The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Rangers Lead the Way

Posted on | December 6, 2015 | 32 Comments

Bob with his girlfriend Johanna, after his graduation Friday.

“Acknowledging the fact that a ranger is a more elite soldier, who arrives at the cutting edge of battle by land, sea, or air, I accept the fact that as a ranger, my country expects me to move further, faster, and fight harder than any other soldier. . . .”
— The Ranger Creed

COLUMBUS, Georgia
Friday morning was cold, and our family arrived at Hurley Hill in three cars. My wife and I had Kennedy and Reagan with us. Emerson rode with Bob’s girlfriend Johanna. Jim and Jeff had ridden down with Matt, a boyhood friend of Bob and Jim’s. We had more than an hour to wait before the graduation ceremony for Ranger school Class 1-16 began.

Hurley Hill is named in honor of Sergeant-Major Pat Hurley, who was killed during Operation Desert Storm. The hill overlooks Victory Pond, where graduation ceremonies are held for Ranger School, “an intense 61-day combat leadership course oriented toward small-unit tactics”:

It has been called the “toughest combat course in the world” and “is the most physically and mentally demanding leadership school the Army has to offer.”

Graduation ceremonies feature a “Rangers in Action” demonstration — rappeling, helicopters, explosions, hand-to-hand combat — that is very impressive. The demands of Ranger School are extreme. Our son Bob was among 90 graduates in a class that had begun with 350 men, and the attrition rate of more than 70 percent came this close to stopping Bob. He made it through Camp Darby with flying colors, but had to “recycle” Mountain Phase because of negative “peer reviews.” This news caused much stress and prayer for us, especially for my wife.

Mrs. McCain with Bob and his twin brother Jim
(“photobombed” by 16-year-old brother Jeff).

Being an Army mom is a tough job under any circumstance, but when your son is going through Ranger School, he is incommunicado — no cellphones, no Facebook — and he only gets a few minutes to make a call from a pay phone after completing each phase. You can write him letters and he can write back, but this is a poor substitute for talking to him. Even if you’re not the “helicopter parenting” type, there is a frustrating sense of helplessness as a parent, knowing your son is going through such an ordeal and that all you can do is wait and pray and hope for the best.

Bob with his older sister Kennedy.

Mental toughness is essential to being an Army Ranger. The physical requirements are certainly demanding — 49 push-ups in two minutes, 59 sit-ups in two minutes, 5-mile run in 40 minutes, etc. — but the real test is psychological. The old saying by Vince Lombardi, “A winner never quits and a quitter never wins,” aptly expresses the situation of a Ranger School trainee. He is constantly pushed to the limits of his endurance while being required to perform tasks that require both physical strength and mental concentration, yelled at by Ranger sergeants who don’t want any quitters to make it through. The instructors all wear that Ranger tab, signifying their membership in an elite combat brotherhood, and quitters are not eligible for membership. About 40 percent of those who begin Ranger School are weeded out in Ranger Assessment Phase, a/k/a “RAP Week” at Camp Rogers, which finishes with a “ruck march” in which soldiers must march 12 miles with 65 pounds of gear in three hours.

When my children were young, I’d often take them on hikes in the woods. When the little ones would begin to whine about being tired, I’d repeat what has become a sort of family slogan, “There is no crying on the Bataan Death March.” Overcoming hardship is a learned skill, and a child will not learn it unless he is taught that he can do it.

“Yes, it’s two miles to the top of the mountain and I know you’re tired, but you can do it. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. You can make it. Stop whining.” Once you reach the top of the mountain — “Yea! We made it!” — the child has a sense of accomplishment, and has learned something about himself, namely that his feelings of being tired can be ignored, and that exhaustion and discouragement cannot stop him if he makes up his mind to overcome it.

“The president of Oklahoma Wesleyan blames the current campus tantrums on students who are taught to be ‘self-absorbed and narcissistic.’ He’s on to something, according to Jean Twenge, who has reported an increase in narcissism among young people. Narcissists have inflated conceptions of themselves and feel entitled to special privileges, while at the same time they’re quite brittle — if anyone questions their wonderfulness, they quickly take offense and turn extremely aggressive.”
— John Tierney at Instapundit

Excuse me if I feel no pity for students at Yale University (annual tuition $47,600) who expect us to believe they are victims of society because somebody said something that offended them. If such cowardly and immature bullies are the future leaders of America, as these petulant Ivy League brats imagine themselves to be, then our nation is hopelessly doomed. Does anyone — anyone — believe a nation can prosper if it accepts as “leaders” such overprivileged monsters as Jerelyn “Who the F**k Hired You?” Luther? America’s most prestigious universities have become playpens that indulge the tantrums of overgrown toddlers.

The people who run Ivy League universities have no sense of patriotic duty, or else they would not cultivate a climate where spoiled children like Jerelyn Luther are permitted to scream obscenities at the faculty. Indeed, I suspect that the faculty of Yale are all Marxist subversives who hate America as much as Jerelyn Luther hates America, because if there was even one patriot on the Yale faculty, he would have resigned in protest and publicly denounced Yale President Peter Salovey as a gutless fool for his abject surrender to the student mob. “We failed you” — yes, Dr. Salovey, you failed them by not expelling them all, thus to teach them a lesson the impudent scum obviously need to learn.

But I digress . . .

Bob with his brothers and his friend Matt.

The real test for Bob was being “recycled” in Mountain Phase, conducted at Camp Merrill near Dahlonega, Georgia. Having succeeded in getting past the initial ordeal of the Benning Phase at Camp Rogers and Camp Darby, he was confronted with the unaccustomed experience of failure. Naturally, he felt that this was not his fault, and that the negative “peer reviews” were unfair. Here was a valuable lesson: It doesn’t matter what’s “fair.”

Life is often unfair. People wrongly suffer harm through no fault of their own, and if we allow ourselves to sulk over the harms we’ve suffered, we will never accomplish anything useful in life. Some people go through life reacting to every failure by saying, “It’s not my fault,” and blaming others for their problems. We call these people losers or, if they convert their self-pity to political ideology, we call them “activists.” Life is unfair, says the loser, and this unfairness is social injustice, and therefore we must rearrange the world to make life better for the losers. These social justice schemes never yield the “fairness” they promise, and when they fail, the ideologues who advocated these policies then blame their enemies for their failure. When feminism fails to achieve its goals, feminists always blame the patriarchy, and anyone who wants to go through life like that — lashing out at scapegoats, blaming their failures on others — is a loser.

A truly radical thought: Maybe life is fair.

Maybe the hardship you suffer is for your own good. Maybe there is a lesson to be learned from a situation that seems to you manifestly unfair. Maybe your failure is not 100% your fault, but if it is only 1% your fault, you should forget about the other 99% and concentrate on whatever part of the problem you can change. If you can meet the challenge and survive, your triumph over adversity will make you stronger. And this was what Bob faced when he had to “recycle” Camp Merrill. Keep in mind what a Ranger candidate must endure:

Military folk wisdom has it that Ranger School’s physical toll is like years of natural aging; high levels of fight-or-flight stress hormones (epinephrine, norepinephrine, cortisol), along with standard sleep deprivation and continual physical strain, inhibit full physical and mental recovery throughout the course.
Common maladies during the course include weight loss, dehydration, trench foot, heatstroke, frostbite, chilblains, fractures, tissue tears (ligaments, tendons, muscles), swollen hands, feet, knees, nerve damage, loss of limb sensitivity, cellulitis, contact dermatitis, cuts, and insect, spider, bee, and wildlife bites.

By the time he finished Mountain Phase the first time, Bob weighed 20 pounds less than he did before beginning Ranger School. He was physically exhausted from sleep deprivation and constant training and, in this depleted condition, now had to cope with the psychological stress of going through Camp Merrill again. Never have I been so worried about his morale. When you are accustomed to winning — when success is a habit — defeat and failure are not something you expect to encounter. It’s kind of like what Alabama had to deal with when they lost to Ole Miss. Here you are, the highly-rated team in pursuit of a championship, and you find yourself unexpectedly beaten. If you are of a philosophical inclination, you may perceive you have paid the price for hubris, and that the injury to your pride was in some sense deserved. Bob failing a course because of “peer reviews” was like Alabama giving up 43 points to Ole Miss.

Somehow, Alabama recovered from that defeat to win the SEC Championship, and Bob recovered from being recycled at Camp Merrill to complete Ranger School and earn that coveted tab. Roll Tide!

Pinning the tab on Bob’s uniform at graduation.

So our prayers have been answered, and we are now on our way back home. Bob will have a long leave before his next assignment. He’s eating like a horse and sleeping like a log, recovering from his strenuous ordeal. We went out to eat Friday and he ate a whole pizza, then ate everything the rest of us had left over.

Clockwise from lower left: Reagan, Kennedy,
Emerson, Jim, Matt, Johanna, Bob, Jefferson, me.

Thanks to all the readers who responded to my appeal Thursday by contributing to the Shoe Leather Fund to pay for our trip to Georgia. Our family is grateful for your support.




 

Category: Family, Military

The World’s Youngest Blogger Is Confused By Lefty Idiocy And Tensor Calculus, But Mostly Lefty Idiocy

Posted on | December 5, 2015 | 10 Comments

Category: World's Youngest Blogger

In The Mailbox: 12.04.15

Posted on | December 4, 2015 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 12.04.15

— compiled by Wombat-socho


OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: San Bernardino – What Do You Think?
The Political Hat: Move Over, Rotherham, Here’s The Next Child Sex Slave Loving English City Council
Louder With Crowder: Real-Time Detroit Ride-Along
American Irony: What A Holiday Card From Abortionists Should Look Like
Doug Powers: Fourteen Killed In San Bernardino, And The NY Daily News Slams GOP For Offering Prayers
Twitchy: Attention NYDN – Berdoo Terrorist Reportedly Pledged Allegiance To ISIS, Not The NRA
Liberty’s Torch: The Heart Of The Matter
Monster Hunter Nation: Guns And Vultures


RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Power: Yahoo’s Marissa Meyer Has Run Out Of Time For A Turnaround
American Thinker: San Bernardino Shooting – Political Correctness Kills
BLACKFIVE: Book Review – What You See By Hank Philippi Ryan
Conservatives4Palin: The Irony Of Planned Parenthood Condemning Murder
Don Surber: Not A Good Day To Be Chuck Todd
Jammie Wearing Fools: Terrorist Farook Had “Very Liberal” Political View
Joe For America: Obama Says Full Speed Ahead For Resettlement Of Syrian Refugees Near San Bernardino
JustOneMinute: A Chess Player On The Left?
Pamela Geller: AG Loretta Lynch – “Actions Predicated On Violent Talk” Toward Muslims “Will Be Prosecuted”
Protein Wisdom: Did Hateful “Christmas Party” Rhetoric Trigger #SanBernardinoShooting?
Shot In The Dark: Enough Is Enough
STUMP: Save The Humanities – Don’t Let People Get Cheap Credit!
The Gateway Pundit: NY Daily News Doubles Down – After Attacking Christians, They Equate NRA Chief With Islamic Terrorists
The Jawa Report: San Bernardino Shooting Motive May Be Linked To “Peaceful Islam”
The Lonely Conservative: Obama’s ISIS Czar Is A Terrorist Sympathizer
This Ain’t Hell: Veterans Prevail In Bladensburg Memorial Case
Weasel Zippers: 94 Million Americans Not In Workforce
Mark Steyn: If You See Something…


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Category: Linkagery

Friday Fiction Verse: 100 Word Challenge

Posted on | December 4, 2015 | 7 Comments

by Smitty

Can the darkness devour the light?
And can falsehood vanquish truth?
And does forgiveness mean no fight,
To preserve our liberty for the youth?

From what source does leadership spring,
Direction to give, resolve to share,
At last tangible peace to bring,
And clear corrupted Commmie air?

For once upon a time a fool,
Hoodwinked the land, assuming power,
Or was this a diabolical tool?
What difference makes it at this hour?

If we don’t learn from the past,
And set about the right to do,
Electing REAL leadership at last,
Then the joke’s on me an you.

via Darleen

Category: Friday Fiction

Our Son Made It Through

Posted on | December 3, 2015 | 40 Comments

 

My wife got the call Sunday from Camp Rudder: “Hooah!” Regular readers know about our son’s service (see “A Soldier and Two Marines: Sworn to ‘Support and Defend the Constitution’” and “He Gets His Wings Tonight”). We have spent the past months praying for him to make it through one of the most difficult military training programs in the world. Camp Rogers, Camp Darby, Camp Merrill, Camp Rudder — extreme physical and psychological stress are involved, and he made it.

So our family is making a road trip and, given the current state of national alert, readers can understand why considerations of operational security limit me from saying much more about the timing and destination of our journey, but we’re gonna see him get that tab. We prayed very hard for our son to make it through this grueling ordeal, and our prayers have been answered. So I’m rattling tip jar for the Shoe Leather Fund to put me on the road again. Thanks in advance.




 

Category: Family, Military

Syed Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, Named in #SanBernardino Massacre

Posted on | December 3, 2015 | 79 Comments

The Los Angeles Times reports:

The suspects in the shooting rampage were a married couple who had just dropped off their 6-month-old daughter with a grandmother, family representatives said.
Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, were married two years ago, according to Malik’s brother, Farhan Khan . . .
On Wednesday morning, Farook and his wife dropped their daughter off with Farook’s mother in Redlands, saying they had a doctor’s appointment, said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Los Angeles office.
The grandmother grew worried when she heard of the shooting attack in San Bernardino, and “she started calling. No answer,” Ayloush said.
The family was worried the couple were shot in the attacks, but then they started receiving calls from media outlets indicating Farook was a person of interest.
Farook was born in Illinois, and his parents immigrated to the U.S. from Southeast Asia, Ayloush said.

UPDATE: More from the Los Angeles Times:

As the holiday gathering got underway Wednesday morning, Syed Rizwan Farook joined dozens of his colleagues from San Bernardino County’s public health department. Farook, an inspector, seemed quiet during the early hours of the event, then vanished just as a group photo was about to be taken.
Shortly afterward, gunfire erupted at the Inland Regional Center where the employees filled a conference room. By the end of the day, police had identified Farook, 28, as a suspect in the massacre and said he was one of two people shot to death in a gun battle with officers. The other was 27-year-old Tashfeen Malik, who a family member said was Farook’s wife. . . .
Co-workers told The Times they were shocked to hear Farook’s name linked to the shooting. . . .
They said Farook recently traveled to Saudi Arabia and returned with a new wife he had met online. The couple had a baby and appeared to be “living the American dream,” said Patrick Baccari, a fellow health inspector who shared a cubicle with Farook.
Baccari and Christian Nwadike said Farook, who worked with them for several years, rarely started a conversation. But the tall, thin young man with a full beard was well liked and spent much of his time out in the field.
They and other colleagues said Farook was a devout Muslim, but rarely discussed religion at work.
“He never struck me as a fanatic, he never struck me as suspicious,” said Griselda Reisinger, who worked with Farook before leaving the agency in May.

(Via Memeorandum.) The talking heads on TV are asking, “Was this terrorism?” As if the word “terrorism” requires an official designation to fit the definition. Given the apparently meticulous planning that went into this attack, and considering that it was committed by devout Muslims, all we need is common sense to say that this was Islamic terrorism. Is there any indication it was anything else?

UPDATE II: Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit reports:

San Bernardino police announced [Wednesday night] that the Islamic killers who slaughtered 14 people at a community social services building were wearing GoPro cameras.
The male and female were wearing protective vests and carrying several firearms when they were gunned down by police after the massacre. . . .
Local officials reported the name of the female suspect in San Bernardino shooting as – Tashfeen Malik.
They were wearing GoPro cameras when they were killed. The couple were at home when officers arrived and then took off and were followed by police when they were shot dead. . . .
Several jihadists in Europe have worn cameras during their bloody attacks in the past year.

UPDATE III: While it appears the attack in San Bernardino had a religious motive, other attacks had a political motive:

Left Spends Day In Coordinated Attack on
Saying “Thoughts and Prayers” For the Victims

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.) So, while Islam is at war with America, the Democrat Party is at war with Christianity.

 

Category: Crime, Islam, Terrorism

The #SanBernardino Massacre

Posted on | December 2, 2015 | 37 Comments

Everybody’s been watching this story develop live on TV:

At least 14 people were dead and another 17 injured in a shooting Wednesday in San Bernardino, California, when multiple gunmen who were heavily armed and “on a mission” opened fire during a function at a center for people with developmental disabilities, police said.
Up to three shooters opened fire around 11 a.m. at the Inland Regional Center, armed with long guns and “came prepared to do what they did as if they were on a mission,” San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said.
The shooting lasted for just “a few minutes” before the suspects, who remained on the loose, may have fled the scene in what Burguan described as a “dark color SUV.” Police have no identification information about the suspects and have not identified a motive.

It is being reported that police killed two of the suspects and that a third suspect escaped on foot, but everything else is sketchy. The motive is the big mystery at this point.

UPDATE: The Los Angeles Times reports:

The shooters, who carried long guns and wore masks and camouflage clothing, opened fire on a holiday party being held by county employees, federal law enforcement sources and a witness told the Los Angeles Times.
An altercation between people attending the gathering may have sparked the assault. A federal law enforcement source said that one of the shooters may have left the party after getting into an argument and returned with one or two armed companions.
The shooting took place in a large conference room on the grounds of the Inland Regional Center, which serves people with developmental disabilities in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

UPDATE II: Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik Named in #SanBernardino Shooting

 

Category: Crime

In The Mailbox: 12.02.15

Posted on | December 2, 2015 | 3 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: The Mile High Loser Club
Da Tech Guy: Grifters Know College Endowments Are Where The Money Is
First Street Journal: There’s Something Wrong With This News Story!
The Camp of the Saints: The Left And The Mentally Ill – A Band Of Lunatic Brothers
The Political Hat: A Feminist Epistemology Of Mathematics
Michelle Malkin: Deadly DC – The Land Of No Consequences
Twitchy: Martin O’Malley Already Blaming San Bernardino Shooting On The NRA


RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Power: ISIS Prevents Civilians From Fleeing Ramadi
American Thinker: Israel Beware
BLACKFIVE: Book Review – Cheney One By James Rosen
Conservatives4Palin: Governor Palin Reflects On Her “Toughest Year So Far”
Don Surber: Cutting A Deal With Democrats Costs A Company $500 Million
Jammie Wearing Fools: Democrat Warns Obama’s Incompetence Could Drag Us Into “Devastating Nuclear War”
Joe For America: Law Enforcement Advises To Arm Yourself Against Incoming Religion Of Peace “Refugees”
JustOneMinute: Contrasting Headlines
Pamela Geller: Portland Christmas Tree Bombing Plot By American Muslim Could Have Killed 25,000
Protein Wisdom: Two Weeks After 130 Die In Paris Attack, Obama Proclaims Mass Shootings Only Happen In America
Shot In The Dark: Does Anyone Remember…
The Gateway Pundit: Judge Allows Student Back On Campus After He Threatened To Murder 16 Whites
The Jawa Report: Sandcrawler PSA – Welcome To Bumf**k Egypt
The Lonely Conservative: The Latest On Hillary’s Document Dump
This Ain’t Hell: LGEN Flynn – ISIS Was Ignored Because Of Election Year Narrative
Weasel Zippers: DEVELOPING – Twelve Dead In San Bernardino Shooting – Suspect Named Farooq Saeed
Megan McArdle: “Ban Smoking” Means “Evict Defiant Smokers”
Mark Steyn: The Offset Jet Set


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