Navy launches missile. Southern Californians freak out.

Living where I do there are all sorts of catastrophes that are waiting to happen. I say that in light of all the supposedly “terrified” folks in the Los Angeles area who freaked last week when they saw a missile test just after sundown. The Los Angeles Times newspaper reports that a second and final missile was fired this afternoon off the California Coast.

Everywhere, at least in SoCal, people are “skeered.” At least that is what the media reports.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Navy photo of nuclear anti-sub rocket in 1962 from the destroyer USS Agerholm.
Be afraid. Be very afraid. The destroyer USS Agerholm fires an atomic rocket in 1962.

I live in Beaumont, Texas. It is certainly a blip compared to Los Angeles, although, just a few miles from where I live is the nation’s fourth largest port in tonnage. The Port of Beaumont sits on the Neches River, at the northwestern leg of the Sabine-Neches Waterway. The 79-mile-long ship channel serves one of the largest petrochemical producing areas in the U.S. The port is also a “military outload” port. I saw weird bubble-wrapped helicopters being loaded during the prelude to the Second Iraq War, not to mention a plethora of tanks, fighting vehicles and assorted items most of which were covered in desert camo.

The waterway juts northward to the Port of Orange on the Sabine River. Just south of the confluence of both rivers is the Port of Port Arthur. That confluence is Sabine Lake, which is more of a bay than a lake. At the tip of the water way is Sabine Pass, where a small port sits. Also, two liquefied natural gas or LNG terminals are being built on either side of the lake. One is at Sabine Pass, the other near Cameron, Louisiana.

So, were one to be terrified of what might happen, this could be the place for you. The ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, fifth and ninth in tonnage respectfully, also makes for a scary place. There are refineries in that area as well and lots of varied military activity to the north and south of Los Angeles. This brings me to the big Pacific scare.

Now maybe people were really terrified. I don’t know. I bet some hipster sitting in his back yard looking over the ocean and tripping his ass off on acid had a real rush. But these type of things happen quite often off the Southern California coast. Take San Clemente Island, not to be confused on San Clemente, the city between San Diego and L.A. and the place where Tricky Dick Nixon used to live.

San Clemente Island sits to the southwest of Santa Catalina Island. The former is officially uninhabited. That is a good thing because the island has been, for years, a Navy missile and shipboard gunfire range. It is probably more of the former these days as Navy ships are more missile oriented these days. The ship I served a year on in the Navy was a World War II-era gun destroyer although it could fire “rocket assisted projectiles.” The armament system was called an ASROC, for Anti submarine rocket. The Agerholm, the ship on which I served, fired the first and I guess only, nuclear-tipped ASROC

The rocket test, called “Swordfish,” was part of a series of nuclear tests in the early 1960s, most of the tests were air drops from B-52s and were in the South Pacific Ocean. Swordfish took place about 400 nautical miles — about 460 miles — west of San Diego. According to information on the test, the 20 kilo-ton device was fired about 1 p.m. local time on May 11, 1962, from the Agerholm. The nuke’s so-called “yield,” the energy unleashed in the bomb, was approximately that of the “Fat Man” bomb detonated over Nagasaki. A raft some 4,300 yards — some 2.5 miles — away was the target for the ASROC.

 “The rocket missed its sub-surface zero point by 20 yards and exploded 40 seconds later at a depth of 650 feet in water that was 17,140 feet deep,” according to nuclearweaponarchive.org.

 “The spray dome from the detonation was 3000 feet across, and rose to 2100 feet in 16 seconds. The detonation left a huge circle of foam-covered radioactive water. Within two days it had broken up into small patches and spread out for 5 to 8 miles.”

Operation Dominic took place about 15 years before I reported aboard the Agerholm. Was nuclear fallout still on the ship when I boarded her in the former Todd Shipyard facility in Long Beach, Calif? I don’t know.

Now the majority of stories on the test firings from the ballistic submarine USS Kentucky speculate whether the Navy was trying to send some message. I think the answer is “yes.” The very being of the U.S. Navy sends a message, as in the photo above being an extreme example. Some believe the people should be forewarned of such tests. The Navy says “Sorry, we can’t tell you when this missile will launch, top secret.” I would bet if something like the picture above appeared off the coast of L.A., people really would freak-out. And they’d have every right to be scared.

I conclude with this tip: Assume the Navy will test fire a missile in the water — somewhere!

“Iron Lady” Fiorina and Dr. Carson ticket? No way.

The stories I have been reading pronounce Carly Fiorina as the winner of this week’s CNN Republican debate. She certainly made a strong presence both in her, seeming, knowledge of foreign policy as well as her stopping the Donald Trump train in its tracks.

Despite Fiorina bitch-slapping Trump with silence over his off-the-cuff remark on her looks in a Rolling Stone article, the former Hewlitt-Packard executive at times resembled the reincarnation of the U.K.’s Maggie Thatcher.

The GOP “Iron Lady” talked tough on Russia and its leader Vladmir Putin by barking the U.S. Navy 6th Fleet should be built up along with missile defenses, and thousands of troops being sent to Germany. Whether such moves are reasonable or even needed is questionable.

I wondered, as I told my friend and correspondent in Tokyo, Paul, whether Fiorina might start a war with Argentina as the original Iron Lady Thatcher did.

My prognostication for the November 2016 match-up doesn’t include Lady Fiorina. We can’t have two women run for president. That’s preposterous! That is just as we couldn’t have another black president, such as Dr. Ben Carson, anytime soon. A ticket with both Fiorina and Carson? That also is unlikely.

Barring some arrest or indictment on either side, I still see Hillary versus Jeb. No two women will run. That just goes against the natural order of the parties and their people. A black man as the Republican nominee? As much as the right hates Obama, mostly because he is (partly) black, a large part of the electorate wouldn’t elect Dr. Carson if he could heal by laying on hands.

These predictions probably sound like I am the misogynist here or the racist here. No, I’m just the Democrat here. And I am looking at the way things are. That’s good for the Democrats — oh and if the GOP shuts down the government again this discussion will become moot. The Republicans might have that divide I’ve wished for over the years. As good as that might be for the Dems, I don’t see how the outcome will help equality in our nation.

What do vets say about Trump or McCain? There is more than one opinion.

Anyone who has ever read the newspaper or watched television should know Donald Trump — despite his ability to make millions — is generally a buffoon who loves hearing himself speak.

The attack on Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in which Trump questions the long-time senator’s heroism, seems to do nothing insofar as advancing the race for the Republican nomination for president. With the exception of raising the geographically-inspired debate on immigration, one must wonder what in the hell does McCain have to do with this presidential race?

This is not to say genuine questions might be raised in the discussion of McCain and his past. During the period of time, as well as after, in which McCain was imprisoned in Vietnam he broke the military’s Code of Conduct. That Code, introduced by President Eisenhower in 1955, acts as a guide of obligations and responsibilities of U.S. service members who are in “harm’s way:”

U.S. Military Code of Conduct

I

I am an American, fighting in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense.

II
I will never surrender of my own free will. If in command, I will never surrender the members of my command while they still have the means to resist.

III
If I am captured I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and aid others to escape. I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy.

IV
If I become a prisoner of war, I will keep faith with my fellow prisoners. I will give no information or take part in any action which might be harmful to my comrades. If I am senior, I will take command. If not, I will obey the lawful orders of those appointed over me and will back them up in every way.

V
When questioned, should I become a prisoner of war, I am required to give name, rank, service number and date of birth. I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability. I will make no oral or written statements disloyal to my country and its allies or harmful to their cause.

VI
I will never forget that I am an American, fighting for freedom, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country free. I will trust in my God and in the United States of America.

Those tenets are not military law but rather a code of ethics that would no doubt cause fellow troops to cast aspersions if an American service member strays too far from these six guidelines.

During the five and a half years McCain was a prisoner of war he would break this code due to reasons including physical torture. Though names were redacted, this paper McCain wrote during study at the National War College in Washington, D.C. in 1974 after repatriation. Some of the reasons for straying from the Code as well as praise for the same are spelled out in his paper.

Some World War II veterans held Vietnam vets in contempt. The reasons run from breaches of the Code of Conduct to one-year tours. Some of those resentments are still harbored by those surviving WWII vets. Likewise Vietnam vets sometime resent the government that sent them to war and seemingly forgot about them afterwards.

Perhaps “some” is not a grammatically-correct or an inaccurate measure of participants. But no doubt, the word serves as a true measure when it comes to veterans, of any era, and what feelings they may harbor.

Last week I wrote a local TV news reporter and complained about a story she did. The local reaction piece was on what veterans felt about arming recruiters and other “soft” military facilities in the wake of the Chattanooga shootings that resulted in four dead Marines and a dead Navy logistics specialist. The two veterans in the news piece were a retired sergeant major and retired captain who just happened to meet each morning for coffee. Being retired from the military and from  Southeast Texas, it was no big surprise to hear they believed the soft targets required hardening — with guns.

My complaint was there were two lifers who have met for years each morning for coffee. Does it seem that some veterans might disagree? Or the same for some civilians?

Perhaps the one redeeming quality of Trump and his McCain bashing is to show the American public that military veterans are not homogeneous. Most should already have that figured out, but not in this old world will the logical become the norm.

Marines killed in some type of attack in Tennessee. WTF?

UPDATE: As is usually the case, the first reports of incidents such at these are wrong. The wrong information I refer to here is that the shooter was an employee of the Chattanooga public works department. That was information I gathered from the Chattanooga Times Free Press which later correctly stated the suspect’s father was the soil scientist for the city. On the Aurora theater shooting, defendant James Holmes was found guilty of 24 counts of first-degree murder — two for each victim slain — as well as 134 counts of first-degree attempted murder, six counts of attempted second-degree murder and one count of explosives possession, according to The Denver Post.

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Another day, another handful of people dead from gunfire.

This time the locations are relatively “soft” military locations in Chattanooga, Tenn. First was a military recruiting center. Minutes later a Naval and Marine Corps Reserve Center was attacked. Four Marines were killed at the reserve center. The shooter was also killed.

That area’s U.S. Attorney, Bill Killian, called the shooting “domestic terrorism” although he reportedly ran back on the statement saying the investigation would determine the type of attack.

A U.S. official says the gunman in the shootings in Tennessee has been identified as 24-year-old Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, according to The Chattanooga Times Free Press earlier reporter the alleged gunman was a soil engineer with the city’s public works department.

Well, that is how it goes with such a situation. It might be domestic terrorism, it could be a “lone wolf” or it could be ISIL or other such terror attacks.

I was set to get down on the general proliferation of guns and how it turns up multiple bodies each day, one after another. Then something like this happens. We don’t know the motive. At this stage we don’t know about the victims. Such terror might make a good statement for the ease of gun use. Then the news comes also today that a verdict has been reached in the trial of alleged Aurora, Colo., theater shootings in which 12 people were killed and 70 wounded. James E. Holmes is awaiting the verdict as we speak.

Perhaps the NRA wants everyone armed. Perhaps they can use their billions to make it a law everyone is armed. It seems that is what the NRA wants. But it can turn on them, the NRA. It may take a 9/11 with guns. Or a Mumbai-type attack by the wannabes or couldabees or even the killer bees. I don’t want that to happen but … WTF is wrong with life?

The Reb flag is down. We’re back to Step 1 with a mass murder.

The Confederate Battle Flag was taken from its pole today on the grounds of the South Carolina capitol in Columbia, S.C. It should have left a long time ago. It is likely it should have not been there at all. I think that flag has no real use except in museums, history books and movies about the Civil War. To me the battle flag is akin to the Jolly Roger flag that once indicated piracy on ships in the 18th century.

Those symbols might have been fun for us redneck kids of the mid 20th century in East Texas — a place that has always been more Old South than cowboy country. But the CSA battle flag symbolizes an open-ended hostility toward the United States and the black folks whose lives were captured in Africa and sold to American folks who believed they needed slaves to make them rich or richer.

As someone who has given more than 10 years to the United States military and government, I have become appalled with those who have shallow dreams of another Texas secession. I speak of people like our former Gov. Good Hair. Yes, I know Rick Perry was an Air Force pilot who flew C-130s. Good for him. While I appreciate his service, it doesn’t necessarily mean he is a patriot or particularly blessed with useful gray matter. For heaven’s sake, he thought Texas had the right to secede. It doesn’t.

My feelings on the battle flag has evolved over the years. It wasn’t the flag of the confederacy.

Although I think removing the flag in South Carolina is a positive development it should make us think more about our other symbols. I see today that just after the battle flag was removed in South Carolina, the FBI director admitted that a screw up in the background checks for weapons allowed the alleged killer of nine in S.C. to buy a gun. This shooting that killed so many in the Carolina church led to the outrage over the Confederate flag.

And so, here we are back at the beginning. Where nine people died needlessly. I mean, are we just ignoring the fact that nine people were murdered in a church, hoping the problem will go away?

Will it end in Houston or Dallas or any other Texas city when the state of Texas allows licensed handgun owners to openly carry their pistols next year? Are will this be the Old West once more, with people putting notches on their belts? Jeez, it is time for our people in the US of A to WTFU (Wake The F*** Up!)