Crips in the Army at JBER

On August 11, 2012, a Segeant First Class (SFC, E-7) was eating at a mess hall on Ft. Richardson (JBER). A Staff Sergeant sitting with him, said "look at that, you seeing what I am seeing?" Both were in agreement as to what they had observed. A young Private First Class (PFC, E-2) sitting in an Army mess hall in an airborne T-shirt with what appeared to be pajama bottoms sagging below his butt. On his head was a cap that plainly stated on the sides: "Melborne CRIPS". The dress was an obvious insult to all who wear the uniform, but, more importantly, the display of gang sign or gang name is prohibited.

The SFC immediately rose from his table and approached the PFC. The PFC stood up. He answered the SFC's questions regarding rank, unit and what was being advertised on the side of his hat. While the PFC answered the questions, he never recognized the SFC's rank in his replies. The SFC told the PFC that his dress was inappropriate, demeaning and an insult to his fellow soldiers and to the Army. After recording the PFC's name, rank, unit and the PFC's First Sergeant's name, the SFC returned to his table and his soldiers.

The SFC is a Platoon Sergeant (PLS). He is a family man, and a veteran of the Iraq war. He is also a veteran of the USMC. I consider him to be an unimpeachable source.

In "my day", the PFC would never have been allowed in the mess hall dressed in such a insulting and cavalier manner. However, this is the new politically correct military, where gang affiliation openly displayed is ignored and dress that is insulting and demeaning both to the PFC, his fellow soldiers and to the U.S. Army is also ignored by his NCOs and officers.

The open display of gang affiliation should have resulted in an immediate contact with the Military Police.

For several years now, it has been reported in the Army Times, Military.com, and other military blogs that the presence of gang members within the military is increasing. It has been previously reported that gangs are using the military to recruit and as a training resource for their members. Where else can you send your people to get them trained in combat arms, and have them gain combat experience to boot?

That a PFC would have the audacity to display his true loyalties in a mess hall in front of other soldiers indicates a confidence that should not be. This is a disturbing development.

Joint Base Elemendorf Richardson has a problem with gang members in uniform. These individuals need to be rooted out before there is a clash between competing gang organizations that turns deadly. The Base Commander and unit commanders need to put their duty and responsibility both to their troops and the community first over gang members in uniform.

The Crips PFC needs to be discharged and sent home. He obviously enlisted under false pretenses.

Joint Base Elemendorf Richardson is located adjacent to the city of Anchorage.

July 4th

July 4th, Independence day.

Alaskans, remember the sacrifice in blood.

Freedom is not free.

Ask any soldier.

Remember those crosses in our national cemeteries.

Blood and sacrifice.

Duty, honor, country.

Then, why, is it that we have allowed our beginnings to be denigrated, perverted, and almost forgotten?

Why have we allowed perversion and distortion to become truth?

Why is it that we allowed all that we know to be good and true to become less?

Why have we become so complacent about the death of the unborn when we once rejoiced and held life above all . . . ?

Where is morality and God in our lives?  Without a moral compass, there is no freedom, just slavery.

We thought we had won the Cold War against Soviet Communism when the Berlin Wall came crashing down and the Soviet Empire crumbled. We were wrong.  The enemy was us. The war against those who would destroy this country has become American against American, the radical left against the right, liberals against conservatives. The liberal is now the old communist who works for the creation of the State controlled everything and the destruction of all that we held to be American:  family, life, our culture, our history, our work ethic, our sovereignty, our language, our morality, and our integrity as a nation.

Would those who sacrificed to take the plunge into uncharted waters in 1776 have done so if they knew how we squandered what they created?

The second Great American Revolution has begun.  Let us hope that this war will be resolved at the ballot box.

SOLDIERS!  REMEMBER YOUR OATH TO THE CONSTITUTION!

Lies and coal mine, a solution

I have listened to commercials on a local radio station decrying the proposed Usibelli coal development project.  I have read the arguments.  I have yet to read or to hear one substantive argument or legitimate, relevant fact in opposition to the mine that makes any sense or has any bearing whatsoever on whether or not Usibelli will operate within the boundaries of the law.  All I have read to date and heard on the radio ads in opposition to the coal mine are the most egregious misrepresentations and outright lies.
Where is there any evidence of potential damage to a watershed, or the specter of an air quality violation?  Where is there evidence of any damage to property values or to the ability to get a loan on property?  First National Bank of Alaska and the Matanuska Valley Federal Credit Union have both denied the allegations of those opposing the mine.  Yet, the lie is maintained on in the radio ads.

This campaign against Usibelli has been undertaken with the typical liberal penchant for making the most outrageous claims without any basis in substance or fact.  The only issues that they can bring up are areas that are the responsibility of our federal and State agencies.  They imply with their gross misrepresentations that these agencies are incompetent.  They imply by their advertising that the EPA, DEC, DNR, and the Army Corps of Engineers have been suborned to the coal company's "evil" purposes.  That these agencies and the professionals that staff them will not evaluate Usibelli's plans under the scrutiny of State and federal law.
I have a solution.

Let these whining liberals who have decided that this Valley does not need this development pay into the MSB's and the State's coffers the tax revenues that would otherwise be generated by this project.  Let them also put up a fund to compensate local business for the loss of the revenues generated from the lost wages were this project not to come to fruition.  Let them put their money where their mouths are, because all that they have done so far is to whine and cry, and to express their liberal anti-development tirade at the expense of those who need, want, and otherwise would support the development of a resource that has a long history of development in this Valley.
Given the unlikelihood of those opposing doing their civic duty and compensating for the loss of the mine, I propose the following alternative.

Why did the Alaska Rail Road (ARR) stop maintaining the track to Sutton after the coal mine shut down?  Bad policy, and a Palmer City Council that did not want coal trains moving through Palmer.  The ARR, rather than float the bonds to repair and refurbish the rail system, and to circumvent Palmer, if necessary, has required any company that needs their services to move coal or minerals from that area to pay for the track.  Must be nice to have a monopoly.  However, that is not what the ARR is all about.  It is a quasi-public corporation that is supposed to benefit the State, which is the only shareholder. 

Governor Parnell's DNR, the Valley legislative delegation, and the ARR should get together and figure out the benefits of the coal mine to the Valley and the State.   Instead of squandering $214M on a 500mmcf/da natural gas pipeline from the North Slope to Nikkiski that will never be economically viable and will cost millions in subsidies yearly and raise our natural gas prices in south central, using the money to repair and upgrade the rail to Sutton would be of greater benefit to Alaska and the Valley in the long term. 

Jobs would be created for the refurbishment of the rail line.  The ARR could rehire those it just laid off, because of the shut down of the Fairbanks Flint Hills Refinery.  Jobs for Valley residents would be created by the mine development, and there would be no trucks on our highways.  Rail would haul the coal from Sutton to Seward or Pt. MacKenzie.

Once again, coal would fire the economy of the Valley and provide year round high paying jobs.  The ARR would be supporting resource development as it is supposed to do, rather than acting as a financial impediment to further development of energy and mineral resources.

Memorial Day 2012, a day of remembrance, not self indulgence

Today is a day that we are supposed to memorialize our war dead. Our heroes and heroines who died in the line of duty while serving their country in defense of freedom. Instead, too many ignore the why of the day, to indulge in self-serving activities that have nothing to do with attempting to demonstrate their appreciation for the sacrifice of our war dead.


The veterans of foreign wars are all around us. We may never know who they are, we might note the hat that they wear to show that they served during a time of duress and war, or a jacket. There may be no outward appearance or sign of their prior service. We largely ignore them, giving lip service to their sacrifice by showing “appreciation” to our troops by enduring politicians self-serving speeches.

My father became a Marine at the close of WWII. He served on Okinawa in a Scout Recon Platoon, always referred to as “kid” by his platoon sergeant, never as Marine, because he was underage. In 1947, he was sent to China as part of the Allied Army of Occupation. While there, he spent 9 months as a prisoner of the Red Chinese. He and those captured with him, were beaten daily, suffered depravations, and told upon repatriation to forget it by the USMC, never happened. He was discharged and returned to Arizona, serving in the Army National Guard, until the Korean War, when he once again became a Marine for the duration. He moved his family to Alaska in 1954 upon his release from the USMC. He then again joined the Army National Guard, becoming Alaska’s first fiscal officer. My father did not go to Vietnam, but in 1968 was offered a commission as a Lt. Commander in the U.S. Navy, if he would take a two year tour to Camh Ranh Bay with the Seabees. He declined the offer.

My father’s experience was not really unique. He was of a generation of Americans who faced a terrible war that threatened the very existence of the United States. He continued to serve in one capacity or another with the military until his early 40s. Such service was a matter of course for his generation, and expected. Through my father, his association with aviation, his USMC and National Guard service, and his tenure as an Alaska Territorial and Alaska State Police Officer in the 1950s and early 60s, I was privy to a world of men and women who were of that generation who served in WWII and Korea, and through Civil Air Patrol, those serving in the Republic of Viet Nam.

When Iraq came around, my youngest son, after serving a five year tour in the USMC, had joined the U.S. Army Reserve and was called up to duty as a combat engineer NCO.

While working on a USMC firing range renovation in 2008 on Oahu, I had the sincere privilege to meet young Marines who had been wounded in action, most by IEDs. They had been sent to the unit responsible for the firing range awaiting discharge for their injuries. We were humbled and sobered to be in the presence of those who had done the job and had been severely injured.

Soldiers fight for their buddies. It is all about the guy next to them. Not about country, not about the color of skin, not about where one came from, not about religion, not about anything but doing one’s part, and not letting your buddies down.

The guys in WWII did not serve to see the U.S. become less. They served to end a threat. They did terrible things. They firebombed cities. They shelled cities. They killed soldiers and civilians. They fought a total war. They won. Since, we have put our troops in harm’s way, but our leaders have prevented them from winning.

Today, our troops are under the influence of those whose world view is now very much like the enemy of the 50s-80s. The former Soviet Union and communism.

We have a President who is a product of communists and hard core socialists. People who do not believe that the U.S. is a good place or that its society is unique in the world with our Constitution and our rule of law. People who do not value life, our culture, the preservation of language, our institutions, the supremacy of our Constitution, or the traditional family as being necessary to the preservation of our country and way of life. People who live in the past believing that the U.S. is a place rife with discrimination based upon color and ethnicity and unfairness. People who believe that they have the right to take from those that work and give to those who do not. That the Constitution is nothing but an outdated piece of paper in need of revision to reflect their progressive (anytime progressive is used, read communist) world view. What’s yours is theirs. Abortion, though a tool of eugenics and intended to be used as such against the African-American population, has become a “right” for women who put killing the unborn below protecting a whale. This is not the United States that my father and millions of Americans before and since fought to defend or who sacrificed their lives to protect.

Some of our young American who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places have given five years away from home and family. Some, much more.

There are Gold Star families in Palmer, Wasilla, and Eagle River.

When you see a uniform of our armed services, think of how much time you have given in service to your fellow citizens away from your family. And, remember, what they do is dangerous in of itself with respect to training and daily operations without being shot at.

Be thankful that there are such heroes and heroines willing to do the job of our military. Tell your kids that these men and women are there to protect them and mommy and daddy. Tell your children that those grave stones in our national cemeteries mark the final resting place of someone’s daddy, son, brother, sister, mother, or wife.

May God bless these men and women who serve and those who have served this Great Nation. They stood the line and deserve our respect.

Memorial Day should be a day of respect and quiet reflection.

Are we really closer to a natural gas pipeline? Nah.

http://www.examiner.com/article/closer-to-a-natural-gas-pipeline

In an Anchorage Daily News op-ed piece on May 11, 2012, Governor Sean Parnell extolled that his Administration was closer than ever to a large diameter natural gas pipeline being built, because of the settlement with Exxon over the Pt. Thompson development. One has to wonder just what this guy is on in terms of meds? He must be on the same psychotropic, hallucinogenic medications that the Legislature is on.


Otherwise, how could one reconcile the Legislature’s seemingly mindless following of Rep. Mike Hawker’s and House Speaker’s Mike Chennault’s incredible determination to wipe the 2002 vote and mandate of 138,000 Alaskans off the record, to remove same from State Statute, and to prove that the State will expend hundreds of millions to demonstrate that LNG from Russia can be imported cheaper to south central than their pipedream. This in the face of $14/tcf-$17/tcf LNG delivered in Japan.

What is it about the all-Alaska natural gas pipeline option that causes it to never be spoken of by our Governor and by our Legislature, never considered as a viable option, never mentioned by the Press, yet, demonstrated by the market as being incredibly prescient, given that this option was voted on and passed—you know, mandated—by the vote of 138,000 Alaskans way back in 2002? The only Republican candidate to champion this option was Bill Walker with his run for Governor in 2010.

Governor Parnell has asked nicely for TransCanada and the Producers to consider the LNG option to Valdez under AGIA. TransCanada and Exxon said sure, and now, studies will be made to determine the viability of that option through December of this year, and beyond. Is that not all that Governor Frank Murkowski’s so called contract achieved? A promise to “study”?

In the meantime, prices in Japan are $14/tcf-$17/tcf for LNG delivered to Japan. The cost of Alaska LNG delivered to Japan estimated by the Wood-Mac report for AGPA was $8.50/tcf. The proposed all-Alaska natural gas pipeline to Valdez championed by Bill Walker’s run for governor in 2010 called for a 3bcf per day pipeline from the North Slope to Valdez with 250mcf being taken off at Glennallen and delivered by a spur line to the Enstar Hub at Palmer. That left 2.75bcf per day for delivery to world markets. Under Walker’s proposal, the gas liquids would have been retained in Alaska for use to build a petrochemical industry and to provide alternative fuels for the Bush.

Every day, the governor has his head up his posterior, the Legislature is entranced by Hawker’s and Chennault’s Pied Piper routine, the State denies itself $15,125,000 at a sale price of $14/tcf delivered. Over the course of a year that is $5.52billion. Kiss another $5.52B good-bye by December 31 of this year.

The oil companies down south are moving, developing, and continuing to explore based upon $2.02/tcf of methane. Methane that may be exported, which will compete with Alaska gas and may even displace our gas in Asian markets, given our governor’s and our Legislature’s inability to see the handwriting on the proverbial wall.

Japan is shutting down its nukes, and Alaska has a market for our natural gas, if we want it. Two delegations from Japan have come to talk with the State, the first rebuffed by our Governor just after the 2011 earthquake.

Our DNR Commissioner met with the most recent Japanese delegation, our Lt. Gov. had dinner with them, but . . . nothing. Our DNR Commissioner goes to the PRC to investigate the LNG market, but not to Japan. After 41+ years of trade in LNG to Japan, Alaska is unwilling to discuss the potential with the Japanese.

Unlike our governor and his administration, Senator Lisa Murkowski is trying to do just that with her recent meetings with the Japanese Prime Minister and members of the Japanese Diet. Murkowski is trying to sell Japan on Alaska LNG, but is wasting her time in the face of a hostile Parnell Administration.

What's wrong with this picture, Alaska?

The Legislature with CB9 and CS9 have told the people to stick it with our 2002 vote, that our vote meant nothing. We have been proven right in the market, but our State leaders have shown their contempt for our will by completely ignoring what we mandated.

This governor and our Legislature have ignored us, when we were right all along.

Yet, now, Governor Sean Parnell extols that Alaska is closer than ever before to getting a pipeline??!!!!