The Pig and Pvt Pyle

Permit me to introduce to you three Vietnam War veterans, two of whom I know and one I don't.

The first was a young airman who enlisted and left his pregnant wife at home to fly combat support missions in aircraft built years before he was born. He stands out because he came to me frustrated and discouraged after he had been grounded with a broken arm. I pointed out to him that in the event he was shot down and captured, his arm would become a focal point for torture. Better to let it heal before going back up. That calmed him down a bit, but he was still not happy.

The second was an NCO, my roomy, on his third voluntary tour during which he flew standardization and evaluation missions, making sure we backenders were maintaining our proficiency. He had more Air Medals than I had Good Conduct Medals, plus a few Distinguished Flying Crosses. There were those who refused to fly with him, figuring that he had pushed his luck to the point that it was about to run out.

Turns out, they were right. Shortly after I left Vietnam in April, 1970, both the NCO and airman took off on what would be their last flight.

The third is an ex-Marine. While the Marines were concentrating on finding a few good men, he managed to sneak in from behind.

Besides giving Vietnam vets a bad name, this waste of a human soul gives new meaning to the term "trailer park trash." Last March he moved into a Largo mobile home park. A few months later, in violation of a law that forbids livestock in residential areas, he moved in his blind, 300-pound pig. After a while, his surrounds acquired all the aromatic ambiance of the underbelly of Thunderdome. His neighbors complained to the park manager about the stink, and the ex-grunt went all Colonel Kurtz.

Get rid of the pig, said the park manager, Instead, the ex-jarhead got a VA shrink to write a letter advising that the porker was the vet's "emotional support animal" and thus protected by federal law. The vet "has a mood disorder and numerous psycosocial stressors (translation: loonier than a Wisconsin wetland)," said the doc. "This animal will support his coping skills."

Now, admittedly I'm a card-carrying cynic. But even if you aren't, you have to be suspicious that the doc, being both a Marine Vietnam vet himself and an employee of an agency whose raison d'etre is the care of veterans, might have a dog in this hunt. Or a horse in this race. Or, more appropriately, a pig in this poke.

While the kerfuffle over the pig continues, the reprobate has launched an all-out assault on his homeowners' association. He loaded his pick-up with scrap metal and parked it in front of his unit. He let his backyard go prairie. He allows his dogs to bark all night. He painted his trailer a mix of red, yellow, purple, blue and green. All of these petulant actions are in violation of the documents he signed in which he agreed to abide by HOA rules.

It seems that the misanthrope is also a pervert. During an argument over parking, he exposed himself to a neighbor's adult daughter. "That never happened," denied the vet. "I have lost weight, and my shorts don't fit like they used to, but if they fall down, I pick them right up."

A year ago I read the biography of Marine Lieutenant General Victor "Brute" Krulak. The general was a shoo-in for a fourth star and the position of Commandant until he told Lyndon Johnson what he thought of how the president was running the war. Krulak was George S. Patton without the prima donna nonsense. He wouldn't have slapped this argument for post-partum abortion; he'd have kicked his ass until his hemorrhoids dislodged his adenoids.

The EC-47 carrying my roomy and the airman, among others, was shot down. My roomy's back was broken. The airman and the co-pilot were killed. The helicopter that rescued the survivors also went down. My roomy made it back and, amazingly, is ambulatory, though not without effort and pain. He became a sales rep for a manufacturer of helmets for college and NFL teams.

Think of these men when you think of Vietnam vets, not those who milk the system and blame their drug addiction, alcoholism, unemployment, homelessness, and psychobabble mental "illnesses" on the war.

Spare Me the Tears

Here's the story. A week ago, a 20-year-old drug-crazed zombie got into her car and went careening down the road. She smashed into two cars, each time fleeing the scene. When a Florida Highway Patrolman finally was able to arrest her, he handcuffed her and took her to a Pinellas Park FHP station. In her brain-befogged state she imagined a chance to escape. She bolted from the station out into the street.

The smoky, fearing that she was headed out into traffic, tased her. She went down, hitting her head on the pavement. She struggled to stand, said, "I can't get up," and lapsed into a coma. Doctors said it is unlikely she'll ever wake up.

This rant isn't about whether or not this is a tragedy. Of course it is. Rather, this is about who's to blame. You may draw the obvious conclusion, the common sense conclusion, the indisputable, unarguable, undeniable conclusion that it's the woman's own fault that she's a vegetable. In a black and white world you'd be right. Not so in our alternate universe, with its myriad shades of gray.

Come now the bleeding heart knee-jerks wringing their hands, beating their breasts, ripping their lapels, and wailing to the heavens, pillorying not the perp but the cop who arrested her.

"It just doesn't make any sense," said a University of Illinois professor of the tasing. "I don't see where it's going to be that hard to apprehend her."

Well, you weren't there, were you, Sparky? Let's suppose the trooper chased her instead of tasing her. Let's suppose that, during the chase, she ran out into traffic. Does he let her go, perhaps to be killed by a car, or does he follow her, risking his own life and limb? Easy to sit in your sheltered ivory tower in the middle of fly-over country and second guess, isn't it?

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement conducted an independent review and thankfully determined that the trooper's actions were "legal and within the scope of his duties."

You would think this closed the case, wouldn't you? You'd be wrong, burnt flesh-breath! The perp's mom has hired a lawyer and intends to sue the FHP. And this brings us to the purpose of this post.

We need a law that will assign responsibility for a person's actions to that person. We need a law that says any death, personal injury, and/or property damage that occurs as the result of the commission or fleeing the scene of a crime shall be solely the responsibility of the person(s) found to have committed the crime.

A burglar whose ankle is crushed in a bear trap while he is trying to rip off a sporting goods store ought not to be able to sue the owner. An armed robber who loses a leg to a shotgun blast after sticking up a convenience store ought to be SOL. The family of a drunken driver who flees police at 100 mph down an Interstate and who ends up as splatter on a bridge support ought not to have recourse of any kind in the courts.

The irrefutable logic of this proposed legislation is quite simply this: If there had been no crime committed, there would have been no resulting death, personal injury, and/or property damage. I challenge anyone to put forth a cogent, coherent argument against this incontrovertible truth.

No parent is to blame for this stoner's condition. No teacher nor society as a whole, and certainly not the FHP. One makes choices and either reaps their fruits or suffers their consequences.

It's a shame she ended up in a vegetative state, it really is. But it's on her and no one else.

Anyway, that's my two cents. Keep the change.

Florida Follies Redux

A couple of years ago--you remember--I posted a piece about an example of idiocy that makes Florida, well, Florida. At the time I predicted that it would come to no good. I was, of course, right.

First, some background.

Tampa and St Petersburg are the two main cities in the Tampa Bay area. St Pete is known for its proximity to world-class beaches, one of which regularly makes the country's top five list. Tampa is known for its strip bars and its proximity to Ybor City. Ybor City is where, if God was going to give the state an enema, He would insert the catheter.

Tampa is in Hillsborough County. Hillsborough County commissioners have, over the years, included an ex-professional wrestler; a sexual harasser; a homophobic, bible-thumping, book-banning female redneck, and others worthy of their own Comedy Central specials.

Those of us who live in Pinellas County, west of Tampa and the Bay, have long been amused by the antics of the Hillsborough County commissioners. Not so their constituents, many of whom support creating the office of county mayor, preferably someone strong enough to render the commission irrelevant.

Every once in a while, alas, St Petersburg will take a cue from its dysfunctional neighbor and make its own foray into the twilight zone.

Two years ago, St Pete bar owners decided that 2 a.m. was too early to have to close. Bars in Tampa, they argued, stay open until 3. They claimed they were losing money when their customers, who were not nearly sloshed enough at 2, were driving across the bridges for another hour on the sauce. This, they wailed, gave their cross-Bay competition unfair economic advantage. They petitioned the city council to allow them to remain open until 3.

The St Pete police chief, among others, opposed the change. You can guess why--drunker drunks on the road; more arrests for brawling, more urine stains on the sides of buildings, disorderly conduct, etc, etc; a shortage of cops, and budget overruns.

Nonsense, rebutted the council, more delusional than most "American Idol" contestants. After all, this isn't Tampa. Our drinkers will sip their coctails with pinkies extended, empty their bladders before they leave, and call cabs to take them home. It took them a mere three months to approve the later hour.

Well, guess what? In less than a year arrests had more than doubled on weekend nights. Just recently two men were shot at a downtown bar in a scene straight out of "Desperado".

You would think this would be enough to motivate the council to roll back closing hour to 2, wouldn't you? Well, you would be wrong, cordite-breath.

No, no. Rather than quit trying to screw the square peg into the round hole, the council has picked up a mallet and started hammering to make it fit. They are working on an ordinance that will require bars to hire off-duty cops, whose mission it will be to discourage drunks from shooting each other.

Just because there was one shooting, posited St Pete's mayor, doesn't mean we should go all knee-jerk. "The night of the incident, [my officers] were right across the street and inside of the place within 30 seconds," he said.

Gee, Sparky, doesn't that suggest that placing cops outside saloons will have about as much deterrent effect as telling a teenager that hair will grow on his palm if he...well, you know?

City councilwoman Leslie Curran, who voted against extending bar hours to 3 a.m., said, "We saw what was happening in Ybor City, and now you're seeing some of the same issues in St Pete. I didn't think it was necessary when we did it, and I still don't think it's necessary today."

An anomaly, she; a city council member with common sense. Ah, Leslie, you're no fun at all.

And that's my two cents. Keep the change.

When Do-gooders Don't

I've killed my share of animals, mostly by accident.

There was the cat that darted in front of my car one night as I was cruising down US 1 in the Keys, the snake on a back road in Ohio's Clermont County, a really pregnant dove so heavy with eggs it couldn't lift off the road in Ohio's Preble County, and the 20 or so red snapper a friend and I caught from a pier near our operations building on Cudjoe Key. He insisted on scaling the fish instead of filleting them, which to me was more trouble than they were worth. I never fished again.

By sheer good luck in timing, I managed to avoid killing a deer while driving south of Milwaukee on I-94. For some reason it had decided it was a good idea to cross six lanes of heavily-trafficked interstate. It managed to make it across the southbound lanes in front of me and jump the concrete median, before the inevitable happened.

I try to avoid harming animals. One day, my wife and I were motoring down our street when a squirrel darted out in front of us. I slammed on the brakes. My wife was not amused.

"Why'd you do that," she demanded.

"Well, I didn't want to kill Sammy," I replied. "They have enough to worry about without having to worry about me."

"You wouldn't have done that for people," she accused.

"People should know better," I replied, ever loath to explain the obvious.

My neighbor doesn't share my concern over what she calls rats with furry tails.

"I kill them every chance I get," she proudly proclaimed.

It seems she has a bird feeder which, despite her rather creative attempts at securing it, has become, de facto, a squirrel feeder. I would rather she kill the birds. I have yet to suffer a squirrel downloading on my car.

Crossing my property line at one time or another have been opossum, raccoon, egret, ibis, frogs and probably others I'd rather not know about. Black snakes take up residency from time to time, and they get a pass because they eat the frogs. Trust me--you don't want to be kept awake all night by a croaking frog.

The yard is awash with what I call miniature dinosaurs but which are, in fact, rather nondescript lizards. They're okay, too, because they eat bugs. When one manages to gain access to the indoors I try to shoo it out. Failing that, then, well, it's going to go, one way or another.

I don't particularly care about animals; I'm just not into animal abuse. However, there are those whose professed concern for them sometimes does more harm than good.

Some years ago, a couple living in Wisconsin owned a pair of huskies, or malamutes, or some sort of sled dog. During a rather brutal winter, a pair of animal rights whackos decided that leaving the dogs outside was cruel. One night they stole the dogs and took them into their home. The dogs promptly shed all their fur, losing their very adequate protection against the cold.

Florida's Hillsborough County just passed a law making it a crime to leave a dog tethered outside without supervision. Never mind that tethers keep mutts from running out into a street and being killed. Nope, it's apparently cruel to leave a dog alone, chained to a tree.

Seriously? They're dogs! They download on carpets! They hump your leg! They drink from toilet bowls and mud puddles! The whole world, inside and out, is their urinal! And besides, did anyone ask the dog?

Know what poetic justice is? That's when one of the goofs who fought to have the law passed will walk by a yard occupied by an untethered pitbull, which will jump or dig under the fence and take a healthy bite out of the whacko's posterior. Can you say "lawsuit?"

Of course, I could be wrong--novel as that concept is.