Comparing Revolutionary War and WWI Soldiers' Experiences

Introduction

Since America’s beginning, we have been defended by both militia forces as well as regular military, but the sharpest contrast between fighters of the Revolutionary War and those of the First World War is made by comparing the militiamen of the War of Independence with the soldiers of World War I. This paper compares the experiences of those two types of warriors, examines the reasons for entering WWI, and how the history of that war and its veterans were erased.

The Militia Experience

The militia predates the independence of the United Stated by more than a century. It was a tradition that came along as part of being colonies of the British Empire, but the militias of the New World rapidly evolved into a distinct, uniquely American, institution. The primary opponent of the militias were the Indians, who conducted raids and ambushes by operating in small, mobile war parties. From Millet, et. al. (2012):

“Warriors would move stealthily, spread out over a considerable distance to avoid being ambushed themselves, and rapidly concentrate for a whirling attack—often at night, during storms, or in dense fog so as to catch their adversaries off guard and confuse them. Then the Indians would vanish into the wilderness.”

The militias, meanwhile, were still practicing European-style battlefield tactics such as close-order formations, loading their muskets using a fifty-six step process, then firing those muskets in unaimed mass volleys. The Indians easily defeated them, as “it was as easy to hit them as to hit a house.” (Millet, et. al, p.34).

The militias were slow to adapt, but adapt they did, for natural selection is a hard teacher. Commanders such as Benjamin Church (c. 1639 – 1718) began incorporating Indians into the ranks, learning from them, emulating them, and soon it was the militias that were using cover and concealment, attacking the enemy’s weakest spots, targeting and firing at individual enemies, conducting hit-and-run raids and ambushes, and avoiding tight formations. In general, the militias were practicing what would later be called the DOCA loop – disperse, orient, concentrate, act – as described by William S. Lind (Lind & Thiele, 2015, p.73).

It wasn’t just the fighting tactics that made the Colonial and Revolutionary War militias unique – the militia was a local institution, organized for local defense, and at least partially self-funded. It evolved naturally from a light infantry (not line infantry) institution to include cavalry and (later) naval components as needs and opportunities presented themselves.

The psychology of militiamen can be inferred from this quote (Millet, et. al., p.30):

“From whatever social class they came, once enlisted for an expedition the men who filled the ranks believed they had a legal contract with the provincial government that could not be breached without the mutual consent of both parties… Once authorities broke the contract, the troops felt no compunction against staging a mutiny or deserting in mass, even in the midst of a campaign. To the colonial soldiers these actions were legal and sensible, but to British regulars serving alongside the provincials during the colonial wars, such violations of military discipline were intolerable.”

Indeed, the attitude of the British regulars was exemplified by British Major General James Abercrombie who described the militiamen as the “rif-raf of the continent” (Millet, et. al., p.30), and to this imperious attitude and sense of entitlement one can only expect the average militiaman to respond, “rif-raf and proud!” Abercrombie’s point is salient, however, and this is one of the reasons the regular Army existed.

Cooperation between regular Army forces and the militia continued past the War of Independence. For example, at the Battle of New Orleans at the conclusion of the War of 1812, the Americans were commanded by a militiaman (Andrew Jackson was a major general in the Tennessee militia) and the American forces were a combination of the Army, Marines, and militias from several states. During the Civil War, militia-like (partisan) warfare was used by both sides, and John Mosby’s Raiders coordinated attacks and performed reconnaissance with the needs of local Army commanders in mind.

Reasons for America’s Entry into World War I

In the run-up to the war, Americans attempted to separate German culture from Prussian militarism, but we also felt kindred for the Allied nations (Neiberg, 2014). German actions soon forced us into the camp of Entente Powers.

First, American banks and businesses made massive loans to the Allied nations. If they didn’t win the war, those loans would not be repaid.

Germany invaded Belgium in 1914, and rumors of German atrocities against civilians began to circulate. This atrocity propaganda swept the U.S. leading to anti-German sentiment.

In 1915, Germany began unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic Ocean, and one of the vessels the U-boats sank was the Lusitania, which caused the death of over one thousand people including 123 Americans. Several American cargo vessels were sunk in 1917.

In January 1917, the British intercepted a telegram sent from German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmerman to the German diplomat to Mexico. In this telegram, Zimmerman proposed an alliance between Germany and Mexico, and if Germany were to win, Mexico would be able to annex Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. The British passed the telegram to the Americans, and it was publicized by the press on March 1st. The United States declared war on Germany on April 6th.

Comparing Wartime Experiences

The most obvious difference between the Revolutionary War and WWI were the weapons and fighting techniques. There was no Revolutionary War equivalent to mustard gas and trench warfare.

The militiamen and WWI soldiers had different views of their respective enemies. For militiamen, the enemy Indians could be depersonalized by race and culture, and the Redcoats could be depersonalized by political philosophy. The enemy of American WWI soldiers was different in language but were of the same race and similar culture. This explains why the American people attempted to separate German education, culture, and industry from the “imperial and military” Prussian state in the American run-up to entry in WWI (Neiberg, 2014).

The circumstances and reasons for hostilities during the colonial era and the Revolutionary War were completely different from those during WWI. For the militiamen, the stakes in the conflict were extremely personal and local, and they were vested in the outcome as the stakes were the militiaman’s home and family. The same cannot be said for the WWI soldiers – the war was distant and the causes were partially economic. Further, America entered the war with little national self-interest, which means the individual soldiers needn’t have any rational value for participating, and the same can be said for individual soldiers of other countries. Although America didn’t participate in them, this explains the Christmas frontline truces on the Western Front during Christmas 1914 as recounted by Wilfred Ewart (Ewart, 1920). These kinds of truces would never have occurred during the colonial era or the Revolutionary War.

There is the level of freedom of militiamen compared to WWI soldiers. The militiamen operated under well-circumscribed contracts, whereas the men under the military were under obligation for “the duration.” There was less local service and more service overseas. There was less local control (or even no local control) and more federal control.

Further, federal control included control over industries and manufacturing, with businesses and factories being nationalized. The economic subtext of the war was not lost on the populace, as American banks and businesses made huge loans to the Allies and thus they had financial interest in victory.

There was also resistance to America’s participation in WWI. To tramp down those protesting involvement, the Wilson administration resorted to propaganda - creating the Committee on Public Information (CPI) and the Creel Committee to fill all communication channels with pro-war and anti-German agitprop. The committee's output was targeted not at the enemy but rather against Americans, and when this propaganda wasn't sufficient, the 1918 Sedition Act was “[e]nforced enthusiastically by Justice Department agents” and “the Sedition Act gave the 1918 mobilization a vicious edge.” (Millet, et. al, p.410).

Operating in the background was the rise of Progressivism and Taylorism which minimized the importance of the individual in everything they touched. From the standpoint of a fighter during the Revolutionary War, this would be completely alien and anathema to the American spirit and tradition of freedom. Militiamen were the machine; WWI soldiers were cogs in the machine.

Most important, perhaps, is the sense of completion in their respective battles. If a militiaman survived a battle, he was sure to see not only the end of it but also the end of the campaign and the war as a whole. The same cannot be said for the American soldier in WWI, due in part to our late entry.

The Lost Generation

Gertrude Stein referred to American expatriate writers living in Paris as “a lost generation,” but the term soon expanded to refer to the entire generation of people that came of age during the First World War. The phrase was memorialized at the start of Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, and the literature of that era projected hedonism, a disconnection from the previous generation’s values, and a recognition of the inflation that the price of achieving the American Dream was undergoing.

Three of the major authors of that period – Ernest Hemingway, E. E. Cummings, and John Dos Passos – were ambulance drivers during the war, and their works describe not only their wartime experiences (almost to the point of being autobiographical) but also include strong anti-war sentiments. An excellent example of this is found in Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.

Given the parallels between Hemingway's life (serious drinker, American ambulance driver in the Italian army during WWI, met the love of his life after being injured) and the life of the narrator of A Farewell to Arms (serious drinker, American ambulance driver in the Italian army during WWI, met the love of his life after being injured), we must interpret the following quote from that novel as representing Hemingway's true outlook on the war:

“I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious and sacrifice and the expression in vain. We had heard them, sometimes standing in the rain almost out of earshot, so that only the shouted words came through, and had read them, on proclamations that were slapped up by billposters over other proclamations, now for a long time, and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it. There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of places had dignity. Certain numbers were the same way and certain dates and these with the names of the places were all you could say and have them mean anything. Abstract words such as glory, honour, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.” (Hemingway, 1929)

The novel included several harrowing descriptions of what ambulance drivers must have experienced but notice that this quote is a rejection of not only the mechanics of warfare, but of the jingoism that surrounds the war-making process. This anti-war sentiment extended beyond ambulance drivers to the writings of American combat veterans (e.g., William March’s Company K) and to writers from other countries (such as the German Erich Maria Remarque in his All Quiet on the Western Front).

Erasing the Lost Generation

In the time between the end of the First World War and now, the history of the war was belatedly recognized, or the soldier's trust was betrayed, or its history has been outright erased and diluted. For example, no WWI memorial appeared in Washington D.C. until 1931, and that memorial was small in comparison to the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri, built in 1926, which commemorated the same war. An elaborate upgrade is planned to the D.C. memorial for 2024.

Something that must have soured veterans of the Great War was the conclusion of the 1932 Bonus March. The Bonus March was a protest on Washington, D.C., in which thousands of WWI veterans and their families demanded early payment for the bonus certificates that were issued to them in 1924 but could not be redeemed until 1945. President Herbert Hoover ordered the U.S. Army to clear the protesters’ campsites, and the list of participants in this operation reads like a who’s who of World War II leadership. Army Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur had George S. Patton’s 3rd Cavalry advance on the protesters. The Bonus Marchers cheered the troops, believing that they were marching in their honor. The troops turned on their brothers-in-arms and responded with tanks, bayonets, and tear gas. The Bonus Marchers were thus evicted, their camps burned. The official Army incident report was authored by Dwight Eisenhower, then a military aide to MacArthur, and that report endorsed the whole affair. (Dickson & Allen, 2020)

An example of the erasure of WWI history is the story of how Armistice Day became Memorial Day in 1954, as recounted and analyzed by Kurt Vonnegut:

“When I was a boy... all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

“It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.

“Armistice Day has become Veterans' Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans' Day is not.” (Vonnegut, 1973)

Erected in 1921 and completed in 1931, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arlington National Cemetery was to be the final resting place for the remains of an unidentified WWI service member, and so in a sense it was a WWI memorial. The purpose of this memorial has been diluted since that time, however.

In 1956, President Eisenhower (of Bonus March fame) approved the addition of the remains of two additional unknown soldiers to the Tomb, and in 1958 the unknown WWI soldier was joined by the remains of unknown soldiers from World War II and the Korean War. (Arlington National Cemetery, n.d.) The Arlington National Cemetery began plans to recognize a Vietnam War unknown even before the end of that war, but by 1984 only one set of American remains from Vietnam had not been identified. President Reagan presided over the internment ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, but the remains were exhumed in 1998 and DNA testing was used to provide a positive identification. To this day, the crypt dedicated to the Vietnam War Unknown is empty, and in 1999 it was rededicated to honor all missing service members from that war. (Arlington National Cemetery, n.d.)

In the span of under 80 years, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier changed from being the resting place of one unknown WWI service member to the resting place of a total of three unknown service members as well as missing service members from the Vietnam War. Its focus has changed to be a “distinctive, multigenerational shrine.” (Arlington National Cemetery History Office, p.207)

Conclusion

The militiamen of the Revolutionary War and the soldiers of World War I were different in fighting techniques, spirit, and relation to the government as a whole. One way they were similar was that both the WWI soldiers and the militiamen had their histories erased. This was described above for WWI soldiers. For the militia, it was the Dick Act of 1903: the Act created the National Guard which assimilated the militia’s symbolism (such as American Revolution Statuary) and the date of formation (according to their website, the National Guard’s official birth date isn’t 1903 but instead is December 13, 1636, when the Massachusetts colonial legislature organized militia regiments). The National Guard didn’t adopt the militia’s maneuver warfare or self-funding model, and most importantly the militia’s independent ethos was completely rejected.

References

Arlington National Cemetery. (n.d.). Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Retrieved from: https://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/Explore/Monuments-and-Memorials/Tomb-of-the-Unknown-Soldier

Arlington National Cemetery History Office. (n.d.). A Century of Honor: A Commemorative Guide to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Retrieved from: https://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/Portals/0/TUS%20Commemorative%20Guide%2020210924.pdf

Dickson, P. & Allen, T. (2020). The Bonus army: An American Epic. Dover Publications.

Ewart, W. (1920). Two Christmas Mornings of the Great War: Personal Accounts of the Christmas Frontline Truces. Harper’s Magazine. Retrieved from: https://harpers.org/archive/1920/12/two-christmas-mornings-of-the-great-war/

Hemingway, E. (1929). A Farewell to Arms. Scribner.

Lind, W. S. & Thiele, G. A. (2015). 4th Generation Warfare Handbook. Castalia House.

Millett, A. R., Maslowski, P., & Feis, W. B. (2012). For the Common Defense: A Military History of the Unites States from 1607 to 2012 (3rd ed.). Free Press.

Neiberg, M. (2014). Blinking Eyes Began to Open: Legacies from America's Road to the Great War, 1914-1917. Diplomatic History, 38(4). https://doi.org/10.1093/dh/dhu023

Vonnegut, K. (1973). Breakfast of Champions: A Novel. Dial Press.

Civil War Revenge Porn

In August of this year, I was taking a class in American Military History. One of the assignments was to write about Sherman's March to the Sea, in which William Tecumseh Sherman led his troops from Atlanta to Savannah in November and December 1864, pillaging and plundering, destroying military and civilian properties indiscriminately in a way not seen again until the George Floyd riots fiery but mostly peaceful protests. I originally thought the assignment was to cover how the Union justified Sherman’s March, so I wrote about revisions to the Union Army’s rules of conduct.

Upon rereading the assignment, what was required was a fictional account, from the point of view of a soldier in the Sherman’s Army of Tennessee. Thus, I wrote some fiction. Here are both parts of my submission.

Fact

The atrocities committed by the Union throughout the Civil War in general, and Sherman's March to the Sea in particular, were not the unsanctioned actions of individual soldiers but "came from above" through national policy.

Possible justifications for unleashing total war (war against both an enemy's military and civilians) include:

• Collapse of the distinction between military and civilians
• Use of total war to quickly end the war.

Both justifications were used by the Union, even early in the Civil War.

General Winfield Scott's Anaconda Plan from the start of the war involved a general blockade of Confederate ports and disruption of commerce along the Mississippi River. The Confederacy was to be deprived not only military supplies (weapons and munitions) but also supplies used by the general population, like food and medicines. The Anaconda Plan was abandoned because it was not producing quick results.

Grant, in an 1862 letter to Sherman, explicitly equivocates civilians with military personnel when he states that "we are not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people and we must make old and young, rich and poor feel the hard hand of war."

Subsequently, new rules for the Union Army's conduct were codified in 1863 in the Lieber Code. This military law replaced time-tested laws of war coming from Emer de Vattel and Hugo Grotius. Among the articles of the Lieber Code was Article 21: "The citizen or native of a hostile country is thus an enemy, as one of the constituents of the hostile state or nation, and as such is subjected to the hardships of the war."

Article 15 reads in part "Military necessity... allows of all destruction of property, and obstruction of the ways and channels of traffic, travel, or communication, and of all withholding of sustenance or means of life from the enemy." Raiding of Confederate farms is also covered in that same article which continues "the appropriation of whatever an enemy's country affords necessary for the subsistence and safety of the army."

The use of total war tactics to quickly end a war is explicitly permitted in the Lieber Code under Article 29: "...The more vigorously wars are pursued, the better it is for humanity. Sharp wars are brief."

While total war was advocated from above, implementation during the March to the Sea was carried out by Sherman's soldiers, earning those who looted, vandalized, and destroyed Southern civilian infrastructure the moniker "Sherman's Bummers."

The Indemnity Act of 1863 (amended in 1866) shielded Union officials against charges of violating habeas corpus, which is the legal recourse victims would use to seek restitution. This proves that the concept of "CYA" existed even during the Civil War.

For all the destruction that the March to the Sea caused in Georgia (the South's breadbasket), Sherman felt that it was justified, writing that for the South "to whine and complain of the natural and necessary results is beneath contempt."

Fiction

Since the start of this accursed war, my brother and I have argued over its causes and how Lincoln gathered and wielded power supposedly forbidden to him by the Constitution. We’re both hunters, and we’ve defended our homes against Indian raiders, and we have no problem fighting for what is right. He once told me that “fighting does not merely sate bloodlust, but rather it enriches the soul, for conflict brings out the very best of us - courage, valor, and honor” and I must agree with that. Where we disagree is when he says that “conscription has no place in the land of the free.” I disagree even more when he says that “if Lincoln’s cause be wrong, our obedience to him does not wipe the crime of it out of us.”

When conscription came to central Pennsylvania, we took different paths. I joined and then later transferred south to serve under General Grant. My brother resisted actively, not like Mark Twain, and was in the gunfight at Bloody Knox in Graham County, the skirmish where Tom Adams was killed. One thing my brother doesn’t believe in is proportionate response, and while no one ever said that he took the scalps of the enforcement officers, no one ever said that he didn’t. Last I heard, he was working with draft resisters in Texas, fighting with the unholy terror of a man who wishes only to be left alone, certainly adding to his scalp collection.

I believed in Mr. Lincoln’s war, but when I saw what Sherman’s Bummers did, my convictions were rattled. When Confederate Lieutenant General Wade Hampton complained to Sherman about his Bummers, Sherman replied that he was keeping 1000 Confederate prisoners of war specifically to “dispose of” when the Grays defended themselves against the Bummers. But that Confederate general was correct, that while the wartime right to forage upon the enemy is as old as history, “there is a right older, even, than this, and one more inalienable--the right that every man has to defend his home and to protect those who are dependent on him; and from my heart I wish that every old man and boy in my country who can fire a gun would shoot down, as he would a wild beast, the men who are desolating their land, burning their homes, and insulting their women.”

The Bummers are like the Vikings of yore, defiling and eviscerating their victims, and not necessarily in that order. Considering that they and I are both of the same army, and that they act with impunity, I knew that I was on the wrong side, and my continued participation would be a crime that can never be erased from my soul.

Last night, I freed three of Sherman’s prisoners (hostages) and saw to it that they escaped from camp. Today, I caught my first two Bummers, looting the farmhouse of an aged couple. After they looted it, they set it ablaze. Too late for the farmhouse, I “disposed of” those Bummers, and acquired my first two scalps.

I thought desertion was an action taken only by cowards and would be a difficult thing, but it wasn’t after seeing that Sherman not only permitted his men to act as vandals, but that he encouraged such shameful behavior. All that hunting my brother and I did allows me to live off the land and not to raid civilians’ homes and businesses. If I need something that can’t be hunted, I will deal honorably with the civilians, either purchasing what I need or trading my services.

My brother and I started out with opposing views, but now are on the same side - we are now the left and right hands of Vengeance. When this war is over, I will meet my brother in Pennsylvania, and we will compare stories and our collection of scalps. Who will have the larger collection? I don’t know, but he has an early start, and I must make up for lost time.

Christopher Floyd Smith18 May 1946 - 4 May 2023

Note: this is the eulogy I delivered this afternoon for Chris Smith, my ex. There were children in the audience, so it was best to redact some *spicy* comments. I also restored several sentences that I accidently omitted. Chris passed on the 4th, but his birthday would have been today, the 18th of May, that’s why the next of kin delayed it. I’ve been fielding a lot of questions about Vietnam over the past few days, that’s why the history parts are in there.

Before I start, I want to make three observations:
1. Embalmers and funeral directors sometimes do too good a job.
2. Some people die too young, some die too old, but no one ever dies at the right time.
3. When people as old as Chris pass, sometimes no one attends the services. They’re all alone. Maybe they were abandoned in an old age home, or maybe there were no surviving family members. But look how many people came yesterday and today! That is a testament to the quality of family and friends he chose.

People tell each other stories in order to become friends, and I want to tell you a few stories about Chris’ life and how we became friends.

Chris, like many soldiers, rarely talked of his combat experience, and we were all surprised when we found that he earned all sorts of awards and medals, including a Silver Star and several Bronze Stars during his time in Vietnam. We have documents showing that he indeed earned those awards, but the stories behind them are currently missing.

Chris mentioned that he was present in Vietnam in 1968 during all three phases of the Tet Offensive, which were coordinated attacks by the Viet Cong and North Vietnam People’s Army against South Vietnamese civilians and the forces of the US, South Vietnam, and their allies. Tens of thousands of people were killed or wounded and 83% of the civilian population was left homeless. We don’t yet know the particulars of his role in the Offensive.

Something Chris did not mention was that in July 1969 he participated in capturing and holding Hill 4-11, in order to build a Fire Support Base there. The hill was located in a Viet Cong stronghold, guarded by enemy booby traps and snipers. We’re still researching that bit of history as well.

After the Tet Offensive and Hill 4-11, Chris returned to the US where he “lived in a commune on the side of a hill” for a time. That was to recharge himself before returning to the military.

It is appealing to describe Chris as “humble” for not telling us about all those medals. Yet he was anything but a humble man! Rather, this was his way of “firewalling” the experiences that earned him those medals from the sane world, thereby preserving his sanity.

While he didn’t share many stories of combat, he did explain what it was like to be a gay soldier of that era.

One time he was on leave in Saigon, and he went with one of his (straight) friends down to where the French Embassy was located. There was a gay bar there, and a line of soldiers were waiting to get in.

His friend started counting them: “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. I didn’t know they let people like that into the Army.”

Chris said “13!” then got into that line.

He did say that he was out to some of his fellow soldiers in Vietnam (and so maybe all of them knew?) but he was mostly reserved. They still trusted each other - so much for unit cohesion being lost because of the gays!

Photos from the 2/61st Air Defense Artillery yearbook, 1974

Later, someone found love letters in his foot locker. His “superiors” gave him a choice: either leave the Army or transfer to the Army Reserves. He chose the latter, and I believe they gave him this choice because his career was so spectacular.

Even after this he still loved the Army, and indeed he loved it for the rest of his life, sometimes begrudgingly but most times passionately, and he said his only regret over the whole affair was that he would never make it to the rank of master sergeant.

Chris’ mixture of optimism and pragmatism on gays in the military is shown by those stories. He wasn’t out to change the military into a politically correct organization, he just wanted to do his job. He understood that gays are in the minority and that the world does not and must not revolve around us. He knew that the military’s purpose is to defend our country, not to act as an agent of societal change, and gays’ presence must be evaluated with that purpose as the standard.

Chris continued in the Army Reserves, helping to establish addiction support services for his fellow soldiers.

He returned full-time and deployed to Kuwait during the Iraq War. The sand in Kuwait is like powder, and it got into his lungs. He collapsed from this and was evacuated to a hospital in Germany, then sent to Walter Reed Hospital, and finally to Fort Knox.

Thus after 30 years in the Army or Army Reserves, he retired.

---

I met Chris early in the 1990s when I was working at a fast food restaurant across from OSU. He came in one evening and ordered two hard tacos and a medium fountain drink. We kept running into each other - at a convenience store close to where we lived, then at a 24 hour donut shop.

That meeting in the donut shop was the start of a lifelong friendship, but also the start of a strange romance!

For our first date he wanted to see a foreign film at Studio 35. He thought I would like it, but afterwards we realized we both hated it, and that we had similar “pedestrian” tastes in movies.

For our second date we went to the Indian Burial Mounds in Chillicothe, Ohio.

Our third date was in my apartment. I played “Kind of Blue,” an album by Miles Davis, for him. The last song on that album has an eerie quality to it, but I couldn’t identify what made it so enchanting. Well, we danced to that song, and the meaning came to me as a thunderclap: the song is slow, but emotionally it feels as though time has stopped, that the moment would go on forever.

For our fourth date Chris played the first album that Flatt and Scruggs did together, “Foggy Mountain Jamboree.” I still listen to that album, and also to far more bluegrass than if he hadn’t introduced me to it. Anyone who knew him knew that this was Chris’ music!

Our relationship really took off when he brought me into his circle of friends!

Chris was 17 years older than me, and when he introduced me to his friends one of them said: “Chris, you robbed the cradle”. My retort was: “yea, and I robbed the grave.”

Chris’ sense of humor was like mine: dark and spicy.

Chris was a member of NA and AA, but he was clean and sober for at least 10 or 15 years by the time we met. While he was indeed clean and sober, he was not confident at all that he would remain so. Everybody was certain that he would stay that way except him - that confidence would only come later in his life.

We spent our first Thanksgiving dinner together with some of his friends, most of whom were also in AA and NA. I’ve never met anybody like that before! One of them told me the strangest story - she said she used to grow her pinkie fingernail really long to act as a cocaine scoop, and she followed this by demonstrating the motion. There were many other stories that evening all with the same theme.

After dinner, we were walking out to the car, and I had a flash! “Hey Chris, how many AA or NA members does it take to change a lightbulb?”

He was getting pissed at me, but he took the bait: “I don’t know, how many?”

“Five: one to put in the new bulb and four to reminisce about how good the old bulb was.”

I was in the dog house for two weeks for that!

But we kept on, through countless nights playing board games, and through some Mensa conventions, and through a few arguments, but only a few.

Fencing with Chrismas Wrapping Paper Rolls

Years later, our romance cooled, and it made sense for me to move to Maryland for my job.

I knew that Chris would be there at my apartment in Frederick, MD, so when I packed the boxes, I labeled them like “Books and Sex Toys” or “Silverware and Double Headed Dildoes.” The movers got a kick out of that, but Chris was not amused!

Chris got the last laugh, though! He helped me pack when I moved from Frederick over to Pennsylvania, and when I arrived, half the boxes were marked as “Stuff” or “More Stuff!”

This type of banter was certainly part of our chemistry, but it wasn’t the only part. Here’s something more typical:

Chris and I always used to drive at least an hour to some small random town just to have pizza for dinner. The particular town or restaurant didn’t matter. What did matter is that we did this together and that we enjoyed it. It was such a simple thing, and neither of us realized at the time how important those weekly outings were. For this reason I cannot tell you the name of the town or pizza restaurant we first ate at. I thought these short road trips would go on forever, and for that reason I do not remember the name of the last restaurant we ate at. All I know is that there was a first town and restaurant and a last town and restaurant, and that there will be no more such road trips.

Chris wanted to get back together with me in Pennsylvania, and we tried it, but he missed his family and friends in Columbus terribly.

Sending Our Best from the Hospital, September 2017

Thus our strange romance ended, but the friendship endured. My last joke to him was only a few days before he passed, and was like a bookend to the “rob the grave” joke, but it was too dark and too spicy to repeat here!

The lung problems that started in Kuwait only escalated as time went on. Sam and Janos promised to take care of Chris until his last minute, and they did so, admirably.

---

I’ve been trying to summarize the feelings I have for Chris, taking all these stories into account. Here’s the best I can do.

You know how people say they want somebody to “complete them?” Chris and I didn’t do that for each other. Instead, he extended me. When I was with him, I felt incredibly free, incredibly passionate, incredibly powerful, and I understood just how intense life can be and ought to be. With Chris I knew that there is a whole world of things to choose from, and if something is missing, then I can make it myself.

Besides this spirit, the most important thing Chris did for me was to invite me into his family. Sam, Janos, Bela, cousin Mary, Catrina, and John mean the world to me, as do his friends Shelly and Lisa.

It may be tempting to disengage or distance yourself at times like this, but that would be unworthy of Chris, because it would be denial masquerading as stoicism. Isolation from the memories and feelings we have for him separates yourself from the best part of yourself - your creativity, your ability to be genuine, your potential to be the best you can be. He would insist that we always strive, that we directly challenge the obstacles in life and overcome them, for if we disengage then we wither away.

As mentioned earlier, people tell each other stories in order to become friends. But what happens when one of those friends is gone? I don’t know, but maybe those stories help us reach catharsis.

I hope these stories are indeed cathartic, but also that they help us to remember Chris, for if he exists now only in our memories, then we must never forget him.

Chris, I love you dearly. Until Valhalla.

Treason, Up Close and Personal

According to a forthcoming book, "Peril" by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made two secret phone calls to the Chinese military stating that he would give the People's Liberation Army, and hence the Chinese Communist Party, advance warning of any US attack against them.

These calls were made during the end of Trump's time in office, when Milley believed that "the president had suffered a mental decline after the election" and that Trump would use nuclear weapons against them.

During the first call, on October 30, 2020 - before Trump's supposed decline, Milley is quoted as telling his Chinese counterpart:

"I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be okay... We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you. If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It's not going to be a surprise."

Parts of this book were released by the Washington Post, which states:

"[Milley] called the admiral overseeing the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, the military unit responsible for Asia and the Pacific region, and recommended postponing the military exercises, according to the book. The admiral complied."

It gets worse:

"Milley also summoned senior officers to review the procedures for launching nuclear weapons, saying the president alone could give the order — but, crucially, that he, Milley, also had to be involved. Looking each in the eye, Milley asked the officers to affirm that they had understood, the authors write, in what he considered an “oath.”"

The second call was made on January 8th - two days after the protest on the Capitol - when China doubted US stability. Milley calmed them down, stating

"We are 100 percent steady. Everything's fine. But democracy can be sloppy sometimes."

None of this was communicated to Trump, but Milley did discuss this with Nancy Pelosi.

Woodward and Costa used only unnamed sources, according to the WaPo, but Milley has just released a statement affirming that he did indeed make those calls.

When asked about Milley's actions, Biden said, "I have great confidence in Gen. Milley." The cycle of incompetence thus continues with this ringing endorsement.

 

Excusing the Inexcusable

Defenders of Milley's actions would say that Trump was "squirrelly", and that this somehow necessitated communication between Milley and the CCP. But what evidence is used to justify claims of squirrellyness? That Trump required NATO members to pay their dues? That he called mass illegal immigration for what it is - an invasion? That he put terrorists on notice that there would be swift retribution for their attacks? That he pissed off the left-wing media?

Well, Trump did indeed piss off the left-wing media. Milley saw this, stuck his finger in the air to determine which way the wind was blowing, and acted accordingly. He started by apologizing for inspecting the damage done by Antifa and BLM rioters while standing next to Trump. Then came his House Armed Services Committee testimony in which he was offended that people would call the military "woke" while simultaneously stating that he wants to understand critical race theory and the roots of "white rage":

"I want to understand white rage, and I’m white, and I want to understand it. What is it that caused thousands of people to assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America? I want to find that out."

Now, we find that he has been working with at least one enemy. His actions were based on political expediency and nothing more.

Imagine that the United States did indeed choose to attack China - how would the Chinese use the information that Milley would provide? Further, did Milley actually believe that his tango with the Chinese would end with Trump being out of office? His naiveté is staggering.

 

The Context

Milley was not acting in a vacuum.

Even before the disastrous exit from Afghanistan, you had a West Point cadet advocating for communism, former high ranking officials making disparaging remarks about their Commander-in-Chief like Mister James Mattis and his inexcusable "bone spurs" comment, and the National Guard being used to protect the Capitol against "insurrectionists and violent extremists" - while not providing them with any ammunition.

And of course there's the woke Army recruiting video.

Then during and immediately after the loss of the Kabul airport you have Defense Department spokesman John Kirby admitting that he doesn't know how many Americans are still in Afghanistan, and General Kenneth McKenzie Jr. stating that he was sharing information with and relying on the Taliban to provide security.

At the highest level there is Joe Biden. He admitted that lists of Americans and American sympathizers were given to the Taliban so that they can expedite their exit (presumably from Afghanistan, not from this mortal coil). Biden stated that he accepts responsibility for the exit, then immediately lays blame for the Taliban takeover on the Afghan National Army and on the left's perpetual whipping-boy, Donald Trump.

Between the exit from Afghanistan and the woke military, the latter is the most damaging to us, for it indicates the criteria used to measure the worthiness of any military action. Potential actions will not be judged upon whether they further America's safety and security, or on the possibility of success. No. Instead, actions will be judged on whether they act against the cis-normative hegemony and deliver a blow against the patriarchy, all while being culturally sensitive and minimizing our carbon footprint. To quote Trump, "everything woke turns to shit." You, gentle reader, can complete the syllogism.

 

Signs of Hope

All is not lost, however, for there are dissenting voices. One of them belongs to USMC Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller who, following the Kabul airport terrorist attack that killed 13 service members including 11 Marines, released a video in which he absolutely excoriated the higher-ups for their shortage of accountability over the events in Afghanistan:

"I’m not saying we’ve got to be in Afghanistan forever, but I am saying: Did any of you throw your rank on the table and say ‘hey, it’s a bad idea to evacuate Bagram Airfield, a strategic airbase, before we evacuate everyone. Did anyone do that? And when you didn’t think to do that, did anyone raise their hand and say 'we completely messed this up.'

That one man with his one video has proven that there are some men with a spine left in the US military. Hence the importance of dissent - it allows us to separate the institution from some very rotten apples.

And Scheller's not alone: others have come out against the leadership vacuum.

And they're not alone, either: those of us with friends who are either active duty or retired military cannot help but see the courage and patriotism in their eyes.

 

The Fallout

Both Milley and Scheller should be concerned for their future (as should we all), but notice the difference between them: Milley, in his "desire to understand white rage" comments, expressed his opinion without concern for personal repercussions. This could mean that either politicians would accept those comments as obsequious bromides, or more likely that the expression of those sentiments was the goal itself, consequences be damned. That's called virtue signaling, the sine qua non of wokeness.

Scheller explicitly acknowledges the personal consequences that would befall him after his video goes public. There is nothing wrong with doing so. It does not prove that he has a martyr complex; rather it shows a man who is fully aware that opinions and actions have consequences, the opposite of wokeness.

Shortly after the release of that video, Scheller announced that "I have been relieved for cause based on a lack of trust and confidence." Whose trust? Whose confidence? No one of any merit.

Popular opinion holds that only tragedy awaits those with principle. This is incorrect - those with principle are resilient, and that resiliency comes from having a spine. Those with principle understand that an individual must stand up one more time than he is knocked down. Men with principle can move the world; those without merely stand with their fingers in the air, waiting for the winds to change.

Scheller is a man of principle, hence he will land on his feet.

For Milley, the wind is shifting against him. Christopher Miller, the Secretary of Defense during the time Milley made at least one of his calls with the Chinese military, stated that he did not and would never authorize such calls. Supposedly, several Pentagon officers present in Milley’s secret meeting are willing to testify against him under oath. He even lost the support of never-Trumper Alexander Vindman.

So, what of Milley? Biden, in his quest to accept responsibility, is looking for a new whipping boy, and Milley just moved to the front of the line.

Muh Private Company

Over the past two weeks we have witnessed big tech flexing their muscles against President Trump and against a social media site.

After a month of labelling Trump's election-fraud-related tweets as falsehoods and making those tweets either more difficult or impossible to share, Twitter has completely banned him from their platform. Facebook, YouTube, and other social media platforms then piled on top. Further, Shopify has taken down two of his online stores, and Stripe will no longer process payments.

Twitter did this over the incorrect claim that Trump incited violence at the Capitol last week. Meanwhile, Twitter says that China’s tweets stating that Uyghur forced labor camps don't exist are acceptable, despite the fact that such camps do indeed exist. Twitter is OK with censorship on US soil but is opposed to Uganda’s internet shutdown, since Uganda is violating basic human rights by doing so.

Twitter didn't stop with Trump – General Michael Flynn was blocked, as was Sidney Powell, and supporters of QAnon, along with many, many conservatives, myself included.

In a Project Veritas video recorded by a Twitter whistleblower, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey stated:

"We are focused on one account [@realDonaldTrump] right now but this is going to be much bigger than just one account and it’s going to go on for much longer than just this day, this week, and the next few weeks, and go on beyond the inauguration."

In brief, they're just getting started.

Big tech effectively muzzled the most powerful man on Earth, and that fact should terrify everybody regardless of political persuasion. If they can do it to Trump without consequences, then they can do it to anybody else.

The reaction by some people supposedly on the Right has been along the lines of "Twitter is a private company, they can do what they want. Just let the free market work. You can always build your own platform." This, by the way, is the same rationale given by people who support private businesses enforcing the social-distancing and mask edicts that certain state governors enacted in response to the China Flu.

Some on the Right did exactly that - they built their own platforms, one of which is called Parler.

Within the past few days:

• Apple and Google removed the Parler app from their respective app stores
• Twilio and Okta, which are authentication services, ended their relationship with Parler
• The database that Parler contracted, ScyllaDB, also terminated their services
• The cloud hosting platform on which Parler was built, Amazon Web Services, suspended their hosting service
• Finally, their lawyers stopped representing them.

So much for building your own platform.

If this isn't enough to dissuade the limousine libertarians from their position, let's apply their line of bullshit rhetoric to the Jim Crow laws. These were state and local laws that enforced segregation and were passed by Democrats to roll back the advancements made by blacks following the Civil War.

• Under Jim Crow, blacks and whites had to travel in separate rail cars, cars that while being separate were certainly not equal. According to the limousine libertarians, blacks should build their own railway system and quit their complaining.
• Blacks had to sit in the back of busses in Alabama until Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat. Instead of protesting, she should have started her own busing company.
• After Jim Crow laws were overturned by Brown v. Board of Education, some companies continued enforcing segregation. For example, black people couldn't eat at the same Woolworth lunch counters as whites. Maybe blacks should build their own lunch counters and let the free market work.

"This is horrible!" the limousine libertarians would say between sips of their caramel lattes while wondering if they need glasses for their myopia.

Yes, it is indeed horrible, but if they are consistent, they must condone this.

"But they're private businesses, they can do what they want!" the limousine libertarians bleat.

No, they can't do what they want. Being a business owner doesn't absolve him of the obligation to do what is right.

Further, in what sense are they "private" businesses? They lost that status when they became proxy law or edict enforcers - like with the enforcement of Jim Crow laws, or with tax laws, or with the companies that currently enforce China Flu restrictions. They lost it when corporations harvested and sold customer data without consent. Big tech companies certainly lost their status as private businesses when they interfered with and invalidated our elections.

The problem with limousine libertarians (they may be chauffeured in limousines, but they're usually the chauffeurs) is that they are silent in the face of oligarchy. Their "build you own" mantra is just a stale bromide used to cover their cowardliness while allowing them to feign enlightenment.

Bootlickers, Ahoy

Republicans knew this would happen, that big tech would flex their muscles. Trump vetoed the NDAA in part because it retained the Section 230 blanket protections for big tech. U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who was himself briefly banned from Twitter in 2019, voted to override Trump's veto. Given the Republicans' refusal to investigate election fraud, this turncoat behavior is to be expected from them.

Politicians weren't the only quislings...

The extent to which a few patriot commentators are willing to accept all this is nauseating. A few days ago the host of one online video show stated that this is not a free speech issue since you, gentle social media user, agreed to their terms of service agreements.

You'd think such commentators never heard about individual rights: such rights, be they God-given or follow from our nature as rational animals, are not gifts from the state. Individual rights, including the freedom of speech, are inalienable, which means they cannot be transferred or signed away. So much for terms of service agreements.

This same commentator was excoriating Trump supporters for doing nothing but flying their American flags, having fun at Trump rallies, engaging in online arguments with Leftists - in other words, for enjoying the relative freedom that we had under Trump.

What should we do instead? One would hope that this commentator would implore us to be wolves instead of sheep. He didn't, he was too busy either wallowing in guilt or insisting that we wallow in guilt. No one told him that masochism has no place outside the bedroom.

The Politics of the Future

Conservative Twitter users are cutting their losses and heading to greener pastures. This loss of users won't just impact Twitter's customer count, but also the quality of the platform: Twitter thrives on conflict, and without conservatives Twitter will just be an echo chamber where liberals boast about their intersectionist brownie points.

Meanwhile, Trump seems to be experiencing an increase in popularity - we are seeing the Streisand Effect in action!

No reporter has investigated how the actual process by which the deplatforming of Trump and the attack on Parler were orchestrated - which is not surprising. Did we witness a series of independent actions, or were they coordinated? Are the CEOs acting on their own wokeness, or are they responding to a woke mob in order to appease them?

In Twitter's case, Jack Dorsey took the initiative, at least based on the Project Veritas video. Similar videos from inside Google show the same thing. This may or may not hold for other tech giants and doesn't address whether there is collusion among them.

Again, in this conservative cleansing, are the companies taking the initiative, or are they reacting?

In one sense, it doesn't matter - the companies are the ones doing the deplatforming and the election-rigging, and they richly deserve retribution for their actions.

It does matter in another sense, because we must know who is in the driver's seat, the CEOs or the social justice warriors. If the CEOs are in charge, then they will influence the woke mob to do their bidding. If the SWJs are in charge, then the CEOs will be constantly blown about, constantly adjusting their company's terms of service to address the latest outrage du jour.

CEOs can make the claim that they actually built their companies, even though they have wet noodles for spines. The SJWs' only hold on the world are other people's tolerance for their shrillness and arrogance. These pink-haired, skinny-jean wearing, dildo waving hipsters only claim to importance is that they are woke. They are actually less intelligent after getting their gender studies degrees than before they entered college. They truly expect the federal government to pay off their useless degrees that rendered them not only unemployed but unemployable, and they see nothing wrong with shitting in their own mess kit.

In essence, tech CEOs and woke hipsters are equally unqualified to mettle in the affairs of others, and their sense of entitlement over the affairs of others must be resisted at all costs.

If the CEOs are acting on their own initiative, then they are on the treadmill of politics, not technology and not business. Perhaps they will realize that this wasn't the reason they got into the IT business in the first place, but that's doubtful.

If they are reacting to the petulant demands of the woke mob, then the CEOs are blind cowards who evade the fact that mobs are never satisfied by appeasement or capitulation. In reference to countries that were neutral at the start of World War 2, Winston Churchill said:

"Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured. But I fear greatly that the storm will not pass. It will rage and it will roar ever more loudly, ever more widely."

This applies to corporations as well.

The answer to who is in the driver's seat ultimately answers another question: is America now an oligarchy or a mobocracy, the pure democracy that the Left wants? It is too early to tell, but something we know now is that businesses will be the enforcers of either alternative, and that their terms of service are more important than our Bill of Rights.

(From Stonetoss Comics)

Funny Mask Story

This happened back before Christmas...

I was on a phone call with Chris L., one of the founders of the militia in which I serve. Had him on headphones while I was picking up groceries. Probably not the sort of thing I should be doing with him, but... eh.

I was almost done shopping when a grocery clerk approaches me and asks: "do you have a mask?" I tell him I didn't. He scurries off (I assume to talk to his manager); when he returns he asks if I want one. I said "no". He scurries off again.

Then his manager comes up to me and says: "sir, you need to wear a mask in here." And I replied that we don't have to do anything but die, and even that is subject to medical advances.

He then says: "if you don't wear a mask then you'll have to leave." I replied: "OK, call the police." He scurries off.

So I finish shopping and go to the self-checkout scanner when he approaches me again.

"Sir, it is the law that you wear a mask."

"Laws must be approved by the legislature, and they have passed nothing. The only thing you're going on is the governor's decrees."

"But Governor Wolf [Pennsylvania's governor] says you have to wear a mask!"

I replied: "Fuck Governor Wolf."

If I thought of it at the time, I would have asked him if he's the governor's boyfriend.

I paid for my groceries and left the store. The police never came.

Then I remembered that Chris L was listening in on this and he was laughing his ass off!

 

Letter from an FBI Fanboi

Dear FBI,

Any agency once ran by a cross-dresser who used his position to give facials to the bigwigs in DC can't be all that bad! I'm a big fan of your organization for that reason! In fact I've often fantasized about giving facials to those very same politicians, judges, and bureaucrats - or even better, white-washing their tonsils! Cross-dressing like J Edna Hoover would be a real turn-off for me, however.

According to the news, you are looking for photos from the Capitol Building occupation on Wednesday, and I want to help! Here's what's on my camera roll...

We found this guy asleep with a crack pipe in his mouth. His first name is Hunter, and that's all I know about him.

Then there's this video - it shows a man of some importance bragging about how he withheld aid to Ukraine unless the prosecutor investigating his son's business was fired. I think he's the father of the guy in the first picture. Mr. Sleepy Head Crack Pipe and his dad used an entire country to launder money just like a petty criminal uses a laundromat! Surely you must be interested in him!

Here are some photos from earlier this week in DC. You can tell the rioters in the first photo are MAGA supporters because they're carrying a US flag.

Oh wait, never mind, they were from the George Floyd riots back in June when riots mostly peaceful protests were acceptable.

I'm not sure if this man was in DC this week, but I do know he crossed from DC into Philadelphia where he and his friends attacked two Marines. This evil man was charged with "ethnic intimidation." He's white and he ethnically intimidates people, so he must be a Trump supporter!

Here's a victim of MAGA violence. He's an investigative reporter who was attacked while in Portland. He's gay, a journalist, and the child of immigrants, which makes him triply damned in the eyes of those evil Trumpsters!

Last fall the House Oversight Committee held hearings about all the white nationalist violence. Those acts of violence were committed by those horrible, dastardly MAGA people! Here's two photos of those people when they were in DC!

Never mind, those photos were also from the George Floyd riots, but they clearly show white people behaving badly.

Here's a video of the people the House was really investigating. It shows them looting stores, and they didn't even wait for Black Friday!

Back to the father of the guy with the crack pipe. Here's a video of him admitting to orchestrating voter fraud! He must be a Trump supporter to be that evil! He just gave a facial to each and every American citizen - J Edna would be proud! Instead of investigating him, maybe you should hire him!

I've done some investigation on my own! Our governor here in Pennsylvania implemented mail-in voting without the consent of the state legislature. He closed all the small businesses over China Flu except for a business owned by his family. He also sent China Flu carriers to live in old-age homes. Did you know he has a Porn Hub account? Here's a screen shot! I first thought it was a photo of Governor Wolf along with J Edna Hoover, but it really shows Wolf along with his Secretary of Health, whose pronouns are he/she.

Here's the last photo. It shows one of those vicious pitbulls that Trump supporters like, and I'm getting PTSD just by looking at him! I don't wear pearls like J Edna wore, but if I did I would clutch them Hooverishly! Please, put the "bravery" into FBI and catch this accursed canine!

I hope all this helps you apprehend those deplorable MAGA people! I'm sure they'd be treated the same as those mostly peaceful protesters in Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis, and DC.

If this does help, please consider offering me a job! I'm keen on giving facials to people in high places, but I'd be a totally incompetent agent. I hope that doesn't disqualify me, I think I'd fit right in!

Thanks,
Your Biggest Fanboi and BFF!!!

 

PS:

This isn't Capitol-related but I just had an idea...

During the riots last year, palettes of bricks were deposited close to the riot locations. Cities have lots of security cams - do you think you can use them to figure out who did this?

It's kind of complicated, but here's what I mean:

Online investigators started with a video showing people removing signs and shields from a U-Haul truck for use in an upcoming BLM riot in Louisville. The investigators used guile to get the name the person who rented the truck. They then employed something called "Google" to research that person and learned that she works as a "bail disruptor" for an organization called the Bail Project.

By using their employee list, investigators then found that at least one person there is a former Soros Justice Fellow, which is a fellowship funded the Open Society Foundations.

Lots of celebrities and tech moguls donate to the Bail Project. Even Twitter's Jack Dorsey donated to them!

These online investigators did something called "clicking on links" to work this all out. Sneaky!

By the way, did you know that in 2019 the Bail Project bailed-out a guy who was being held for domestic violence, and then he went home and beat his wife to death? Something completely different happened later that year when they bailed out a man who threatened to kill his ex-girlfriend - he didn't kill her upon release but he did set her apartment on fire.

Those two tragic events are completely different, really! But there is that old adage: fool me once, shame on you; fool me 25 times, shame on me.

Anyway, the online sleuths who figured this out took maybe three hours to do all this - imagine how quickly the FBI could do it! This is the type of out-of-the-box thinking I would bring to your agency!