The Front Page

THE COWARDLY LION

They are going to take it all away. The publisher of this newspaper was shot three times in Vietnam, commanded three companies, and lost over seven hundred Marines while doing so. He was wounded so badly that it took over a year of full hospitalization to bring him back. And then there came the sweeping tsunami of PTSD and the regret and the moral injury. The medals came for assumed valor and he speaks at veteran’s assemblies. He usually speaks only of the unheralded suffering and PTSD of the families left behind by the warriors. They wait, day in and night out, for that call, that knock at the door, and they knew back then if their husband did not return, they would have nothing to survive on.

What must that have been like? The publisher’s wife, in her first year of marriage and with a two-month-old child, had to answer the door. Her husband wasn’t dead, but he was in critical condition and the prognosis was poor, so they came to begin the grief process. What is all that to become in this new age wherein the leadership not only did not serve purposely but also dislikes veterans to the extreme, particularly those like the publisher who’s considered one hundred percent disabled from the war wounds and PTSD?

They are taking all that away. They are going after the generals and such for unknown reasons. They are changing the rules so that American boys may have to start killing Americans on U.S. soil. They are raising up concentration camps to house millions of supposed illegal and legal immigrants. Is all that just supposed to go down without violence? How did this come to our most beloved country?

When the publisher was in the CIA he used to return from missions abroad to 122 countries and felt so relaxed and free to be arriving home and clearing customs and immigration. Abroad he had to have a vehicle attendant in most countries. The attendant sat in the back seat. He was there only to stand at the side of the car while his employer was inside some home or office. His job was simple. To make sure his boss still had a car when he came out. Water is mostly not drinkable out there in the real world, but in America, it’s super clean, healthy, and mostly free.  There’s air conditioning, toilets that work, and no bars on windows or keys and locks on everything. The publisher does not even lock his car or his home as there is no need in places as safe as the communities around Geneva Lake. Even John McCain, POW for five years of nearly unsurvivable torture was discussed by the incoming leader as one who got caught and that man would rather be around those who had not been caught.

What can be done to allow for the fact that even though the military may be redirected to go after citizens inside the USA there is still plenty of trouble abroad that can very quickly turn into serious armed conflict? It is going to escape any of these professional warriors doing the job for the money, that if they get hit, taken prisoner, or worse…will anyone back in the USA care?

If the answer is, unspoken of course, a resounding no then what young man or woman is going to go out and step into the line of fire for everyone else? The George Bush Juniors, Bill Clinton, and even the incoming leader of the soon-to-be unfree world would not go and they have all made billions and remain highly regarded, as opposed to the publisher’s seven hundred Marines on that cursed wall in Washington D.C. Freedom is not free but as a huge percentage of the population certainly work to make sure they do not pay whatever the price is going to be.

The first four volumes of The Cowardly Lion are currently available
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