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| The Lion of Judah, slain by a Cedars articleThere were two articles in my university's newspaper last issue about Christians and war. One was actually a decent, well-balanced and generally good article. The other was simply an example of someone who had not thought through what he wanted to write before writing. I (obviously) have quite a biased view, and I'm not about to waste my time defending (pun blatant) what the Bible actually says. But, to give you a brief hint, re-read the Old Testament, particularly the parts where God tells the Israelites to obliterate entire nations: men, women, children, even their animals. Maybe you'd find Revelation a little to militaristic, so just throw that book out of the Bible. Why not? God only wipes out most of earth's population. Oh, and that cozy little passage in (John 2:15) where Jesus chases people out of the temple with a whip. Why do we forget that Jesus is the LION of Judah? Lions are, well, vicious and ferocious creatures. Jesus isn't a tame little kitten that would sit on your lap and pur.
Anyway, pacifists get on my nerves, but they've got a right to believe what they want and say what they want (hmm, to borrow a quote from a reporter, Rob Riggle, "If only there were an organization sworn to defend that right.") But like I said earlier, I'm not (too much anyway) going to debate the issue over Christians in the military.
I'll try to forgo my bias and deal with the article on different level. I also want to make it known that I am not trying to bash the author of the article. While I wholeheartedly disagree with his position, I defend to the death his right to have it. However, even if I entertain the thought of him being right about this issue, I still completely disagree with his entire conclusion. I tried to follow his argument to the logical conclusion, but he went an entirely different (i.e. wrong) direction.
My biggest problem with the article is the conclusion that we should evict the many recruiters that come, and do away with the ROTC programs. At first I was simply annoyed, but then after I actually thought about what he was saying, I actually started to get rather angry. His solution is more antithetical to what Jesus would do than allowing them to stay. By kicking the recruiters (and ROTC) off campus, Christians would yet again be announcing to the world that we don't care one bit about the suffering of other nations. We don't care about anyone or anything besides ourselves. We would show them once and for all that this university will not tolerate people building schools and roads in foreign nations, or handing out food to the starving. People would finally see what selfish brats Christians are, locked in our own self-contained, self-serving, ego-bubble full of rules and "you can't do this or this or this or this..." His solution is, unsurprisingly, the same as every other "Christian" solution to evil. It sounds mightily familiar to our treatment of gays, lesbians, drunks, emergers, fornicators, prostitutes, etc. etc. This is the most anti-Christian thing ever! We kick them out and judge them as evil-doers and sinners, the very people with whom Jesus spent his time. We as a body have failed to reached the lost and dying of our own country, how dare we tell others to stop trying to help those in other countries? It's sad to see people going anyplace besides the church for help. When people think of Christian, they should be able to associate us with kind, loving, people who will always take care of them and not treat them like dirty lepers. When people have problems, their first thought should be something like, "I'll go see a Christian, they'll help me." But, unfortunately, it's turned more into, "No, I can't. They hate people like me." Instead of adding military recruiters to our already novel-sized list of "the unclean," we should instead treat them with love (as Jesus would) and show them the love God demands.
There is something to be said for being holy, but consider who Jesus spent most of his time with. He lived, worked, and traveled among the prostitutes, lepers, shepherds, everyone on the "unclean" list of the Jews. If the author of that article is really serious about following Jesus' example of love, I challenge him and everyone else to go the whole way.
What would Jesus do? Touch the leper to cure him? Lead the charge at the battle of Armageddon? Both.
Like almost every other debatable moral issue with Christians, the problem is that we are trying to draw solid, black and white lines in puddles. Even if we could taint some areas black or white, they would soon intertwine so delicately that any real trace of borders would soon be indistinguishable. As Solomon said in Ecclesiastes, "A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace." So, in different circumstances, both are the correct answer. Trying to pick one absolutely is a grave mistake that Jesus did not make, and we should be careful not to fall into that trap.
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| As I promisedI purposely left the last post a little (ok, VERY) vague about when I'd get around to posting the rest of the stuff about the trip to CA. That's because I knew I probably wouldn't get around to it for a very long time. And, guess what, I was right. Amazing how that works. Of course, if I did give some kind of date, then I might feel bad about missing it. But since I didn't I'm free to keep you all on the edge of your seats waiting in anticipation of the stories to be told. Ha, I kept you waiting for nothing. The stories aren't really that interesting.
So, we actually got a weekend of liberty to go out and explore CA. Well, not entirely explore it because we only got a weekend. But, back up to that Friday night. After we all got back and showered (because we were all sweaty and stinky from PT) and changed into civilian clothes, we had a nice little BBQ, complete with good food and beer. They kept running out of beer and having to go buy more from the store. Ha. I think my platoon was responsible for half of it. Our table was covered in a pile of cans until one of the higher ups told us to throw them away. So we found a trash can and threw them all away. Then we started another pile of cans. The second one didn't get so high, because by then they weren't going to go get any more beer, and it was starting to get late.
We slept in (finally) in the morning for an extra hour or so, then got up to get ready to leave base. There were, umm, 11 of us I think, almost all of my platoon went. We piled in the vans when they got there and we took of for Anaheim. I'd like to visit there again sometime. Anyway, back to the story. We got to the city in a couple hours, but it was too early to check into the hotel, so we decided to go to a restaurant to get something to eat first. Yum! It was really good food, but by I was getting a cold so I didn't feel so great. Not to mention the fact that I was still sore from PT. When we go over to the hotel, we find out that we'd have to wait until the afternoon to check in and none of us wanted to do that because we wanted to be out doing stuff and not carrying everything around with us. So after discussing options, we head over to another hotel to get rooms because one of the Marines from my platoon worked at that chain and got us discounted prices. Whoohoo! I can't remember the name of it, though, it was pretty nice. We got two suites because there were so many of us, 5 in one room 6 in the other. It was great. We stayed in the room only long enough to figure out where we wanted to go. It took a little while to figure out the bus routes that would take us to the beach, but we finally got it. So we began out trek out to the beach because we heard they were having a beach party.
When we get there, we find all kinds of trinket shops and stuff, but we weren't really interested in shopping, so we went straight to the beach. But, when we get there we find out that there isn't any alcohol allowed on the beach. At this point we split up into a few different groups because a few wanted to stick around the beach for a while, the others wanted to go find a bar. I decided to stay on the beach with the others staying there because I really wasn't feeling to good by this point. So we found a spot near the water to sit down and enjoy the sun. I just laid down and went to sleep so I really don't know much of what happened until I woke up and they told me. Some had gone for a long walk down the beach, others just hung out near where I was sleeping and getting lightly browned by the sun. By the time I woke up, it was starting to get late, so we decided to head off for the hotel after we met back up with the others. When we all got back together, it was time for story swapping. Apparently, while I was asleep, my feet almost got attacked by wild geese. If they had attacked me that would've been a rude awakening for sure. Somehow I slept through all their racket, but one of the Marines got the sounds on his phone. The group that just went walking didn't really have anything too exciting to share. The group that went looking for a bar, however, came back with a great story. In their anxiousness to find something to drink, they wandered into the first thing they found. This resulted in a rather humorous situation because none of them realized that they were walking into a gay bar. They were, however, quite impressed by everyone's hospitality and friendliness. Until, of course, they realized where they were, then they got out as quickly as they could. We passed by the same bar on our way off the beach back to the bus stop, and then saw the rather large rainbow over the bar with a bunch of dolphins. Yes, somehow they had missed all that.
At the bus stop, we find a rather drunk man going home from playing golf, who proceeds to tell us his entire life story. We may have been able to get him to shut up, but the female that was with us kept talking to him, and got him to give her his beer (which she promptly drank). It took almost an hour for the bus to get there, the whole time the drunk guy keeps talking to us. I forget why, but for some reason, he gets really mad and punches the box with the bus schedule in it. This cracked the box, and got his knuckles bloody. Finally, when we get on the bus, he still talks, and keeps talking. Eventually, he gives one of us the shirt off his back, claiming it's a rare shirt and hard to come by. (A black Hard Rock cafe shirt). So he sits there shirtless for a while, then finally gets off the bus at his stop.
We finally get back and start walking back to the hotel from the bus stop. After taking a slight detour to a liquor store, we get back to the hotel and split up into our rooms. Most of us take showers and just lay down 'nd relax. After a while a bunch of us head down to the spa, which felt really really nice and relaxing. We talked to a few people there and just hung out for a while. Some went off to clubs, but others just stayed. There was one lady there that talked to us and was pretty nice. A little while later she came back and cursed at us for some unknown reason. I couldn't understand what she said, but she said something about white man's war. Anyway, we laugh and shrug it off as her being a crazy drunk.
After the spa closed, we went back up to the hotel rooms and got in bed. Most of them were still drinking and mostly drunk, so a bunch of them pile on the same bed, leaving me with one all to myself. (that includes the one from our room that came back later from the clubs, he decided to join the others in the other beds.) We wake up the next morning load up everything and head back to the base.
The next week went much like the first. And that pretty much sums up my trip.
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| Two weeks out in CA. I got a tan. A nice brown farmer's tan, but a tan nonetheless. :) Unfortunately, it wasn't exactly a vacation. that might have been more fun, but getting paid to go to CA is even better. Ah, the joys of being in the Marine Corps. Despite the fact that it wasn't a pleasure trip, it was a lot of fun overall. This is going to be a really long post to make up for not posting anything at all for so long.
Everything started off on the wrong foot. In the Marine corps, it should've been the left foot, because everything always starts with the left. But no, it had to start on the right. It just had to obey that annoying guy named Murphy. Anyway, the planes we were supposed to take completely got canceled. Yay. So, somehow, we ended up getting a charter flight all the way from Cinncinatti, OH to San Diego, CA. Which was kind of nice because we didn't have to go through security and it was only us Marines on the flight. We even got a police escort onto the tarmac to the plane. That was the good news, the bad news was that the flight left many many hours after originally planned. We were planning on leaving early morning, like 6am or something, but the chartered flight didn't leave until 4pm. :P So we had to just hang around and wait for many many hours. Oh well.
Things continued to go slightly awry when we landed in San Diego. The buses were late, so that meant more standing around doing nothing for a while. So we were standing there in formation on the tarmac just watching planes take off while waiting on stuff. Then this helicopter lands and this tall black dude gets out with someone else and starts walking towards us. I had no clue who it was, but some other people started muttering something about Colby Bryant. Turns out, he was on a fishing trip or something, saw us, and decided to stop by and say hello. He stayed around long enough for everybody to take pictures and get autographs. This was cool, but it also gave us something to do while we were waiting.
Well, eventually the buses arrive and we head down south to Camp Pendleton. Took several hours to get there, and because it was late, only the main gates were open. So we had to drive clear across the base on winding streets (around the mountains an stuff) to get to where we were going. That took over an hour. :P Well, that's a lie, it too more than that. My bus' engine caught on fire, so we all had to get out and wait for the other one to drop people off then come back and get us. It took them an hour to get back. :( So, aside from Colby Bryant, the trip was mostly bad news so far, but we were in sunny CA. So we get there, and finally get into our racks to get some sleep. About an hour later the lights come on so the marines from Indianapolis can see to put there stuff away and get settled. (we got our payback later).
So, we get up early in the morning, stand in formation for a while to wait on the buses. (Yes, late again, notice a wonderful little trend that they have?). Anyway, we get to the chowhall, eat, then head on over to get some training on the gear. We spent all day working on the routers, switches, servers, etc. I was assigned to the group working on the servers, because that's closer to my MOS. So, we installed Windows Server 2003, configured the DNS, installed and configured exchange, and got a simple network up and running between a parent domain and two children. We could send email and everything. Yay. Sounds really simple, doesn't it? There are just a million steps in there you have to do to get it all working right. Plus, if you screw up exhange, you have to wipe everything and start over from scratch. Next couple of days went exactly like that, and when we got back to the barracks, we had PT for a while, then just hung smoking and joking (well, no smoking for me. I just said "no".) until they told us we could sleep. Well, one day (can't remember which day, though) once we finished eating at the chow hall, we stood outside waiting for the buses. And we wait. Then we wait. And wait just a little bit more. Then, one of the 3 buses shows up. Hurray! Well, my platoon got shoved on the first one (by some brilliant tactics I might add). A 45 minute nap later, we get to the barracks. We see one of the buses that was supposed to pick us up at the chowhall sitting there waiting. Haha. And there since they had to go all the way back to pick them up, we wait. And wait, Then we wait, and wait just a little bit more, and still the others don't show up. Eventually, one of the buses comes. Then, after some more waiting, the last one shows up. Apparently, that bus had been waiting at the wrong chowhall. Yes, whoever's in charge of those buses should apply for Mensa. Well, I don't know what happened, but after that, the buses started getting more reliable.
Alright, this post is too long, and I'm tired of writing. That's pretty much the first week. Well, except the weekend, but I'll pick up later sometime and finish the story.
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| To go or not to goThat is the question, isn't it? Well, too bad I don't know the answer yet. :P I will someday, though. And there are really only two options, either I go, or I don't. I'm kinda hoping I get chosen to go, but it's looking like I might not get a chance to. Don't get me wrong, I could get a phone call any day saying to pack up, but I'll probably know at least a month in advance. They try, at least, to give 90 days notice, but they can't always do that, obviously. So, anyway, the CO still doesn't know how many people they'll need to send, so we don't know either. What he did say was that the whole unit isn't going anywhere anytime soon that he knows of. That means that there are only going to be a few that actually need to go. Thankfully, my NCO's put my name on the list of volunteers. The CO wanted three names from each platoon, and I'm one of the three from mine. Yay! :) On that, though, they told my that they chose the names they did because they want to help get us promotions to NCO status. Granted, there aren't that many Marines in my platoon, but still, I thought that was quite a compliment. Right now, our platoon is really top heavy, meaning we have lots of NCO's, and only a few of us little men. But that's soon going to change due to upcoming promotions, shifting of billets, and all kinds of stuff. That means that we need to get some of us lower ranking non-NCO's promoted so we can take charge. Me? In charge? Heheh. Now there's a scary thought. It'll be an interesting change in the platoon when we get promoted. Basically, all I have to do is a few MCI courses, and greatly improve on my PFT. We're going to the rifle range next month, and I should be able to keep my sharpshooter, so I don't think that'll be a problem, but even if I go down to marksman, it shouldn't matter too much. The MCI's won't be a problem either, I just need to take the time to sit down and do them. The PFT, however, isn't going to be fun. :P I'll do crunches and pullups all day long, or go on a 10 mile hike with an 80 pound pack, but running more than 2 minutes is awful, and not just because I got out of shape. I just simply abhor the vile concept of running. Ugh. Well, I've got 2 months to train for it, which should be plenty of time to get a low first class. Like I said, pullups and crunches won't be a problem. I could get perfect on the crunches now, and near perfect pullups in a month. It's just that running that'll kills me. Oh well, such is life, I just have to suck it up for now. You know, when I get out of the Marine Corps, I look forward to growing a big shaggy beard, and not ever having to run again. I'll go air force lazy, and do my exercise on a bike.
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| I offended you, you offended me, we're a disgrunted familyI saw something the other day that really bugged me. I don't know it if will bother you any, but they should at least aggitate you somewhat at the doublestand (well, one of them anyway) we live with here in the U.S. In fact, I should be very offended and insulted at what I saw. In fact, I should send the company a letter describing in full detail how I was deeply hurt by their lack of judgment, and tell them to pay me money to make up for it. If I were a minority group, I could, and I would most likely win. But, I'm a white american male, so I'm not allowed to be offended by such things, and the case would be thrown out of court. Ok, so let me tell you what I'm talking about. I was watching "Heroes" the other day off of NBC.com. They have sponsors with ads that come up just like regular TV. That fine I don't care (in fact, I think it's better because you only get 1 commercial during the breaks). But this time, the sponsor was Ziplock bags. I'll let you know right now, I have nothing against Ziplock, I wasn't offended by them or anything. It was the attitude of the American public that has me irked, and those comercials demonstrated it very well. It was a series of Ziplock commercials, actually, all with the same basic format. You've probably seen them, so I don't need to go into great detail with them, but here's basically what happend. The first: Two families at a dinner table, one black family and one white family. The mother of the white family used the "other" bag to close her food while the mother of the black family used Ziplock, keeping it nice and fresh. (Does this give any hint of racism to you? Imagine what would happen if the white family used ziplock instead. Ziplock would be accused of being racist against blacks). The next comercial: and Asian family and a white family. Basically the same thing, only this time with freezer burn instead of freshness. (Again, racist). The last one, and my personal favorite at which I should be incredibly insulted because it directly relfects me. It was just two people (presumably a married couple). The woman hands the open Ziplock bag to her husband, who proudly seals it with ease. And then, the annoucer claims, "It's a no brainer." Now, as you can see, Ziplock has been insulting and degrading to the white american male. Their racist and sexist attitudes is very explicit. That last commercial claims that men don't even have the "brains" to close other bags, so they need Ziplock because those are so much easier. It also shows that woman are a superior sex by implying that they are able to close any bag, ziplock or not.
Was I offended? No. Was I insulted? No. Do I want to write to Ziplock? No. Do I even care that their commercials were racist and sexist? No. I even got a chuckled out of the last one, even though it was the most degrading and insulting to white american males. I'm angry at the fact that if the majority group weren't at the brunt of the joke there would be chaos, people storming down Ziplock headquarters feeling offended by it. What happened to my rights to not being poked fun at? What happened to my rights to not be offended? Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot, I lose all my rights because I'm in the majority. Am I not allowed to be saved from inslut because I'm in the majority? So we can be the brunt of the jokes, jested at and made fun of, and no one complains. Yet someone makes the slightest comment about a minority group and all hell breaks loose with lawsuits and fines and hate mail. But no, who cares about the majority group? They don't mean anything because they're the majority! You know what, that sounds very sexist and racist to me!!!!! Such a double standard! We can make fun of you all we want, but you can't even give a hint of anything bad about us or we'll be offended! I tell you what, it seems more and more like these minority groups don't want equality, they want superiority. And, in many ways, they have it. If they don't get what they want, they can sue the majority group for being racist, and will normally win. If we really want to have any kind of equality between the races, it should be illegal to even ask for it on any kind of application. Why would they ask for it if they weren't going to use it in their selection? Why even ask for it if they don't need it? I guarantee you that they really do look at it, and select a percentage of minority groups just to avoid being sued. I've made up my mind, I won't give my race on any kind of form if at all possible. I'm fed up with this outrageousness I'm living in. It's really sad that I have to keep from putting my race on a form to avoid discrimination. I'm all for equality, and am very insulted that minority groups are taking advantage and getting their way just because they're a minority group. I find it disgustingly ironic that the laws and programs helping minority group presumably to stop discrimination are discriminatory against the majority. If this is a democracy, shouldn't it be run by the majority? Well, it's not, not even close.
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