The SandGram

Hi everyone!
This is Taco’s Mama, and I wanted to alert you that Taco’s birthday is this Friday so swamp him with greetings in the comment section! He doesn’t know I’m posting this so don’t be surprised to hear the hollering all the way from Texas to Virginia when he finds out what I’ve done (at the urging of the Church Ladies, of course!!). Let’s have some fun!!

Hugs to all!
Taco’s Mama

PS
He hasn’t changed much since he was four and eight years old–mischievous as usual!!!

Hey Guys,
I want to thank you all for the awesome Birthday wishes and also thanks to my Momma Taco for the nice surprise! I’ve been in the simulators battling flaming engines and thunderstorms as part of the nine month check that all airline pilots must undergo to continue to fly.

It’s funny though, I was thinking back to my tenth birthday, when we lived in Little Creek Virginia on the Naval Amphibious Base next to lake Bradford. My Dad was out to sea on the U.S.S. San Diego, a supply ship plying the Atlantic Ocean, so he missed the party where we terrorized our neighborhood for a few hours. When we had my birthday party, my uncle Bruce who flew F-14’s at the time and took after my Grandfather, six foot seven, joined us. His call sign was “Big Bird” due to his size and I was always bugging him to take me flying in his Cherokee 140 that he ended up selling to me years later. Bruce went down to his boys in the Flight Riggers shop and grabbed a bunch of stuff that they had “Surveyed” a term in the military that means it’s trash and would be chucked. So after we blew out the candles on the cake, Bruce starts pulling out all sorts of cool stuff. Mind you, we lived on a military base and played Army in the woods every chance we had so when he gave me all this survival equipment that a jet pilot would wear, I was in seventh heaven!!

The SV-2, survival vest contained a compass, the standard survival knife (very cool) a signal mirror, sea dye markers, shark repellant, and survival flares. This was going to elevate me to the top of being super cool with my friends when they saw all of this. Bruce then took me outside to demonstrate the flares. They were about the size of a soda can, a bit thinner though, and he showed me that if it was night time and you were splashing around in the ocean, you could tell which end was the night flare because of the bumps around the edge. He pulls the tab fires up these flares. Now when these things ignite up, they spew out a flame about three feet long. It lit up my backyard and probably made the neighbors wonder what the hell was going on over there…

After about four of these burned out we flipped them over to do the day portion. When he pulled the tabs on these, orange smoke started pouring out. I mean the whole backyard filled up with smoke and it began to spread out from the back side of the house to the street. By the third and fourth flare, our whole section of the neighborhood was cloaked in an orange mist that would make Steven King proud. What was neat for a ten year old, but didn’t impress the local cops or MP’s who were driving around with their search lights on looking for the source of this smoke. My Uncle ushered me back inside the house as he tossed the spent flares into the trash. Then he giggled like a school girl as he drank beer and watched the keystone cops frantically drive around outside. We never got in trouble for that one, but the following summer when I let the sea dye markers out into the ocean at the Officers beach and all the kids and their parents came out of the water stained bright red, well that was a different story.

Those are some great birthday memories which made a lasting impression in my minds eye. Thanks again for the birthday wishes you guys, you made my day! If any of you are flying from DFW to LAX the next three nights and returning at five in the morning (LA all nighter) look up front and say hello.

Semper Fi, Taco

Hey Guys,
I just wanted to wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving! I have been blessed with a wonderful family and a wife who is willing to raise our children and put her dreams of nursing aside till the children are older. My parents who are there at our beck and call to help us out when they come visit and my In-laws who treat me as their own son. I can say that life is good here. I have a friend,Jim Adams, who has gone over for another tour in Iraq. I started to put his message up about how things are but I’m going to wait because he has promised to write a longer piece and be my guest writer/eyes there.

As you all sit down for dinner this Thanksgiving, please remember our troops in Harm’s way and say a prayer for them. If you are flying this vacation and on a big silver 737-800, look for me up in the cockpit, for I will be in my office the next four days. Take care and I have a couple of posts in the works for your entertainment. Until then if you are new to the Sandgram, go back and read the older posts, they might bring a smile to your face.
Semper Fi,
Taco

Hey Guys,
November tenth is the birthday of our beloved Corps. So far I have attended a ball, (minus the wife but able to take my Dad and Uncle-both Navy) and some other smaller celebrations that included hearing a speech by former CMC Hagee and a few beers hoisted up over a nice cigar with a few buddies named “Chuck the Asst. D.A.,” “Fred the Fed,” “Steve the Cop,” “Perry the Diver” and “Simon the Retired.” All have ties with the Corps and it was an awesome time as we told lies and sat in our overstuffed leather chairs smoking a ten-dollar cigar. They always say that if you have two Marines together, they will celebrate the birth of their Corps with as much gusto as former President Clinton when he found he had a new intern (or that his wife was taking a trip to NYC for the weekend). Either way, we have a good time.

It’s a hard date to forget after so many balls and pageants over the years. Funny though, the true litmus test for a person claiming to be a Marine is to ask them what is the actual day of the Marine Corps Birthday. We were having lunch for the second time at a new local Italian place in Fort Worth, and had the same waitress, a young gal named Lynn who claimed that she, too, was a Marine. The first time I talked to her, I didn’t press the issue since we were about to leave. The next time was last Sunday, after the ball. She proudly stated again that she was a Marine who got out after three years when she heard us talking about the Military. My Uncle, 6’ 5” and a former RIO in the F-14, asks across the table, “Hey when is the Marine Corps Birthday?” she just shrugged her shoulders and said, “I don’t remember that little stuff.” Now I was pretty sure that this semi-cute young thing was lying through her teeth. Not sure if she thought it would bring a better tip, I asked her, “Where did you go to boot camp?” She beamed and said, “Pendleton, of course.”

I didn’t want to bust her in front of my in-laws and family (plus we didn’t have our food yet) so I waited until I was driving home from one of the cake-cutting ceremonies in my Dress Blues and decided to stop by the restaurant. I flagged her down and asked her to come over. “Lynn, while I appreciate you wanting to be a Marine, if you are going to lie about it, first Google the Corps and find out the date of it’s inception, because EVERY Marine knows that. Second, women only attend Boot Camp in Paris Island.” You could see the shame in her eyes, and she started to explain something, but I just said goodbye and turned around to leave.

Now this Saturday, November tenth will be a different story. I am flying to San Antonio with a good buddy named Paulie, in our Government-issued KC 130T. Our mission is to pick up six young Marines who were wounded in Iraq, and fly them to a football game up here in North Texas. Ross Perot and his son are helping organize this through the Wounded Warrior group. They are going to watch the University of North Texas play the Naval Academy. I think it’s an awesome thing, and it’s one of those flights that I can’t wait to make happen. I can bet you a million dollars, that these heroes know the meaning of the tenth of November!
To all of you Marines out there, I wish you a very Happy Birthday, for you are looking good for being 232 years…
Semper Fi,
Taco

I have to say that out of all of my jobs in the Marine Corps, I look back at my time with MWSS 274 as the Air Ops OIC in Cherry Point as my favorite one hands down. I was an old hand at VMGR 252 and a boot Captain which made me ripe for a FAP billet. The Fleet Assistant Program is when the base or units in your Wing need extra bodies to fill certain Officer and Enlisted billets. Basically it can mean not flying for a year or so while you go play with the Grunts down at Camp Lejeune most of the time.

Reporting to Sunshine, our XO after lunch, he informs the three most senior copilots that there are two FAC (forward air controllers) jobs down at Camp Lejeune and one FAP job on base at Cherry Point with MWSS 274. We all knew that Zeke, the Assistant S-3 Officer, never flew and he hated his job there. Nobody wanted to replace him and we all hoped that the job would just go away. My two buddies jumped on the FAC jobs like a hobo on a ham sandwich before I had a chance to say boo. We all walked out and shook hands to say goodbye. They would be gone from Cherry Point for 15 months or so and I was only going to be away for a year. You would think that my option was the best, but you have to understand the pain a pilot feels when you are chained to a desk while your buds all flew to Rota Spain, Germany, England, Iceland and all the cool places in the world. They like to rub salt in your wounds at the O’Club about it too. At least if you were gone on a ship, you don’t have to see the planes flying over head taunting you.

I checked out of my Squadron, put on my green dress Alpha’s to go report in for my new job. I stuck my head into the Adjutants office, a young second Lieutenant and asked if the boss was around. Nodding, he made a phone call and announced my presence. The C.O. was a LtCol and proud of his school that was located in some small town in Maryland called Annapolis, you could tell by all the blue and gold stuff on the wall.

He proceeded to tell me that while the KC130 pilot normally fills the S-3a job there at HQ, he was short an Officer to fill the Air Ops OIC position that is a Captain/Major’s job because the ECMO from VMAQ 2 (backseater guy in the jammer sqd) was stuck on the boat and two months late returning. So I would take that job and he would get the S-3a when he returned. I thanked the CO for the chance to work for him and excused myself to check out my new diggs.

The Air Ops was located right down the street from my Squadron and next to our simulator building. It was a large brick warehouse that housed all the stuff you needed to outfit an airfield during wartime in some far off country. I had seventy Marines under my charge, a salty Warrant Officer and a slew of Staff NCO’s. For the first time in my career as a Marine I really felt like an Officer. Over at the Sqd, you worked with older senior enlisted Marines for the most part and here I had the whole range of guys from brand new out of boot camp,to ready to retire to one SSgt who was on the ROAD program (retired on active duty) which all made for some interesting times.

That week, I snapped in and toured all of my “Assets” which ranged from guys at the PMO-military police, EOD-bomb guys, ATC-air traffic control, gas trucks etc. They set up a demo in the field located next to my warehouse and filled these big rubber bladders with gas to show me what my boys did and how they did it. The Gunny from my gas section escorted Gene my Warrant Officer and I over to this big 18 wheeler for the brief on gas. I walked up to introduce myself to PFC Geddy who was from West Virginia. Now Geddy had that sort of Pig Pen look about him, not that he was really dirty, but you could say he had a layer of dust on him, smudges of oil and grime on his face giving him a weathered darker complexion that made his really blue eyes stand out.

“OK Geddy, lets pretend that my KC-130 pulls up and you are going to give him some gas, how do you do this operation?”
Geddy gets very excited and turns around pointing to a set of valves on the side of the truck. “Weeeeell Siiiiir,” in a long slow Hillbilly accent “If I’s want to pass some gas to you, well I open the H valve here then turn on the L valve and You should be getting gas lickety split Sirrrrrrrrr.”

I’m looking at him impressed that he knew the names of the valves inside his truck. They made us memorize all the valves in the wing of the KC 130 too (like it would make a difference in flight) looking over his shoulder, I notice that the valves letters are stenciled on top of the piping, so I tap him on the arm so that he turned around. “OK Geddy, without looking, what happens if your sphincter valve is clogged, how do you bypass that so you can let your gas out?”

Geddy’s eyes sort of bulged out of their sockets and then proceeded to blink in a rapid motion. Sweat starts to glisten on the side of his head and he lowers his eyes and sways from foot to foot. I wink at the Gunny and Gene who are trying not to laugh. Geddy looks back up to me and says in a panicked look “Siiirr the SPINKTER valve?” I nod yes, he pauses for a second and then says “Sir, this Marine doesn’t know the answer but I will find out.”
I thank him for a great demo and walk off to the next piece of equipment set up. As we walking away, I can hear the Gunny chewing old Geddy “What do you mean you don’t how to bypass the Sphincter valve Geddy??? Take this truck back to the barn and pull out the manual for it. Don’t come out of the office till you find the Captains answer.”
Poor kid was in that office for the rest of the day trying to find that bypass valve so that he could fart.

They held inspections every morning and I loved this part the most. I would go around and ask current event questions each day, stuff that I had read in USA TODAY that morning over my cup of coffee. Simple stuff, “Who is the President of Russia?” What country just had a coup? How many feet in a mile? All sorts of off the wall stuff. It became a big game for the guys. I had two Marines cut out current articles from my paper in the morning and post them on the wall next to the bathroom. Then they would post the sports over the urinal. They figured out that I would ask questions relating to what was posted on the wall.

That first week was a blast and on Friday I dropped the bomb on them. After chow, I told the MasterSgt to have the guys and gals form up in the PT field at 1500 (three O’clock for you Air Force readers) for a nice six mile run. You could hear the bitching and moaning all the way into my office about the new Skipper making them run at 1500 on Friday (this guy was suppose to be laid back, he was a pilot for Christ sakes). We formed up and took off for our run down the side road to a nice wooded area about a mile from the warehouse. There was my Warrant Officer with my pickup truck parked in the shade of a tree. In the bed of my truck was a keg of beer and a ton of cups. I told the Marines to grab a brew and form a school circle around the truck.

“Ok Marines, here is the deal just so you know what I’m all about. I believe in work hard, play hard, but there are also things that we need to do to run smoothly. First of all, when you go out in town, you will have a designated driver. I kid you not about this. Draw straws, hook up with a Mormon, do whatever it takes to have one sober driver in your group. If that person screws up and drinks, then you take a cab home to the base. If you have spent all of your money down at “Honey’s” the local strip joint, then you will call the Gunny, then the MasterSgt or the Warrant Officer and finally me for a pick up. I would rather drive down from New Bern to the Beach to pickup my drunk Marines then to grab your sorry drunk butt out of jail. It’s all about taking care of one another. We might have you waxing our cars during lunch hour for the ride, but that is a small price to pay for being alive and not in jail. I’m not worried about the beer here because I plan on sweating it out of you on the way back to the hooch. If you have any problems, bring them up the chain of command. I’m all about hearing first hand about a problem rather then getting a call from my boss the Col about it later. Accountability is another biggie. Always let someone know where you are going over the weekend and give them a recall number in case we have to get a hold of you. We are Marines and if we have to fly out for some action somewhere, I’d hate for you to be U.A. and miss all the fun. Finally, I believe in taking care of my guys. You take care of me and I take of you. Don’t break my rules about drinking and we’ll have a great time this year. That’s all, enjoy the beer.” We smoked and joked about being a pilot then headed back to the barn after a couple of beers.

I never had a problem during my time there. Every Monday morning at the CO’s brief, we would go around the table and my peers would have to explain how a couple of their boys were in jail for drinking or fighting. They would ask me and I answered, “Nothing to pass Sir.” I would love to attribute this to my outstanding leadership, but really it was a case of being lucky and I would rather be lucky then good anyday…
More to come on this job later.
Semper Fi,
Taco

Hey guys,
Sure wish I could concentrate and write something funny for you all, but I am sitting in the Hospital looking at the newest Marine Corps Aviator that arrived today. We are naming our newest addition Jacob “Jake” and he is a small baby, tipping the scales at a little over 10lbs 2oz’s. Tee my wife is recovering well from the C-Section. You know, after watching that for the third time, I don’t think that I can look at a big Rib eye steak the same. The Doc made the first cut which made my knee’s buckle. Tee, gave me grief “Gosh, tell me how this makes you woozy and yet when you help cut off that insurgents leg in Iraq and you were all smiles.”

Ok, I forgot to tell you how to have fun with your prego wife at the hospital. I bought one of those remote control fart machines years ago. As she is laying in bed holding the baby with guests in the room, I hit the button causing a huge fart from the machine under her bed. Sounds perfect. There is that pause when folks look at her and the baby trying to figure out which one did it. I of course, am sitting on the other side of the room, so it can’t be me… Then Tee jumps my crap about having fun with her.

Well, hope you guys have a great day and thanks for all of your support over the last year!! Also I forgot, if you have time, please go over to this site and pop a vote for my buddy Marty Horn. Micro soft is putting this on and I cant’t think of a more deserving guy/family.
http://www.microsoft.com/industry/government/federal/AboveandBeyondAwards.mspx

Semper Fi,
Taco

You know I have to laugh when I think about Rank sometimes. When I was younger, a Major was old as dirt and a LtCol, hell forget it, that guy farted dust. A General would be close to using a walker and that is because they are soooo old. Now I am a LtCol and although I feel about 25 and act like a first Lieutenant on the inside, the gray hair is harder and harder to cut out of my head and the run time on my PFT goes down hill each year.

This flashback came to me as I was walking today in Tampa Florida. I remember sitting in the office over in Al Taquddam Iraq, while the “Colonel” was working on the desk finishing up his email. The phone rang and here is how the conversation went.

“Good Afternoon, Colonel Cassius, Airboss, may I help you?”

Phone: “Hey this is Col. Dover from the 187 airwing in Diewabuabbee, calling to find out why it’s so dangerous at your base. Every time one of my C-130’s fly’s into your airfield they are taking fire about a half mile off the end of the runway.”

Col Cassius “I’m sorry; who did you say this is?”

Phone: “Colonel Dover”

Col Cassius “Is this like… a full bird Colonel, or an Air Force Phone Colonel?”

Phone: “Ahhhhh, I’m Lieutenant Colonel Dover, aren’t you the same?”

Col Cassius “Well no LtCol Dover, in the Marine Corps, we answer the phone as either LtCol smuckatelly or if you are an O-6, Colonel Smuckatelly. In this case you are speaking to the big cheese, COLONEL CASSIUS. As to your birds getting shot at, first of all, I think they are just picking up the intense heat from the burn dump about a half mile off the field. Second, I think your boys are a bit over reactive and maybe embellish their combat reports so they get more points for their air medals or bronze stars or what ever they are putting in for. But that’s just my opinion since OUR KC 130’s land here five times a day and they have never reported being shot at on final. Second of all if they were getting shot at, then they DO rate those medals and all I can say is…Hey it’s a WAR ZONE.

Phone: OOOOhhhh UUUUMMMMM, Well, huh

Col. Cassius “Ok Dover, if that’s it, have a great day and tell your boys to keep braving all that fire as they yank and bank into our airfield. Goodbye.”

He hung up the phone and turned to me saying “We use to call these guys Pentagon Phone Colonels because they would never say Lieutenant in front of their rank when I was stationed there, so I would be calling these pukes “Sir” when we were the same rank. That always bugged the crap out of me.”

Hey you Air Force guys, sorry, we aren’t normally this hard on the phone but Damn, Marines are just hard sometimes…
Semper Fi,
Taco

You’ve Got Mail…

Electronic mail is a curse in the most simplistic manner speaking. Where are all the old handwritten letters that we use to send? Remember that special emotion we felt when a letter arrived in the mailbox instead of all the junk mail and bills? I have copies of all the old love letters and correspondence between my Grandfather, then Navy Lt. Bruce R. McCampbell, and his bride during WWII while he was stationed in the Pacific on the U.S.S. Mugford DD389. They pass on a tale of what life was like for them during that time and in their own handwriting. These letters continue through his service as Chief of Surgery on the hospital ship USS Consolation in the Korean Police Action. It’s actually a very special treasure that I enjoy going back through and reading from time to time. [Editor’s note: our letters from Vietnam and from my husband’s Naval deployments fill a storage box, but they haven’t been made public—yet!]

While Stationed in Iraq, I was able to email back and forth to my wife almost every day that became banter of some sorts. The longer letters were a testament to some of the things I experienced while there, and her side was a picture of life at home. It allowed me a chance to be there when the kids were sick, or share her last minute thoughts before she went to bed that night. It always amazes me that these letters were zipping across time and space in fractions of a second, arriving in my “Inbox” only minutes later, often accompanied by a picture of something that happened that day.

We saved all these letters in a folder on our home computer, but as with most computers, the program failed, and we lost that folder and all the memories contained within. It was kind of depressing to think that my grandkids would have no written exchanges between us to read through to see what our lives were like in the year 2005. The bitterness towards MSN lasted for months, but truly, I had no one to blame except for myself. Why didn’t I print off those letters as soon as I got home? Well, you just don’t expect to lose the data deep down in your hard drive. Just like you never expect that you will be the one to die in a car wreck, thus the “What If” file I wrote about last week.

If you are one of those people, who like me, expected that one day I would retrieve the data and print off all the letters, well—get to it fast!! I was lucky, for about two months ago, I stumbled across a PST file that one of my data dinks had saved on my thumb drive before we cleaned my profile off of the office laptop top in Iraq. It contained all the letters from my wife that I had put in a folder in my mail program. When I opened it up, there they were. All of them!! It was like finding that lost ring that had been missing for months and you had given up on it.

I took advantage of it right away. I made a Word document and cut and pasted seven months worth of emails into it. (Believe me when I acknowledge that this is a lot of time and effort). Then I ran the entire 200 pages through a free program my Mom sent me called “Email stripper” which removes all those carrots and crap out of a forward or reply. When I was done, I had one hundred and eighty-eight pages of our email back and forth that was as pretty as any book you pick up.

Now my wife, “Tee,” has an October birthday, and I was thinking of what to get her. This was the perfect present, something that she said she missed as well and was very special to her. I looked at my project and realized that I had cut and pasted them in reverse order Feb 06 to Aug of 05, so I had to go back and cut and paste everything so that is was in chronological order. Then I put all of my digital photos in a collage pattern of seven pictures per page. Took the thumb drive down to Office Depot where they printed off my Word document, front and back, and all the picture pages on a great heavy-duty color laser printer. I then went next door to Hobby Lobby and bought a hard back expandable photo album book to hold it all. I had to come up with longer bolts to go through it, but it looked like a hardbound book now.

I gave it to “Tee” for her birthday and she loved it. Hours of manual labor produced something that my kids and their children will now be able to go back and read to see what our lives were like during that year. If you need a project to work on, I suggest you make one of these books too! If you have a loved one over in the war, this is something you could do for them as well. Hell, it is just something you should do because, like it or not, we live in a electronic age where documents like “letters” will be non-existent and our ancestors will have no insight to our thoughts or lives. Better do it now than lose all that data later and regret never having printed them out. The only thing I wished I had done was having them printed on acid-free paper.

Semper Fi,
Taco

During the Vietnam War, when a young Marine reported into his unit (true today as well), they went through all your paperwork to make sure you were up to date on your rifle range and gas chamber training, health physical, dental, and also your SGLI (Service Group Life Insurance) to determine if you had designated a beneficiary. I think back then if you died you would get 25K, but you could opt to increase to 75 or 100K for an extra five dollars a month. I guess a lot of young Marines opted for the free amount to save money for the Friday beer night.

In one unit (as the story goes), they put a young, motivated Corporal in charge of some of these classes, and they noticed that his sign-up rate for the higher insurance amount was around 100%. The S-1 Admin Officer was curious how this kid was able to convince these other young Marines to spend more money when they hardly made enough to live on in the first place. Mind you, this was during the war as well, so the Officer snuck in the back of the building to hear his pitch.

The Corporal went through the whole presentation, and at the end, when he explained about opting for the higher insurance, he said, “So Marines, think about this. If you opt for the extra insurance and you go over to Vietnam, who do you think they are going to put on the front lines? The guy that is going to cost the Government $25,000 dollars if he dies or the guy that is worth $100,000?”

Of course this isn’t true, but it does bring up a point that I want you to read, then re-read and pass on to everyone. This isn’t just for the Marine or Soldier going over to the War, it’s for everyone, guy or gal. We all believe that we’ll live forever! I mean it. When you are young, you are bullet proof and as you get older, you just never expect that you will die. Well, I am speaking as a guy who lost his sister while in college, his college roommate fifteen months later, and about a dozen guys in plane crashes over my adult life. With this in mind, I came up with a “What if” file.

The “What if” file is a complete folder for my next of kin on what to do if I get whacked by a drunk driver in the morning on the way to work. This is to ensure that my wife and parents would not have to search through old papers, files, boxes in the closet etc to track down my investments, mortgages, car info, work info, passwords etc. Now mind you, the “what if” file is a VERY important document, and should be placed in your fire proof home safety deposit box or gun safe, or with your folks and/or your wife in a safe, secure place. It would be bad news falling into the wrong hands with all that info in one place.

Here is what I did when I married my beautiful wife. I wrote a letter to her, very personal and with the intent that it would my last words to her. I also told her what needed to be done and in what order.
Within the folder, you should have:
-Copies of all bank statements
-All online passwords
-Account numbers
(these are required to cancel credit cards and find out what bills have to be paid)
-Copies of all life insurance policies
-POC’s (point of contact) and correct phone numbers
-Copies of your investments and assets
-POC within the state to get copies of your death certificates, how many copies and who to send them to in order to collect insurance and notify Social Security
-POC (supervisor) at work to notify so they don’t call wondering where you are
-Passwords for email accounts, so that your family can send out an email using your address book to notify all your contacts about your death or serious injury. Otherwise your family will have to provide AOL or MSN with death certificates to get into the mail accounts
-An envelope with $1,000 in cash to cover immediate and unforeseen needs
-Instructions for how you want to be buried, where, what etc.
-Copy of your current (valid) will (if you don’t have one, you can get from your legal department or online for a nominal fee. Legalzoom.com will do it)
-Copies of your Living Will/Advance Directive/and Power of Attorney (if needed)
-List the value of certain items in your estate that might be worth some money (you don’t want them sold for pennies on a dollar at an estate sale)

This is just a start, a basic roadmap for you. There are many more things you can add to it. I’m death on Marines who don’t have this set up, and so is my Dad who has an extensive “what if” file. I’ve seen too many cases where a Marine has died, and he didn’t switch over his life insurance from his EX-wife who he hates, and she now has won the lotto with a tax-free check while his present wife gets nothing. That is pure laziness and I despise it. Just remember that dying is the easy part of life; it’s the loved ones you leave behind that suffer. If you have your life tied together in a “What If” folder, when that unexpected time comes, it will make life so much easier for the ones left behind. If you care about your spouse/kids and folks, take the time today to start putting one of these together, and store it in your home fireproof safety deposit box(but watch out if you use a banks they will close those up tight till the probate of the will if you don’t clean it out fast).

I hope this post helps. Please copy it, and send it to your friends and family. I would be willing to bet you a beer that if polled, only about one out of ten will have anything remotely set up like a “What If” file.

Semper Fi,
Taco

Hey guys,

You know, from reading my past posts, that I normally focus on old Marine or Military stories, and try to stay away from the political hatred that bubbles from this war. This is now an entirely different situation than we faced in 2003. That was a war that ended in just a couple of days. Now, the fact is that we are trying to bring peace to a country that has never had freedom in years, and this is worth it, in my opinion. We could sit and chat about the pros and cons of being “over there” for the next decade, and it will not get us anywhere. I will still think we are right, and others will say that they are right. Only time will tell. I mean we are still in Kosavo aren’t we? That was Clinton’s little war and no one speaks about that years later.

Recently a reporter, Suzanne Schrobsdorff, interviewed me for a Newsweek.com article on returning vets some of whom choose to be anti-war protestors. I think they are TURDS with a capital “T.” No “if’s, an’s or butts” about it. The article focused on Adam Kokesh, one of these vets who are getting their fifteen minutes of fame. You know what will become of him ten years from now? Nothing. He’ll be a fat, bitter former war protester. He is a “Turd” of a former Marine who has been let go from the Corps with a “general discharge under honorable conditions” even though other officials recommended an “other than honorable” discharge. He has no integrity, in my opinion. He was busted from sergeant to corporal for trying to bring back a gun that he “bought” from an Iraqi. Hell, he is lucky he didn’t get the BCD, “Big chicken Dinner” or Bad Conduct Discharge. This NCO knew better then to violate general rule number one, you do not drink, no porno, and no smuggling guns back. The funny thing is that he was in a CAG unit. They did not go around and sand bag “innocent” Iraq’s; they were the guys with the money. One of the Officers in my unit just came back from doing that job for a year. It is dangerous, no doubt about it, but it requires trust. Makes me wonder if he’s lashing out at the Corps because he was busted down in rank? What do you think? Maybe he is a disgruntled grunt?

Well, Adam, I hope you enjoy your short fame and fortune because when you finish your degree, there will be a limited number of folks out there that will hire you. Here is what I see may happen to you in the near future. You go for an interview and don’t get the job because A: the HR person also served in the Military and had an honorable career there. B: They may have served in Iraq and hate you for what you have done. C: They had a child that served and hate you for what you have done. D: They lost someone during 9-11. E: Would they want to hire someone who has a “General Discharge” and was busted down in rank for trying to smuggle a weapon back which reeks of questionable integrity? Just remember, you are associated with the same scum who vandalized the Vietnam Memorial last weekend with acid spray.

Who knows what the case may be, but when they Google your name, guess what they will find? All of your Anti-War protests, and a number of Male Gay websites that love you. That’s sad if you ask me. Maybe someone from “Moveon.org” will put you to work in the mailroom. Yes, folks can blast me all they want for not liking him or what he stands for, but bottom line, he is a loser. Now that I have vented, those of you that have found my site from the Newsweek.com article, stay tuned for the regularly scheduled stories.
Semper Fi,
Taco

PS, just saw in the paper that Sire Records just gave your group $100K, I hope that you don’t screw that up end up in jail for tax evasion or misuse of funds…

We will never forget…God Bless all the Men and Women who died this day and all the Men and Women who have died since to ensure we have the freedom to pray to our God without an Imam telling us what to do.
S/F
Taco