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by Sgt Dick Blumenthal, USMCR, wannabe-Vietnam Vet
As I noted in an earlier post, my Dad was an Army veteran of both WWII and Vietnam. He served two tours of duty in South Vietnam as a Master Sgt with the Corps of Engineers.
The first tour was in 1967-68 at Cam Ranh Bay. I have pictures of him somewhere dressed up in tiger-stripe camo with white facings playing Santa Claus to Vietnamese kids. They chose him because he had white hair. He was 48 when he left to go to Vietnam. His second tour was in 1969-70 and he was with a road building batallion in both the Central Highlands and the Mekong Delta region.
When your Dad is gone for two years of your childhood serving in a war zone and then some slimey politician fraudulently claims to have served in Vietnam to burnish his credentials, you can understand my anger and disgust with Connecticut AG and US Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal.
William Saletan in the online magazine Slate has a blistering critique of Blumenthal. James Taranto, in his Best of the Web column for the Wall Street Journal, nails it better than I could.
He’ll fight for Connecticut’s families just like he fought back in his Marine days, when he led the glorious Toys for Tots campaign during Vietnam.
Not that I have anything against Toys for Tots but as the Virtual Stepdaughter always says, “Just saying”.
Marinestan
Though my Dad served 28 years on active duty with the U.S. Army and was a veteran of both WWII and Vietnam, I’m sure he’d agree with Victor Davis Hanson on this one.
The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, retired three-star Army General Karl W. Eikenberry, reportedly made a comment about there being 41 nations serving in Afghanistan — and a 42nd composed of the Marine Corps. One unnamed Obama administration official was quoted by the Washington Post as saying, “We have better operational coherence with virtually all of our NATO allies than we have with the U.S. Marine Corps.”
Some officials call the new Marine enclave in Nimruz Province “Marinestan” — as if, out of a Kipling or Conrad novel, the Marines have gone rogue to set up their own independent province of operations.
First Impressions of the NRA Annual Meeting
We attended the NRA Annual Meeting this past weekend in Charlotte. When the Complementary Spouse asked what I wanted for my birthday, I said I wanted her to go with me to Charlotte. Being the good woman that she is, she agreed.
Even though this was my first NRA show, I had an idea of what to expect in the Charlotte Convention Center since I had attended the 1996 SHOT Show in Dallas. I was working for a knife company then and helped to work their booth.
My first impression is that the NRA show was smaller but friendlier. There were less “booth babes” than at a SHOT Show which given the family-oriented composition of the crowd was probably a smart thing. The vendors seemed more willing to take the time to explain their products than I expected. That was nice feature of the show.
We were met in Charlotte by the Complementary Spouse’s brother Larry and two of his sons. The boys were more interested in the Bushmaster ACR, the FN SCAR, and the Barrett Model 82A1 than anything else. Larry and I were more interested in the higher end 1911’s, the exquisite wood of the Dakota Arms rifles, and other stuff of that ilk. Blame Call of Duty Modern Warfare and other video games!
The Complementary Spouse is not of the Gun Culture. Her father did collect guns and she has shot skeet with her late dad many years ago. The one thing that really stood out for her is how polite everyone was. You saw Mom and Pop Kettle, bikers, servicemen, cops, hippies, old people, young kids, etc. People didn’t jostle in line, they held doors for one another, they said “excuse me” and “please”, and they were just nice to one another. When you have more than 70,000 people in one place this is a rare thing. Robert Heinlein was right – an armed society is a polite society – even when you aren’t allowed to carry your arms like in Charlotte.
The origins of No Lawyers – Only Guns and Money
After years of reading other people’s blogs, I thought it was time for me to start my own. I wanted to have a blog that would cover my interests in firearms and politics.
I’m not a lawyer so I couldn’t ethically use the whole phrase “lawyers, guns and money” from Warren Zevon. Besides, someone else had already used it. However, I hold an industry designation in a highly regulated industry which shall not be named and I do have my Curios and Relics FFL. Thus, the title was born.
I want this blog to cover my interest in firearms and politics. I may even throw in a bit on fly fishing and other topics as the spirit moves me. I did go to a Quaker college so I know a little bit about being moved by the spirit – even though I’m Catholic and not Quaker.