Hey! This is Keith Bowen. I am a 38 year old man, husband for 16 years to the most beautiful lady I have ever known, and father of a 5 year old boy that never ceases to amaze me! That lady and that child is my life! I love life. I feel that I have been blessed so much in life. My first blessing was being born to such a great family. Two of the greatest parents on earth and a sister two years older than me, that tormented me as a child (or so it seemed at the time), but loved me and looked out for me. She still does, all these years later.
 I have several aunts, uncles, and cousins that I think the world of, but I have one particular cousin that is like a brother to me. He is only 6 weeks older than me and we have always been close. I learned what being a friend was all about by growing up with him. We had this deal. We never competed against each other. NEVER! Not over anything. We would be around other friends and we would do stuff like arm wrestle them or other forms of competition, but never each other. Never even played against each other in a video games or anything. It was like an unwritten law, we would never do anything to make the other look bad. We definitly never said a negative word about each other. It was the coolest thing. It was like no matter what I faced in life, I knew I had one true friend in my corner that would never betray me. Things have never changed. We are as close as ever. He is now my neighbor. He has two little boys and one of them is my boy's age and his other one is a couple years older. My sister is my other neighbor and she has two little boys and one of them is my boy's age too and the other one is a couple years older too. I hope these five young boys grow up being real close friends. Me and my cuz always talk about how we want these boys to grow up running around and playing in these woods and fields around here just like we did. We can't wait till all these boys are old enough to take camping. We are gonna have a great time teaching them survival skill and hunting and fishing skills.
 I have been very blessed with great friends throughout life. I would do anything for my friends. I try to bring the same lessons of my childhood friends to my newer friends. If anything, I am too supportive of anyone I call friend. It is like, if I concider you to be a friend, then you are "In There". Once you reach friendship status, you have to really, really, mess up, for me to consider you anything but a friend. I am very forgiving of my friends and their mistakes. That is what friendship is all about. Having someone in your corner no matter what you do. My family and friends are my greatest blessings and I would do anything for them.
 I even feel very blessed to have the job I do. I am a Correctional Officer for the Florida Department of Corrections. I can and will say this from my heart. I absolutly love my job. I love the agency I work for, the people who run my institution, and my Brother and Sister Officers. I love everything in my job description. I actually love going to work. Everyday is an adventure. I really believe that my job is the greatest job in the world...For me. My job is not for everyone. But I feel I was born to do what I do for a living. I know pride is a sin, but I do take pride in being an Correctional Officer. We do very important work. We protect society from some very, very dangerous people. Our end result is just so far removed from our everyday work. We walk out of the prison some days feeling like all we did was survive. The idea that we accomplished anything does not just jump out at us. When I was growing up, I loved working on a tractor. You see the field ahead of you, then look back and see instant results of your efforts. That is immediate satisfaction. With corrections, you don't get that. When you walk out the gate, you don't see that anyone is safe because your efforts kept the bad guys seperated from the good guys. You have to really think and stay focused to see just what your roll in society is. That does not diminish our importance in any way. I work with good people who do hard, dangerous, and important work. I would do anything for any of my fellow officers or any of my supervisors. In days gone by, cowboys called it "Riding for the brand". They felt that if you took a man's money, you owed it to him to be loyal to him.
 I said all this stuff, not to say I am so great, or my life is better than anyone elses. I just feel as though I have been blessed and know I got to give a lot of credit to the way I was raised. But I know that there have been many people who had very difficult lives growing up and turned out to be extraordinary human beings and many people have had everything that seemed perefect in there childhood, who turned out to be miserable human beings later in life.
 I said all this to show a little into my mind and the way it works and to show that I have very little patience for people who complain about life. If you don't like your life. Change it! I truely believe that everyday you wake up with a choice. You can make out of life whatever you want. You can hold your head up and enjoy this opportunity to be happy, or hold you head down and suffer on. The choice is yours! .... Oh yea...speaking of work, remember this......
 And whatsoever ye do, do it heartly, as to the Lord, and not unto man; Colossians,3:23
 In other words, it don't matter who you are working for, act as though you are working for God!....
 I guess my biggest pet peave, is people who complain all the time. Who wants to work around someone who constantly complains about their job? If you don't like your job, quit and go get something you do like. Did you not have any idea of what your job would consist of when you applied for your job? The thing is about whiners and complainers, is that they never are happy, no matter what situation they are in. I am amazed at how some folks just gripe and complain about everything all the time. I have listen to guys talk bad about their wives. They call their wives names and fuss about them. I am thinking..."Why did you marry someone you hate?" "Are you such a bad judge of character, that you could not tell that girl you were dating was a monster?". I have no respect for any man who disrespects his wife. Think about it like this. If a guy can't be loyal to his wife, what kind of friend is he gonna be? If he is married to a lady and talks bad about her, how is he talking about you? He has PROVEN himself to be untrustworthy and disloyal. I will not feel sorry for you if you complain. I will just think YOU are crazy, because you are in a situation that YOU choose to be in and are complaining. Oh yea.. Ladies do it too.
 
I know this is a very long "ABOUT ME" section, but please bear with me a little longer...

I want to brag about my wife right here for a minute. When I first saw her I thought she was the most beautiful creature on earth and I still do. I just assumed that a girl THAT beautiful would never have anything to do with a guy like me. I may have not been in as bad a shape way back then as I am now, but I have never been what you call nice looking or anything. I took a chance and asked her if she would go out with me. She said yes! Wow! I still can't belive it after all these years. That was the start. A beautiful girl was going out with me. I fell head over heals in love with her real fast! A few month later I asked her to marry me and she said yes. I could not believe I was now married to this lovely lady. But.... there is sooo much more to my lovely bride than her beauty. This girl treats me like a king or something. It don't even seem real just how great she is. She never complains, never fusses, never brings me down. She has always supported me in whatever endeavor I find myself in. She is a great cook. That is important for a big guy like me. She loves to clean house. Another important thing for a slightly sloppy fellow like myself. After 15 years, she has never went to bed with a dirty dish in the house. Not even once! She will not even leave the house to go for a walk till all the dishes are clean, dry, and put up. I am not going to say we have never had a disagreement; we have had a few. But we don't fight. She never argues with me. If she don't agree with me on something, she just tells me and goes on. No nagging! Hey... That makes me really want to treat her right and I usually end up doing what she wants. Hmmm.... Did I mention she is as smart as she is pretty? She always gives in to whatever I want and thereby she gets what she wants most times. Pretty smart huh?
 She is the greatest wife any man has ever had, but she is as great a mom to my son as she is a wife to me. I love to watch her with my son. She is patient with him and sees to his every need. She is great with him. She really is doing everything you can with a kid to assure he is prepared for everything life can throw at him. I can't say enough, just how much I love my wife and son! .....and oh yea.... Her parents are great! They are good folks who treat me more like a son than a son-in-law. Even her brother is a good ol boy! We get along great!

One of the greatest cowboys I ever knew, did not look like one. He was a horse trainer. When I was very young he would train some of my dad's horses. He would be out there training these horses, wearing jeans, a T-shirt, baseball cap, and tennis shoes. No cowboy hat, boots, big belt buckle or trench coat. Sure when he would take a horse to a horse show or anything like that, he would be dressed out as a traditional cowboy. But he did not dress like one on a day to day bases. I asked my dad why that guy didn't dress like a cowboy and my dad told me that the guy was so confident in who he was and what he could do with a horse, that he felt no need to try and convince people he was a cowboy. He was the real thing. On the contrary, I knew a guy that always wore boots, cowboy hat, and a long leather trench coat. He even drove a 4 weel drive truck. But he lived in town and had never even been on a horse in his life. He was no cowboy, he just wore the costume. All my life I have questioned peoples actions, including my own. For instance, can I own and ride horses and not wear the costume to town? Can I enjoy watching a football game and yet not wear the costume. Do I have to wear a shirt to the mall or where ever that says what team I am for? Can I enjoy hunting and fishing and yet not wear a camouflage costume to a restaurant? Could I own and ride a motorcyle without wearing the costum consisting of all black leather and obscene writings on a leather vest? I am not putting anyone down for doing this stuff. I just see it for what it is. If people are "into" something, they tend to go all out and wear the costume of their choosing. I find that very interesting. It makes me look close at myself and wonder what my costume is and what it represents. If I wear jeans and a t-shirt and tennis shoes with no logos or "style" represented, is that the costume of a conformist? A non-rebel? I hope not, because I have always considered myself a Rebel at heart!

My Dad is the greatest influence in my life. Yes, my wife and son are the most important thing in my life NOW, but my Dad has done more to shape me into who I am than any other person. My Dad has been the hardest working person I have ever known. No person I know has ever even came close to the way he has worked all his life. He worked 38 years at the paper mill before he retired, but that is nothing. He has also farmed full time. He could go on less sleep than any person I have ever known. He always worked way more hours on the farm than he did at his regular job and I could count on one hand how many times he missed work in the entire 38 years he was at the mill. About the only time I remember him ever missing work was if me or my sister was in the hospital or something major like that. He would never just call in if he himself was sick. I am so proud of my Dad. He was raised poor. He was one of eleven kids. His Dad was a sharecropper, among other things. There is nothing wrong with being a sharecropper, but it was hard work and little money. My Dad worked hard as a kid. He grew up and continued to work hard, then he bought a farm when I was just a kid. He has made something of himself and

he did it all on his own...... He taught me so much. It is amazing at how growing up on a farm was a tool for him to teach me so much. I remember being young and him letting me drive/operate a tractor. He was riding with me and teaching me everything. I was so young I had to stand up and put all my weight on one foot to mash the clutch. He had to go to the barn to get something and left me alone with the tractor. I was so happy that he trusted me to run it by myself. Then disaster struck. As I was turning around at the end of the row, I hit a fence post with the cultivater that I was plowing with. I freaked out, shut the tractor off and just sat there scared to death of what Dad was gonna say when he got back. He came walking up in a few minutes and asked why I had stopped. I don't even think I could speak. I just pointed at the broken post. Dad looked at it then looked at me and asked me "Do you know why you broke that post?". Now I was really scared. I knew it was because I had done something wrong but was not just sure what I had done wrong. He then said " You broke that because you are out here working. If you had been laid up in the house watching cartoons this would have never happened, but if you get out of the house and work, things like this are gonna happen. Don't worry, we can fix that post. It is no big deal. I am just glad you are out here working with me". It meant a lot to me then and I have always remembered that little lesson throughout my life. I still try to look at life that way. You only make mistakes if you are doing something. Set back and do nothing and you may never make a mistake, but that is no way to live. Another very rememberable day me and Dad was riding down the road to who knows where, when I saw this big 4wheel drive tractor. I said " Man!, I wish that was our tractor!". Dad looked at me and said "No son, you wish we could someday be able to get ourselves our own tractor like that, but you don't wish for what belongs to someone else". It was so simple, but that is the way Dad is. He just naturally gets it. He naturally knows how you are supposed to live your life. I am now 38 and I can say with 100% assuredness that he has never told me a lie. I have never heard him tell anyone a lie. He has always told me it is better in any dealings you have with anyone, to get beat on a deal or done wrong, than to ever do someone wrong. That was just a few of thousands of little lessons he taught me. He used to carry a little peice of paper in his wallet with a litte saying on it. He would take that thing out ever so often and read it to me and my sister, or anyone who would listen. I bet he still has it in his wallet. I want to share that litle saying with you here>>> THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF A NEW DAY. GOD HAS GIVEN ME THIS DAY TO USEAS I WILL. I CAN WASTE IT-- OR USE IT FOR GOOD, BUT WHAT I DO TODAY IS IMPORTANT, BECAUSE I AM EXCHANGING A DAY OF MY LIFE FOR IT! WHEN TOMORROW COMES, THIS DAY WILL BE GONE FOREVER, LEAVING IN ITS PLACE SOMETHING THAT I HAVE TRADED FOR IT. I WANT IT TO BE GAIN, AND NOT LOSS; GOOD, AND NOT EVIL; SUCCESS, AND NOT FAILURE; IN ORDER THAT I SHALL NOT REGRET THE PRICE I HAVE PAID FOR IT.<<< I have no idea where he got that from, but he has lived by it. I am who I am because of my Dad!!!...

Some say that you should never talk about religion or politics! WHAT?!!! What else is there to talk about. I guess you could talk about the weather or sports. Most just talk about one another. Yeap... They gossip. But all intelligent talk has to bring in religion or politics. I guess you might talk loosely about science or history, but any deep conversation on that will cross into politics or religion. Maybe it is just me, but everything else just bores me.

I am an Email Junkie!!!!~-~-~- I love email! I got quite a few friends that send me a large variety of all types of emails. I in turn forward them to an even larger group of friends that love to receive them. It is my way of keeping up with my friends. When I click on all my friends email addresses I think about each and every one of them for a split second, and every time I recive an email, I know my friend thought of me for a split second. Some of the emails are really good! If you like to send or receive email, let me know by emailing me at esotericethos@yahoo.com I don't open emails unless I recognize the sender, so if your name is not familiar to me just put MY REAL NAME in the subject. As a matter of fact, the reason I got a myspace page and a Dothan Voice page in the first place, was in hopes that it could lead to more emailing buddies, so please really consider emailing me if you even think that you may enjoy recieving or sending emails. Don't even worry if you got nothing to send out. I don't mind. I enjoy sending stuff out.

Loyalty and Honor

Words mean a lot to me. Think of this. God created everything with words. He spoke the world into existence. We think in words. Have you ever thought about your earliest memories as a child. Notice those memories tie in to when you were developing your language skills? You may recall somethings as a child in which it is visual, but I bet even though it is a visual memory, it was still stored in your brain as words. Like "Mom's Blue Dress" as opposed to that thing, wearing that thing, in that color". You knew the words: Mom, Blue, Dress before you could store the information in your brain to be recalled later.
 OK... all that was sorta gibberish, to just make the point.... Words are important.
So when I sit around and think of things... in words... I think of how some words have very powerful meaning. Like trust, respect, love, devotion, honor, valor, loyalty, fidelity, courage, and many more like these.
The other day I was browsing through some myspace sites and saw where a guy had this on his page "Loyalty above all things except Honor". Wow! I read that, then reread it several times.
What if we could truly live or lives like that. Where Loyalty was our main effort and goal in life. Loyalty to God, Country, Family, Friends, Job, Community, Groups, and Organizations. What if that was above all else.... except honor. Meaning.... you would be Loyal to everything you had any obligation to, as long as it never crossed the line of doing something dishonorable. HONOR! What a word!  Webster says Honor is: n 1 high regard 2 good reputation 3 adherence to right principles 4 glory or credit 5 title of certain officials 6 something showing respect- v 1 treat with respect 2confer an honor on 3 accept as valid
I like that "adherence to right principles" part. So. To say "Loyalty above all else, except Honor", means I will devote all of my being to "The Cause", but I will never compromise my principles.
How cool is that?!

 

I read this a few years ago. I have never seen anything that was so inline with how I feel!

 

ON SHEEP, WOLVES, AND SHEEPDOGS
By LTC(RET) Dave Grossman, RANGER, Ph.D.,author of "On Killing."

Honor never grows old, and honor rejoices the heart of age. It does so
because honor is, finally, about defending those noble and worthy
things that deserve defending, even if it comes at a high cost. In our time, that
may mean social disapproval, public scorn, hardship, persecution, or as always,
even death itself. The question remains: What is worth defending? What is worth
dying for? What is worth living for? - William J. Bennett - in a lecture to the
United States Naval Academy November 24, 1997

One Vietnam veteran, an old retired colonel, once said this to me:
"Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle, productive
creatures who can only hurt one another by accident." This is true. Remember, the
murder rate is six per 100,000 per year, and the aggravated assault rate
is four per 1,000 per year. What this means is that the vast majority of Americans
are not inclined to hurt one another.

Some estimates say that two million Americans are victims of violent
crimes every year, a tragic, staggering number, perhaps an all-time record
rate of violent crime. But there are almost 300 million Americans, which
means that the odds of being a victim of violent crime is considerably less than one
in a hundred on any given year. Furthermore, since many violent crimes are
committed by repeat offenders, the actual number of violent citizens is considerably
less than two million.

Thus there is a paradox, and we must grasp both ends of the situation:
We may well be in the most violent times in history, but violence is still
remarkably rare. This is because most citizens are kind, decent people
who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme
provocation. They are sheep.

I mean nothing negative by calling them sheep. To me it is like the
pretty, blue robin's egg. Inside it is soft and gooey but someday it will grow
into something wonderful. But the egg cannot survive without its hard blue
shell. Police officers, soldiers, and other warriors are like that shell, and
someday the civilization they protect will grow into something wonderful.? For
now, though, they need warriors to protect them from the predators.

"Then there are the wolves," the old war veteran said, "and the wolves
feed on the sheep without mercy." Do you believe there are wolves out there
who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil
men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget
that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in
denial.

"Then there are sheepdogs," he went on, "and I'm a sheepdog. I live to
protect the flock and confront the wolf."

If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive
citizen, a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy
for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf. But
what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow
citizens?
What do you have then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking
the hero's path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the
universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed

Let me expand on this old soldier's excellent model of the sheep,
wolves, and sheepdogs. We know that the sheep live in denial, that is what makes
them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the
world. They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire
extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout their kids'
schools.

But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police
officer in their kid's school. Our children are thousands of times more likely
to be killed or seriously injured by school violence than fire, but the
sheep's only response to the possibility of violence is denial. The idea of someone
coming to kill or harm their child is just too hard, and so they chose the
path of denial.

The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the
wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is
that the sheepdog must not, can not and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheep
dog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished
and removed.
The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative
democracy or a republic such as ours.

Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that
there are wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn't tell them
where to go, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready in our
airports in camouflage fatigues holding an M-16. The sheep would much
rather have the sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself white, and go, "Baa."

Until the wolf shows up. Then the entire flock tries desperately to
hide behind one lonely sheepdog.

The students, the victims, at Columbine High School were big, tough
high school students, and under ordinary circumstances they would not
have had the time of day for a police officer. They were not bad kids; they just had
nothing to say to a cop. When the school was under attack, however, and SWAT
teams were clearing the rooms and hallways, the officers had to physically peel
those clinging, sobbing kids off of them. This is how the little lambs
feel about their sheepdog when the wolf is at the door.

Look at what happened after September 11, 2001 when the wolf pounded
hard on the door. Remember how America, more than ever before, felt
differently about their law enforcement officers and military personnel? Remember how
many times you heard the word hero?

Understand that there is nothing morally superior about being a
sheepdog; it is just what you choose to be. Also understand that a sheepdog is a
funny critter: He is always sniffing around out on the perimeter, checking the
breeze, barking at things that go bump in the night, and yearning for a
righteous battle. That is, the young sheepdogs yearn for a righteous
battle. The old sheepdogs are a little older and wiser, but they move
to the sound of the guns when needed right along with the young ones.

Here is how the sheep and the sheepdog think differently. The sheep
pretend the wolf will never come, but the sheepdog lives for that day. After
the attacks on September 11, 2001, most of the sheep, that is, most citizens in America
said, "Thank God I wasn't on one of those planes." The sheepdogs, the warriors, said,
"Dear God, I wish I could have been on one of those planes. Maybe I
could have made a difference." When you are truly transformed into a
warrior and have truly invested yourself into warriorhood, you want to be there.
You want to be able to make a difference.

There is nothing morally superior about the sheepdog, the warrior, but
he does have one real advantage. Only one. And that is that he is able
to survive and thrive in an environment that destroys 98 percent of the
population.
There was research conducted a few years ago with individuals
convicted of violent crimes. These cons were in prison for serious,
predatory crimes of violence: assaults, murders and killing law enforcement officers. The vast
majority said that they specifically targeted victims by body language: slumped
walk, passive behavior and lack of awareness. They chose their victims like
big cats do in Africa, when they select one out of the herd that is least able
to protect itself.

Some people may be destined to be sheep and others might be
genetically primed to be wolves or sheepdogs. But I believe that most
people can choose which one they want to be, and I'm proud to say that more and more Americans
are choosing to become sheepdogs.

Seven months after the attack on September 11, 2001, Todd Beamer was
honored in his hometown of Cranbury, New Jersey. Todd, as you recall, was the
man on Flight 93 over Pennsylvania who called on his cell phone to alert an
operator from United Airlines about the hijacking. When he learned of the other
three passenger planes that had been used as weapons, Todd dropped his phone
and uttered the words, "Let's roll," which authorities believe was a signal to
the other passengers to confront the terrorist hijackers. In one hour, a
transformation occurred among the passengers - athletes, business
people and parents. -- from sheep to sheepdogs and together they fought the wolves,
ultimately saving an unknown number of lives on the ground.

There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible
evil of evil men. - Edmund Burke

Here is the point I like to emphasize, especially to the thousands of
police officers and soldiers I speak to each year. In nature the sheep, real
sheep, are born as sheep. Sheepdogs are born that way, and so are wolves.
They didn't have a choice. But you are not a critter. As a human being, you can be
whatever you want to be. It is a conscious, moral decision.

If you want to be a sheep, then you can be a sheep and that is okay,
but you must understand the price you pay. When the wolf comes, you and your
loved ones are going to die if there is not a sheepdog there to protect you. If
you want to be a wolf, you can be one, but the sheepdogs are going to hunt
you down and you will never have rest, safety, trust or love. But if you want
to be a sheepdog and walk the warrior's path, then you must make a conscious
and moral decision every day to dedicate, equip and prepare yourself to thrive
in that toxic, corrosive moment when the wolf comes knocking at the door.

For example, many officers carry their weapons in church.? They are
well concealed in ankle holsters, shoulder holsters or inside-the-belt
holsters tucked into the small of their backs.? Anytime you go to some form of
religious service, there is a very good chance that a police officer
in your congregation is carrying. You will never know if there is such an individual in your
place of worship, until the wolf appears to massacre you and your loved ones.

I was training a group of police officers in Texas, and during the
break, one officer asked his friend if he carried his weapon in church. The other
cop replied, "I will never be caught without my gun in church." I
asked why he felt so strongly about this, and he told me about a cop he knew who was at
a church massacre in Ft. Worth, Texas in 1999. In that incident, a mentally
deranged individual came into the church and opened fire, gunning down fourteen
people. He said that officer believed he could have saved every life that day
if he had been carrying his gun. His own son was shot, and all he could do
was throw himself on the boy's body and wait to die. That cop looked me in the
eye and said, "Do you have any idea how hard it would be to live with yourself
after that?"

Some individuals would be horrified if they knew this police officer
was carrying a weapon in church. They might call him paranoid and
would probably scorn him. Yet these same individuals would be enraged and would call for
"heads to roll" if they found out that the airbags in their cars were defective,
or that the fire extinguisher and fire sprinklers in their kids'
school did not work. They can accept the fact that fires and traffic accidents can
happen and that there must be safeguards against them.

Their only response to the wolf, though, is denial, and all too often
their response to the sheepdog is scorn and disdain. But the sheepdog
quietly asks himself, "Do you have and idea how hard it would be to live with
yourself if your loved ones attacked and killed, and you had to stand there
helplessly because you were unprepared for that day?"

It is denial that turns people into sheep. Sheep are psychologically
destroyed by combat because their only defense is denial, which is
counterproductive and destructive, resulting in fear, helplessness and
horror when the wolf shows up.

Denial kills you twice. It kills you once, at your moment of truth
when you are not physically prepared: you didn't bring your gun, you didn't
train. Your only defense was wishful thinking. Hope is not a strategy.
Denial kills you a second time because even if you do physically survive, you
are psychologically shattered by your fear helplessness and horror at
your moment of truth.

Gavin de Becker puts it like this in Fear Less, his superb post-9/11
book, which should be required reading for anyone trying to come to
terms with our current world situation: "...denial can be seductive, but it has an
insidious side effect. For all the peace of mind deniers think they get by saying it
isn't so, the fall they take when faced with new violence is all the more
unsettling."

Denial is a save-now-pay-later scheme, a contract written entirely in
small print, for in the long run, the denying person knows the truth on some
level.

And so the warrior must strive to confront denial in all aspects of
his life, and prepare himself for the day when evil comes.

If you are warrior who is legally authorized to carry a weapon and you
step outside without that weapon, then you become a sheep, pretending that
the bad man will not come today. No one can be "on" 24/7, for a lifetime.
Everyone needs down time. But if you are authorized to carry a weapon, and you
walk outside without it, just take a deep breath, and say this to
yourself...
"Baa."

This business of being a sheep or a sheep dog is not a yes-no
dichotomy. It is not an all-or-nothing, either-or choice. It is a matter of degrees,
a continuum. On one end is an abject, head-in-the-sand-sheep and on
the other end is the ultimate warrior. Few people exist completely on one end or the
other.
Most of us live somewhere in between. Since 9-11 almost everyone in America
took a step up that continuum, away from denial. The sheep took a few steps
toward accepting and appreciating their warriors, and the warriors started
taking their job more seriously. The degree to which you move up that
continuum, away from sheephood and denial, is the degree to which you and your loved
ones will survive, physically and psychologically at your moment of truth.

It amazes me how many folks vote Democrat. I live in the Southeast corner of Alabama and work in Florida. Close to half the folks around here vote Democrat. Thankfully, it is less than half. They vote Democrat because that is the way their mom and dad votes or maybe it is because of the "myth", that Democrats are for the poor man. They vote for a liberal party, yet if you ask anyone around here 99% are very conservative on almost every issue.
For example, on issues like gun control, all most everyone will tell you quick.. " I am against gun control. They will have to kill me before they take my guns from me" Yet they vote for the liberal Democrats who are the very ones for gun control.
You can ask anyone how they feel about taxes and everyone you meet will tell you we are taxed way too much. Some of those same folks will turn around and vote for a Democrat. Democrats are all about raising taxes. They say stuff like, "We are just gonna tax the rich", but if you got a job, they think you are rich. They are into "Redistribution Of Wealth". Playing Robbin Hood... Take from the rich and give to the poor. That sounds noble and all that, but Robbin Hood was a thief! I think we are ALL taxed too much. the rich, the poor, and everyone in the middle. We all are taxed way too much.
Everyone in my community is very pro law enforcement and are for enforcing the laws and punishing those who cannot obey the laws of our land. Yet some still vote for Democrats who are soft on criminals. Democrats are criminal advocates. They worry more about criminals rights than the victims rights. They try to make sentences for convicted felons shorter, when we all know they should be making felon's sentences longer and harder. My community is strongly in favor of the death penalty. Democrats still get some of my community's votes although Democrats are against the death penalty.
Separation from church and state?........ The smart ones around here really do understand that it means keeping the government out of your church, not keeping God out of political issues. How can anyone expect our leaders to make important decisions that effect us all, without having some sort of moral compass to lead them? A perfect example is the Ten Commandments is a courtroom. The intelligent people around here know that it is important to have MORAL guidelines in our court system. Regrettably, some of the intelligent people still vote for Democrats who want all decisions to be made with no moral stance at all.
Just who in the world is not for a strong military? Nobody from around here, yet Democrats still pull in votes although they would love to disband out military, or at lease make it smaller and less efficient. They don't think we need a military because they do not believe we should ever go to war with any country for any reason... EVER! Even if we are attacked!
Folks around here believe in equality. They know slavery was wrong and that at one time minorities were treated a second class citizens. They know this and have moved on. They want true equality now. They feel true equality does not include affirmative action. They know reversed discrimination is as wrong as any other form. Some of these same people will vote for a Democrat even though Democrats strongly support any and all types of affirmative action. Affirmative Action in which you get a job or college admittance not based on your qualifications, but based purely on race or sex.
Folks here in my part of the world feel very strongly about abortion. Even the very few around here who don't see abortion as murder, know that late term abortions are pure evil! So why do Democrats get some of these folks votes even though they are pro abortion even if it is very late in a pregnancy. They basically support a woman carrying a baby full term and killing it at anytime.
You ask anyone and they will tell you "Two men kissing just ain't right!". Yea, most folks don't care what adults do in the bedroom, but they feel passionately that marriage should be between one man and one woman. No matter what you do in private, common sense tell folks that a kid needs a Mom and a Dad! Yes, there are a lot of single Moms and Dads doing a great job of raising their kids. But if given a choice, most reasonable people feel the government should do everything it can to support a kid being in a stable family. Moms and Dads both have separate and important roles in a child life. If you allow gay marriage and for gays to adopt kids, you are guaranteeing that a child will be raised without that important element in their life. A few of these same people around me that know these things, will still turn right around and vote for a Democrat. A Democrat that sees no problem with two men or two women marrying and raising kids.
Though my community does not have the problem of illegal aliens as bad as other parts of the country, we do have our share of it. People around here know that we need to CLOSE OUR BORDERS! Then, after we fix the border, we need to deal with those here who have violated our nations sovereignty. That does not mean giving them special treatment over those who are trying to come here the right way. Democrats can still get a few votes from my community. My community who understands this issue so well. Sadly, no political party seems to be willing to do the right thing and close our border, but if it ever does happen, it will not be the Democrats who do it.
The problem is that there is a strong tradition of voting for Democrats based on how our parents and grandparents voted. Maybe 50 or a 100 years ago I may have voted Democrat too. But in the past 40 or so years the Democratic party has been hijacked by the left wing liberals. Folks now days are not paying attention. They are just voting based on tradition. If you keep up with politics by watching MTV, Oprah, or other junk like that, you will never realize just how out of whack the Democrats are. CBS, ABC, NBC, and CNN ain't much better. They are all liberals. The only way you are gonna get the truth about politics and the state of our country is by watching FOX News Channel, or listening to talk radio shows like Sean Hannity, Bill O'Rielly, Michael Savage, Neal Boortz, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh and others like them.
Oh yea... I know that not ALL Democrats feel and vote this way, but this IS their party's platform.

Sports fan? Not Exactly....I used to really follow pro football and other sports. But I reached a point in my life (Maybe I just outgrew them)where I started to question how people are so devoted to one team over another. I live in Alabama, so the big thing around here is if you pull for Alabama or Auburn. I always pulled for Alabama. But I liked Auburn also. People would get down right mad if I told them that. They would say " You got to pull for one and hate the other one". Well that's just stupid! Both teams represent my state I live in. They are both good teams. Why would I not support both teams from my home state? It made me really stop and look at the whole "Sports Fan" thing. I know peolpe that have lived around here their whole lives, but they are big fans of New York teams or Washington teams. If you really want to see something funny ask a big sports fan why he or she pulls for a certain team. They will give you the most craziest reason. Most of them like one team because that is who their parents liked. It is that simple. I love sports, but I just don't get into the whole "My Team" thing. Ask a sports fan if they feel good when their team wins. They will almost always say yes. Then ask them if they feel like a less of a man or a loser if their team does not win. Then watch the look on their face. Why would anyone ever tie their emotions so closely to how a ball game will turn out?

 

I am not a really big hunter. I have nothing against hunting and have done my share of it. I just enjoy shooting more than hunting. I would rather spend a day shooting houndreds of rounds into paper and seeing how small a group of bullet holes I can make in a target, more than spending all winter in the woods holding a gun and only shooting 3 or 4 times the entire deer hunting seasons. I actually enjoy hunting squirrels. I think it is harder to shoot a little bitty squirrel at 30 yards with a 22 rifle with open sights that is designed to have a range of 40 to 50 yards, than to shoot a big old deer at 80 yards with a rifle designed to shoot 300 or 400 yards. I would hunt squirrels all season long, but.... I don't care to eat squirrels. Another thing is that deer bed down (sleep) in our back yard. We enjoy seeing them out there all the time, so shooting them would be like shooting a pet. Now don't get me wrong; If I look out there and see some big old buck worth hanging on my wall, I will drop him! Like I said, I am not against hunting, it's just not my thing. We have all sorts of wildlife in our backyard which is at the edge of some woods. We have deer, squirrels, bobcats, coyotes, owls, and wild ducks that stay in our small pond at night.