Protestors - Protesting to the wrong people.

Ritchie,

Shortly after 9/11, I volunteered for duty as a Federal Air Marshal for six months. I started on October 1, 2001. I started flying after only what amounted to a way to short FAM training session (no where near what a permanent guy goes through and I can assure you it was so brief as to make you shiver if you had to do this). I started to fly by the second week of October. I flew either four or five days per week for 6 months. As soon as two weeks after I started flying, I heard stiff criticisms from passengers on the plane, whom did not realize that I was a FAM, about how little the government was doing the right thing to protect them. I wanted really badly to punch a few of them right in the mouth, and maybe even give them an express ticket to the ground, but they were the people whom I was there to protect.

I had never been in the military so was never in a war, but I had made plenty of arrests in my career as a federal agent first in the Border patrol and then for the Customs Service (defunct as of March 1 - the oldest federal agency was done away with without so much as a goodbye). I knew about fear, being beaten badly and otherwise injured while making arrests. Yet that fear was nothing compared to what was in store for me as a FAM. I also knew fear when I worked as a volunteer in the rubble of the World Trade center. Those fears were nothing as to what was to come.

Starting in October 2001, for at least the first three or four weeks, I just about dirtied my pants each time the plane started to roll down the runway. I was really that scared in the belief that my partner and I were on the next plane to be hijacked, and it would be up to us to prevent the next World Trade Center or Pentagon by possibly becoming the next to hit the field in Pennsylvania. I don't remember if it was before leaving on my first flight as a FAM, or during the first week of flights or so that, I sent an email to a friend who had recently retired from Customs. He was a Marine, and will always be a Marine at heart. I expressed my belief, as silly as it may have been, that I was going to be killed while flying as a FAM. He tried to assure me that all would be well, but I was petrified of the prospects before me and told him so. I needed someone to know I was afraid despite the fact I knew: I would fly, and would take the right action if the time ever came. No one was getting past me into that cockpit. Yet, I was more scared than I remember ever having been in my whole life, and I did not want to scare my family so I relied upon this fine friend as a confidant.

Well, this friend of mine, this retired Customs Agent, this Marine, this good man - he sent me some words to think about. Words that when I did thought about them, I realized reflected what my friend was thinking about me because I had volunteered to do the right thing for our country. He truly admired me for having done so. That did not really make things better for me as far as being scared to death went, but it did help me to know that someone out there was in my corner - someone appreciated what I was doing, someone understood why I was doing it.

These are the words that come to my mind when I now think of those who go off to protect freedom, and to fight tyranny. They are the words of one of the greatest of all Americans, one of our founding fathers. I offer them up in way of a dedication to the men and women of the United States Armed Forces who are now in harm's way, they go like this:

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.

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Thomas Paine, in the introduction to The American Crisis 1776



God Bless America and keep or service people safe from harm.

Best regards,
Glenn B

This is a little something a friend sent me tonight. Thought it might go good here. It is about the American fighting man, but I suppose that henceforth it applies to the American fighting woaman too. It is a new world, now that women are in combat. I mean no disrespect to our fighting women, I just copied and pasted this as it came to me. Although they may have a bit of catching up to do historically, they among women, who choose to serve, are included in this henceforth as much as are the men. I guess that the guys outnumber the gals by quite a huge margin, so I kept it in the form in which it was sent to me, but I give those fighting gals a lot of credit too...

****************************************************The average age of the military man is 19 years. He is a short haired, tight-muscled kid who, under normal circumstances is considered by society as half man, half boy. Not yet dry behind the ears, not old enough to buy a beer, but old enough to die for his country.

He never really cared much for work and he would rather wax his own car than wash his father's; but he has never collected unemployment either.

He's a recent High School graduate; he was probably an average student, pursued some form of sport activities, drives a ten year old jalopy, and has a steady girlfriend that either broke up with him when he left, or swears to be waiting when he returns from half a world away.

He listens to rock and roll or hip-hop or rap or jazz or swing and 155mm Howitzers.

He is 10 or 15 pounds lighter now than when he was at home because he is working or fighting from before dawn to well after dusk.

He has trouble spelling, thus letter writing is a pain for him, but he can field strip a rifle in 30 seconds and reassemble it in less time in the dark.

He can recite to you the nomenclature of a machine gun or grenade launcher and use either one effectively if he must.

He digs foxholes and latrines and can apply first aid like a professional.

He can march until he is told to stop or stop until he is told to march.

He obeys orders instantly and without hesitation, but he is not without spirit or individual dignity.

He is self-sufficient. He has two sets of fatigues: he washes one and wears the other.

He keeps his canteens full and his feet dry.

He sometimes forgets to brush his teeth, but never to clean his rifle.

He can cook his own meals, mend his own clothes, and fix his own hurts. If you're thirsty, he'll share his water with you; if you are hungry, his food. He'll even split his ammunition with you in the midst of battle when you run low.

He has learned to use his hands like weapons and weapons like they were his hands. He can save your life - or take it, because that is his job.

He will often do twice the work of a civilian, draw half the pay and still find ironic humor in it all. He has seen more suffering and death then he should have in his short lifetime.

He has stood atop mountains of dead bodies, and helped to create them.

He has wept in public and in private, for friends who have fallen in combat and is unashamed.

He feels every note of the National Anthem vibrate through his body while at rigid attention, while tempering the burning desire to 'square-away' those around him who haven't bothered to stand, remove their hat, or even stop talking. In an odd twist, day in and day out, far from home, he defends their right to be disrespectful.

Just as did his Father, Grandfather, and Great-grandfather, he is paying the price for our freedom.

Beardless or not, he is not a boy.

He is the American Fighting Man that has kept this country free for over 200 years.

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