Carpe Knee Diem

I've whined from time to time on this blog about my knee giving me fits. I was finally able to get in to see the doctor and found out that it's just arthritis. It's good that it's nothing worse, but it's bad because it's going to get worse. Oh well. Beats pushing up the daisies.

It's another reminder to seize the moments I've got right now. I've been wanting to return to weightlifting now that the gym is open again, so I'm at it 7 days a week. Since the diagnosis, I've increased my reps and weights, trying to really push my body.

It doesn't make the knee feel any better, but it's fun to be doing something in the face of the problem. Ha! Take that, problem!

Afghanistan Finger Pointing

Biden's speech and some opinions by pundits both blue and red really infuriated me yesterday. I started channeling my late father who, as a West Point grad, always had a soft spot for ground pounders. A Korean and Vietnam War vet, he respected all nationalities of soldier. When I heard people slamming the Afghan army for not fighting, I wanted to hit something.

The Afghanis have lost about 55,000 troops in the last five years. One tenth our size, those are casualty rates on the order of what we lost in WW II. That means every family in Afghanistan knows someone who was killed fighting the Taliban.

Listening to Biden slander those brave young men made me think of my dad's old saying, "I'm reduced to four-letter words."

What a venal scumbag that guy is.

General Miley Cyrus

Or is it Milley Cyrus? Whatever.

For me, the biggest villain of the piece is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley. What a piece of work. He's making sure people know that he warned Biden not to abandon Bagram, but did he really? The dude is an O-10 with about 30 years of service. If he really disagreed with that staggeringly stupid idea, he could have resigned in protest and then shouted it from the rooftops. A cushy job on the board of Lockheed Martin would no doubt have followed.

Meanwhile, General Milley has led the charge in extremism stand-downs and Modern Nazi Race Theory pitches, informing all of his straight, white male soldiers that he hates them because they're racists.

No amount of scorn and mockery is sufficient.

In any case, he didn't resign, Biden committed the biggest military blunder in a decade and now we've got 7,000 guys standing around on a runway in the middle of Kabul, surrounded by the bad guys. I'm sure the Taliban are moving in artillery and snipers all around the place. Take out a C-17 as it tries to take off and you could see the entire force wiped out. It's all good fun having high-tech weapons, but once you lose the ability to resupply, as the Afghani soldiers can tell you, the game is over.

Our guys are totally surrounded with only a single runway as a way out. It takes a special kind of idiot to put your men in that position. General Milley is that kind of idiot.

Commander Salamander, a Navy vet, put it this way on Twitter.

We are only able to use the Kabul airport because the Taliban are letting us. They could close the airport at any moment and there is nothing we could do about it.

The conditions are set right now for the Kabul airport to be a 2021 replay the last stand of Gandamak, but with the USMC & 82nd Airborne playing the role of 44th (East Essex) Regiment of Foot.

It's the Taliban's call.

In case you're wondering about the Gandamak Scoreboard...

The entire force of 690 British soldiers, 2,840 Indian soldiers and 12,000 followers were killed, or, in a few cases, taken prisoner.