I'm sorry

I'm sorry.


I watched the towers fall in school.  It was hard concentrating the rest of the day, football practice was short, and I remember the lines at the gas station.  I'm sorry, we failed to protect you.

I had decided a few years before that I wanted to experience combat, so I wasn't reacting in hatred of anyone.  I enlisted 15 months later, during a war.  I'm sorry, nothing could change my mind.

I was excited when we were told that we were deploying, it was a dream come true.  I had to finish that semester, and stayed around the college working all summer.  I'm sorry I didn't come home.

I hurt myself in training, just rolling around with a guy.  I'm going to miss deploying for this???  I can walk, I can jog, I'm fine.  I'm too close to leave, not over this.  I'm sorry, I wasn't missing this.

I got to Iraq, and we started getting to work.  It was easy to .  I didn't call much, and I didn't email many details.  I'm sorry I lied when I did.

I always looked forward to the packages from home. The big box of sunflower seeds, the decks of cards, the golf balls, the trays of rice krispies and the random gifts I got for my hooch.  I'm sorry I didn't say thanks.

The news that we'd lost a guy hit us hard.  The second loss hit us harder.  Neither one was in my platoon, both had families.  I'm sorry I didn't know you guys better.

"You'd better get your head down, this area's been hot the past week".  Seconds later, I heard and felt the explosion two trucks back.  "We're gonna have to stop, he's veering off the road and not correcting it", I said.  I'm sorry I didn't see it before it went off.

I never thanked our leadership, for all their hard work.  They kept us safe, kept us alive, brought us back home.  I'm sorry I didn't appreciate everything you did.

I'm still not telling you things, there are things that I'm keeping inside because you won't understand them.  I'm sorry I can't explain things.


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I was listening to Jocko podcast #42 and thought about this.  About the way that we go to war and don't communicate as much as our families want.  We lie to our families so that they can live normal lives back home without worrying about us.

When we're overseas, we're intentionally ignoring our families in some instances. There are things we can't say to keep ourselves safe, that we can't say because we can't explain it, and that we can't say because we're just not thinking about it.  We don't want to worry our families (even though going silent really doesn't help), and we've got to stay focused on what's over there with us.  That's how we come home.

I've got to thank "Spider Mike".  He wanted us all to come home, and our section all made it.  I don't remember ever thanking him specifically for that, I didn't anways understand why he was doing the things that he was, but there are a few times that stick out to me that show me just how much he cared about his guys (and gals). So thank you, Sarge, and the rest of the leadership that kept the vehicles moving and our morale high.  

Borders Aren't Racist Part 3: Who Gets Released And When?

Part 2 here.

In July 2015, a court the determination that 'all kids have the right to be released' was decided. In August, it was confirmed.  The 9th circuit court has been used by illegal immigration proponents for this entire mess.  The idea that a district court can control any nationwide policy on immigration is becoming a problem, and leftists will use that to their advantage until that 'magnet' is also shut off.

"Plaintiffs argue that Defendants’ no-release policy—i.e., the policy of detaining all female-headed families, including children, for as long as it takes to determine whether they are entitled to remain in the United States—violates material provisions of the [Flores] Agreement. "

"As a threshold matter, the parties dispute whether minors who are apprehended as part of a female-headed family are class members covered by the Agreement. The plain language of the Agreement clearly encompasses accompanied minors. First and most importantly, the Agreement defines the class as the following: “All minors who are detained in the legal custody of the INS.” "

"(i) Juveniles may be released to a relative (brother, sister, aunt, uncle, or grandparent) not in Service detention who is willing to sponsor a minor and the minor may be released to that relative notwithstanding that the juvenile has a relative who is in detention. (ii) If a relative who is not in detention cannot be located to sponsor the minor, the minor may be released with an accompanying relative who is in detention."

(ICE actions to detain kids indefinitely without telling their relatives where they were, indefinite detentions and releasing male adults into unfamiliar areas [ATEP] was occurring during the Obama administration), but the media has a problem reporting anything negative during Democrat administrations and blowing up the same issues during Republican administrations.  Remember those "kids in cages" stories?  It's just hypocrisy and Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Why are families split up?

In addition to the Flores Consent Agreement mandating that unaccompanied minors and adults are not kept together, this 2015 court order mandates that kids are held to the same standard and move it one step forward.  They're not just to be "placed" in the least restrictive facility, they're to be released if at all possible.  Also, mother-led families are to be released ASAP.  When that news got out, familial immigration took a large turn upwards.  Trump's tough talk only works so much to deter immigration.  When Democrats refuse to do anything on immigration and the courts keep giving de facto amnesty to children and mother-led families who are detained, tough talk becomes meaningless.

Jeff Sessions' April 2018 'zero tolerance memo' adds another layer of separation between children (who would be deemed innocent), and the adults that have brought them (who would now actually be charged).  The adults are being held and prosecuted criminally for breaking our laws.  This is being done, in part, because of even more past litigation which says that expedited deportation hearings might be unfair, so charging them with a crime is a 'paper trail' of sorts for future expedited deportations.

Some other aspects of this include the problems with chain migration (why parents send unaccompanied kids to America expecting them citizenship from DACA, which will in turn grant them citizenship via chain migration).

Because of the 2015 Ruling, the Obama administration, a proponent of amnesty, decided that they would just release everyone they caught, trusting that they'd show up to their mandated immigration hearings.  In 2015, estimates say that there were 550,000 illegal immigrants who entered the country.  In addition, there were about 13,000 immigration hearings, and 85% of that number (a little over 11,000 immigrants) actually showed up for their hearing.  According to ICE, 235,000 people were deported.

So in 2015, only about 2% of the illegal immigrant population for 2015 got hearings, and 85% of that approximately 2% showed up for their hearings, and that's supposed to be a good number.  That's insanely low.  We're using a coffee filter to plug the gaps in the dam, and it's working about as well as you'd expect.

Yes, I want to bang my head against the wall.  Only CONGRESS can fix this.  Only Congress has the authority to fix the holes in current immigration policy, as well as shut off the magnets and actually get both immigrants AND government agencies some relief.  Trump's executive order was denied by the 9th Circuit, just like he said it would.  Apparently the judge that's been working the case the last few years thinks that a 10,000% increase in immigration doesn't change anything.  It has  become the crisis that Trump said it was.

Leftists want unfettered immigration that treats our border as nonexistent.  Conservatives want the border secured and legal immigration.

Lots of additional documents, here.