Over at KFI, Bryan Suits does a weekly show called “Dark Secret Place“.  It’s an audio news magazine for military stuff.  Normally, he does two hours of short blurbs about current events, military hardware, and a bit of politics.  This week, he devoted his second hour to a program about how the Fisher House program supports wounded service members and their families.  This charity touched my life when Little Bear decided to be born in September instead of January.  His mother stayed at the Fisher House on Fort Bliss while he was in the NICU, and knowing that she had a safe place to stay while he was in the hospital took a load off my mind as I took care of his older brother at our post in Arizona.  There’s a link at the side of the blog for Fisher House if you’d like to learn more, and I heartily suggest you listen to Mr. Suit’s program.  The portion about Fisher House starts at about minute 37.

Brigid and AD give us wonderful reminders that this weekend isn’t about tire sales and auto races.  I think that as the more overt parts of the war wind down, at least for now, we will see more and more people look at Memorial Day as just another excuse to not go to work, but thoughts like theirs, if spread far and wide, might do some good in keeping the reason for the holiday in the front of everyone’s mind.

Over at The Ghostfighters, a commencement speech by a radio commentator kept me nodding for a long while.  I think a lot of young people could be helped by hearing that speech during freshman orientation.  I encourage every kid I meet who is going to start college to try and make sure their studies support actually keeping them out of the poorhouse.  One good thing about the economy being in the toilet is that the example of who is getting a paying job with a usable degree versus who is working part time at three jobs to keep from starving with a bunnies-and-unicorns degree is becoming very clear.

During the last Squirrel Report, Breda, Jay, Weerd, and Alan brought up two near and dear subjects – Jerks and gun dreams.   As for the jerks, a kerfluffle has erupted over two firearms/self defense instructors taking to the internet to pick the open carry/concealed carry scab in a way that doesn’t seem to have much point other than to start a kerfluffle.  Here’s my take –  I carry my weapon discreetly no matter which choice I make.  The manner in which I carry is decided based on my location, activities, and environmentals such as temperature. It also depends on whether or not Irish Woman will be with me, as she is still unsure about open carry, and I respect her enough to not want to make her uncomfortable.  In the two years or so that I’ve occasionally open carried here in Kentucky, I’ve had two people talk to me about it.  One was an older gentleman who asked if open carry was illegal, and seemed enthused when I told him it was perfectly legal in Kentucky, and the other was a country sheriff’s deputy who asked me what model of 1911 I was carrying.  But if someone chooses to never open carry, for whatever reason, I have no problem with that.  If someone chooses to exclusively open carry, again, not a problem.  Don’t impose your wishes or issues on me, and I’ll stay very well centered in my lane.    As for gunnie dreams, I have precisely two kinds:  The ones where everything is wonderful, all shots are true, and all guns function flawlessly, and the ones where I can’t find my gun or it fails to function.  I don’t have dreams about large masses of zombies coming at me, and while I have shot someone in my dreams, when they get shot, they’re shot and react accordingly.  I’ve also been shot in my dreams, but it’s never that “watching your own death” experience.  Not sure what that says about me, but there you have it.

One other thing that Breda and company talked about was the “Warrior Mentality”, and how it might not be what an IT guy with four kids needs to get through his life.  I sort of agree with them in that most people who go through a self-defense firearms course will never have to utilize the skills they learn, and that the practice drills after the course are  at least as important as going to the training itself.  However, if someone wants to have a reputable instructor guide them toward a certain skill set or mindset, it’s no skin off my nose, and it might do them some good.  Let me put it this way:  I knew a lot of Military Intelligence officers in the Army with a Ranger tab.  That didn’t mean they were door kickers and name takers, it meant that they had successfully completed Ranger school.  I can count on one hand the number of them who actually served in a Ranger battalion, but I can tell you that an officer  I served with who wore a Ranger tab is more likely to be on the short list of men I would follow to hell than one without it.  It wasn’t the tab or the school that made them that way, it was who they were both before the training and afterward.  Did they walk around saying “Hooaah!” all the time?  No, we were military intelligence, not mobile infantry.  But they did have an idea of what they could accomplish and how they could get others to accomplish what was needed.  Is a weekend class in basic defensive handgun or a carbine class the same as the Ranger course?  Of course not, but the training itself can open doors for the student.  In the civilian world, I’ve seen people who go to training and come home puffed up for a few weeks and then get back into their daily routine.  I’ve also seen people who come back from training with new fledgling skills that they nurture into good habits and a little more confidence in their outlook.  Some people can do it on their own, most need someone a bit more experienced to show the way, or at least the first few steps.  Again, whatever works for you is fine with me.  The warrior dentist might not keep many of those weapons handling and room clearing skills after his class, but he will have an idea that, yes, he can indeed hit a target if he applies himself, and maybe he can put that new confidence and resolve to good use elsewhere in his life.