The slightest whiff of pine oil cleanser is enough to bring the Navy instantly back to life for me. One of my earliest memories of military service was as a Recruit, the culture-shock of boot camp where civilians were turned into military – Sailors, in my case. We were daily required to clean our barracks top to bottom. Our performance in that task indicated how the remainder of that day, or subsequent days, would go. Most memorable, is that the “head”, what other services call the “latrine”(restroom to civilians), was scrubbed even more intensely. Not a speck of dust, nor urine stain, pubic hair, razor stubble or soap scum escaped notice during inspection. After two decades using Pine Sol as disinfectant and deodorizer aboard a military installation, that smell is indelibly stamped in my brain. Clean. It is still a pleasing aroma.
Politics have no relation to morals
Niccolo Machiavelli
If politics had an aroma, the stench would be offensive to any military-trained nostril. And despite the eloquence of some Twentieth Century statesmen and pols – Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan come to mind – politics now entering the third decade of the Twenty-First Century, is nothing short of gag-inducing rotten garbage. I do not join either side in the American spectacle that is President Trump and his camp, or the Democrat-socialist- progressives and theirs. Politics needs a complete “field day”. And so does the would-be electorate.
I think all the garbage in the world is thanks to a very small handful of idiots.
Jeff Dunham, comedian, ventriloquist
As a military veteran, I think, as many do, we need to get rid of all the career politicians and their allies. Twenty, thirty or forty years of politicians complaining the other side is not fixing < insert the problem here> as the reason why they need to be elected or re-elected. Or incessantly being in opposition to the other camp, without having well-thought out solutions to real short-comings. The whole of education, arts, social media, and governance, in America and elsewhere has elevated minority opinion and practice while condemning the society, history and individuals who as a unified country, created medicines, landed people on the Moon, and put cellphone computers in every hand in the world.
We need a deep cleansing. Perhaps we put the military veteran in charge of all institutions, bring back idealism, respect for law and order, freedom OF religion, and family values. Put everyone in the country through a unifying experience of military service. Get into the dark and dank corners. And use lots of Pine Sol. We desperately need a top-to- bottom renewal. We need to take out the garbage. We need “field day”.
Truths, Half-truths, and Sea Stories 