers from foreign allies who were sent to us specifically to learn how we did what we did. I will not disparage our allies from the Arabian Peninsula here. But I could. There was a problem, which I mentioned to the boss when he told me what a big part of my job would be: I had never had any formal training on targeting or weaponeering. Turns out he knew this (of course), and he informed me I would be returning to western Texas to learn it so I could teach it. This course was intensive and very enlightening. I learned a new side of my business, and it served me well for the rest of my career. Targeting is a very precise business in the modern world, as is weaponeering. The targeting piece is figuring out what to break in order to achieve a given objective. Weaponeering is the part where we calculate which weapons will best meet requirements and how many of them were needed to give us the best chance of success. There is a lot of math. *pats Algebra on my hip* One day, we took a field trip to a nearby electrical substation. These are a critical part of any nation’s infrastructure, and their design is fairly standard across the world. So we went out there and did a field exercise, learning all the moving parts and what did what. And then we drew up a plan to ensure its destruction to varying levels (to simulate potential mission objectives). That was an interesting day, and the local utility guys were very helpful and cooperative in helping us figure out how to destroy them. And I met a girl. We wrote an exercise scenario for the classes we were teaching. These scenarios usually involve a real place on earth, reconfigured and renamed for our exercise purposes. In this case, we created Redland and Blueland, which were separated by the Alpine Sea. This “sea” we created by erasing the Alps and filling the cavity with saltwater. Intel guys are magic! For the scenario to be used in a formal teaching environment, it required a narrative to accompany the images and charts on the screen. Since I had been a major part of creating the scenario, the CO chose me to record this narration, which me and my boss wrote. This meant quite a few late nights because it needed to be quiet to record it and the place was full of noisy people in the daytime. One day, I was passing Jo in a hallway. She stopped me and told me she liked the scenario, and that I was a great choice as the narrator. I’ve always been a singer, and by now had become pretty adept at public speaking. But if you’re anything like me, the sound of your own voice talking at you is unpleasant. So this was a boost to my ego, even though I hadn’t mentioned to anyone that my voice coming out in the squadron’s theater (our main classroom for the academic side of our mission) bugged me a little. Jo told me my voice was mellifluous. My vocabulary can be described as “adequate;” hers was far superior. But I learned a new word that day. And I was flattered. One Monday following the Thanksgiving break (most units try to work it so that is a 4-day weekend, as indeed this one did), the CO called the entire unit into the theater. He said ‘There are four buses outside, and all of you are going to board them and go take a urinalysis right now. Do not return to your spaces even to get your cover (that’s a hat). Proceed directly to the buses.’ We were all making tryptophan jokes, but he was looking for someone. He found the person. No, it wasn’t me. So I married this girl. My kids were living in my hometown just a 2-hour drive from my duty location, so I had them every other weekend and at other times in what I reckon is a pretty standard custody arrangement. I had become concerned about their treatment by TRIJtM’s new husband. He wasn’t physically abusive, but they had had a couple kids together and he liked his kids more than mine. I suppose this is natural. After all, I liked my kids more than his. I didn’t even know his kids. So I sued for custody. The kids were old enough that what they wanted strongly factored into the judge’s decision. She took them both to her chambers (with a bailiff or someone as chaperone), and reported they both would prefer to live with me instead. And I (and they) won. I had been promoted to E-7 (Master Sergeant, MSgt), and when it was time for me to choose where I would like to go next, I had two overseas options: Hickam AFB, Hawaii and RAF Mildenhall in England. Easy choice, right? Well, no. A colleague of mine who sometimes acted as the unit’s First Sergeant had been assigned to Hickam (which is an ‘overseas’ assignment for those purposes) and told me of a lot of problems her son had had in the public schools there. Nothing against Hawaiians, but kids are mean and I had been a little concerned that my two ‘haoles’ might have issues with the locals. I had also learned a couple things on my previous trip to the area. The Department of Defense runs primary school activities in all foreign countries to ensure American children are taught to American standards and in English. These schools cost the member nothing in tuition, so it’s the same as sending your kids to public schools in CONUS. Well, not the same. DoDDS schools are far superior. Hawaii, since it isn’t actually a foreign country, has no DoDDS schools. So, I chose RAF Mildenhall and was selected for that assignment. It was my first assignment to a flying unit as an intel guy, and I was to be the Superintendent of the Intel Flight. No, I didn’t fix plumbing or otherwise work on people’s apartment buildings. I was the enlisted leader of around 30 people, most of whom (but not all) were intelligence specialists like myself. Our building was new, and the intel vault (a large office space secured in several ways for working with classified information) was still using the old Air Force anchors until we could work out a plan and order new stuff for the spaces. We didn’t have any televisions yet. One day about five weeks after I got to Mildenhall I was working on some annual individual performance reports and other ‘administrivia’ when my boss, sitting at her desk beside me, asked ‘MSgt Rex, what are you doing right now?’ I told her and asked if I should be doing something else. She was looking at CNN’s web site and said an airplane had just hit the World Trade Center in New York. My immediate thought was ‘oh, some Cessna got blown off course in the canyons again.’ The date was 11 September 2001. As you know, it wasn’t a light aircraft. And neither was the next one that hit. And we got very, very busy very, very quickly. When my boss asked me that first question, it was just before 14:00 on that Tuesday. We immediately converted to a 24/7 schedule and I would be writing a new duty schedule to cover the shifts. Manpower was an issue since were manned for a primarily day shift operation. I quickly came up with a skeleton and we sent people home with at least some idea of when they would be working. But someone had to man the phones and other devices throughout that first night. I gathered the troops and asked for one volunteer to stay with me (I obviously wasn’t going anywhere any time soon: This is what senior NCOs do) through the night so we could keep the vault unlocked and to be a second set of eyes for any issues that might pop up. A young lieutenant immediately said he would do it. I liked that kid, and he earned even more of my respect in that moment. We worked a 25-hour shift that day. And we would have kept going until the engines shut down. That’s what we do. As you might imagine, life was drastically altered for American personnel around the world that day. Things I had just been getting accustomed to (because I was still fairly new at that location) changed completely. Force protection measures and duty requirements underwent some incredible changes in a very brief period. These changes would keep coming for a long time afterward, too. The primary mission of RAF Mildenhall is flying air-to-air refueling (AAR) missions in support of command objectives and to help service NATO allies’ fighters and other aircraft. The equipment assigned to this end was the KC-135 Stratotanker, which was then the Air Force’s most numerous aerial-refueling platform. The same airframe as the Boeing 707, this jet had the greatest range (longest legs) in theater and could also haul a great deal of people and stuff along with all that gas.
I know mocking the left and the media isn't the solution, but I do enjoy it. I don't feel bad or cheap about it either, because I know they earned it. It's fun, it's gratifying, and I'm not interested in sparing them any embarrassment. Those personal preferences and pleasantries aside, there’s also a more serious matter.
I understand that some people thought they could join hands with the media and the left and they'd take you in. I'm sorry they continue to reject you. It must be hard, trying to please them. You can keep feeding them all the anti-conservative propaganda you want, it won't help. Even with conservatives taking stands against Trump throughout the election and today, they still tie us to it. Sure, they pretended to extend the olive branch during the election, but that was when they wanted everyone to bend the knee. Now they're just raging that their trick backfired, and they're blaming you. I guess I could move past all that and be the bigger person, but I won't. I won't cut them any slack or extend them any grace. If we are afraid that pointing out the bias of the media and the hypocrisy of the left is helping Trump, then we should just confess our irrelevance in the political arena. If we've given up on defending ourselves because we are afraid it might help the big-government nutjob governing in our name, then maybe it's time to hang it all up. Stop wasting time calling out bullshit and join the left in slamming conservatives. Time to make a confession in the public square that conservatives are all trash and make a formal pledge to the agenda. Maybe we can beg for forgiveness for existing. After we admit it was totally our fault the left pushed Trump and gave him free media in an attempt to rig the election for their candidate. That's pretty much what they ask for. But what about Trump? Well to hell with Trump, too. He's right there with them. There isn't any justification to be found for Trump's actions in pointing out the hypocrisy of the left, nor in declaring the bias and inaccuracies of the media. Trump can be wrong, the media can be biased, and left can be hypocritical at the same time. Choosing to ignore it is harmful. Remaining silent in the face of distortion is a surrender of the demand for truth, and you cannot be diligent against corruption or scandal while surrendering the demand for truth. The past eight years should've taught us that. I'm not required to rebuild journalistic integrity. They'll have to do that on their own. Stop being a cheap date and buying and selling into inaccurate or distorted narratives about conservatives. Demand truth. There is no interest in defending, enabling, or aiding the kind of liberalism that seeks the destruction of conservatives. It's ideological suicide. |
MisfitsJust a gaggle of people from all over who have similar interests and loud opinions mixed with a dose of humor. We met on Twitter. Archives
January 2024
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