From Cemetery Plots To Viagra

So, it's not enough that the change in my life includes the military. Oh no, my world has gone from writing, reading esoteric literature, surfing the web, teenage rearing, taking care of an old house, dog companion to used car lots, cop shops, phone calls, beauty shops and the hard sell. I have to say there's a certain freedom from solely writing and wondering where the next dollar/job/editor is going to come from.

I made my first sale yesterday. The commissions are big, the residuals are as well. But I have to say, my sale would not have taken place were it not for a salesman named Jonas, handing it over to me.

Jonas is as different from me as one can get. He has sold everything. From prime loans at a major bank, to sub prime loans (and has personally taken responsibility for the collapse of the banking industry). He has also sold cemetery plots to get through college. His dream is to cross the river that divides hawkers of plots, subprime loans, merchant card systems (what we do now) to the more gilded world of Pfizer and becoming a Viagra rep. There is a certain logic in his path from selling plots to becoming the face of erectile dysfunction. It's sort of a modern day take on a flim-flam man, a modern retail version of Elmer Gantry.

Anyway, I get a kick out of Jonas because he has no "off" switch on his mouth. He says anything, admits when he's talking "crap." He can point out weaknesses, and cultivate strengths. He has visions...they might not be yours, but he is convinced that they are. Character quirks that we'd put in a novel but are all quite true: old car, old cell phone, salmon sweater. And yet, there is a certain bit of him that is trustworthy and true. People such as Jonas are the basis of characters in books. But he's not the only interesting character I've met. They all are. Every single one of them!

It's Time For Summer Camp

Applications opened today to apply for Operation Purple sponsored by the National Military Family Association with support of The Sierra Club. These free, week-long overnight (and some day) camps are open to all military children ages 7 - 17. In 2009, Operation Purple will host nearly 90 weeks of camp held in 62 locations in 37 states and territories. Priority is given to military children with a parent deployed or deploying anytime between September 2008 and December 2009

To apply, go here.

Military Wives Opt For Unfortunate Job Niche

Well, this should make you sick:
"Carrying Someone Else's Dream: Surrogacy is a natural fit for military wives"

In the LA Times, they're reporting that because some military wives are young, healthy, have successfully had children, need the money, and have access to government-paid TriCare health insurance, they're going along with "agents" who approach them to have children for other couples.

Here's what one "agent" (a surrogacy lawyer) says:

"Military wives, they don't cry, they don't complain at the drop of a hat. They're organized. They're efficient. They handle everything when their husbands are gone," said Howard's surrogacy agent, Stephanie Caballero. "A few shots during the first few months is not going to bother them, and they don't need to be told to be polite and professional and show up on time."

Good lord. It sounds like Cabellero is talking about "chattel."

I happen to think that if a military wife has those qualities, she's as capable of furthering her education and choosing a career that pays beyond the $25-30k they're offering her. Where does this get her beyond the nine months? Sure, she can pay some bills. But what happens if something is wrong with the baby? What moral dilemma is she setting herself up for where she might not have any control?

And what happens when she's too old to have anymore or simply can't face doing it again? Here's what: she'll still have the same skill sets she had as a young girl, only now it'll be even harder to get a job because of her age. This isn't helping the long term prospects for women who stand a chance of someday stepping in to be the major breadwinner.

They may ask what else they can do in nine months. They can go back and get that GRE if they don't have it yet. In nine months they can take 2 semester's worth of community college courses, they can complete a Medical Assistant's course, they can start paralegal courses --and guess what? There's money for spouses to go to school. All you have to do is believe.

Apparently TriCare is upset because the government is paying for all the prenatal care and delivery for these women. While the pentagon dismissed the practice as an "income-producing enterprise," they failed to stop the funding for TriCare. Hence, the cottage industry thrives. Perhaps if the brass perceived it as a pernicious use of our military families they'd do something about it.

"Agents" like Caballero should be sent all the clinic and hospital bills for every military spouse they've ever used. And I'm talking regular civilian rates. So a hospital delivery with no insurance? Oh, let's say about $200k if it's a complicated delivery!

I really don't think the public should not have to pay for this chicanery. It constitutes TriCare fraud. Truly, there's room for growth in educational, emotional, and career development for milspouses. Time is short, and use what you have to further one's education and set down some foundations for a career.



Update: It's no secret that many opportunities exist for milspouses to further their financial, educational and career objectives. The women who are doing this represent a small minority. I spoke with the Commander of Camp Pendleton's staff, and as for now, they are not aware of this happening on base or with any of their families. Camp Pendleton makes extensive efforts to reach out to families and improve their lives.

Upholding Freedom of the Press, the Marines are prohibited by DOD policy from investigating the sources of the story. However, let me point out that while it may not be a recognized issue at Pendleton, the lawyer-agent's location is in San Marcos, which is in proximity to both naval and marine bases. Her description of military wives creates the wrong impression of military wives altogether. The milspouses I've met are strong, intelligent and varied: from high school grads to those with advanced degrees.

Rappin' With The Taliban

I've been reading how many people were taken by surprise over Obama's statement that he would consider talks with the Taliban. Had he prefaced it with, "I agree with our Generals and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, that understanding our enemies is not only wise, but will save American lives," he might have clarified a position that can be traced to the days of the Bush Administration.

In October 2008, at a Q&A at the conservative Heritage Foundation General Petraeus said:

"I do think you have to talk to your enemies."

And I think he's right. If you go into the history of Afghanistan,* you will find that it's always been a land under siege. From Ghengis Khan (who was called the human atomic bomb for the damage he wreaked upon entire regions), to Alexander and flash forward to the Russians, you'll find that it's not only geographically difficult, it's people are more tribal, poorer and scrappier. Bottom line: if we don't know our enemy and if we proceed without a strategy based on knowledge, we stand to lose far more troops than we need. In fact, many --especially the Code Pinkos, might be very surprised to learn that a cornerstone of our strategy rests upon humanitarian efforts (building schools, running power plants, providing healthcare).

In an excellent 7-point interview in Foreign Policy, General Petraeus said:

Q: So having to ally with past enemies is not a failure but a success?

Petraeus: "Not all of them were our enemies. Some were what we call fence-sitters; some were oppressed and some probably were shooting at us, but you don’t kill your way out of this kind of thing. You can’t kill or capture everybody in an insurgency. What you have to figure out are the irreconcilables, and ideally you want these numbers as small as possible because they have to be killed, captured, or run off."

And I think in this kind of war with these kinds of stakes, as US Undersecretary Of Defense For Policy Eric Edelman said in an interview in Radio Free Europe /Radio Liberty on October 31, 2008 during the Bush Administration:

"I don't want to prejudge the outcome of [Petraeus'] assessment. But he has certainly said several times -- and I think Secretary [of Defense Robert] Gates and I agree -- that we can't kill our way out of this problem," Edelman says. "It is a problem that does requires not just a military side. It requires governance -- the extension of effective governance by the government in Kabul and by local authorities. So it is going to take the civilian side and it is going to take some political dimension.

In Salon, David Kilcullen, advisor to Condoleeza Rice profiles the phenomena of terrorism and how to fight it as thus:

"the new breed of hybrid war is better fought using the methods of counterinsurgency, which focus not on the enemy but on the population, "seeking to protect it from harm by, or interaction with the insurgent [and] competing with the insurgent for influence and control at the grassroots level. Its basic assumption is that insurgency is a mass social phenomenon, that the enemy rides a social wave comprising genuine popular grievances and an ability to manipulate them, and that dealing with this broader social and political dynamic, while gaining time for targeted reforms to work by applying a series of tailored, full-spectrum security measures, is the most promising path to ultimately resolve the problem."

By the way. That Salon article is one of the most important pieces of reading you can do right now to understand this approach by the military working in conjunction with other agencies. It's a handy piece of intellectual candy to toss out at those who might be of the CodePinko variety.

Of course, I'll bring this home to you in a most simple way. Recently, some neighbors decided they wanted to impose stringent rules on our neighborhood telling people what they could and couldn't do with their homes. The way to do this was to put it down as a historic zone, even though there's no consistent style of architecture. But the truth of the matter is they just really want to control things. So one of the neighbors --a great retired law officer started corresponding with one of those for it via email. He made no secret he was against it and the two carried on a conversation.
As he told me later after we soundly defeated the maneuver, "I kept my friends close, and my enemies closer." In other words, we were able to anticipate what they wanted and what they were going to do.

Here's a clip from youtube on this issue of talking:


*For a short reading list, please click on this link