This Is A Test...

 

 

..and it's been a test for a little more than two months or so now.

Everyone knows that I dropped off of Facebook last spring, just about the time that I left the Masonic fraternity.  I had some serious re-evaluations about a few things that I had to do, my choice of friends and who I was going to trust being just two of them.  That process is still going on and most likely will go on for the rest of my life, since I don't trust people anywhere near as much now as I did this time last year.

I know there was a lot of negative things (spelled lies) being spread about me, and I decided early on not to waste my time and efforts chasing them down and proving them wrong (which they are) because I knew that people who really knew me and who were really my friends would know they were lies and wouldn't pay them any mind.

That description fits less than a dozen people at the present time.  But I'm glad to say that number is slowly growing as people are slowly proving to me that they don't believe the bullshit and want to remain a friend.

One of the ways I've been weeding out the frauds and fake friends/brothers from the genuine, sincere ones is with my new Facebook account.  You see, it's like this:  when I started this new account the only people I chose to add to my Friends list were my immediate family and a very small, very select few people whom I knew to be genuine friends.  I didn't go seeking out the people from my previous account because 90% of them were on my friends list because of their ties with me through the Masonic fraternity.  And since the events of last spring showed me just how much my being in the fraternity was no longer desired, I haven't reached out to any of them.

And I won't.  I'm going to let them reach out to me.  One of the ways I'm doing this is with my Facebook account.  

I haven't made a whole lot of posts there as compared to how many I used to make, but I have acknowledged some posts made by friends of mine.  And I knew when I did it that there would be people who were on my former friends list that would see it, and that if they wanted to be on my friends list again they would contact me.  And they'd do this for one of three reasons.

Reason #1:  they didn't believe the bullshit they heard about me last spring and truly want to be my friend.

Reason #2:  they don't know what happened last spring because they either aren't in the fraternity or just didn't hear about it.

Reason #3:  they heard the lies, they believe the lies, and they want to be my friend again for various nefarious reasons.

As the meme at the top of the page says, I know more than people think I do, and I'm not talking about it.

So now that I've broadcast my strategy, let me say this:  just because you send me a friend request doesn't mean I'm going to accept it.  I know who the key players in last spring's kangaroo court are, and you can bet your sweet ass that I'll never let those assholes into my life again under any circumstances.  I also know who's been talking shit since then, and you can bet I won't let those assholes in either.

You see, it's like this - I'm done asking people to be my friends, either on Facebook or in real life.  You either take the time to get to know me and decide for yourself if you want to be in my small circle of friends, or you don't.  And if you do, all you have to do is ask.  That's no guarantee that I'm gonna let you in, but unless you're in one of those two groups of assholes I just mentioned, you've got nothing to lose.

And if all of this sounds self-important or self-serving or even egotistical, to be honest I really don't care.  I'm past the point of caring what other people think about me.  You either accept me as I am or you don't.

Your call.

Deo Vindice

IHC

 

  

My, How Time Flies

 

Exactly 35 years ago today, January 17th, 1991, I was at Dhahran Air Base, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where I had been since August 8th, 1990 in support of Operation DESERT SHIELD.  It was 0100 hours or so (that's 1AM for you civilians) and I was posted as CM-3, the mobile patrol for the part of the flightline that included the parking area for the Kuwaiti aircraft that had been evacuated out of the country when the Iraqis invaded Kuwait the previous August.  One of the things about the fighters from my base (Langley AFB, Va) was that they ran flight operations 24/7, so it wasn't unusual to see jets taking off and landing at all hours of the day and night.  They always flew in groups of 4, but they always took off in pairs.  So it wasn't unusual for me to see several pairs of aircraft taking off at 0100 hours.

Then it suddenly dawned on me that I had been hearing aircraft taking off non-stop for the past fifteen minutes, and that was unusual. I parked my vehicle and sat on the ramp, watching pair after pair of F-15s take off one after the other.  I sat and watched for a good half an hour, and when the final pair of F-15s had left it was strangely quiet.  I had just watched both squadrons of F-15s leave the base, all headed northeast - towards Iraq.

"We just went to war," I said out loud to myself.  (My partner was doing chow relief for one of the listening posts so I was alone for the moment.)  

Two hours later the news was reporting that Baghdad was being bombed.  Operation DESERT SHIELD had just turned into Operation DESERT STORM, and the Gulf War had begun.

Things got kind of frantic after that.  The game we had been playing since August had just gotten very serious, and things suddenly became very real again - just as they had been for the first month or so that we were there.  For the first month or so everyone was very serious, very cautious, and very alert, but the longer we went without any hostile action taking place the more complacent everyone got.  Pretty soon Dhahran had become what we called "Langley East," with it just being business as usual - except that we were in Saudi Arabia.

Now all that changed.  We broke out the helmets, flak vests, and gas masks, and the orders came down to wear them at all times both on and off duty.  Everybody suddenly got serious again, and the change in attitude was so intense that you could almost hear it when it changed.  I spent the next 4 hours or so going from post to post, trying to explain what was going on to everyone and trying to calm the younger airmen down.  The Reservists that we had received the week before were having conniption fits, with one of them - a female - going so far off her rocker that we had to relieve her of duty and send her to the medics.  She was found mentally unfit for duty and was shipped back to the States the next day.

We were at war, and we all knew that it was only a matter of time before it came our way.

24 hours later Iraq launched the first of 27 SCUD missile attacks, and for us the war was truly underway. 

None of us would ever be the same again.

Deo Vindice

IHC