Courage

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Reading Sarge's blog post from Saturday made me think about those soldiers doing the right thing, and the mental wherewithal it takes for a person to do that.  Those Grenadiers ratting out von Lüttwitz and Sauer aren't the soldiers I was thinking about- they might have thought they were doing the right thing in their fanatical way, but that wasn't right from the Ami or the reader viewpoint.  What von Lüttwitz and Sauer were planning took tremendous courage.  It wasn't just to save themselves, but to save their entire unit.  

Courage today for the average person doesn't measure up to what they faced.  Think of actions a person might have to take that could be require tremendous courage- Standing up for someone or something that's right, maybe reporting some ethical breach, corruption, or fraud waste and abuse.  That could get you fired at worst, or maybe some social out-casting on social media (which isn't actually a bad thing).  Real life isn't like a Hollywood movie, where some evil corporation puts a hit out on a whistleblower.  But for German soldiers to stand up against Hitler or Nazi Germany, calling it out for the evilness that characterized it, or to say that the war was lost, would have taken an entirely different type of courage.  The result of that action, if unsuccessful, was surely death.  The only benefit from doing that, if it doesn't change hearts and minds, might come when one receives his heavenly reward.  However it's really tough to put earthly concerns aside when facing death, and it requires tremendous faith to do what's treasonous to German leadership, but right in the eyes of God.

Now I know von Lüttwitz wasn't exactly telling Hitler he was full of shit.  He was only saving his own ass, and the lives of his troops.  But he wasn't going to individually abandon his duties and surrender to the Amis, he was risking death by bringing his entire company with him.  That takes courage, and that's good writing- making us worry about a character who is on the wrong side of history.

I've often written about govt. ineptitude and waste, often what I see from afar, not necessarily what I'm directly exposed to in my job with the Navy. But there is some of that from where I sit. I don't have a guilty conscience about not reporting some low-level fraud, waste and abuse, or for horrible decisions on the part of Navy leadership when it comes to defense spending, system procurement or what have you -the things that are in my sphere of knowledge, familiarity, and interest.  But it's not because I haven't tried.  I've learned that some programs are too big to fail.  Our government is far too much in the pocket of big pharma, big corporations, and the defense industrial complex, to the point that there is always an ulterior motive behind our government's actions and our defense procurements.  I had a boss that said there are two reasons the military exists.  One is to fight and win our nation's wars, but the first is to employ our nation's workforce. That's why we get two classes LCS ships, to keep shipyards open.  That's why we have Joint Strike Fighters that cost 3 times what a single Hornet costs, why we always go for a quality that we can barely afford and eventually don't fully achieve, instead of quantity that has a quality all of its own. Eisenhower was right and that industrial complex throws money to the DC swamp like a drunken sailor on payday.  Congress exists not to write laws and help govern, but to redistribute taxpayer dollars to their own states, putting their own constituents to work.  And while there is a utilitarian goal of defending our nation, it really isn't.  They can't look further than their own state while doing so.  There's a reason we have the saying that all politics are local.

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Now that COVID is beginning to be less of an issue (I'm vaccinated, wife already had it), despite all the near non-stop fear-mongering in the news, I have started to make a list of all the things I want to do over the next year to make up for lost time.  Taking up the top five spots on that list is getting the hell out of dodge and going on vacation.  We have timeshare points with Marriott Vacations and we didn't get to use them much last year.  I plan to get my money's worth this year though with a few trips with family.  On the docket is a visit to Tahoe this summer with my wife's sister's family.  We will also get away from town next month to Palm Springs, on the heels of a big project I'm turning in the day prior, which will be a relief.  And I've booked a trip my wife has been wanting for several years- visiting the Caribbean, specifically Saint Thomas.  Right now they just require a negative test and masks everywhere.  Hopefully by the time we go, things will be much different, and proof of my two jabs will be enough, if at all.

Regarding that COVID fear mongering, I do wonder when we will start to see studies that say the likelihood of a vaccinated person being able to spread COVID is infinitesimal.  Until then there's no difference between being vaccinated or not- keep social distancing, keep wearing the mast, etc.  They claim it's because of the UK and South African variants.*  I'm not sure there is a big dark deep state government out there that wants to control us, as that seems a little conspiratorial.  But government can't help themselves.  When they believe it's their duty to attempt to save us from something, especially when the news sensationalizes it, they start "helping."  Therefore, we get a government that is too far reaching in their supposedly limited powers, forgetting that they work for us, and they don't rule us.

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I'm really tired of wearing masks and the mask police, and that claim that masking "shows you care."  The reason some some of my irritation about masks is that the statistics don't really support mask wearing (particularly cloth face coverings) which is not a statistically significant causal factor of anything. Never was. People keep saying things like, “We’ll see if this continues for the next few weeks, and then decide.” Its asinine. The results are not correlated.  Look at Texas.  They eliminated their mask mandate a few weeks ago, but Texans weren't beholden to them anyway, and cases of COVID-19 have decreased by 42.5%.  The positivity rate of COVID-19 tests has decreased to 5.8%, the lowest number since May 2020.  But people want to feel like “they care,” they want to “do something,” and they want to make sure others are “doing all they can.”  Hence our masking, govt shutting down everything, going trillions in debt, etc.  And masking is an easy cost-neutral demand which the govt loves to give us.

I had a discussion with a far left friend, who is at least polite in her dealings with me, willing to let me post my comments to counter her arguments, and vice versa.  The discussion was regarding entitlements and universal healthcare.  She tends to believe that the GOP is this uncaring institution, unwilling to take care of those most in need which is what we should do as job 1.  I said I agreed with her, as would most Americans, that we should care for the most vulnerable in our society.  How that should be accomplished is where the division lies.  Politics gets in the way, government does too.  That lends itself to fraud, and enabling those who could, but won't pull themselves up after using using that assistance.  As for improved healthcare, when corporate insurance remains the backbone of our medical system, I don't think govt can make it better without some serious reform, but then politics and money gets in the way of that.

I think there are plenty of politicians out there who have the courage required to do what is right- to criticize the debt we're taking on, or the weak science behind COVID precautions, the need to reform our insurance industry, to call out waste in our defense programs, etc., but they face an uphill battle.  I'm cynical as heck, but I have to hope and pray for things to improve.  That too takes courage I suppose.  We have to keep fighting the good fight, despite the difficult odds.  I think von Lüttwitz and Sauer's days of fighting are over, but hopefully their days aren't over.  I guess we'll find out soon enough.

*Wait, I thought calling it the China virus was racist- so why is the media calling the variants UK and South African?