New Orleans

When I look at the figures involved in Major League Baseball contracts -- $16 million here, $250 million there -- I find it impossible to actually imagine the practical difference between sums of that magnitude. That's because I can't actually conceptualize a million or a billion -- they're abstract concepts in my head, the concrete numbers defy any effort to contain them in a thought. Try thinking of a million things. I can't.

I find it similarly impossible to imagine the scope of the Hurricane Katrina disaster that's left much of the Gulf Coast in a state of near-anarchy. The sheer size of the area devastated is impossible to get a clear grip on, and the best anyone can do is show little snapshots of it -- flooded streets, crying children, and rampaging looters.

The people affected by this disaster have lost everything they once knew as the constants in their lives. Homes -- where they sleep at night, where they make breakfast, the doorways they walk out on their way to work -- it's all gone. And those are the ones who've managed to escape with their lives.

Survivors are being moved to shelters across the country, including Louisville. This is temporary, but if they return to their homes, nothing will be left.

It's disheartening, to say the least, to see what the local response has been in Louisiana and other affected areas. In New Orleans, notably, "civil unrest" broke out shortly after Katrina moved north: looting, raping, pillaging, destroying... groups gathered weapons from abandoned gun stores and became armed gangs. Shots were fired at rescue workers and medical command helicopters. The National Guard is pulling troops deployed to Iraq back home so they can be on-scene for what may be, unbelievably, a more chaotic situation than the one they're already in.

But while savage opportunism makes a play for power in the ruins of New Orleans, one can look for more hopeful signs in the rest of the country, where an amazing level of grassroots support is being shown. Friday, I went to a single-A football game in Elizabethtown, and in a pass-the-hat collection during halftime, the crowd donated more than $915 to the relief cause.

Firefighters were out on the main roads over the holiday weekend as I drove back to Fort Knox. They had a hook-and-ladder truck parked in the median, with an American flag and a Red Cross flag hung from the ladder rigging. They were taking donations from passing vehicles.

And in the meantime, our representatives are politicizing the issue, turning this human tragedy into campaign ammunition. Hip-hop artist Kanye West has decided that "George Bush doesn't care about black people," (hat tip to Greg) and German papers have actually blamed the American president for the disaster itself.

Opportunists like these are doing essentially the same thing the looters in New Orleans are doing: using the disaster as a chance to grab up everything they can while the rules are temporarily suspended.

Fortunately, not everyone is a greedy bastard. Greyhawk sent out this list of helpful information on Guard soldiers deployed to the region:

Useful public service request - help spread the word.

http://www.dod.mil/home/features/2005/katrina/index.html - contact info for military families displaced by Katrina (also a great collection of news releases on the military efforts in hurricane relief)

http://www.guardfamily.org/ - info for Guard families impacted by the storm.

http://www.gxonline.com/gxintelnews?id=24147 - info for getting deployed Guard members in touch with their families who might be displaced by the storm - and vice versa.

http://www.mudvillegazette.com/archives/003484.html I compiled them here, but it's more important to get folks to those other pages. Feel free to ignore this one.

Thanks to everyone whose heart and mind is in the right place regarding this issue.

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UPDATE: Open Post at Mudville.
UPDATE: Open Post at bRight & Early.

Wacko Alert!

Hey folks -- this is too good not to post about. Check out this site by a guy who calls himself Dean Berry: "U.S. TROOPS ARE ANTICHRISTIAN."

Here's the hook: Old Dean forgets to take his meds every so often, and spurts out a "transcript" of a chat with some soldier he brands as antichristian, satanist, atheist, wiccan, or whatever.

It's an amusing read. Dean -- talk to your doctor about Haldol. Side effects may include coma, which is something no one would be too upset about, in your case.

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Americans determined to have the rest of the world make fun of them

Evolution. A touchy subject, yeah?

Well, according to the New York Times, a recent poll has found that 64 percent of Americans think that "creationism" should be taught alongside evolution in schools.

This is stupid.

The reason this is so stupid is because the two ideas -- the theory of evolution and the religious belief that everything in the universe was created by a supreme being -- aren't talking about the same thing. They aren't about the same subject. They are two very different ideas that do not intersect at any point in their definitions.

"Creationism," or as it's being called more often "intelligent design," is a religious philosophy about the ultimate origin of things.

Evolutionary theory, on the other hand, is a school of thought designed to explain physical, observable phenomena, such as the fossil record, dinosaur bones, and apparent similarities between disparate species.

But Charles Darwin, that godless hell-bound communist, thought up that idea, which means that it's bad, and that the opposing theory must be true: God created everything in the universe in seven days, and everything that is must be exactly as it was at the time of creation.

While I was in high school, my Boy Scout troop took a trip to a greathouse built in the Adirondacks by the Vanderbilt family as a summer retreat from Manhattan. In this 100-year-old mountain getaway's yard, the family had a bowling alley installed. When any average-sized male walks into this bowling alley today, he must duck, since the ceiling is so low.

That's because people are taller today than they were 100 years ago.

I'm going to take a break here to let all the people who think God put dinosaur bones in the ground leave and surf on over to Pat Robertson's site, where they can figure out ways to assassinate South American dictators.

---

Here's the thing. The theory of evolution doens't preclude the involvement or design by a God on its own merits.

So why teach religion in classrooms? Could it be to establish authority over people who don't believe in the majority's system of faith?

Yes.

Anyone feel like looking up Galileo and his crazy, heathen idea that the earth revolved around the sun?

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Postscript - I thought about this post for a while, and wound up saving half and finishing it because I didn't have time to write a thesis on it. Anyway, I hope the point is wel-taken, and that people realize that what I'm saying is the two theories aren't incompatible. God can indeed exist alongside evolution. Take your pick - Monkeys or Mud.

NPR: Few shoulder the burden of war

I found this interesting article on NPR.org. NPR is widely-derided among conservatives as being the mouthpiece of some sort of left-wing cabal, but I've found that they run enough stories highlighting both sides of the political spectrum to at least please my own libertarian tastes.

But anyway -- back to the article, titled "The Inequity of Wartime Sacrifice," by NPR's Ron Elving:

[T]he main equity issue comes with active service. Today we rely on true volunteers to fill all the branches. Elected officeholders have chosen this course, and professional military officers greatly prefer to lead "people who want to be here." But the downside is that the burden falls on the few. And that sacrifice can be great, even for those who come home alive and whole.

So the chasm is greater and growing between those who fulfill their "service obligation" (as it once was called) and those who never even consider it.

This inequity finds its epitome in the high re-enlistment rates among regular Army and Marine troops in Iraq. Having done their part, these men and women volunteer anew and do their part a second and even a third time. The Pentagon has to be not only proud of this cohort but grateful as well, because fresh recruits for Iraq are getting harder to find. Once again, the idea of sacrifice shared by all has given way to super-sacrifice by the few.

Read the whole thing.

That the war in Iraq is being fought by so few Americans is troubling to me, particularly since there's so much flag- and yellow ribbon-waving going on "on the home front." Demonstrations of "troop support" are everywhere, particularly around places like Kentucky, where you can't swing a dead cow around without hitting a car plastered with "Support the Troops" magnets.

Magnets, ribbons, banners, and flags may ease the consciences of those who display them, but ultimately they're just superficial symbols that don't really benefit anyone except the person showing them off.

As recruiting numbers sputter into the end of the year, one wonders why the country's political leadership hasn't made some kind of plea to the American people -- a "call to arms." The reason it hasn't happened can't be because of fears of a Democratic party backlash; Democrats whine and complain about anything the staunchly-Republican administration does, not because of the merits or faults of any specific action, but because it was Republicans who thought it up.

Soldiers are lining up to re-enlist in Iraq. Others are re-enlisting back here in the states. I won't be among them when my window opens up, but I admire them for again making that commitment that so few Americans are willing to make, because for millions, the war in Iraq is best served as just one more "Reality TV" storyline.

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Playing catch-up

I think Cindy Sheehan, Inc. have worn out their welcome.

It seems like most of the media outlets (apart from her own) is jumping ship like rats on the Titanic. For instance, check out this Associated Press story:

WASHINGTON - People with friends or relatives serving in Iraq are more likely than others to have a positive view of a generally unpopular war, an AP-Ipsos poll found.

Some of those surveyed said their relationships with troops helped them learn more about what's going on in Iraq beyond the violence. Others said their opinions of the war were shaped by a sense of loyalty to those in harm's way.

What? Cindy Sheehan doesn't represent how everyone feels about the war? What about that iconic status? Isn't she a symbol for all parents with children in the military?

After Ted Chittum of Bourbon, Ind., had a chance to talk at length with his cousin who served in Iraq, he said he got a different picture of what was going on in the country.

"He talked about all the good things that are going on," said Chittum, a school superintendent and a political independent who supports the war effort. "Schools are opening up. The people are friendly, wanting our help. You get a whole different spin from what you get on television."

That doesn't change President Bush's abysmal approval ratings, but I've never really given a serious fart in the wind about polls -- I mean, these are the same people who are making Staind's new album a number-one bestseller. People are stupid.

Oh, Aaron Lewis. I hate you so much. Please read this and then go sit on your barstool and cry, you bald bag of emo bullshit. Why did they have to give you a career in anything other than home plumbing? Whatever A&R guy "discovered" you deserves a special place in hell for subjecting us to the soulless crud you croak out on MTV.

Speaking of hell, they really should build a new layer and fill it with people just like you, Aaron Lewis -- including Scott Stapp of Creed, the entire cast and crew of Linkin Park, Evanescence, Papa Roach, Nickelback, and every band whose name ends in a numeral.

This post wasn't meant to be about music, but I get pretty worked up when I start thinking about this stuff.

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Photoblog - Football, grilling

I had a busy weekend, which is why I didn't post anything. Here's what I was doing.



The Fort Knox at Fort Campbell football game was a rout for the Eagles, although not as complete as prognosticators might have predicted at 46-10. I got home at 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning...



... after some sleep I headed out for the Wolverines game that evening. I haven't gotten the results yet, but from the looks of things at half time, Hardin County was getting ready to snap their two-game losing streak.



Sunday, we barbequed out in the rain. We had some of the best burgers and brats we've ever cooked up. Anyway, it's Monday again, so back to the grindstone.

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UPDATE: The Wolverines beat the Evansville Vipers 38-20. Sweet - I get to write a winning story for this week.
UPDATE: Open Post at the Mudville Gazette!

"Over There" is getting better

I caught the latest episode in the much-derided FX Army drama "Over There" last night. I think the show may just be on its way to exonerating itself.

The action in last night's program centered around the inclusion of an embedded television journalist who had linked up with the main characters. He was played by Zack from "Saved By The Bell," which was distracting, because I expected Screech to pop up over a berm at any moment.

Zack is treated with suspicion from the onset -- mostly by the College Boy character, who calls him on his "interviewer's tricks" of leaving awkward silences for his subjects to fill.

However, Zack's character seems to have pure intentions -- he wants to show the American public the "truth" about what's happening. Unfortunately, the footage he sends back to the "wire service" of an assault on a village is cut together to show American troops killing an "innocent" boy and his mother, causing an uproar in Arab countries and a negative public opinion backlash in the states.

Zack tries to make amends with the soldiers of the squad after the footage airs, but when he enters their tent, he comes very close to having his ass kicked. It's here we learn that it was his editors who re-cut the footage he submitted to skip shots of the boy running out into the fire fight and throwing something that looked like a grenade at the American soldiers. His mother ran out to pull him away, but they were both caught in "Smoke's" automatic rifle fire from his SAW.

Together with the combat film, material from an interview with Smoke was included in the package -- where he hefts his weapon and says he's a "hardcore killa."

Smoke becomes an instant anti-celebrity, and a bounty of $500 is placed on his head by leaders of the insurgency. For the folks back home, he's the equivalent of a Lynndie England.

Later on, Zack somehow wrangles a face-to-face with the leader of the village's insurgency, and he talks back enough to get himself taken hostage. His own face winds up on television sets in the United States -- with him wearing an orange jumpsuit and surrounded by masked Jihadists with rifles and a machete near his neck.

For all its faults, "Over There" tried last night to show how the events in Iraq are distorted by media outlets interested in packaging the war into marketable chunks that'll boost network ratings. It may be slightly unintentionally self-referential, but I think the show as a whole is getting better and is working hard to redeem itself.

Furthermore, the show's exciting and entertaining, even if the characters are still stereotypical. The action sequences are well-shot, I'm always impressed to see correct uniforms and equipment.

It's not as if anyone should expect to get a working knowledge of the Army from watching "Over There," any more than one should expect to learn plastic surgery techniques from "Nip/Tuck." Sure, they're part of the show, but only insofar as they can advance the story or action.

One of the several soldiers watching the show with me said, "I wish Michael Mann had directed this show."

"Michael Mann?" I asked. "You mean the shithead who directed Pearl Harbor?"

"Oh, he directed that? Well, he did a good job on Miami Vice."

I wonder if the show could have been better if Don Johnson played their battalion commander.

Either way, I'll be tuning in again next week.

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UPDATE: Open Post at the Mudville Gazette. Thanks, Greyhawks.

Dispatch from Michael Yon is up

Go read Michael Yon's latest dispatch, "Gates of Fire." It's an incredible read and is accompanied by remarkable photographs. I'd quote some of it here, but it wouldn't do his piece justice.

Yon is an independent journalist in Iraq, and he's doing amazing work.

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From the photo archives...

... a photo of my old pal Mac. We had many strange adventures together in Korea, which is where I took this picture. It's at the traditional Korean village near Seoul.

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Houston Chronicle: Sheehan's free pass has expired

I've ignored the big non-story that's been grabbing lots of headlines and blog commentary these days: the Cindy Sheehan brouhaha in Crawford. I've found the whole business to be about as interesting as an audio commentary by Carrot Top on the Alaskan fur trade.

For those of you outside the United States who live in countries whose press corps have been original enough to avoid the incomprehensible bandwagonism of the Sheehan story, this Houston Chronicle piece by Kathleen Parker sums up the action, such as it is, nicely. Parker also finishes with one hell of a conclusion:

No human being has absolute moral authority on this or any other issue, though I think I know what [New York Times columnist Maureen] Dowd meant. That parents who bury their children have a right to complain and to have their voices heard. That's the theory, anyway.

In practice, of course, it means that people lost in their emotions get a pass from the usual standards of debate and fair play, as Sheehan has. That's about to change. As others arrive in Crawford who share Sheehan's grief and her moral authority -- but not her politics -- her free pass expires.

Hat tip to RealClearPolitics.

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UPDATE: Open Posting at the Mudville Gazette!

Why I hate clubs

There's no better way to start this out than to say that I really hate dance clubs.

Yes, I've covered this before. Yes, I've complained about the degeneracy and atavism of dance clubs and the people who frequent them.

But it works like this: Every so often, I feel myself compelled to "go out" and see the town, do what normal, civilian-types do on weekends. While I'm generally happy to hang out in the barracks, act like a nerd during the day watching movies and reading conspiracy theories on the Internet (AP style demands capitalization), and quaff a few brews with whoever's around during the evening, every couple months I have to go and remind myself firsthand why I don't usually "go out."

This weekend was just such a time. On my way home from a football game north of Louisville, I called up some friends back on post to see if anyone was up for meeting in the city. I had wanted to see what the Rudyard Kipling was all about -- it's an off-beat, counter-culture bar that's a haunt for punks, hippies, and anarchists; tattooed folk with whom journalists generally feel a vague -- if sometimes strained -- connection.

That was a bust, and I wound up with my old pal Numb-Nuts up at Louisville's corporate owned and operated night life scene, Fourth Street Live.

There are six main clubs/bars in the Fourth Street Live complex. There's Felt, a slickly-decorated pool hall that looks like something out of a rejuvenated Cigar Aficionado spread, and its compatriot, Lucky Strike, a souped-up and classy bowling-alley/sports bar. These are the places I like, but the people I'm with rarely if ever want to go in.

Then there's Howl at the Moon, a "dueling pianos" bar. It has a pricey cover charge and expensive drinks, and the playlist gives it away as a hangout for the set that can't quite tolerate the "three martini lunch" routine, but wish they could because their teenage children drive them insane.

The heavy-hitters on Fourth Street are Saddle Ridge, Parrot Bay, and The Red Cheetah. All three are perfect places for folks like me to, in the words of Bill Hicks, fill up my camel-hump of hatred.

We walked into the Red Cheetah, since they used to let military in for free, and Numb-Nuts said he knew a bartender there who, he said, once gave him six drinks for four dollars.

The Cheetah had expanded since I'd last been there, and it now comprises the spaces formerly occupied by the comedy club's bar and stage room. A shame, since I would have had a lot more fun listening to loonies on an open mike than I did watching the decline of Western civilization.

Social interaction has certain rules we've all agreed to follow. Some are written, some aren't, but what they have in common is that they're all tossed to the wind inside the walls of a dance club. Women complain about sexual harrassment in the workplace, but when they head out on the town on Friday and Saturday night, they're completely transformed -- much like Doctor Jekyll or Optimus Prime.

I watched the crowd as a song by Li'l John came on. The throbbing beat from the previous song melded into the new track seamlessly...

"To the window, to the wall, till the sweat drips from my balls!"

Women throughout the crowd went wild. They leapt to the tops of tables, bars, and other structures specially-designed to hold gyrating bodies. They shook their barely-concealed breasts at the undulating crowd. They turned around, bent over, and shook their asses, which were generally covered by tight, low-slung jeans held up by belts covered in gaudy faux jewels and chrome.

Above the crowd, they moved as if to say, "Here's what I'll be doing if you're the one I go home with tonight." Elsewhere, couples were dancing -- if that word can be applied to mimed versions of the sex act set to the beat of a song about sweat dripping off balls.

It should come as no surprise that I don't generally dance at dance clubs. I hate dancing because I look like a moron when I do -- just like approximately 90 percent of the rest of the male population, also known as "all straight guys."

That many straight guys do dance explains the sale of alcohol at places like The Red Cheetah. Let the record show that I am not a tee-totaler. Anyone who's known me probably is well aware that during college I worked hard to perfect my Ted Kennedy impersonation, at least as far as boozing goes. But I drank to loosen my lips, not my hips. I hate dancing. So when I went out to a bar, it was to have a good conversation and get hammered while listening to Tom Petty and Led Zeppelin on the old-style jukebox, not to grind my pelvis against complete strangers.

Which, as it turns out, is precisely the method used to say "Hello" when the bass beat is turned up too loud to hear yourself think. That's what I mean about conventional rules of society being thrown out the window in a club (figuratively speaking, of course. Clubs don't actually have windows).

But let's back up for a minute. Singles don't really go on "dates" anymore. They head out in groups with their same-sex friends, and try to meet groups of the opposite sex. There are different approaches for men and women.

Women, it seems, will often go out specifically "to dance," or at least that's what they seem to tell themselves. They'll dance with each other and have a blast, but the underlying reason is to fill the role of "prey."

Which necessitates the role of "predator," which is where we guys come in. The girls begin dancing, flaunting their assets, and it's up to us to demonstrate to them that we're interested. If they reciprocate, we'll be rewarded, and the rewards increase in direct proportion to the price of the bar tabs we've begun working on.

This particular evening, I was the designated driver, so I was sucking down placebo waters as fast as I could, smoking cigarettes while I followed Numb-Nuts around. I was curious to see what his technique was, since, as much as I've derided him here, he seems to regularly bring girls home with him. This has always seemed to me to be something that pretty much disproves Darwinian survival of the fittest, so I wanted to study his habits. And I really did feel a bit like Jane Goodall while I was in The Red Cheetah.

I wandered around for hours, trying to keep an eye on Numb-Nuts, who was swallowing Captain Morgan and Coke at an alarming rate. As the night wore on and club patrons got drunker, the pantomimed sex got more and more realistic, with guys pressing girls' heads down to their crotches, girls bent over with their legs spread and asses pressed against their dance partners' pelvises, others with their tongues shoved down each other's throats...

I don't think I'm prudish. But I resent what happens at dance clubs because it's the text-book definition of atavism. Conversation is impossible due to the ubiquitous timpanum-rupturing bass beats, so you can't "get to know" someone before you drag them home with you in the back of a cab. So everything's reduced to high school genetics, and regardless of what you've got to offer upstairs, it's the exterior that matters when it comes to scoring.

There's no subtlety when it comes to the music anymore. Li'l Kim (why are they all "li'l"? I always think of "Li'l Archie" and "Li'l Abner" when I hear that word) sings about oral sex without so much as a single metaphor or double entendre -- her lyrics are almost clinical.

I guess all this put together is why I wind up sitting on barstools in clubs, sipping water and chain smoking, thinking apocalyptic thoughts about the end of society as we know it -- Romans with their vomitoriums and decadence, France's royalty before the Revolution... all of it winds up looking like a scene out of Mad Max.

And eventually I realize that this is what's done with the much-vaunted "freedom" I'm supposedly busy defending. Don't jump to conclusions and assume I'm anti-American, because I'm not. I can't be -- I wear a flag on my shoulder to work every day. But I'm losing faith in American people, because places like The Red Cheetah are perfect demonstrations of how stupid society in general is and how "freedom" is squandered on it.

I drove a very drunk Numb-Nuts home at 5 a.m. after we got lost in Indiana while I tried to follow his booze-addled directions to the home of one of his booty-calls. My teeth hurt from clenching my jaw so much through the evening, and I went to sleep angry, tired, and depressed.

It's always temporary. I cheer up the next day while I listen to the radio and read things written by people on whom freedom isn't wasted. But you don't meet those people in clubs.

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UPDATE: Open Trackbacks at Common Sense Runs Wild. Thanks!
UPDATE: Open Post at the Mudville Gazette. Thanks!
UPDATE: Open Post at bRight & Early. Thanks!
UPDATE: Open Post at Outside the Beltway. Thanks! And yes, I'm unabashedly seeking exposure. What of it?

Unexpected show of troop support

After a tour of Louisville yesterday, during which we saw many of the historic districts of the city and some of the most beautiful housing subdivisions I've even seen, CJ and I stopped by the Mall of St. Matthews in the northern part of the city. I still hadn't gotten around to using the $50 Aeropostale gift card I'd gotten for Christmas from Gonzoma and Gonzopa, so I figured I'd pick up a new pair of pants and maybe some T-shirts.

We went into Champs Sports, and I saw that they had a 2-for-1 deal on basketball shorts, so we both got a couple pairs. At the register, CJ mentioned to the clerk that he'd been sold when he saw that they had Eastern Kentucky University shirts on sale up front, which had sealed the deal for him.

"Yeah, they went to the big dance this past year, and that's probably the one and only reason we've got them," the clerk said.

"I actually drove up to Indianapolis to see that game," said CJ, who got his degree from EKU.

We all talked a bit about NCAA basketball, and I mentioned that I'd seen Syracuse win the championship the night before I left for Korea.

"You're military? What branch?" the clerk asked.

"Army," I said.

"Thank you, man," the clerk said. "I mean it."

I never know what to say in situations like this. It doesn't happen a lot, but I've never worked out a response I like for expressions of gratitude.

"Well, hey, thank you too," I said, scratching the back of my head in a futile attempt to stimulate my brain.

"Just so you know," the clerk said, "anyone on active duty gets 20 percent off here. You just have to show your ID."

I don't know if it's a national promotion or just something they have at the Louisville branches, but if you're looking for new running shoes, check out Champs.

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"Soldier's Bible" draws flak over 1st Amendment questions

I did this story for the Turret this week.

'Soldier's Bible' draws flak over
1st Amendment questions

By SPC. IAN BOUDREAU/Turret Staff Writer

Just about every Soldier has, at some point in his or her career, had the opportunity to receive a book of scripture, usually from a representative at a Military Entrance Processing Station or from a chaplain in basic training. But a recently-published edition of Christian scripture has drawn fire for possibly violating the First Amendment Establishment Clause, which bars the government -- including the military -- from endorsing a specific religion.

The Holman Bible Publishers' military editions of Christian scriptures have drawn criticism for using Department of Defense symbols on their covers. Some believe this is a violation of the First Amendment's prohibition of government-established religion.

The publications, called "The Soldier's Bible" and "The Soldier's New Testament," are published by Holman Bible Publishers in Nashville, Tenn., which is owned by the Southern Baptist Convention, headquartered in Nashville.

Each contains gilt-edged pages bound in attractive faux-leather and bears a gold-embossed Department of the Army emblem on the front cover.

"That's a problem," wrote National Public Radio Online's Jeff Brady, in a July article titled "'The Soldier's Bible' draws fire."

Brady wrote that the DA emblems on the Bibles -- which are also published in editions for the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard -- make the Bibles and New Testaments appear as official government publications.

Use of the Army's emblem is controlled by the Army Institute of Heraldry, and permission for use is granted by Stanley Haas, chief of the institute's Technical and Production Division.

Haas told NPR that permission to use the emblem wouldn't normally be granted for anything religious. But Haas is thanked by name in the acknowledgements section of each copy of the scriptures.

A disclaimer, set in small type on the third page at the front, reads, "The Seal of the Army is used by permission but in no way carries the endorsement of this product by the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or the Government of the United States."

"Proper permission was granted to use the respective seals of each branch of service," said Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Kenneth Beale, the chief of Fort Knox's U.S. Army Recruiting Command Chaplain Recruiting Branch.

However, a disclaimer is not a sure-fire means to avoid First Amendment litigation.

"The problem with it is there is no clearly-defined test or mark," explained Ronald Eades, a professor and First Amendment expert on the staff of the University of Louisville School of Law.

"Disclaimers help, but they're not a perfect solution," he said.

"During Desert Storm, there were paperback Bibles with the desert BDU (pattern), and (they) had all four branches' seals printed on the front," Beale said. "So this is not the first, and I trust it won't be the last, (such) demonstration of support of our troops."

Such support has been taking place in the U.S. military for a long time.

"There is a long tradition of chaplains distributing scriptures of a variety to Soldiers," said Fort Knox Staff Chaplain (Col.) Hugh Dukes, who worked as the director of personnel for the Chaplain Corps for more than four years before coming to Knox.

Dukes explained that while he served as a unit chaplain, he would have on hand books of scripture for Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, Jews, and Muslims alike, and would make them available to the Soldiers in his unit before a deployment or exercise.

Beale pointed out that the Holman Press Soldier's Bibles aren't stocked by the Army, and are instead purchased by or donated to individual chaplains and Soldiers.

"This is a purchasable item," Beale said. "It is not out there on DefenseLink."

He said that chaplains are allowed to purchase devotional material with non-appropriated funds, such as money taken up in service collections.

"I've heard that many chaplains have been able to get these merely for the asking from the publisher to be able to distribute. This is not... purchased and stockpiled like the Army does pens," he explained.

Beale said it's not uncommon for publishers to make religious-themed material available upon request to military personnel, and cited Presbyterian author D. James Kennedy's book, "Why I Believe," which is published in an Armed Forces edition along with Kennedy's DVD, "Who is this Jesus?"

Eades pointed out the U. S. Supreme Court's recent split decision regarding displays of the Ten Commandments, okaying a display in Texas and nixing another in Kentucky.

"People want a clear answer on this, but the problem is the Supreme Court sees it in terms of factors they can analyze," Eades said. "I can see why some people might say that this looks like establishment (of government-endorsed religion)."

"Different people get upset about different things, or ask questions about different sorts of things," Dukes said, refering to concerns that the Soldier's Bible might violate the First Amendment's Establishment Clause.

"That (the Soldier's Bible) has a seal doesn't bother me, whether it's the Army, the Navy, or the Air Force... so long as it's properly licensed and the disclaimers are there to say that it's not used without permission.

"It's not an issue of faith."

Eades said it isn't quite that simple.

"Often, the only way you really know is after litigation has been carried out," he said.

Dukes, whose work as personnel director for the Army's Chaplain Corps made him familiar with the First Amendment argument, said "The chaplaincy has been established based on free exercise -- that part of the First Amendment. So that's the foundation. The balance to that is the Establishment Clause."

Dukes added that chaplains have to be aware that showing favoritism toward a particular religion would constitute establishment, and that chaplains are tasked with providing for their Soldiers as well as they can under those parameters.

Favoring one over another, he said, would be just as bad as not providing for free exercise of religion.

"As long as we live in the tension of providing free exercise and avoiding establishment, we're going to have that debate," Dukes said. "And we ought to. There ought to be a tension that we continue to work in as faithfully as we can, both to the needs of our Soldiers and the limits of our Constitution."

The Bible, Beale said, is "among the arsenal of chaplains' armament."

"We don't carry bullets," he said. "We carry Bibles."

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UPDATE: Open Post at the Indepundit.
UPDATE: Open Post at the Mudville Gazette.
UPDATE: TRADOC has picked my story up and run it in the TRADOC News Service wire. Hooray!

Catching up on "Over There"

Monday I finished reading John Crawford's "The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell." It's a quick, real, and compelling read -- Crawford writes from his position as a junior enlisted infantryman, pulled from his honeymoon and just two credits short of his bachelor's degree into the invasion of Iraq, where he and his Florida National Guard unit stayed for more than a year, jumping from one division to the next.

I'm sure Crawford's book will be subject to some derision when it's given a look-see by the conservative blogosphere, but I think the book should be taken for what it is, and in that context, it's got a lot of merits.

Crawford doesn't write about the reasons the United States is in Iraq. He doesn't talk about the "big picture" or the greater purpose for which soldiers are fighting there. In his book, he writes about the visceral experiences that soldiers go through.

Part of that, of course, is the horror of warfare -- the blood, gore, and fear. But it's been said that war is interminable periods of boredom punctuated by moments of extreme terror, and many of Crawford's thoughts revolve around the former.

Soldiers, after all, are simply people, and to deny Crawford's characters the defects and mistakes they make during his narrative is to blind oneself to the failings of the flesh experienced by young men everywhere in our society. The soldiers barter for cheap Iraqi whiskey with the natives, and Crawford himself enjoys handfuls of Valium to keep his nerves from fraying during long guard stretches.

He's resentful toward officers, who, from his standpoint, seem to be distanced from the actual doings of the war and more interested in submitting recommendations for awards -- usually for themselves. This is probably not completely accurate, but anyone who's been around a lot of junior enlisted guys will probably be able to confirm the latent hostility toward just about anyone who's paid more. I certainly can. As a junior enlisted guy myself, I'll admit to have done my own fair share of bitching.

At any rate, I'd recommend Crawford's book, not as a commentary on this war, but as a memoir of any war. It's one man's experiences in a war, and the anecdotes that make up the book range from hilarious to horrifying. All are very well-written.

Now, in the name of research, I figured out a way to see the episodes of the FX Network's war-drama "Over There." When the show premiered, I wrote a post responding to several comments left on Blackfive's blog -- but I hadn't had a chance to actually see the show's pilot.

I've caught up now, including last night's episode, and I think I know what the show's about.

"Over There" does indeed take a lot of missteps in its pilot -- military members must have been appalled at the technical glitches, such as the usage of ranks and names in radio communication, the Huey helicopter (I guess the Army isn't letting anyone other than Ridley Scott use Blackhawks) for the MEDEVAC, etc.

The characters were almost cartoonishly stereotypical, particularly "Sergeant Scream," the salty NCO who yells all the time and is permanently pissed since he's been extended 90 days to watch over a squad of "virgins," the clueless lieutenant who's far too attached to the letter of the law, and most amazingly, "Pfc. Smoke," the rebellious black street punk who constantly damns "whitey" and seems as if he was lifted directly out of the phony and forced racial conflict of "Hamburger Hill."

And the premise of the program, as it's progressed, is rather simplistic. The show focuses on various missions, which provide action in the form of gun battles, explosions, death, and destruction, and in the context of these missions the audience gets to see some of the "moral dilemmas" supposedly facing soldiers in war.

The good news is that the soldiers aren't evil. The worst of the lead characters is probably "Smoke," with the rest ranging from gung-ho to fatalistic. Most seem to have a vague sense of pride in what they're ultimately doing, even if given opportunity to question it in the face of the horrors they're witness to.

Here again you'll see the distrust between officer and enlisted -- in one ridiculous example from last night, a general wants the squad to find a mortar spotter in a village so he can move a convoy of container trucks through the town. They're carrying the American Standard toilets he says he needs, and he's willing to put men into a position where they have to "draw fire" to accomplish this.

Whatever tension actually exists between real-life enlisted soldiers and officers, it's played up to Wile E. Coyote levels in some places in "Over There."

The acting is a mixed bag. Sergeant Scream seems to hit his stride by episode three, Dim's freakout at the roadblock in episode two is enough to ruin any suspension of disbelief, and Smoke's still Smoke.

The theme song "Over There" is a study in the underwhelming, and I couldn't help but wonder if they'd deliberately tried to rip off M*A*S*H's "Suicide is Painless."

All the same, I'm interested in where they'll go with the series. It may be one of those shows where it takes them some time to strike a balance between drama and accuracy, but it's piqued my interest enough to keep watching, despite its gaffes.

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UPDATE: Check out the Mudville Gazette's Dawn Patrol for a great roundup of military news.
UPDATE: Blackfive's got more on fictionalizing the war in Iraq.
UPDATE: Open Post at the Indepundit.

Sports Commentary - Mascots don't Bite

Here's my column for this week.

Mascots don't bite

By Spc. Ian Boudreau
TURRET SPORTS EDITOR

The NCAA decided last week to ban the use of any team mascots or nicknames deemed "hostile or abusive" to American Indians in its postseason tournaments, and has named 18 teams whose insignia must change.

Included are the Florida State Seminoles and the Illinois Fighting Illini, who will have to alter their logos, mascots, and nicknames or be ineligible for tournament competition.

Now, I can get behind changing hostile or abusive names, but so far, I haven't actually seen any. So far, all I've seen are just plain names.

In fact, the Seminole tribe of Florida passed a resolution supporting Florida State's use of the name, and while other Seminole tribes around the country disagree, it's hard to see how the mere usage of the name "Seminoles" counts as either hostile or abusive.

I read in Tuesday morning's USA Today the opinions of several readers who were slightly confused with the NCAA's ruling on team names, including one who asked where the line might be drawn if names like Illini and Seminoles are offensive. He suggested that the NCAA should examine names like Notre Dame's "Fighting Irish," since it stereotypes Irish immigrants as compulsive brawlers.

Think beyond the NCAA to all the professional team names that might eventually have to change. The Oakland Raiders, for example: we can't go around stereotyping people as a bunch of lawless marauders. Even the team's logo has crossed sabers and a player wearing an eye-patch. As if all pirates wore eye-patches! That's blatant stereotyping!

Or how about the Minnesota Vikings? Much of Minnesota was settled by Scandanavians, but I've yet to hear complaints about how the state's NFL team has slighted the region's settlers by portraying them all as blond-haired, bearded warriors who wear horned helmets and slaughter Christians.

And if simply using the name of a specific group of people counts as hostile, then the Boston Celtics will have to change, since the term clearly refers to Irish, Scottish, and Welsh people.

So would the San Francisco 49ers: obviously, a reference to a very specific socio-economic group of 1849 gold prospectors who had a place in California history. The New York Giants and Yankees would both have to alter their imagery, since both are names of actual groups of people, and therefore must be hostile and abusive.

In hockey, we'd be without the Vancouver Canucks -- a slang term for Canadians, and we certainly can't have that.

I don't want to be termed racially insensitive, but I think perhaps that the NCAA's current standard is a bit hypersensitive.

The point is that teams aren't named after things people hate or despise. Ever hear of a team called the Las Vegas Vermin? How about the Seattle Slugs? One of the few things I harbor hatred for are spiders, and I've never seen a team named after one of those.

Far from it -- teams are generally named for animals or groups that exemplify some admirable or loveable quality. The Fort Knox Eagles might not have as much motivation if they were called the Budgies. And I just can't imagine how Florida State fans would cheer if their team was known as the Beach Combers.

Besides, when it comes down to it, team names are just names, and that's all. There are plenty of other, real indignities suffered by minorities to be offended about, so let's take care of those before we worry about the damage college athletic mascots allegedly are doing.

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UPDATE: Open Post at Mudville.
UPDATE: A Turret reader wrote in to let me know that the University of Richmond's team is called "The Spiders." I stand corrected. Uhhgg. I hate spiders.