I almost forgot...

It seems to me that the foremost civilian address in Oregon (and, to one extent or another, Washington) for supporting our troops is the Coalition of Troop Support. They are very well organized and very active, and I encourage you to consider getting involved with them. We're having a special care package packing party at a local VFW on Sunday the 25th of March. You should be able to find details on their web page. Check 'em out.

What's It All About, ALFIE?

ALF, for those of you may not know, stands for Animal Liberation Front. They are a domestic terror organization, using the thin facade of concern for animal welfare to mask their desire for violence and aggression . And they are coming to a driveway near you soon. Maybe even your own. Click on the hyperlink and you'll go to today's Oregonian, where you'll learn about their vandalism attack on the private homes of Wachovia employees. Because, you see, their company has holdings in another company that has something to do with somebody involved in animal experiments.

My wife's reaction to this is quick. Having put in a year or two in veterinary school herself, as well as coming from a family of scientists, her pronouncement is swift, direct and simple: "I hope they catch them and send them to prison." My wife remembers the day the ALF freaks attacked and damaged a lab where they were working on medical experiments using live animals...experiments that were designed to help cure sick animals. She was fortunate. While she and her associates were targets of ALF madness and ideological incoherence, it was nothing like the time the ALFies mailed razor blade booby trapped envelopes to medical researchers at Oregon Health Sciences University.

Larry King, legendary talk show host and liberal extraordinaire (I freely admit enjoying listening to his interview segments many times as a kid), put it best. Paraphrasing an earlier encounter with animal rights types, he summed it up simply. "To them," he said, "a rat is a dog is a boy." He then repeated the same words again, to emphasize his point. You see, you can't take the common sense out of a home grown Brooklyn Boy like Larry. He bleeds blue, but he's still got his marbles, which is more than we can say for the ALFies. Here's hoping our FBI and Homeland Security people get to the ALFies before they do more to Oregonians like you and me than just vandalize our cars and homes.

Down But Not Out

Well, folks, sorry to have to say I ended up having no luck persuading the teacher I was talking about to give the settler side of the story in Judea and Samaria. I did, however, decide as a result to start giving $36.00 a month to the development fund of my favorite settlement, Elon Moreh. I am hopeful about increasing that amount over time, and, inspired by that particular teacher's mistreatment of my homies, I may do some volunteer fundraising this Spring and Summer for Elon Moreh.

Just click on the hyperlinks to visit my favorite town. That is the best way to get to know them and hear their side of things, because its looking like you won't get that opportunity in our public schools. You'd think we would, since we're paying for it, but I guess not.

The Moral Of Our Story: We have to go out there and get the job done ourselves instead of waiting for others. Now. How are you going to implement this in your life?

This Oregonian Has An Awesome Idea For Helping Our Troops

Here's another great way to help our troops, right from the living and entertainment pages of the Oregonian. Check out this link below to find out how a local gal is sending books to Oregon National Guardsmen serving in Afghanistan. http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/margie_boule/index.ssf?/base/living/1173144346239960.xml&coll=7

Tarawa And The Myth Of Japanese Surrender

Most of you have never heard of Tarawa. Infact, I'll bet almost none of you have. Only hard core WW II history buffs will know its name. But you'll soon understand its connection to the present day state of our country and our national security. We'll get to that a little later. For now, I want to tell you that today Tarawa is part of the tiny Pacific Island nation of Kirbati, a collection of peaceful, beautiful coral atolls that are home to something on the order of 30,000 natives and somewhat tenuous connections to the larger world, with its defense and many of its affairs managed as a friendly courtesy by countries like New Zealand and Australia. Back then, in November, 1943, it was a critical stepping stone on the American march to the Japanese mainland. America's efforts to secure necessary landing, take off and resupply areas for their bombing campaign of mainland Japan necessitated taking Tarawa. I'll only tell you now that that small piece of real estate, defended by about 5,000 dug in and heavily armed Japanese soldiers, blasted for days by a naval armada and besieged by a total military force of 35,000 American Marines and sailors, took at least three days to secure and cost the lives of some 1,000 American Marines and resulted in over 3,000 American wounded. The Japanese fought almost to the last man. In the end, only about 17 of approximately 5,000 were taken alive. You can read more about the battle at http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/tarawa.htm

Now I'll tell you why we're talking about this today. First, it is an important chapter in American military heroism, and it needs to be told, not just because their triumph and sacrifice deserves to be publically remembered, but because we live in an age where our media and the liberal establishment routinely malign and undermine our armed forces every chance they get. In so doing, they weaken our will to fight and our ability to defend ourselves. We need to remember what these brave soldiers accomplished (and in coming posts, what our brave soldiers today accomplish) because it is right, it is proper and it is necessary to maintaining our national will and ability to defend ourselves.

Another point I want to make: Historical revisionists, in their relentless efforts to weaken our resolve and erode our willingness to use military force where necessary, like to suggest that dropping the atom bomb on Japan was unnecessary, that they could have been persuaded to surrender, and that the public fears of a horrendously bloody invasion of the Japanese mainland in 1945 were grossly exaggerated.

To those people, who have an agenda and are neither amenable to reason nor open to the truth, I don't have alot to say. They already know what they're doing and why. To those who remember, or who are too young to remember and may waver in the face of this negative media campaign, I give you the Marine experience at Tarawa. Ask any of the guys who waded ashore in a hail of machine gun bullets, grenades, mortar fire and anti-tank shells and who buried over a thousand of their buddies and carried home 3,000 more wounded, if they think the Japanese could be persuaded through conventional means to abandon their credo of fighting to the last man. Ask the Marines who crawled, inch by inch for three miles and more, through barbed wire, mine fields and sniper nests, who at the end captured only 17 Japanese survivors, most of them too wounded to fight anymore, if they thought the Japanese would be easily vanquished in a land invasion of the Japanese homeland. And ask their wives and kids back home, who would be getting their husbands, fathers, sons and brothers home in a casket or a wheel chair, if not at Tarawa, then certainly after an invasion of the Japanese mainland, if they believed it was better to mount a conventional land invasion of Japan as opposed to dropping the bomb.

The moral of our story:

Ignore the left.

Thank our men and women in uniform, past and present, for your freedom.

And give them your support.

What, American Soldiers Do Something Good?

What? American soldiers do something good?

Welcome to this morning's edition of Red, White and Blue, friends. This blog is dedicated to showing the positive side of America you don't usually hear about in the press, inspired by the relentless barrage of negative sentiment aimed towards our country that I have seen in our schools. What follows is an article describing only one of the many good works of our men and women in uniform in Afghanistan. Many good things do, and are, happening over there courtesy of the efforts of our troops. You don't hear about it, partly because the media doesn't believe that good news sells papers, and also partly because the media is dominated by people on the left whose agenda is to denigrate our country and sabotage its foreign policy. More on that later. For now, read on, pass it along and understand it happens far more often than the media and the Democratic Party want you to believe.


Once again, old friends mobilize to aid Afghan people
Thursday, February 22, 2007
The Oregonian

I t's been a cold winter in Camp Alamo. That's the compound within the Kabul Military Training Center in Afghanistan where members of the Oregon National Guard conduct their mission to train and mentor officers and soldiers of the Afghan National Army.

And anyone who leaves the camp can't miss seeing the 2,000 refugees who've settled just outside.

Col. Jim Lyman, commander of the Training Assistance Group, sent an e-mail to his friend Gerry Williams in Portland on Saturday. "This morning it is snowing" in Kabul, he wrote.

He wrote the same in January, and in December. "Basically, it's been below zero since Dec. 1," Gerry says.

And a lot of the refugees huddled outside Camp Alamo have no warm clothing. About half are children.

So naturally, Gerry decided to try to do something to help.

Gerry's been working long hours for months to support Oregon's humanitarian and military mission in Afghanistan. He's doing it because Jim Lyman is an old college friend from Oregon State University, and Jim asked for help.

But it's more than that. Gerry wants to support the Oregon troops in that freezing, faraway place.

A few months ago I wrote about Gerry and his fraternity brothers, when they sent 300 gallons of paint to Kabul so volunteers from the Oregon National Guard could paint a neonatal unit in a Kabul hospital.

Gerry contacted Miller Paint Co. in Portland, which enthusiastically supported the project. Gerry's frat brothers talked to employers and friends and arranged for donations of cash, brushes and other painting equipment, and for shipping by Freightliner and Blackwater USA, a private security contractor.

The neonatal unit is sparkling today, but it's low on medical supplies. In December, Jim e-mailed Gerry, noting that the hospital had no umbilical clamps.

Gerry got busy, contacting local hospitals and wholesale medical equipment providers. Owens & Minor Distribution Inc. in Portland came through. The company donated more than 500 clamps and shipped them directly to Kabul. The clamps arrived in late January.

And then Gerry got another request from Jim. Could he and their college friends collect children's coats for the young people freezing outside Camp Alamo?

Gerry immediately set up a nonprofit organization he named Coats for Kids in Kabul Inc.

Once again he contacted his OSU frat brothers, who once again were generous.

But this time Gerry also tapped into a network of local business leaders. Safeway Inc. set up collection boxes in its Oregon headquarters in Clackamas. Reser's Fine Foods employees collected coats, as did those at Miller Paint. And Goodwill of Oregon offered coats and other warm clothing.

Families at Archbishop Howard School in Northeast Portland, which Gerry's children attend, have filled eight huge boxes with coats. The Hall Boulevard Baptist Church in Tigard, where Gerry's mother attends services, has collected a pile.

Local Oregon National Guard armories also have filled boxes with children's coats.

Gerry has made the rounds of donation locations collecting coats, which he's storing in a 14-foot truck in front of his home. The effort has surpassed its goal of 1,000 coats.

Soon the coats will be sorted, cleaned and taken to Miller Paint to be shrink-wrapped. From there Freightliner will ship them to the East Coast, where Blackwater USA will move them on to Kabul.

"The coats will follow the same path as the paint took," Gerry says.

In two to three weeks, members of the Oregon National Guard will be passing out warm coats to children outside the walls of Camp Alamo.

And then Gerry will get busy again, arranging for more paint to be sent to finish painting the hospital's interiors.

By then, the Oregon National Guard men and women should be headed home. They've done hazardous and humane work in Kabul. "We were rocketed for the first time about two weeks ago," Jim wrote Gerry on Saturday, "and then we had six soldiers in our recruit holding company come down with meningitis." They'll be glad to come home to Oregon.

And when they do, Gerry plans to take a rest.

But even in the midst of his incredible campaign to support Oregon troops and the Afghan people, Gerry enjoys the work. You can tell by the quotation that rests at the bottom of every e-mail he sends, whether he's requesting help, or communicating with Jim, or thanking someone for a donation.

It says: "The faith, the energy, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it -- and the glow from that fire can truly light the world."

Margie Boule: 503-221-8450; marboule@aol.com

©2007 The Oregonian

The Real Heroes

This morning, while waiting for our synagogue's temporary quarters to open up, I met a police officer coming into the building. They have a community policing office nearby. As he came in the door, I took the opportunity to tell him my brother is a commander in a police department up north, and to thank him for his service to the community. I told him the media (which loves to distort the quality and value of police officers) can kiss my ass, because I know better. He brightened at that and spent a minute talking to me about how a local paper had deliberately distorted the facts of an arrest to make it look like police abuse of an innocent when in reality the guy had been a real creep and all the pedestrians near by had literally applauded when they arrested him.

This took me back in time to a classroom experience I had had where the students had been allowed to rant on and on about how terrible the police were. So I think today, I'll take a minute to reflect on the life of a cop.

People, the only thing that allows you to live a normal, reasonably safe life where you can go to work, go to school, go to the grocery store, go to the movies and go to sleep in relative safety every night are the men and women in blue who patrol the streets day and night keeping the ghouls and predators at bay. Because I'll tell you. The bad guys out there are legion and they've got their eye on you and yours all the time, and the only thing that keeps them from acting on their evil intentions is their fear of people like my brother (and others like him) who put on a blue uniform and a badge and a gun every day and stand between you, your kids and them.

The life of a cop can be summed up in microcosm in the amount of time it takes to pull somebody over for a routine traffic stop, get out of their cruiser, walk over and ask to see a driver's license. Because every cop knows, however much they may have immunized themselves to the constant realization, that that traffic stop could be their last. The guy or gal behind the wheel could be a crack head, a pimp, a bank robber, a wanted rapist or God only knows what else. He could have a knife in the space right under his driver side window, a gun under his driver seat, or even a semi-automatic weapon already resting in his lap, waiting for the officer to come around. Every cop knows no matter how experienced he or she is, this could finally be the guy or gal with a new angle or a new weapon and just as surely as they said goodbye to their spouse and kids that morning, a police department rep could be visiting their home that night bringing them some very, very, very bad news.

Every day cops suit up and get in their cruiser, they know they can face this situation, or much worse, multiple times in a day. And that, by the way, is maybe the easy stuff. Domestic abuse calls, family arguments, even disturbing the peace calls because of loud parties can end just as badly.

Sometimes people have a legitimate beef with a particular cop. Sometimes people bitch and moan because they can legitimize their non-participation in the larger society by carping about "how corrupt the system is, especially the cops(read: The system sucks, so I therefore don't have to be a positively contributing part of it)." And sometimes people bitch because they never went out and got themselves an actual life and complaining about the cops is the only thing they can think to do with themselves.

But understand this: The only thing that allows any of us the luxury of pursuing our own lives for better or for worse as we see fit is because we have the police protecting us, watching our back, and keeping the bad guys in check. Don't ever think otherwise, not even for a second, because you'd just be fooling yourself.

We'll talk more about our friends the police later.