Dudester's Blog

One thing about living in a family is that you will see other family members in various stages of dress and undress. I'm a news junkie and I actually watch several hours of news a day, splitting it across three Houston stations. Because I watch some people so often I begin to think of them as extended family. I hear them talk about their cars, their kids, the roads they drive, where they shop, etc.

Monday morning I was watching 26 news and saw something I didn't think I'd see, but I've seen before on another channel. Either it was cold in the studio, or Pattie forgot a key undergarment, but there was Pattie on display.

I saw it once at another station here. Jessica Willey was doing a live exterior shot during a parade. She had been caught in the rain and her shirt (and bra) had become transparent. When they returned to her, I noticed she had found a red jacket-even though it was 90 plus degrees outside with horrendous humidity. Kudos to her.

I've lived other places and sometimes had interactions with news people that weren't as positive. While drinking one night at a local watering hole in another city, I saw a well known weather guy get rather polluted. Evidently he made a practice of it and was soon fired. The guy that the Ron Burgundy movie is based on (Loren Nancarrow), he and I got into a shoving match over a parking space. He kept saying "Don't you know who you're messing with?" I knew who I was messing with, what he was ignorant of was that I was in Marine Recon and I could've easily squashed him. Lucky for him, some people intervened.

So, thanks to my "news family" for keeping me informed and entertained. Much better than other places I lived.

Why I stocked up on movies. Know what's on TV this week?

Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama

Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama

Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama

Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama

Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama

Nothing but

Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama

Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama

This would be a companion piece to "Your Dream Job". Have you ever had a job that you just absolutely loved, and you hated to give it up for one reason or another? It might have been the pay, or the perks, or the company you kept at the time. Or perhaps it was the scenery. Share it with us. For me, it's a three way tie:

Volunteer Firefighter. This was in the days before EMS. There's just something gratifying about killing the monster (fire) and the bonding of men while in combat with the beast. I loved riding the truck and I became an adrenaline junkie for awhile. I had to give it up because I was joining the military. I never returned to that town. I looked into it in other places, but how can you top the best of times? You can't recapture lightning in a bottle.

Guard Duty. Shortly after joining the Marine Corps, I was in a unit assigned to protect a top secret facility. We only worked four hours every other day. Once a day we had uniform inspections. Every other weekend, we had three day weekends. This was a "holding Company assignment", meaning I was awaiting a particular assignment to open up. I hated giving up the Guard Unit. Good times.  

Bodyguard. I once had the honor to bodyguard the dancers who appeared as "The Ninja Turtles". It was a ten day stint while they stayed in Houston. We (the other bodyguard and I) got to stay in the Hilton with them, ate good food, and got most of the evening off (they liked to dance every night). It was easy money. Although I've done other bodyguard assignments, this was the best by far.

I went to buy a Houston Chronicle today and I noticed that the price had increased to one dollar. This is a one hundred percent increase over this time last year. I also noticed that the paper had fewer pages than any time in recent memory.

It's a widely known fact that newspapers are dying out in America. Publishers cite increased competition from the internet and over the air news, but there's more to it than that.

Newspapers are a business. This is a fact overlooked by publishers in peril nowadays. Texas, as a state, and region, is conservative. Many of the staff at the Chronicle are not conservative. If the staff at the Chronicle was conservative, there would be daily columns from conservatives like Michelle Malkin, instead of daily columns from 1960's throwbacks like Molly Ivins. The staff of the Chronicle is not serving it's constituency, and this is the reason the sun is setting for this institution.

I was once a freelance writer for the Chronicle. Years ago, I talked to a member of the editorial board at the Chronicle about the overwhelming content from left leaning writers at the paper. He told me that the Chronicle was trying to present "all views" on any topic. I just shook my head at this as that particular day the editorial section only had one conservative pundit and eight left leaning pundits. I think the all views he was referring to was all views from the eyes of 1960's radicals who can't get over that it's no longer 1969.

I've also spoken to people from my church and subdivision. They throw up their hands and say "I'm finished" when the Chronicle is mentioned. They're tired of the Conservative bashing that goes on in the pages of the paper. I can't say that I blame them. This past November, the Chronicle endorsed Obama, although Texas went very much Republican. The Chronicle, out of touch with it's customers and the area it serves. I will soon write it's obituary here.

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Along the same lines:

The Japanese Edition of Playboy printed it's final issue today. Playboy was once the industry standard of men's magazines. The models in the magazine were far more beautiful than any magazine and it's writing was once crisp and intelligent. However, comma, Hugh Hefner and company have been resting on their laurels for the past twenty years. While Rome crumbled about them, they went on with business as usual. As the country moved to the right, the magazine actually moved farther left.

The biggest misstep happened several years ago. Playboy published an article from a now disgraced History Professor who attacked the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He proferred a theory that because firearms are mentioned in less than five percent of wills from the Colonial Period that the need for the Second Amendment is invalid.

I was amongst those who wrote and informed the staff that there is a very long precedent wherein firearms are passed down from father to son. Playboy addressed the deluge of letters it had on the subject, saying they stood with the professor and that they trashed the 15k or more letters they had on the subject. Subscriptions dropped dramatically after that. I let my subscription expire.

Recently, though, I accepted a ten dollar a year subscription to Hugh's old dowager. For ten bucks, I get twelve issues and two DVD's. I know they're losing money on my subscription, and that is precisely why I accepted the ten dollar a year subscription. I know the mag will die about the time Hugh does. I will also write it's obituary here.    

Several years ago, we marveled at the pitching ability of over forty year old Roger Clemens and the batting ability of Mark McGuire. Then, baseball, finally listening to it's critics, started an investigation into whether it's players were using steroids. Suddenly, Mark McGuire retired and quickly faded into the background. Clemens, on the other hand, hired a high priced lawyer.

When baseball was being dominated by the hitting of McGuire and Sammie Sosa several years ago, the thing I marveled at was the size of baseball players. From the time I was a kid, into my early adulthood and beyond, baseball players looked like average men, maybe even slighter in size. Then, about ten years ago, baseball players suddenly became the size of NFL fullbacks. About this time, baseball games, which rarely had home runs, suddenly became home run derbys. Something smelled in Stockholm, and it wasn't the fish.

Last year, my blood boiled when I saw Roger Clemens hold a press conference. He conducted the press conference very much like the neighborhood bully-who had suddenly been accused (rightfully so) of shaking down the local kids for their lunch money. Clemens was verbally and physically abusive, standing menacingly over sports writers, daring them to ask a question he didn't like. Clemens had been accused by the Mitchell Report of taking steroids and most of the writers in the room had commented on the fact. Clemens took offense and it looked like he wanted to take every writer in the room outside and beat them into a pulp. I wished I had been in the room. I would've invited him outside. I'm not speculating on who would've won the altercation, but had I won, I would've made Clemens apologize to every one of those writers for being the south end of a northbound horse.

A Federal Grand Jury is being convened to see if Clemens lied to Congress when he testified last year that he hadn't taken any steroids. Clemens could've taken the McGuire route and quietly retired, thumbing his nose at any writer who asked him about steroids, but Clemens instead, had to be the neighborhood bully. It's too early to speculate at what the Grand Jury will decide, but if there is any justice in this world, Clemens will have to answer for being a Class A jerk.

Being a Major League baseball player is one of the great privileges of our society. You get paid an obscene amount of money to play a child's game. Adoring women swoon over you and kids want to be you. It's a great honor and and a great responsibility. All you have to do to earn the eternal gratitude of your fans is play well, and be a halfway decent human being.  Roger Clemens, on the other hand, has become the neighborhood bully, who cheated and got caught, and is trying to punk out on the responsibility of his own actions. He has dishonored himself, and diminished himself in the eyes of sports fans and he has created the very hot water that he is in. It would do Roger well to suddenly man up, fess up, and take his lumps. If he does this, he might (just might) ressurect his image. For right now, he's just an out of control jerk with a Pinnochio nose.

Nobody

Well, the voodoo practicioners of the BCS system have left us with no clear winner of the bowl season, again. The BCS system was supposed to remove all doubt as to who won out the bowl season and here we are the day after the championship was declared with a very tarnished victor.

The BCS rankings pit Oklahoma against Florida for the championhip game. Oklahoma wasn't just ranked number one, their quarterback was the Heisman Trophy winner. The Heisman trophy is supposd to go to the best player in the nation. Last night in the championship, Sam Bradford didn't look like the best player at all. He couldn't sustain anything and the Florida defense outplayed him at every turn. Tim Teabow, the Florida Quarterback, on the other hand, not only looked like he was ready to lead a professional team, but that his pro team would be a playoff contender. The end result was Florida beating Oklahoma 24-14. Florida wasn't the only convincing win in the BCS system.

Utah capped off an undefeated season by thumping much heralded Alabama. Utah comes from the very much spat upon Mountain West Conference. Utah was only allowed into a BCS game grudgingly, having played it's non conference games against teams from highly regarded conferences, and finishing undefeated. Utah was included as a joke, as fodder for Alabama to chew up. Alabama comes from the Southeast Conference. Year in, and year out, the writers have the Southeast Conference winner as the number one or two pick in the country. The Southeast Conference, according to shoe licking sports writers, is the premier conference in the country. After Utah completely dominated Alabama, it appeared that the Sotheast Conference team wasn't all that mighty, or impressive.

USC also has a very valid claim at the National Championship.  USC was only included in the BCS, having won the PAC Ten Conference. This year the PAC Ten Conference wasn't highly regarded, and USC regarded only as a paper tiger. A funny thing happened on the way to the Rose Bowl however, the PAC Ten won all five of it's bowl games. No other conference can claim a record like that, matter of fact, the Southeast Conference was 1-4 in it's bowl games. Fancy that. USC completely shut out eight of it's opponents, not allowing one point from them.

USC dominated Penn State in the Rose Bowl from the opening kickoff. Penn State, led by legendary coach Joe Paterno, looked like they weren't ready to play. USC dominated both sides of the game, offense and defense. USC looked like a national championship contender, but now we'll never find out.

The BCS system looks a lot like the results of World War One. WW1 was supposed to be the war to end all wars, but the aftermath was actually more troublesome than the factors that led to the war itself. Nothing was resolved by the war, and it's end only sowed the seeds that led to World War Two. The BCS system, again this year, left a declared winner, but with three teams with a very valid claim to the championship. When are we ever going to have a playoff and outright winner? When will the powers that be ever listen? I guess we'll never find out.

Ever had one of those really funny Christmas days, or something funny that happened on Christmas?

I got involved very early on with the Volunteer Fire Department. I was awoken early one Christmas morning by an alarm call. We responded to the location-a house fire. It was a single story house, raised foundation, with a false ceiling.

When we went in, there was a lot of smoke along the ceiling, but we couldn't see the fire. After a quick decision, one of the firemen ran outside to get a pike.

Meanwhile, two of the firemen were helping the owners carry furniture outside (that kind of thing used to tick me off). Also, my younger brother had tagged along. Because the living room had a very large plate glass window, he was able to see everything going on in there from outside the house.

The fireman returned with the pike. He poked at the ceiling. The entire ceiling collapsed. Suddenly, fire was everywhere. I just opened my hose and sprayed everywhere. The water hit the fire, creating steam (it was 20 degrees outside). My visor fogged up, so I just sent the stream back and forth. Anther hose crew came in and they were a great help. It only took a few more minutes after that to tap out the fire.

My mother came home from work in the early afternoon. "You boys do anything interesting today?" she asked. "YEAH", my brother exuberinately responded, "we went to a house fire and the roof caved in and he was nearly killed. It was so cool!!"

I saw the color run out of my mother's face and she gripped the kitchen counter to keep her knees from buckling. I dropped my head, knowing what might come, but the fire department was my first love and my reason for existing, so she didn't go off.

It was December 1981. I had enough seniority to take Christmas leave, but my good friends Posey and Odom didn't. I didn't think this was right, so I decided to stick out the holidays with them in the barracks. Several days before Christmas, we bought a small Christmas tree for our squadbay cubicle, and decorated it.

We also made plans for Christmas. We knew that we got off duty at 7 p.m., and that the local supermarket closed at 7:30. Our evening was going to require split second timing. After duty, we hurriedly changed clothes. At the market we split. Odom went after cookies. I went after hot chocolate and other liquid refreshments. Posey went after other goodies.

When we returned to the barracks, I started making the hot chocolate while the guys laid out their finds. I asked if anyone had ever read the story:"Why The Chimes Rang" (by Raymond McAlden).  No one had, so I began telling the story.

A thousand years ago, in Europe, a great cathedral was built with spires that reached high into the sky. Atop one of the towers, a set of beautiful chimes were hung. The first rope attached to the chimes broke. A larger rope was attached-it too broke. First a light chain, then a cable, also broke. Finally, an angel appeared to the bishop and explained that the person who brought the greatest gift that Christmas would make the chimes ring.

Word spread soon and far across the land. As Christmas was nearing, people who lived far from the cathedral began the trek to the city. A couple of day's walk from the cathedral, the parents of two boys decided to make the trek. They left their boys some food and two silver coins to make do while they were gone. It wasn't long after the parents left that the boys too made the trek.

It was a difficult trek, across country, up mountain and down, in the cold and snow. Finally, on Christmas Eve, the boys arrived in the city of the Cathedral. There they found a long line to the cathedral. Those in line around them were dressed very well and carried chests of jewels and gold. The boys, paupers, had only their two silver coins.

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While I told the story, I noticed Marines from other parts of the barracks appearing at our cubicle. I had no idea that that many were also there for the holidays. We shared some of our food with them. I went on with the story.

*********************************************

While the boys were in line, they noticed an old woman, struggling to carry a load of wood to her home. The woman was being ignored by everyone in line. The oldest boy instructed the younger one to stay in line, while he saw to the woman. The older boy took the wood from the woman and helped her get home. He then started a fire for the woman in her hearth so she could warm herself. The older boy then returned to his younger brother.

The line was moving and nearing the church. The boys grew excited. Just then, a beggar begging for alms made his way down the line. Like the old woman, he too was ignored. The beggar told the boys he was starving and cold. The older boy then gave the younger brother one of the silver pieces and the older boy saw to the beggar. The older boy then took the beggar to the bakery and bought a loaf of bread. He then took the beggar to the old woman's home. With the bread, and the soup the old woman was making, there was a great meal for both.

The older boy then returned to his younger brother as it was their turn to go in the cathedral. Finally, when it was their turn, the boys laid their one silver piece at the altar.

From high up in the sky came a sound that none had ever heard before. It was the magical chimes ringing out their beautiful music. Everyone there knew that they were experiencing a miracle. The Bishop then held out that the boys, who had only given one coin, but had given all that they had.

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As I finished the story, from outside a Catholic church, only two hundred yards away from the barracks, a set of chimes began ringing out "Silent Night". We all got goosebumps and knew that on this Christmas Eve night, far away from our families, we were not alone, or forgotten.

It's that time of year. Except for the bowls, the college football season is over. The bowl matchups have been decided and I couldn't be more unhappy. According to the BCS Poll, seven of the top ten ten teams have one loss. Two are undefeated, and one has two losses. There is no real frontrunner-no real dominant team(s).

Boise State is not only undefeated, they're going to the little noticed Poinsettia Bowl to play TCU. Nothing against TCU, but I hope Boise State romps 73-0 to show they belong in a BCS bowl, not shuffled off to a little noticed pre Christmas bowl.

College Football is the only sport without a playoff structure. The organizers would like for us to believe that there is no way to have a playoff (aren't there 38 bowl games?). The playoff quarterfinals could be played in small bowls, like the Albuquerque Bowl, the Las Vegas Bowl, and Emerald Bowl. The semifinals could be played in more prestigious bowls, like the Poinsettia Bowl, Insight Bowl, and Chick Fil-A Bowl. The games to determine 1,2,3 could be played in the Rose, Fiesta, and Orange Bowl. It could even be a sixteen team, round robin tournament with a winner and loser bracket. Do that, and you will determine a very clear cut number one, two, and three.

As it is now, eight teams all have claim to number one. BCS-pretty screwed up-thanks for nothing.

With Thanksgiving around the corner, I thought I'd share a funny Thaksgiving I lived through. Share your holiday chuckles.

The High School  in the same town I grew up in was located on the far west side of town. After a football game, the quickest way to get back to town was to cut through the town cemetary. My brother and I found this way too tempting.

The second week of the football season, we ducked behind a couple of gravestones and jumped out to say boo. With each week, we became more brazen. The game the week before Halloween was our high mark (they played away the next week).

We put on kabuki makeup and used white sheets to make us look like spirits. We even set up some ropes to make it look like we were flying through the air before we descended on our victims.

We chased girls all night. There were screams heard for quite a distance. It was a hoot. However, the next week we just stayed home because the football team was away. The following Monday at school, a couple of guys asked us where we were Halloween night. We told them we were at home. They then told us that some girls had gone to the cemetary looking for us. They wanted us to frighten them. A missed opportunity.

Have you ever pulled a fun Halloween prank?

I very much love Rock n Roll. What I hate is when radio stations play the same stuff over and over. One station bills itself as a "classic rock station", yet in the 25 years of classic rock (1964-89) are there only about fifty songs, played over and over and over (ad infinitum) to death? I love Queen, but if I hear "We Will Rock You" and"We Are The Champions" one more time, I'll scream-and not for an encore!!

I know what some of you are thinking-"Just switch to satellite radio". Satellite costs money.

The problem is play lists, developed by focus groups. Do you know what a "focus group" is? It's ten unemployed New Yorkers, offered ten bucks an hour to take a survey. That's right, the music you hear here in Houston was selected for you by unemployed Yankees in New York City.

People hear this play list, developed by the focus group, and they grow accustomed to it. I've developed an axiom about it:"Spoon fed garbage long enough, people will develop a taste for it." I especially apply this to Mondays, when the station has you pick the songs day. People call in and pick songs from the very same playlist, played day in, and day out. They don't take the opportunity to hear something different.

Did you know that Pat Benatar has twenty two hit songs, and not just three? If you listened to Houston's rock stations, you would only hear three of her hits. It's really quite discouraging. When was the last time you heard Treat Me Right, or Promises in the Dark? Did you know she had a song about the great novel Wuthering Heights?

It's not just about Pat. When was the last time you heard anything from the Bay City Rollers? They had some giant hits in the 1970's, but when was the last time they were heard on Houston Radio? ABBA dominated the charts in the late 70's, early 80's. Heard anything besides Dancing Queen on Houston Radio? And my absolute fave, Triumph, when was the last time you heard their hits on Houston radio?  

To quote Martin Luther King, "I Have a Dream." I have a dream that one day I hit the lotto. I buy a Houston radio station, and I play rock music. I play stuff not on the play lists, hit songs, and some not hits, but important. People would call in and say:"Dude, I haven't heard that in years", or "Dude, I've never heard that before, it's awesome!!"

I would turn back the clock to 1974. I would make a radio station that responds to the public, but also educates them on great music. I would teach them the magic of Triumph, the fun of the Rollers, and let then rejoice in live Cheap Trick. Ah yes, it would be fun.

I've been voting for 28 years, the last ten in the same place. When I went to vote today, I noticed something-the really long lines. Polls have been open for five days, and people are still turning out in droves. I've never seen anything like it. Made me think.

In the late 1960's, Nixon spoke of "the silent majority". Nixon felt that there are a lot of people never have their voice heard. Admiral Van Doren Stein, about the same time, said:"America is a land where someone will sail ten thousand miles to fight an enemy, but won't cross the street to vote."

America is sometimes the subject of giggling in other coutries because American voter turnout is routinely low. American poll taking services have their mathematical models set on low turn out. I think this election will upset their apple cart-big time.

I think of the last time the poll taking services were so very wrong-1994. The pollsters were aware that there was an undercurrent of angry American voters who were going to turn out. The pollsters predicted that the Republicans would take over Congress with a five to ten seat advantage. When the numbers were counted, the advantage to the Republicans was actually fifty seats. How could the pollsters have been so wrong?

In the 1994 mid term Congressional elections, we learned the term "Angry White Male Voter". It signified that Americans were fed up with sixty years of Democrat rule in Congress. They were fed up with career politicians trying to take away their rights (i.e. the semi automatic gun ban, etc.). The Angry voter was ready to throw them rascals out.

The only difference between 1994 and now is the media. In 1994, a few "journalists" pretended to be objective. This time around, all of the alphabet networks are proudly and loudly campaigning for one side, and one side only. Even staid and usually objective Barbara Walters, whom I've been watching for thirty years, has loudly made her intentions clear. I think this shameless campaigning for one side has ticked the silent majority off, and they are turning out to let their voice be known. Obama has been measuring the drapes in the oval office for over a month now, but I seriously think he should wait. Why? Besides the shameless promoting, which is ticking off the silent majority, there are a few items in play.

1) The Palin Effect-earlier this week the media attacked Palin because the RNC spent 150k on her campaigning clothes. The public isn't anywhere near as stupid as the media paints them. The public knows that Palin has a few nice items hanging in her closet, but the rest of her closet is filled with blue jeans and T shirts, just like the rest of us.

2) Joe the Plumber- was minding his own business in his own yard, playing catch with his son, when Obama walked up and started campaigning. Joe, a very articulate man, caught Obama by surprise with a very good question. The media, upset that Joe didn't genuflect in Obama's presence climbed up Joe's colon with a microscope and started looking for dirt. This backfired for Obama, big time. Mark my words, in four years, Joe will have his own highly rated TV or Radio show, or he'll be the Republican nominee for President.   

3) The Silent Majority-has been forgotten since 1994. This year, the media awakened them with it's shameless promotion of Obama. In the words of Admiral Yamamoto:"I fear all we've done is awaken a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve." 

After this election, the media should go talk to the Japanese.

In 1939, writer/artist Bob Kane developed a comic book character named "Batman". What set Batman apart from other superheroes was that Batman was just an ordinary man-he couldn't fly, didn't have superhuman strength or speed, and he didn't have shape changing or magical powers. What Batman did have was a billiant deductive mind, a gift for gadgetry, and a strong desire for innovation.

For more than two decades, Batman was just another comic book character, but the Batman's popularity suddely took off because of a really horrible campy TV show. Luckily, the show only lasted a couple of years. About the same time, a series of cartoons about Batman started, however, Batman got a gigantic makeover in the early 1980's, when Frank Miller penned a couple of graphic novels about Batman.

The graphic novels were different from the comic books in that there was harsh language and adult themes. Batman's new nickname became "The Dark Knight". For the first time, we understood that Batman is a very tortured soul taking out his anger on any criminal that crossed his path.

The Dark Knight sagas led to new Batman movies. The first Batman movie was actually quite good, but as Hollwood is, the movies quickly went down in quality, then became flat out - a waste of time.

For me, the definitive Batman was the Batman portrayed in early 90's animation. The scripts were very intelligent and the cartoon itself, quite mesmerizing. Two episodes stand out as stand alone stories. In the first, Bruce Wayne awakes to find his parents alive, his debutante girlfriend very much in love with him, and there is no Batcave. Bruce finally figures out that he's in a dream because he can't read a book (the side of your brain that dreams is incapable of reading). So, Batman quickly vanquishes his foe, based on the knowledge that he's in a dream.

The episode that tops the list is "Over The Edge". The Joker kills Batgirl by knocking her out and throwing her off a skyscraper. She lands on Commissioner Gordon's car, and Gordon finds out that Barbara is Batgirl, and there's more to her relationship with Bruce than just mentor/student. Gordon uses the Police, media,  and courts to destroy Bruce and Batman.  Batman's biggest foes go on Phil Donahue and cry about how Batman ruined their lives by creating them and then they announce a one billion dollar civil suit against him. Good stuff.

There was a Batman Beyond cartoon that cashed in on the previous cartoon's popularity. In this incarnation of the Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne is retired, and a teenager is doing Batman duties in Gotham. Beyond was really great for telling secrets about the Batman/Bruce and tied together personal secrets of the various' Robins who served alogside Batman, and also the relationship between the billionaire Bruce and the very underage Barbara Gordon.

A couple of years ago, there was a Batman Begins movie. I saw it and was incredibly bored and disgusted. The recent sequel to that movie smahed box office figures across the globe. Richard Roeper said the movie was violent, and a friend recently confirmed that Roeper was soft soaping it.

So, there's half a dozen incarnations of the detective vigilante. Which incarnation is your favorite? 

It was released today that seven Army recruiters in the Houston area have committed suicide in the past five years. Why did they do it?

A) Recruiting is a gift duty, given to Infantry people who have seen rough duty.

B) Recruiters, especially lately, have been under tremendous stress to meet quotas.

What's wrong with this?

Someone serves under tremendous stress in a combat zone, and the first thing we do is take them from that environment and place them in another environment where they don't have the training, or skills, then place them under the strain of having to meet quotas.

This is so very indicative of the military's wrongheaded thinking. Someone has served under stress in combat, and we're going to put more stress on them. Brilliant.

Recruiting in today's job environment requires people (read civilians) with college degrees in marketing and sales in order to bring young people into today's military. The incentive really isn't there for young people to serve, there should be more there than just a good bonus if you sign up for a very dangerous job. Let me let you in on a conversation I had with a friend awhile back.

Me: "What did the military train you to do?"

Friend:"Hang bombs on planes."

Me: "No other training, college?"

Friend:"Nope."

In World War 1 and 2 it was imperative, for the nation's defense, to recruit 18 year olds and send them off to war, but that day has passed, times have changed. We are recruiting young, inexperienced in life people, training them to kill, then sending them to foreign countries to be our ambassadors. Is it then, any wonder, that in countries like Japan, for instance, that the populace of that country will become furious with the US because some 19 year old American raped, and/or killed, some teenage girl. We are imperiling our standing in the world because we are clinging to an obsolete policy, that war should only be for the very young. Therefore, I recommend some very drastic changes:

A) Everyone who joins the military instantly goes to junior college. Once they get their AA, they can serve in an occupation, once they have finished the "A School" for that profession (everyone going into the military gets an education, a degree).

B) Officers shall be selected from those enlisted personnel who excel in their area of expertise. They shall then go on to a bachelor's degree, then back to their trained field of expertise.

C) The military shall hire highly qualified civilian personnel to handle highly visible and administrative jobs (i.e. Recruiters, admin, supply etc.). No longer shall the unit secretary be that pretty Sergeant whom the Colonel admires.

D) The uniform code of military justice shall have a rich infusion of civilians into the process, with the removal of state crimes from the UCMJ (i.e., rape, assault, battery, murder). State crimes shall be turned over to the local Sheriff for disposition.

E) Personnel who have served in combat zones shall receive the appropiate psychological help, while serving in a non stress inducing job (i.e. Recruiter's assistant, to raise the image of the profession, while not being under stress themselves).

F) Transfer. Military personnel shall have the right to transfer professions every two years (with a six year minimum military requirement, not counting junior college). Any organization becomes richer with a diversity of knowlege).   

G) With the exception of combat deployment, no military personnel will serve overseas unless they are over the age of 21. Representing high visibilty professions (i.e. the military) requires someone with more wisdom than that found in a teenager.

H) The military will establish a job placement office in order to help reintegrate military personnel back into civilian life (if you break something, fix it. Common sense).

By the way, I served eleven years in the military. I found many things wrong with the military that need fixing. First, and utmost, the military should be a more user friendly organization that does a better job of training people for life, and for a profession. What is a machine gunner, or mortar man trained to do, besides kill? The military should train people so that any job they had in the military, they can leave the military with a degree, plus the discipline and training that will serve them later in life.

The military should let better trained people handle certain jobs. A year after I got out, my brother invited me for a weekend on base. I had reservations at the BOQ (Officer's Quarters), but when I arrived I was told that they wouldn't know, until after midnight, if anything was open. Can you imagine a hotel like that?

I welcome your feedback and thoughts on the matter.