Tag Archives: PA

Current Events

The First is Always the Best

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Yes, how well I remember the first salute I received at around 1530 on 7 August 1967 at MB, 8th&I, Washington, D.C. when I was commissioned. Here it is:

Then GySgt Lee M. Bradley, my hero, mentor, and godfather giving the newly commissioned brown bar his first salute and collecting the infamous silver dollar, which now retired SgtMaj Lee M. Bradley says he still has.

One Final Salute                                                                  By: G. Maresca

For my first 17 years, a hat was, well, a hat. It wasn’t until I stepped off the bus in the wee hours of a humid June morning and landed on those celebrated yellow footprints of Parris Island that I quickly learned what I once called a hat was now a cover.

After my tour in the Corps, which included two deployments that literally took me around the globe, the only piece of uniform that fit me upon my departure were my covers. Thanks to adding two inches in height and 45-pounds in girth, my dress uniforms were always a major point of contention, especially during inspections. Fortunately, the camouflage utility uniform had a good amount of give, which was our uniform of the day – the one benefit of not being a pogue.

Once I returned to civilian life, my remaining covers were tucked away in my sea bag that in subsequent moves always found a home anchored in the basement. It wasn’t until my daughter requested me to render her first salute upon her commissioning in the U.S. Army that the cover would find itself, however briefly, returning to active duty.

Having been prior enlisted, I was unfamiliar with the protocols of the commissioning of a second lieutenant. Not only would she be commissioning but was named a George C. Marshall graduate having earned the U.S. Army’s top cadet award based upon scholarship, leadership, and physical fitness.

My poplin camouflaged cover was practically inspection ready considering it spent nearly four decades packed away awaiting its eventual parole to a hunting or fishing expedition that never materialized. My name was still visibly stamped on the inside and all that was left was a brief meeting with a touch of starch and an iron.

The only issue that still needed to be addressed was my hair. The mane is still in full force and pretty much the same color as when I first donned that cover. The mop, or what Uncle Vinny once sardonically called “good guinea hair,” was on tap to get a regulation high and tight shortly before the commissioning allowing enough growth to still pass muster with USMC regulation and acceptable to our family’s commanding officer, the butter bar’s mother.

The last time, I rendered a salute wearing that cover, I was still on active duty. I have no recall who was the heir of that salute, but to think the next one bestowed would be my own daughter decades later at her commissioning was surreal. The entirety of the formal proceedings were certainly a significant moment in time for an aging Jarhead.

Before accepting her request, I wanted to make sure that she didn’t want one of her ROTC cadre to do the honors as she has spoken with high regard for the senior noncommissioned officers that worked diligently with her during her undergraduate years and in particular MSgt. Cardray Moulden.

Our family’s military history is significant, having had two uncles who served in World War II one in the Army, the other in the Navy, and my, Dad, a Marine, served in the Korean War – all were enlisted. On her maternal side, one served on Iwo Jima, while the rest were Army veterans fighting the Nazi’s in Europe during World War II when military service was not necessarily a choice. The common denominator that ran through them was a patriotic sense of time-honored duty to serve one’s nation.

This seems to be missing among today’s youth as last year the Army reached only 75% of its recruiting goal, while the other branches barely met theirs. 2023 is no different. At a Congressional hearing, Pentagon brass testified things have not been this bad since the draft ended in 1973 and that the all-volunteer force may no longer be feasible.

Maria Maresca’s initial salute had two sets of firsts. Not only would she be the first woman in the family on either side to serve, but also the first to forgo the chevrons and pin on the gold bars of a second lieutenant.

Across our fruited plain, May is commissioning season. The formalities at Shippensburg University, not far from the hallowed grounds of Gettysburg or the Army’s longtime War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania is by no means a destination for any of these young officers. Rather it is the first stop in a journey that will sculpt, fashion, and solidify the rest of their lives as they serve a cause much greater than themselves.

The hope inspired by both Major General Andy Munera, the Commanding General U.S. Army Cadet Command out of Fort Knox. Kentucky, and the university’s ROTC’s Battalion Commander Lt. Col. Nicole Jepsen stirred a current that could not help but energize the auditorium of the Luhrs Performing Arts Center.

These newly commissioned officers’ commitment to serve stands out in a nation where only 9% of those eligible to serve do. They carry with them the hope of a nation that my last commander-in-chief Ronald Reagan once called “a shining city on a hill.”

This will be my last post for a while as my bride and I are taking our new RV (new to us) on its second shake down cruise to another FL State Park, that will make two down and 45 to go. I think it is fitting to post Greg’s story of his daughter receiving her first salute from her Dad. Great story. Congratulations Greg to you and to the new Brown Bar! I wish her well.

 

 

 

Originally posted 2023-05-21 12:17:26.

Current Events

To Pennsylvania With Love

4 Comments

NOT!

I cannot get over what has happened to the Keystone State. As a kid growing up in MD with the Bathurst clan still living in the Altoona area, we traveled there often. Dad and I used to fish the trout streams and hunted deer in PA. When he and Mom retired they moved back to PA. Therefore, I have always had a soft spot in my heart for the state, always thought it was beautiful and clean, and even considered moving there when I retired. What in hell happened? It has definitely become the Twilight Zone. We are now hearing “rumors” that Fetterman is actually brain dead but still one of their senators. Of course, I always thought he was brain dead to begin with. In case you don’t know it, the town of Elysburg that Greg’s article speaks to is in PA.

 

 

Twilight Zone America                                              By: G. Maresca

If you are not convinced a spiritual war for the American soul is smoldering, consider the recent FBI memo leaked from their Richmond, Virginia field office.  The eight-page report is titled: “Interest of Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists in Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities.”

Perhaps the FBI should have simply composed it in Latin.

The leak underscores the dystopian state of a divided nation.

The only thing missing is Rod Serling fingering a cigarette saying, “The FBI was clueless about 9/11, ignores Hunter Biden’s laptop charades and overlooks the lethal amounts of fentanyl streaming across our border – daily. Instead, the FBI is coming after traditional Catholics as the nation’s newest domestic threat in a relentless vortex of the Twilight Zone.”

The report stated how “radical traditional Catholics have a frequent adherence to anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ, and white supremacist ideology” and their worship preference is the Traditional Latin Mass.  Catholics are maligned since they adhere to the biblical belief that marriage only exists between one man and one woman and thus paints them “anti-LGBTQ.”

The Latin Mass may have been a threat when Nero was feeding Christians to the lions at the Roman Colosseum as it evolved into the Mass of the Ages and is still celebrated every Sunday at the monastery in Elysburg.  Moreover, being prolife gets you labeled as being anti-women and a domestic terrorist.  The memo’s lack of evidence is telling as it attempts to connect anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic behavior to dutiful Catholics, too. Note to the obtuse FBI, the Church is certainly a catholic (universal) immigrant church with longstanding diplomatic relations with Israel.

Since the leak, the FBI has recanted saying the memo, “does not meet the exacting standards of the FBI.” Whatever that means. Nevertheless, reversing course because you got caught is just damage control.

Provided the memo was not leaked leaves many unanswered questions.

What is unquestionable are the nearly two dozen acts of vandalism perpetrated against prolife organizations and Catholic churches over the last year with no arrests.  However, Catholics are the domestic threats along with those conservative parents who publicly question school boards. Conservative and religious is a toxic combination making you unmistakably guilty.

The Department of Justice is nothing less than the Democrat Party’s thought police.  The FBI was once run by the peculiar J. Edgar Hoover that has devolved into the more convincing Fascist Bureau of Intimidation. NOTE: I like that. With all those dangerous Catholics on their knees in worship at The Latin Mass, there won’t be much time to investigate anything else. The FBI is a greater threat to Americans than any foreign spy agencies.

The Biden administration and the federal bureaucracy are rife with Christ haters. All one has to look at is the concerted effort during the Obama presidency to drive Christians out of positions of influence in government and replace them with wokesters.

And “Catholic” Biden is leading the charge.

Attorneys general of 20 states so far have spoken out but that is not nearly enough. Where is the United States Council of Catholic Bishops?  Practicing Catholics are on their own, like the faithful in China. Perhaps the church can counter by getting the Jesuits after the FBI.

There is a long, documented history of discrimination against American Catholics. The late historian Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. called anti-Catholicism, “the deepest-held bias in the history of the American people.”

This is nothing new.

German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller’s 1946 poem “First they came” put it best: “First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a communist. Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

Cue Rod Serling: “As Catholics defend the unborn and condemn the LGTBQ+ agenda as immoral, persecution will continue and intensify. Welcome to 21st-century America where ignorance is no defense in the Twilight Zone.”

Otherwise, all’s well in America, that is if you’re living under a rock!

Originally posted 2023-03-03 11:19:03.

Recent Posts

America the Beautiful

Video 11 Comments

To all those, actually only one, of my followers who takes umberance to my reference to this once great nation as a Third World Shithole, here are some things to chew on.  Absolutely unbelievable. In the very place where this nation was born, it now provides evidence as to what we have been become. Where were the police? Oh, they have probably been defunded by those in charge. Love when the one nonparticipant customer asks, “Are y’all making the sandwiches, or y’all gonna keep recording?” And the employee says, “It’ll be a little while,” like this sort of thing happens around this time every night. LOL

https://twitter.com/i/status/1573879098761392128

Then let’s go to the great state of CA, the home of fruits and nuts.

This clip shows a woman worker — identified only as “Mary” — following the grey-hooded man down an aisle and telling him she’s “called the police already.”

The shoplifter then brazenly reaches into the shelves and stuffs several items down his pants — and Mary calls him out for it, just inches from him. I wonder why he hid them as though no one knew what he was doing. Look closely at that dirtbag’s face, note the arrogance and defiance.

And how about these replies from your fellow Americans:

  • “Walgreens needs to suspend her for this,” one user declared. “She should not be risking her life over corporate profits.”
  • “This is how employees get murdered. Girl let that man keep them bags of chips. They not even half-full anyway,” another commenter said before incorrectly calling the store “Walmart” and adding that it “will hire another dummy in know time if she was killed.”
  • “There is nothing in that store that is worth your life and health,” another user wrote. “You’d get fired and screwed over if you got injured by that nonpaying customer.”
  • “She should’ve left him alone,” another commenter said. “She’s so lucky, he could’ve struck her. It’s not worth your safety & life stopping him.”
  • “This is absolutely against company policy. There are literal training videos that show that this is NOT what employees are supposed to do. (I may, or may not, have seen that training),” another user said. “I would bet that this woman will be getting written up, if not fired…”
  • “She is stupid,” another commenter wrote. “Could have gotten her teeth knocked out. Not worth it…. Corporate insurance covers loss. Btw she is violating Walgreen[s’] employee policy for physically trying to intervene, Call police is her only policy duty.”

Oh, and one commenter mocked the crook and what soft-on-crime San Francisco recently has become: “Please don’t shame this man! He is a valued, loyal customer of our beautiful, historic, open-air drug market. We love it when he brings toiletries, OTC meds, and other new, unopened merchandise to trade for fentanyl.”

Walgreens will shut down five San Francisco locations next month because of problems with “organized retail crime.”

The pharmacy chain said that each location will shift prescriptions to another store in the area.

“Due to ongoing organized retail crime, we have made the difficult decision to close five stores across San Francisco,” a Walgreens spokesperson informed Fox Business via a statement. “Each store will transfer prescriptions to a nearby Walgreens location within a mile radius and we expect to place the stores’ team members in other nearby locations.”

“Organized retail crime continues to be a challenge facing retailers across San Francisco, and we are not immune to that,” the spokesperson noted. “Retail theft across our San Francisco stores has continued to increase in the past few months to five times our chain average. During this time to help combat this issue, we increased our investments in security measures in stores across the city to 46 times our chain average in an effort to provide a safe environment.”

Sleep well my  fellow Americans. I, personally, can’t wait to see how this Third World Shithole handles the election come November. Probably just like the one that put that piece of shit in the White House two years ago.

Originally posted 2022-09-26 10:11:36.

Current Events

Pennsylvania

2 Comments

Most do no know this but this place is not a state, but a Commonwealth. Big deal? No, not really as there are three others that are not “states.” Do you know which ones?  But then who cares, I sure don’t All of my kin came from PA, Altoona area to be exact. I spent a lot time there as a small child with my parents visiting kin. I always thought it was a beautiful place, and even considered possibly retiring there — sure glad that didn’t work out. Now it has become a liberal haven full of folks who are certainly not my kin anymore. I cringe when I see cars here with PA license plates during non-snowbird season. I hope they are here to escape the liberal mindset and not here with a goal of changing the color of our state.

Anyway, here’s one from my Marine brother, Greg.

Doubling down

By: G. Maresca

Given President Biden’s slumping approval numbers, CNN+s sudden termination, increasing crime rates, record inflation, a nonexistent border, transgender education being foisted upon kindergarten children, Democrats are doubling down with their four candidates for the open U.S. senate seat in Pennsylvania’s May 17th primary election.

It is easier to win an open seat than to defeat an incumbent. Retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey’s senate seat is a prime opportunity for Democrats to add to their senate number in a pivotal state that Biden carried in 2020.

 These are the haughty days for the left owning the White House, both houses of Congress, academia, and the mainstream media.  Not to be outdone, their four Democrat senate contenders in the Keystone state are ideologically pure exemplars of this self-aggrandizing age.

 Candidate Malcom Kenyatta’s senate website opens with a video of the 31-year-old state representative from Philadelphia kissing his gay lover. Prior to entering politics, Kenyatta served as the diversity and inclusion engagement coordinator for the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia and is polling in the single digits. The same poll results have been following Alexandria Khalil whose campaign is about “compassion, justice, and prosperity for all.”

Who isn’t for such things?

The frontrunner is the goateed and tatted up Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who prefers gym shorts over a suit, who not only leads in fundraising but the polls, too.  Fetterman is a 6’9” cantankerous and unapologetic version of Bernie Sanders.

The huge fund-raising advantage for Fetterman underscores the blunder of ratifying the 17th Amendment, where candidates are more beholden to out-of-state donors than they are to their own constituents.

Fetterman supports abortion up until birth, allowing transgender males to compete athletically against females, Medicare for all, a $15 minimum wage, a moratorium on fracking and “climate justice” whatever that is. Fetterman is also a favorite of the defund-the-police mob never turning down a speaking engagement.

What is little known is how as mayor of Braddock, Fetterman pulled a gun on an unarmed Black man jogging and accused him of committing a felony he did not commit. This is the same Fetterman that wants to seize your guns and a major reason why a majority of Americans value their Second Amendment.

Fetterman never met a tax or government program that he did not love. He is better fit as a stand-in for an Addams Family revival as either Lerch or Uncle Fester than taking a seat in the U.S. Senate.

Trailing Fetterman in Franklin & Marshall College’s latest poll 41% to 17%, is U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb with 26% of Democrats still bewildered. Lamb is pro-abortion, supports Biden’s Build Back Better Act and having the federal government regulate all voting and ending the Senate filibuster.

Lamb was one of three House Democrats who voted to make permanent provisions of the GOP sponsored 2017 tax reform bill. Lamb has also voted on bills with small numbers of Democrats where the Democrat National Committee knew would not pass the House. Those meaningless votes bestowed upon him the much-ballyhooed canonization as a “political moderate” in an evident appeal to voters.

On key leftist issues, however, Lamb marches lockstep with House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi. Being able to manipulate the electorate into believing they are electing a so-called moderate when in fact, they are every bit as left as the privileged running the party is essential.

They are all the same wolves whether sporting gym shorts or a blue pinstriped suit.

Left-wing groupthinkers and scolds that makeup the current breed of populist progressives, believe their senate candidates will embolden their base to win a battleground state like Pennsylvania. Democrats see no problem in doubling down on issues that fail to resonate with the majority and are proven failures. With each passing day, Democrats fall further under the sway of an outspoken leftist minority whose members care more about imposing an unpopular agenda than winning elections.

Democrats today are what would have been called communists 40 years ago.

This is yet another refined illustration of the dismal state of the Democrats, but never underestimate the dogmatic trifecta of your median Pennsylvanian’s naivety, their dead relatives, and fabricated ballots when it comes to electing a Pelosi puppet or Bernie Bro.

Originally posted 2022-05-06 11:14:45.

Current Events

The Empire State

4 Comments

Folks, I may raise some feathers with this, but I make no apologies. If you live in NY , I feel sorry for you, but my empathy for you is awfully small, especially if you are my age! I don’t care if you have a great job, live close to your kids and grandkids, and simply like living in a state run by complete idiots. Actually, I have little empathy for anyone who lives in CA, OR, or WA either. And I might even throw in WI, MI, or PA. All these states have gone mad to one degree or another. This latest from the Empire State is simply unbelievable. Stand by Ojiisans, you are next! You elected this fool, so live with it!

New York to Give Preference to Minorities in Receiving Covid Antivirals and Monoclonal Antibodies

by bunkerville

One more reason to leave New York. This one is unconscionable. One could reasonably ask why productions of these drugs have not been stepped up. The same question regarding testing. What this leaves of course is rationing. Something the Progressives have had in mind since the Obama days.

There have been rumbles about healthcare for minorities receiving preference. This one takes it to a new level. If anyone thinks it will stop here, think again. Denying treatment based on ethnicity is a slippery slope. Age and disability will be next on the list.

New York Post:

New York City’s and state’s departments of health have reached a divisive and destructive low. In new guidelines rationing scarce, lifesaving oral antiviral medications and the one monoclonal antibody preparation that is effective against the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19, they instruct providers to “consider race and ethnicity” and give preference to those who are “Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.” These directives are immoral, illegal and bear no relation to the science.

The city’s Health Advisory #39 directs providers to adhere to the state Department of Health’s prioritization guidance for utilization of these COVID-19 treatments that are in short supply. It asks providers to consider whether patients are immunocompromised, their age, their vaccine status and the number of risk factors (medical conditions) they have for severe illness.

The problem with the state’s guidance is the instruction that “nonwhite race or Hispanic/Latino ethnicity should be considered a risk factor, as longstanding systemic health and social inequities have contributed to an increased risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19.” Hence, all other risk factors such as age, immune, and vaccination status being equal, “nonwhite” and “Hispanic/Latino” patients will be granted superior treatment access compared with whites.

The race-based approach in treatment has already begun to have real-world consequences. One Staten Island doctor said he filled two prescriptions for Paxlovid this week and was asked by the pharmacist to disclose the race of his patients before the treatment was authorized.

“In my 30 years of being a physician I have never been asked that question when I have prescribed any treatment,” said the doctor, who requested anonymity. “The mere fact of having to ask this question is a slippery slope.”

Read more

This approach is not uncommon for the Progressives and harkens back to the days of Obama.

Recall this? Kidney Patients told to accept death, forgo Dialysis –  Asking Kidney Patients to Forgo a Free Lifeline

As they calmly say:

“It was meant to keep young and middle-aged people alive and productive, many of the patients who take advantage of the law are old…  Full story: New York Times

Kidney specialists are pushing doctors to be more forthright with elderly people who have other serious medical conditions, to tell the patients that even though they are entitled to dialysis, they may want to decline such treatment and enter a hospice instead. In the end, it is always the patient’s choice. But for how much longer?

One idea, promoted by leading specialists, is to change the way doctors refer to the decision to forgo dialysis. Instead of saying that a patient is withdrawing from dialysis or agreeing not to start it, these specialists say the patient has chosen “medical management without dialysis”.  ”That is the preferred term,” said Nancy Armistead, executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Renal Coalition, a Medicare contractor that collects data and patient grievances.

Obama:

“Our approach lowers the government’s health care bills by reducing the cost of health care itself,” Obama said. Really? The only way that will happen is by rationing. You may not like the use of the phrase “death panel,” but make no mistake about it — at the end of your life, in Barack Obama’s America, his death panel will throw you under the bus in a way much closer to reality than metaphor. At  RedState

Originally posted 2022-01-04 12:43:43.