Violence in America: Treating the problem, not the symptoms. Pt. 3: Education, parenting, and American values.

(Yes, this is long, as many of my commentaries are. Deal with it.)

My last update was about how proper security could have prevented things like Sandy Hook, My sister has brought up a good point that I will elaborate on. I believe one of my other updates addressed the issue, but maybe just indirectly. What american children lack far more than security in school is proper education. If schools were properly funded, children educated and had the values of life and the ideals that this nation once held high, and claims to still hold dear, instilled in them, values such as honesty, integrity, loyalty, honor, respect, service, tolerance, equality and many others, then maybe elevated levels of security and weapon bans will be irrelevant once again. 

The sad truth is that people would rather satiate their cognitive dissonance and stay in their comfort zones instead of addressing the real issues of society. The problem isn't godlessness, it's ignorance and it's laziness. Parents have stopped being parents. (Although not all. I'm glad to know that my nephew values life and knows the difference between reality and video games.) It's sad when people want to ban video games because their too lazy to be parents. Sure we can blame it on the schools for not teaching things like fine arts, but that's ultimately on us also because we don't want to pay for it. Certain people would cut funding for PBS. When I was a child, we frequently watched things from PBS as lessons. One of the best lessons I've seen, though I already knew it, was from PBS in a COLLEGE Psych class. Not elementary, not jr. high or high school, but college. (I will include a link to it at the end, I suggest everyone watch it.) If PBS' material is good enough for college, it's good enough for kids, but no, we must cut that while we spend 3/4 of a TRILLION dollars on defense spending. 
We live in a day and age when popular music is about sex, drugs and violence or is so devoid of artistic content, it's a wonder how it passes for music. Before we had artists like Simon and Garfunkle who had songs like "The Boxer", John Lennon with "Imagine", yet today we have an androgynous singer who's popularity is based on songs like "Baby" which is of absolutely no lyrical value. People wonder where our morals, ethics and ideals go...they left with our Music and artists. Fascists didn't ban creative artistic expression for the fun of it. A society's soul lies within it's artists.

When did we stop teaching our children to value life. Not just life as in human/animal life, But to value living — You know, the aspects of life that make us smile. To value the warmth of the sun, the singing of the birds, the smell of a fresh rainfall, the crispness of a cold winter morning or even the sparkle in a strangers eye as they walk past? Never have I know anyone who values both life and living to ever needlessly take the life of another living creature; human or not. 

The link I mentioned previously. Watch it, if you aren't cold hearted and racist it will move you; if you are, I hope it changes you. (granted if you fall into the latter group, we aren't friends on here and you won't see it. Eh well)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divided/

Violence in America: Treating the problem, not the symptoms. Pt. 2: Security

You know what would have prevented Sandy Hook from ever occurring? Security. And I don't mean armed guards, although those are located at courthouses and government buildings, but not school. Not sure why that is. But had they designed the school with security in mind, there would have been only one way to enter the building. Controlled ingress, screening for weapons to actively exclude them from the building. Restrict entrance to the building until potential entrants are deemed not a threat instead of granting entrance until a threat is presented. Strangely we value our court houses and banks more than our children and then when shit hits the fan as it did at this school we seek to ban guns when this could have easily been prevented without the issue of gun control ever being addressed. But no one wants to talk about the other problems we have because attacking guns and the right to bear arms is the easy thing to do. We can point at guns and say, there...that's the demon we must exorcise when in reality guns are nothing but a tool and gun violence is nothing but a symptom. If you break a bone, do you just take some pain killers and say fuck it, this will work? Absolutely not. You go to a doctor to have them fix the problem. Yes, there will be pain in the process, but once you face reality and treat the real problem, the pain will go away on its own, organically. However, if you just take pain killers and ignore the problem, A. the problem is still there. B. The pain killers over time cause their own set of problems that are just as bad, if not worse, than the original problem. There is a reason why science and medicine work on the premise of treat the cause, not the symptoms.

Violence in America: Treating the problem, not the symptoms. Pt. 1: A Look at gun bans and other American problems.

Anti-Gun people is your issue guns, or is it violence? Well let me ask, if you have gun violence and remove the guns, what are you left with? Now if you have gun violence and you remove the violence, what are you left with? I happen to know how to mix Ammonium Nitrate and fuel oil to create a really nasty explosive. It's one of the side effects of taking a variety of chemistry classes. I choose not to for a variety of reasons. Notice the lack of desire is the overriding factor. But clearly you wish to disregard logic and stick to your ineffective talking points. The same points that were used by....you guessed it...Conservatives to ban drugs and alcohol. Ignore history to appease your cognitive dissonance all you wish, the fact of the matter is simple; YOU CANNOT STOP ACTION BY BANNING OBJECTS, IT SIMPLY DOES NOT WORK. Why do you think Supply side economics doesn't work (while not banning something, attempting to control the supply has little effect on the outcome when compared to demand.), why banning drugs didn't work, why banning homosexuality doesn't work, why banning alcohol didn't work, why banning abortions does not work, why banning pornography does not work and why banning guns has not and will not work. 

I'm not saying we don't have a problem, I'm simply saying that restrictions of firearms access does not and will not work. Hell, I don't even think Arming teachers is the best idea (although I don't think preventing properly trained and vetted personnel from owning and possessing them on schools is the best idea either). Honestly, I think if you want to protect schools, increase security. restrict the means of ingress to one location, screen people for weapons and laminate the windows so as to prevent breaching. Restrict access until it is shown that the entering person is safe instead of granting access until they are proven a threat. This is done, for the most part, in courts and airports.

If you want to limit the violence, address the violence. I can own 1,000 firearms and if I don't have the desire to use them on innocent people, it will never happens. Now if I had 0 firearms and I was intent on causing massive loss of life, I could do so with less trouble than it would for me to get a firearm. The argument for banning firearms is born out of a severe lack of familiarity and fear over firearms as well as laziness. People don't want to talk about the poverty, urban blight, decline in morality and ethics (I'm not talking about God or religion), obsessive media coverage, poor parenting, and other such issues because they are abstract and they require us to look at ourselves and find fault with ourselves as a nation and as individuals. Guns are easy to target because they are tangible. You can post up pictures and say, this is the enemy. These are the things responsible for our problems. It is easy to blame objects that can't speak for themselves or blame others for our problems. But unless we take responsibility for our actions things will only get worse. It is not the drug but the addiction that plagues the drug addict, remove the drugs and the problems they have are still there and will display themselves in other, often more violent, ways. Bottom line, if I shoot you, I am responsible, not the fire arm. Not the type of firearm. If I beat you with a club, It is me who is as fault. You want to tell us to focus on guns, well sorry, I prefer to focus on the problem, not the symptom. If you have bad breath, do you take a breath mint or do you treat the underlying infection resulting in the problem? I sure hope not.

Lastly, reduce the need for violence and you won't have to worry about guns. Sure you will have domestic violence issues, but those will happen regardless of tools available. Portugal for example decriminalized all drugs, replaced prison with treatment and their drug rates went down 50% and HIV rates went down. To take a reference out of economics, If you reduce the demand, the supply becomes irrelevant. Limit people's desire to kill people and it won't matter how many guns there are. Conversely, limit the supply of firearms and leave the demand there, guess what will happen...human ingenuity will prevail. When people want to do something bad enough, they will find a way. Which, incidentally is why the worse mass murder at a school was done by explosives, not firearms. (funny side note, the rate and magnitude of school shooting increased after the gun free school zone acts and with the increased level of media coverage of events. But hey, let's ban guns instead of addressing the real issues. Seems like a legit idea)

A work in progress

A majority of people who use government benefits do not use them in perpetuity if they have a choice.

Unemployment Insurance is actually a vital tool implemented by the government and funded by employers to reduce the incentive to lay people off and to keep the economy going/from falling apart completely due to stagnation/stagflation arising from massive freezing of the flow of money. After all, if the consumers stop buying the businesses stop selling. Big business won't be so important if they fold due to not making a profit. Also, what do you propose the government do when people can't find jobs when the job market needs don't meet the demand of the job seekers? Tell them screw you because you don't have a job? Wait, that's what business wanted to do when they started refusing to hire people who didn't currently have jobs. 

The concept of people collecting welfare checks in perpetuity is a throwback to pre-1996 welfare programs. The current welfare program is designed around enabling people to support themselves w/o welfare and providing them assistance while they get physically, medically, or vocationally rehabilitated. 

People always complain about people collecting food stamps thinking that they are a mooch on the economy and the tax base when the reason food stamps exist in the first place has absolutely nothing to do with helping poor people get food, that's simply a side benefit of the program. It was created, and still exists, to ensure that the american agriculture base has a demand to meet their supply so the agricultural infrastructure doesn't collapse like it did during the great depression. So yeah, recipients of these benefits will likely vote democrat, likely reason...they realize that democrats will extend their collective hands and help people get back on their feet and self-sufficient. After all, isn't that what this country was founded on? 

Helping each other through the hard times without expecting anything in return but knowing that should we ever need it, the same help we gave to others will be there for us. It's sad that so many people only care about about their own short term interests and care nothing about the welfare of each other and the interests of the nation as a whole. You don't win Football games by the lineman avoiding blocks because they don't want to get hurt and leaving the QB to fend for himself. Hell, you can't win a wrestling dual by training all you need so you can win and then leaving your teammates to train on their own because you're tired and and want to go home; you make the sacrifices you need to for the betterment of the team and because the team succeeds your succeed. 

There is a reason why the WWII generation is referred to as The Greatest Generation, everyone made sacrifices and contributed what they could to the effort because it simply was what needed to be done. The only difference between now and then is that instead of the threat being in uniform and carrying the flag of a foreign country, the threat is ourselves. As Lincoln stated, "A house divided against itself cannot stand". 9/11 should have had the same unifying effect that Pearl Harbor did, but it hasn't, it's absolutely pathetic that partisan politics took that thought and tore it to shreds. It seems that people care more about their party than their country. So much so that their cognitive dissonance allows people to ignore facts in favor maintaining political allegiances. 

How many times did we hear people complain that Bush and his right wing Republican policies were to blame for high and rising gas prices? How many times have we heard that Obama and his leftist policies were to blame for the high and rising gas prices? 

How many times have we heard that Bush was responsible for the continuing and rising unemployment? How many times have we heard the same said for Obama? 

How many days can we turn on the cable news channels to see MSNBC ridiculing some republican official for doing something and then come back a few days later defending a democrat for doing the same exact thing? Fox News is no different in that regard either. 

Case in point, Fox News and the GOP are ridiculing Obama for invoking Executive Privilege while MSNBC and the Dems are rationalizing Obamas action and saying that it's ok because it's only his 1st invocation of Exec. Privilege and he went longer than any Pres. in the past 30 years without using it and has used Exec. Privilege less than those presidents. Go back to the Bush Presidency and you had MSNBC and the Dems ridiculing Bush for invoking executive privilege while FOX News and the GOP the Presidential stock quotes for the legal justification for invoking Privilege while citing how bush has used Privilege less than preceding presidents. It's as if the political mantra going from the political elites all the way down to the voters is simply, "I'm right, so if you do something then you're wrong, but if I do the same thing then it's ok because I'm right." 

To quote one of my favorite passages from the New Testament (Yeah you heard me right, a Jew who has go to passages from the New Testament, get over it!), 1 Corinthians 13:11 "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me." Isn't it about damn time that we, as a nation and as individuals, put these childish ways behind us? And make no mistake, this shit is fucking childish; our words… childish, our thoughts… childish, Our reasoning… childish. In fact it's worse than childish because a child is ignorant ans they know not what they say. 

In kindergarden our kids are taught to be kind to each other and treat each other as equals; meanwhile our politicians stonewall each other and disrespect each other. Not too long ago the Michigan state legislature censured and silenced a female representative for using the word vagina in a debate on abortion. Not too long before that the US congress convened a panel, also on the subject of abortion, comprising of nothing but men and the panel only allowed male "experts" to testify on the issue. Even our judicial system allows the endangered party to defend themselves and speak on their own behalf yet it appears you get no such luxury in legislature. Even a child could tell you that these actions are wrong. I've yet to figure out why we are even wasting time on this issue — There are FAR more important things to worry about.

It doesn't stop with abortion or Republican stupidity, the other day I saw a news article about Representatives of the LGBT community who were invited to the White House for a Pride event held by The President of the United Fucking States, the first even of it's kind in American history and they were posing in front of a portait of Reagan with their middle fingers extended facing the painting. I have no idea if the pictures are real or not, but regardless it's pathetic: Option A: The pictures are real and these representatives are embarrassing themselves and disgracing the community which they were charged to represent. Option B. Some bigot took the time to doctor pictures in order to defame a group of people who are simply trying to get the same rights that the bigot enjoys. As I said, it's pathetic either way. Again childish

Ohio Republicans redistricted the electoral precincts to make it effectively impossible for the democrats to win a majority in the state legislature for at least 10 years until the next census. Can anyone justify stacking the deck to ensure that you win and have the perpetual advantage? If so, can you do it while Congress wastes absurd amounts of time and the courts press charges against Athletes for using steroids in privately owned athletic leagues and potentially lying about it while being targets of a which hunt, respectively. 

And one more shining example of Americas political maturity. I'm sure we can all remember the debacle that was the Wisconsin crusade on public workers and the subsequent recalls and the Democratic senator walkout? The entire establishment, both Republicans and Democratic were acting like children who couldn't get what they want so the GOP said, "We don't give a damn what you want, we're going to do what we want, when we want, and we don't care what you have to say about it." and the Dems just said, "Oh yeah? well too bad, you can't do it with out us there." and I can't help but picturing the Dems sitting on the state border sticking out their tongues with their collective thumbs to their noses with fingers extended and wiggling back and forth. This debacle isn't much different than the stalemate in US congress because no one wants to sacrifice or compromise. 

Here's an Idea...let's grow the hell up and start acting like adults. Lets learn from the best aspects of generations past. Generations such as The Greatest Generation who stood together as one nation indivisible and said with one voice, "WE ARE DIVERSE AND THROUGH THIS DIVERSITY WE ARE STRONG! WE ARE ACCEPTING AND THROUGH THIS ACCEPTANCE WE ARE MANY! WE ARE THE TIRED, THE POOR, THE HUDDLED MASSES AND WE ARE RESILIENT AND IT IS BECAUSE OF THIS RESILIENCE THAT WE WILL PERSIST!" Like they did in the past, let us all stand together and say, in one unified voice, that, "We will not fail; we will not falter; we will not go quietly into the night for we Americans!"

My Friend Cory Sziraki

The following is a post I made in a Facebook Group dedicated to my friend who lived  09MAR1986 - 14MAY2012.


Well I finally got the time to post on here about my memories of Cory. I honestly didn't know Cory as well as I knew Andy. That said, I find my Cory Sziraki story to be strangely similar to Aaron Ridebmx Taylor's story. lol. I honestly don't remember what year is was anymore but given that he was in high school also at the time, I'm going to say it was my junior year of high school, but we all were out on Cougar Lane doing the whole Southview football fans thing, and I walked up behind him and jokingly put him in a rear naked choke (although I didn't do it properly or effectively on account of joking around and not knowing what I was doing...then again maybe it was given what happened). He ended up losing consciousness and while trying to bring him to the ground, I lost control and he fell on his face and broke some teeth. Needless to say I ended up suspended and went to court for it (which in hindsight, I would say that was the appropriate consequence...BTW Karen and Steve, thank you for pressing the issue, it ended up being an important life lesson for me. Go figure, even in a situation such as that, the school counselor, whether intentional or not, found a way to teach me a life lesson. But I digress.)

While I eventually smoothed things over with Andy and continued being friends with him, but Cory held a resentment over it for a while, and I can't blame him for that either, but given that I went to school elsewhere the next year and joined the army guard after that and Cory joined the Marines by the time I got done. So we never did get the chance smooth that incident over.

So 10-11 years go by and one random day I get a message on Facebook from Cory telling me how he joined the Marines, grew as a person, that he forgave me for the incident at Cougar Lane and he was over it, and that he wanted to get together the next time I was in town. We then proceeded to bullshit for a while on Facebook and got to talking about tattoos (surprise surprise, Cory Sziraki talking about tattoos), and despite not really having a lot of money to spare, he flat out refused to let me pay for a tattoo if I wanted one simply because I was a veteran.

All of that aside, the memory of Cory that sticks with me the most, and will always stay with me, was the time I spent with Cory when I was in Toledo in April. I was up in Toledo for Passover but I had just found out earlier that day that three men from my old army unit died in Afghanistan 4 days earlier including one that I had known for the better part of a decade. I concluded that I needed to go out and mourn three good men in the proper infantry manner. Given that I hadn't yet seen Cory since he hit me up on Facebook and that he was a fellow infantryman, I gave him a call and let him know what was up. His answer, without hesitation, was, "fuck yeah man, there's nothing else I'd rather do." We pretty much spent the day shooting at the range, had a couple beers and a few shots to remember our fallen brothers and shared a few stories bout our experiences in the military ranging from the good, the bad, and the ugly. Not once did he ever say anything that indicated he had earned two bronze stars for valor. The only impression he ever gave on the topic of being a hero is that if ever asked about it he would say something along the lines of "I'm no hero, but I served with heros". That first day was all I needed in order to know the character of Cory Sziraki, but that aside, at the end of the day I had no place to crash because my parents were out of town, my brother's cats shed something fierce and it caused an allergic reaction, and my sister had no couches at her place; while Cory didn't have any couches where he was staying and with my back injury from the Army, I couldn't rack out in a chair. And to be honest, I wasn't really in the state of mind where I wanted to be alone anyways and I guess Cory figured that out right quick because next thing I know we were rounding up sleeping mats, sleeping bags, and ponchos because we were going to do it up Infantry style. For two days Cory stayed outside in the elements with me so I didn't have to be alone while mourning my friends. Oh yeah, BTW, it warrants mentioning that both nights it was pouring down rain and flooding. But Cory couldn't have given a damn if it was hell and high water. My impression of the thought likely going through his mind was,"this is a friend, a brother in arms, and an Infantry brother and thats all I need to know" and for that I will forever be grateful. He went out shooting with me, and that would've been enough. He went out drinking with me, and that would've been enough. He bought my drinks despite my objection, and that would've been enough. But for him apparently it wasn't enough, and he had nothing to gain by doing what he did, no angle to play. He did what he did for one simple and pure reason; he simply felt it was the right thing to do. And I honestly believe that if I didn't tell this story today, no one would've ever known the details of what he did. 

Karen, Steve, and Andy Sziraki, I took the time to write this out, in this detail for the three of you. I want you to know the details of what happened because, as I've said, my loyalty and respect are not easily earned and the actions of your son/brother pulled off that feat inside of 24 hrs. The three of you raised a great person who was destined for great accomplishments had God not greater plans. To my friend Andy, take it from someone who was the youngest child and had an older brother, an older brother has more effect on the growth and development of their younger brother in ways that the older brother will never truly know. An older brother provides a role model, a friend, a confident, a partner in crime but above all an older brother fills a certain void that parents can never fill because at the end of the day, parents are just that, parents; a brother however provides an example and provides advice to the younger brother and often times neither one knows about the life's lessons that are passively taught as part of the inter-brother relationship, so I can promise you that you should be proud of your brother and your part in Cory becoming the man I described earlier in this post. You're influences are just as influential as your parents and as your friend I just wanted to explain to you the importance of the older brother from the perspective of the younger brother. 

Karen and Steve, your words to me at the showing meant a lot, It gave me peace to know that I had an influence on Cory in his final days and to know I had your forgiveness for what what happened in high school. May the Lord keep your family safe and healthy for many years to come; you've already made your sacrifice to his plans.

The spiritual views of one modern Jew.

     The presence of a god, or not, is irrelevant in my moral decision making. I do not need a God to tell me that helping those in need is good, or that murder and torture of the innocent is bad. Also, if I am to be a strict adherent of judaism and the old testament, Then I would have to support the stoning of homosexuals as it is an abomination and they shall be put to death. I could find several other sections of Leviticus that would be considered absurd by todays standards. Furthermore, if there is an all-powerful and all-benevolent being that is referred to as God, then I seriously have got a few questions to ask. While innocent men, women, and children are getting maimed, slaughtered, dismembered, disfigured, through the actions of both man and nature, where is this benevolence. While I get the necessity of death, I feel that any god I would choose to believe in or follow, would not be so narcissistic as to require my active belief or showing of devotion. That's not to say I don't believe in god, or even that I do, it is simply stating that I feel my time and energies are better spent doing what I can to help the helpless, to treat people equally and with fairness, to defend the defenseless, to bring hope to the hopeless. Because been a Jew and helpless, discriminated against, defenseless and hopeless, I know how it feels, I know what it's like. Having been a Jew and seeing people who are utterly helpless, who have be denigrated and cast aside or killed because they were different, having seen pulled up to places on a map where there was once a town, but now there is nothing but nature because they were massacred and incapable defending themselves, having seen the look of hopelessness in the eyes of veterans and civilians who have hit rock bottom and know of nowhere else to go. I have come to realize that to me, being a Jew is helping the helpless because I have been there and I have seen others, being a Jew is treating people kindly, fairly and with equality because, as a Jew, I've been on the other side of that coin, being a Jew is defending the defenseless because we all as Jews know what it is like to be defenseless, being a Jew is giving hope to those who have none because, as Jews, we have been through the worst the world has had to offer and yet we still survive and we can use that to give hope to others. That is what being a Jew is to me, not abstaining from eating pork or mixing milk and meat, and while there are many traditions and holidays that go along with being Jewish, and yes they are important because it helps us to remember who we are and where we came from, if forced to choose between helping others who need help, defending, or hope, and celebrating holidays, I will choose to help 10 times out of 10. Why will I? Because, more important than my identity as a Jew, and more important than a belief or non-belief in god, is maintaining ones humanity because once that is lost, nothing else matters. And while many times, or actually most times, my identity as a Jew and my maintenance of my humanity go hand in hand. While you or others may place your faiths in an entity known as God, I choose to place mine in the concept known as Humanity, that abstract idea that separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. And you know what, who's to say the concepts of God and Humanity aren't one and the same. My point is I do not know, and I really do not care because at the end of the day, regardless of if there is a God or not, I will still do what I can to help people. And that is why this quote is, in fact, factual in my case.

Saudade: An Infantyman's Emotion.

"…The pride of the infantryman comes not from knowing that he’s doing a job that others can’t, but that he’s doing a job that others simply won’t. Many infantrymen haven’t seen a lot of combat. While that may sound ideal to the civilian or non-infantry soldier, it pains the grunt. …" (an excerpt from the attached link. If you have to choose between reading the writing below and the passage that is on the page I've linked, click the link. )

That line hits home the most for me since I got discharged early from my injuries. Although, for me at least, the pain comes from being here while my brothers, the men I've come to know and love, are over there risking their lives and dying and I should be over there with them, watching their backs just as they would watch mine, but instead I have to sit at home and watch the news, and hope that today will not be the day that I get the news of a friend not coming back safe. Most can never, truly, understand why I feel that way. Hell I remember when I was staying back in Ft. Dix, as a result of injury, and everyone else was getting ready to go over to Iraq, some would talk about me malingering or trying to get out of going, all while I fought as hard as I could to get fixed and go over. I distinctly remember overhearing my XO (executive officer) at the time saying something negative about me to the CO (commanding officer) of the medical unit I was with and then hearing the CO go off on him about it because the CO knew how much I was fighting to get back. In their defense, I did fuck off a lot outside of actual training exercises in my younger years, so I can't blame them for thinking that way. I just wanted to have as much fun as I could before getting deployed, because I figured I would have another 20 or so years left in the army and of those years only a few would I not be responsible for others (I guess I hadn't learned the lead by example concept yet). What I did not expect, was that the one thing, outside of my family, that I loved, would be taken away too soon.

Every morning when I wake up, I wake up with a pain greater than the pain from the bones of my knees grinding against one another, greater than the pain in my back from 4 intervertebral discs pushing against my spinal cord, greater than the pain of my clavicle grinding against my acromion; this pain, greatest of all is the aching of my heart that comes from that empty space in my soul that was once filled with the honor of being a United States Infantryman; from having that honor ripped from my hands too soon. It is a pain and a burden that no drink, no drug, no thing can ever completely take away. Sadly, or should I say fortunately, that feeling is something I feel that even many of my fellow infantryman do not, or cannot truly understand, but if there is anyone that could understand it would be my brothers in the Infantry for it is a brotherhood that is second to none.

Now my only real regret, if you can even call it that, is that it took me a medical discharge, 2 years of opiate abuse, burning bridges with most everyone I knew, and then getting clean to finally realize that, among a vast other things, being an Infantryman is not just going out to the training fields to run drills the best you can, waking up early enough to finish PTing until your body collapses with enough time to make it to chow before 0-dark-thirty, or fearlessly charging into the killing fields of combat.The title of United States Infantryman is also about LOYALTY for your brothers, because no matter how much they try to tell you otherwise, their life is more important than your own; DUTY, not just to your unit but to that little boy walking by looking at that blue cord in awe, to the old man who sees that cord and sheds a tear of remembrance, to family members who share the burden of responsibility that comes with the Infantry Blue; RESPECT, not just for your brothers, your uniform and the flag, but for yourself as well because if cannot or do not respect yourself, no one else will either; SELFLESS SERVICE, because no brotherhood can survive if you're only watching your own six; HONOR, worth more than your life, because unlike your life, honor can never be taken, it can only be surrendered, however just as with life, once gone it is nearly impossible to get back; INTEGRITY, because the right thing needs to be done, even if no one is watching; PERSONAL COURAGE, more important than integrity because anyone can do the right thing when no one is watching, we must also be able to do the right thing even when everyone is watching. I often see the picture comparing the US Infantryman to our enemies by having our enemy hiding behind a child aiming their rifle and the American pushing the child behind them, thereby offering cover and protection at their own risk. When I see this picture, or any number of things, I can see each and every one of those values in the simple picture of the American and none of them in the other half that portrays "the terrorist". This why it takes a special person to have the privilege of going through "Sand Hill",  Camp Geiger ITB, or Camp Onofre ITB. The Army maybe say differently about their "7 core values, but that is what "LDRSHIP" means to this infantry veteran and if I could go back and change anything, it would be that I could learn this lesson in time to share it with the men I served with and that it might possibly find its way into the hearts of the next generation of America's bravest men (and women). For those with a blue cord no explanation is necessary; for those without, no explanation is possible. Infantry leads the way, HOOAH!

Sorry bout the length, but I've learned that when shit get's to me, it's best to get it off my chest than to bury it inside.