I don’t write as often as I should.

Not as if my writing might change the world, but just purely from a therapeutic exercise. I have written 4 or 5 articles recently that I haven’t published. I can’t even entirely pinpoint the reason why.

The last few days though have hit personally. The Veteran community is being dragged through the media for no reason other than political propaganda and gamesmanship.

So disgusting is it that my simply pointing out the inherent hypocrisy in all of this to people online has resulted in my comments being deleted. As if, nope, not going to even have that discussion. Not willing to acknowledge reality. I’m simply going to pretend you don’t exist and carry on with my blind religiosity.

This is pathetic.

An acquaintance of mine, former Secretary of State for MO, a guy I served with 12 years ago has been all over MSM as he recently joined the Biden campaign. He’s pushing this latest narrative unapologetically. Who knows, maybe it’s real and hurtful to him. He laid out an analogy on CNN likening the Trump campaign to the villain in the movie, being pursued, rushing through the restaurant, then the kitchen and throwing pots and pans behind him in hopes of escaping. In his analogy the cooks and kitchen staff staring on in silent disbelief were the citizens of the US. What he fails to recognize about his own analogy is the very real observation that the cooks and staff in the movie, as well as the US citizens in 2020, endure a very painful distraction from life, while deriving absolutely no value whatsoever from the destructive pursuit itself.

In other words, it’s rather obvious to conclude, from so many points of empirical data, that our political process in the US, anywhere really, can do an extraordinary amount of harm to the country and its people while at the same time, stand very little chance of doing much, if any, actual good.

It’s almost as if the best a government can do for the people is simply to restrain from abusing them.

I’m not writing this article to be the “voice of Veterans.” That idea really angers me. My friend above from MO, he claims to speak for Veterans.

MSM claims to speak for Veterans.

None of you speak for me. And……I don’t speak for any of you.

No Veteran alive needs to agree with the things I write next. I’m fine with that.

But here’s from one, single Veteran. Perhaps a few others see it the same way. 13 years of total service between enlisted and commissioned, my views on foreign policy have been earned the hard way. Many of you might not see it, but our foreign policy informs most of what ails our current society domestically.

It all starts with war. It really does.

The United States has been at War, with someone, over something, for 226 out of our 243 years.

Let that sink in.

Any country actively maintaining a war footing, cannot function as a free society. This is not a free country and it’s time we stop pretending that it is. Perhaps that’s why some people get so furious over the idea of freedom. Maybe they’re projecting they’re own deep insecurity and recognition that they aren’t actually free. If you still believe you are, ask yourself, what specific things are you free to do?

That is not an anti-American statement. I love this country. More precisely. I love the people within this country. This is my home. I’m tied to this land and this community. Obviously, I’m willing to fight for it, but sadly, the fighting we’re forced to facilitate as members of the military have the opposite effect.

America is not “evil.”

Our government, on the other hand, absolutely is. It doesn’t matter who sits on Penn Ave for any given four-year period. How is this not evident to more of you?

“Trump thinks Veterans are suckers and losers.”

Great. To a lot of Vets, especially this one, an appeal to emotion is a losing line to pitch. To be fair, I don’t believe this smear campaign was really focused on influencing Veterans themselves. It’s really just to push swing voters in a particular direction at the expense of Vets.

Why doesn’t this latest headline piss me off?

I don’t need Trump, or any president for that matter, to love me, respect me or even like me. I don’t like him very well, why would I expect that he would like me?

What do I need? I’m going to go ahead and say, what every human on Earth needs (besides a handful of executives operating within the military industrial complex) is a president who will discontinue the practice of needlessly deploying our sons and daughters in to pointless theaters of violent combat.

You want a more peaceful society? You want to help decrease the 20+ daily Veteran suicides?

Then simply do that one thing. End these pointless wars and stop waging new ones.

Trump has failed to follow through on much of his campaign rhetoric. Trump has dropped an ungodly number of bombs on innocent human beings. For these things, I will never forgive him.

However, here is an interesting, and very real statistic:

New Wars initiated:

Bush = 2

Obama = 5

Trump = 0

As much as I hate all the other things Trump, this observation right here is not nothing. As a matter of fact, it’s a lot more than nothing. So much more than nothing that I think we should all take a moment and say collectively:

Thank you, Donald Trump.

What’s wrong with giving credit where it’s due? Especially with something so critically important to you and your children.

And now, yesterday I read that the MSM and the “Left” is beside themselves with disbelief because Trump had the audacity to smear his own generals in an “unprecedented” fashion. (anyone else tired of that word?)

He had the nerve to state that the cadre of generals that exist within Washington today (and the past 20 years) were interested in nothing other than perpetuating endless wars to keep the bomb makers, and the military industrial complex as a whole, happy.

Well.

It’s f**king true.

I’m sorry that most on the Left didn’t have the courage to stand up to Obama and call him out for the exact same behavior.

I’m sorry you chose acquiescence and religiously stood by your party as the Democrats sold you out to make war fashionable.

I’m sorry you have so excitedly invited all the war hawks to your team in your “war against Trump.”

I’m sorry you didn’t have strong enough core values to simply turn down their well-entrenched offer of support.

I’m sorry you are a member of the war party now.

I’m sorry that I fought, and it wasn’t in support of your freedom.

I’m sorry that I fought and wasn’t supported.

I’m sorry that I fought.

I’m sorry.