America: May 2013

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Lee Reinhart;
a Perpetual Patriot


by

Denny Meyer

The first thing that happened as I began my phone interview with Lee Reinhart, on active duty somewhere in Kandahar, Afghanistan, was a siren going off in the background there, and the sound of a distant thud.  "Hang on," he said, "I have to find out what's going on....."  And then, hurriedly, "I'll have to call you back..." click.  Holy Shit!  In all my wartime calls with our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in the past seven years, I'd never before been interrupted by incoming ordinance!  He did call back, thank God.  And the first thing he pointed out was that this incident demonstrated what most folks back home, here, seem to have forgotten; that the war is not over in Afghanistan, that our service members there face the ultimate danger every single day.  "Its still the real thing over here," he said.

Lee Reinhart joined the US Navy in 1995 after coming out and subsequently leaving the bible college he'd been attending in rural Indiana.  He could have gone off to Chicago or some other big city to live freely, have fun, and just be himself.  But, he chose to serve his country.  Deployed in the Persian Gulf aboard the guided missile cruiser USS COWPENS CG63, he was more or less open with his peers.

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Guns & Love:
Courage & Cowardice

I'm not quite sure what to make of the fact that more Members of Congress have come out in favor of same sex marriage than for gun control.  Trying to figure out why that is is likely to lead to insanity.  Of course, they are not going to have to actually vote on same sex marriage, that is currently up to the Supreme Court; so it may explain their seeming righteous courage.

After all, talk is cheap; but votes cost money. Oh dear, did I say that?  What I mean, mostly, is that campaign donors look at voting records to rate their representatives.  Politicians who have been accused of having 'said' something can always later say, "Well, yeah, I seem to have said that but what I actually meant was....[fill in your favorite bullshit]...."  But, when they have voted 'yes' or 'no' on something, that is hard to pretend to have been taken out of context.  And so we now have the simultaneous spectacle of some showing some kind of courage, and a majority showing true cowardice.

Over a decade ago, in 1996, our craven Congress voted to enact the Defense of Marriage Act, imposing religious bigotry onto American civil law.  During this coming Pride Month, the Supreme Court will rule on whether all or part of DOMA is constitutional or not.

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Guns for Bloody Combat or
Defense of Civil Society?

by

Steve Loomis, LTC, U.S. Army (Ret) 

The bloodshed in our schools, malls and streets will continue unabated now that Congress gave in to the money and public threats of the gun lobby. The sooner our elected officials stop their dance with the devil's guns the safer we will all then be.

Once or twice a week, I drive across town to a mall or out to the VA to visit one of our vets in the hospital. Do I have to worry about people carrying guns at the mall? Do I have to worry about guns in the cars I drive alongside? Do I have to worry about a burglar carrying a weapon into my home before I return? I am tired of having to worry every time I go out to the mall, or downtown, or just for a drive whether the people around me are carrying a weapon, legal or not, and knowing that if I carry a weapon it will only increase the danger. In fact the more people that carry a weapon in public the more likely we are to see injury or death in any potential or perceived confrontation.

As a combat officer who led an infantry platoon in the Highlands of Vietnam in 1969-70, I carried an M-16 assault rifle and was trained to effectively use every weapon authorized in an infantry battalion. My men were well trained in the use of their weapons and never once misused them.

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Assault weapons are for war; ask a vet!

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