Gomers & Boy Scouts

The recent release of my new book has completely knocked me off my normal blog posting schedule.  It has also impacted my ability to watch the news, and still be objective enough to write a cogent blog posting.  Other events have left their mark, such as the elections, the down sizing of the military, budget crunches, and the huge expenditures of assets and national treasure on things like Ebola.  I won’t sit here in judgment, since that would be contrary to my personal code.  Still, it does impact my ability to maintain a sense of humor, when I realize that robbing Peter to pay Paul, is going to leave us in a position of catch up when it matters.  After all, regardless of your belief in things like a peace dividend, when the rest of the world is waiting to smack you when you’re not looking, a declaration of peace is pointless.  Right now the hot spots are still hot, with some getting even hotter.  In the Ukraine, a cease fire is in place, but it appears that the cease fire is merely a term describing limited military operations.  Starting there and glancing around the globe, you see everything from separatist votes in Spain to more genocidal behavior in Africa.  The alliances, discussions, and confusion run rampant all around the Pacific Rim, and we are in a “Pacific Shift.”  All of this is supposed to be done on a budget, where peoples’ lives are impacted.  The cuts in the officer corps in the Army are a prime example of such thinking.  I just hope that something like a Gomer doesn’t show up anytime soon, otherwise, we’ll be relegated to responding with rusty paper clips and Boy Scouts. ~ Michael S. Pauley