Sunday, May 31, 2020
Economic Liberty and the Constitution May 30, 2020 by Dan Mitchell
In this interview from last March, I groused that the Supreme Court – largely thanks to statist Justices appointed by one of America’s worst presidents – basically decided, starting in the 1930s, that it would no longer be bound by the Constitution’s provisions that protect economic liberty.
I’m not a lawyer, much less an expert on the Constitution, but I know how to read.
The Constitution very clearly is a document to constrain rather than enable government. It was designed to produce what I’ve referred to as Madisonian constitutionalism.
When Justices ignore their responsibility to protect our rights, however, they’re basically acting like this satirical image of President Obama.
Let’s look at two very tragic legal cases from that era.
Professor John McGinnis, writing for Law & Liberty, discusses the wretched Supreme Court case that undermined the Constitution’s Contract Clause.
…the Contract Clause…was the most litigated provision of the Federal Constitution in the 19th century, but today it has become a shadow of its former self because the Court has abandoned its original meaning. …The Contract Clause provides: “No State shall… pass any… Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts.” …in The Federalist, Madison argued that the Clause was a “bulwark in favor of… private rights.”…It is designed to protect an important aspect of the rule of law: a prohibition on the government changing specific plans that autonomous individuals have made. …For the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Supreme Court was relatively faithful in interpreting the Clause. In Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell, however, the Court departed from its role as a faithful agent of the Constitution. …influenced by the Depression and the growing discontent with the jurisprudence of substantive due process with which it confused the clear command of the Contract Clause, the Court upheld the law. It is true that times were hard, but as Justice George Sutherland’s dissent noted, legislation protecting debtors against creditors is passed precisely at such times, and yet such legislation was exactly the kind of evil which the Clause was designed to prohibit. The case is striking as an example of one of the most express rejections of originalism. Chief Justice Hughes stated explicitly that the Court was not bound by the original understanding of the Clause.
Writing for FEE, Professors Antony Davies and James Harrigan explain the terrible 1942 decision by the Supreme Court to remove any meaningful restriction on the power of the central government.
They start by pointing out that the 18th Amendment (imposing prohibition) was an example of how to expand the power of government in the proper way.
The Constitution creates a government of enumerated powers, which means the federal government is only authorized to do things that are specifically listed in the Constitution. And that list is relatively short. The list appears in Article One, Section Eight and enumerates the proper objects of congressional legislation.…Consider the United States’ ill-advised flirtation with Prohibition—which was enacted almost exactly 100 years ago. Nowhere in the Article One, Section Eight powers does one see the authority to “ban the manufacture, transport, or sales of alcohol within the United States.” When Americans decided that they wanted a coast-to-coast ban on alcohol, they amended the Constitution to give the federal government this authority. Fourteen dry years later, Americans came to their senses and revoked this authority by amending the Constitution again.
Alcohol prohibition was a mistake, of course, just like today’s drug prohibition, and the American people went through the proper process of adopting the 21st Amendment (to repeal the 18th Amendment).
Davies and Harrigan then explain that it was about that time that the Supreme Court decided that it would no longer uphold the Constitution’s restrictions on the powers of the central government.
As of 1933, when the 21st Amendment was ratified, Americans still had a constitutionally limited federal government and what Justice Louis Brandeis famously called “laboratories of democracy” in the states. …But who ended up being tasked with deciding what Article One, Section Eight actually meant? Herein lies the wrinkle that enables all manner of constitutional mischief in the United States. The institution that ended up deciding what the federal government is empowered to do is itself a branch of the federal government. And it should come as no surprise that when push comes to shove, the Supreme Court routinely finds in favor of empowering the federal government.
One of the most horrifying examples of judicial failure occurred in 1942.
In 1942, the Supreme Court decided a case, Wickard v. Filburn, in which farmer Roscoe Filburn ran afoul of a federal law that limited how much wheat he was allowed to grow. …A careful reader might, and should, ask where the federal government’s right to legislate the wheat market is to be found—because the word “wheat” is nowhere to be found in the Constitution. …The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 put an upper limit on how much wheat farmers were allowed to grow, which would serve to keep prices high by limiting supply. Roscoe Filburn had grown 12 more acres of wheat than the law allowed. But not only did he not sell the excess wheat outside of his home state, but he also didn’t sell it at all. He used the wheat from those 12 acres to feed his cattle. …yet the Supreme Court found (unanimously) that because Congress had the authority to regulate interstate commerce, Congress also had the authority to prohibit Filburn from growing those 12 acres of wheat for his own use. …Filburn’s non-commercial activity was, according to the Supreme Court, interstate commerce. …Filburn’s non-commercial activity was, according to the Supreme Court, interstate commerce.
And here’s the result.
A century ago, we amended the Constitution when we wanted the federal government to exercise a new authority—that of banning alcohol. Today, we allow Congress to exercise almost any authority it likes. …We have progressed so far down the path of reinterpreting the Constitution as a document that empowers government, rather than one that limits it… The sad result has been a government nearly limitless in its power.
By the way, the Obamacare case may be as odious as Wickard v. Filburn since it marked another unfortunate expansion of Washington’s ability to control our lives, in violation of the clear language in Article 1, Section 8.
Though I don’t want to be too glum. The good news is that the Supreme Court occasionally does defend economic liberty, as the Wall Street Journal recently opined.
One goal of the U.S. Constitution was to form a union that allowed interstate commerce unencumbered by state protectionism. The Supreme Court reinforced that principle on Wednesday by striking down a two-year residency requirement to get a liquor license in Tennessee.…a business lobby known as Tennessee Wine and Spirits Retailers Association argued that the 21st Amendment that repealed Prohibition also gave the states broad authority to regulate alcohol. The association knows that if people can move to a state and open up liquor stores, it means more potential competition for those who already have licenses. The law is commercial protectionism and thus violates the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, the High Court ruled in Tennessee Wine and Spirits Retailers Assn. v. Thomas. “Because Tennessee’s 2-year residency requirement for retail license applicants blatantly favors the State’s residents and has little relationship to public health and safety, it is unconstitutional,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito for a 7-2 majority… the 21st Amendment doesn’t override the rest of the Constitution’s principles. As recently as 2005 (Granholm v. Heald), the Court ruled that New York state couldn’t discriminate against out-of-state wineries.
Some judges resent any protections against government power.
In an article for Reason, Damon Root properly castigates a judge for objecting to the economic liberties guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.
Does the U.S. Constitution protect economic liberty, such as the right to work in an occupation of one’s choosing free from unreasonable government regulation? Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice David Wecht thinks not. …in Ladd v. Real Estate Commission of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Wecht faulted his colleagues in the majority for their “judicial intrusion into the realm of legislative value judgments” after that court allowed a legal challenge to proceed against a state occupational licensing scheme.“I cannot endorse a constitutional standard that encourages courts,” he declared, “to second-guess the wisdom, need, or appropriateness” of duly enacted economic regulations. …”For many years, and under the pretext of protecting ‘economic liberty’ and ‘freedom of contract,’ the Supreme Court routinely struck down laws that a majority of the Court deemed unwise or improvident,” Wecht wrote of Lochner and several related cases. …I would encourage Justice Wecht to read some more legal history. …Rep. John Bingham (R–Ohio)…served as the principal author of Section One of the 14th Amendment… As Bingham told the House of Representatives, “the provisions of the Constitution guaranteeing rights, privileges, and immunities” includes “the constitutional liberty…to work in an honest calling and contribute by your toil in some sort to the support of yourself, to the support of your fellow men, and to be secure in the enjoyment of the fruits of your toil.” …even those who opposed the passage of the 14th Amendment agreed that it was designed to protect economic liberty from overreaching state regulation… The “right to contract” was of course later secured by the Supreme Court in Lochner.
Let’s close by detouring into the world of fantasy and contemplating how we should amend the Constitution today?
Rory Magraf lists five ideas in a piece for the Foundation for Economic Education, one of which I find especially tempting.
…the conversation always gets the cerebral juices flowing for legal enthusiasts; the idea of amendingthe US Constitution, something done only twenty-seven times in history, is about as close as one will get to actually sitting among the Founders in Philadelphia. With that in mind, here are some ideas.
The Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.In short, abolish the income tax. This is usually a crowd-pleaser among libertarians and probably a handful of Republicans during an election year, but it is also a bit of a challenge, on the same level as chasing the moon. Still, it would be worthwhile to have the conversation.
Since I’m definitely not a fan of the income tax, I certainly endorse this notion.
However, I think we would need much stronger language. The key 1895 case that struck down the income tax was decided by a the narrow margin of 5-4, and that was back when Justices presumably cared more about the Constitution.
I fear that a similar case today would not lead to the right result (which is one of the reasons I’m skeptical of a national sales tax).
In any event, the federal government’s broad power to tax does not translate into a broad power to spend. At least if we care about the Constitution.
And that means much of the federal government is (or, to be more precise, should be) unconsitutional.
P.S. Here’s some of what Thomas Sowell wrote about Wickard v Filburn.
P.P.S. Here’s some of what Walter Williams wrote about the Constitution’s limits of Washington.
P.P.P.S. If you want to read more, the Constitution was designed to protect against majoritarianism and to ensure “negative liberty.”
P.P.P.P.S. Readers may also be interested in this discussion of whether libertarians should prefer Hamilton or Jefferson.
Peak 7497, MT| May, 2020 Submitted by AE7AP
Summit:
W7M/CL-091
Voice Cellular Coverage:
Don't know
Data Cellular Coverage:
Don't know
Cellular Provider:
N/A
APRS Coverage:
Full two-way messaging
4.8 mi, +1,870 feet, -600 feet
This is a nice hike on a good trail with great views – particularly of the Red Mountain & Caribou Mountain regions of the Scapegoat Wilderness. This hike is close enough to the Scapegoat Wilderness that it is prudent to be Bear-Aware.
From the summit of Flesher Pass, take the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) east. Note that the trail has been rerouted to avoid some of the unnecessary climbs and no longer follows the ridge-top track as shown on the USGS topo map. The trail has one fork that may be confusing – it is located as one approaches the ridgeline high-point that is marked “7415” on the USGS map. Continue straight at this junction (as directed by the CDT signs) – do not double back on the old 2-track. The trail does not go directly over the summit as indicated on the map – it contours around the right (SE) side of the mountain. As such – leave the trail in this area and walk directly up to the summit.
Pictures:
Saturday, May 30, 2020
How to Layer with a Rain Jacket and Stay Warm by Philip Werner
Have you ever gotten really cold while wearing a rain jacket and hiking in the rain? It can be really unpleasant and even lead to hypothermia if you let it get out of hand. The best way to stay warm when hiking in the rain, even in summer, is to wear a wicking midlayer under your rain jacket. You may perspire a bit doing this, but it is way better to be warm and a little damp than damp and chilled to the bone. I’ve found that a fleece pullover provides the best midlayer insulation for hiking in the rain and many other experienced long-distance hikers would agree.
Why do you get wet inside a rain jacket? All rain jackets suffer from condensation when the interior is warmer than the exterior when it’s raining because they trap your body heat. That temperature differential is what causes condensation, just like in a tent. Plus a rain jacket, even a highly breathable one, acts as a heat and vapor barrier trapping the warm water vapor that’s generated when you perspire inside.
If you’re just wearing a wet or damp shirt under a rain jacket (in the rain), there’s nothing to prevent the warmth from being sucked out of your body (since it’s cooler outside your jacket and warmer inside). In fact, water (condensation and perspiration) is 25 times more efficient in terms of heat transfer than air, which is why you’ll feel so cold if you only wear a wet shirt under a rain jacket in the rain.
The solution is to wear a midlayer between your shirt and rain jacket that blocks the transfer of body heat to your rain jacket. A polyester fleece pullover or polyester fleece jacket is the best type of garment for this because it is naturally wicking, pulling moisture from your base layers away from your body while maintaining an envelope of warm air around your core. Polyester fleece is also better than wool because it absorbs less water (it’s plastic after all) and dries much, much faster. Polyester fleece is also fairly inexpensive, very durable, and available in different weights so you can dial in the amount of warmth you need for different times of years or climates.
Suggested 100 Wt Polyester Fleece Pullovers and Jackets
- The North Face TKA Glacier Quarter-Zip Pullover ($59)
- Patagonia Micro-D Fleece Jacket ($89)
- Patagonia R1 Pullover ($129)
What about using a down jacket or a synthetic insulated jacket as a midlayer? While these jackets are more popular (and stylish) than lightweight fleece pullovers or jackets, they’re usually too warm to use as a midlayer garment and are best held in reserve to change into when you stop hiking and want to put on drier and warmer clothes. They also absorb a lot of moisture, even if their insulation been treated with a waterproofing agent, and take much longer to dry than fleece unless you have a clothes dryer handy.
For three-season hiking, most hikers will find a simple 100 weight fleece to be effective as a midlayer under a rain jacket when hiking in the rain. A quarter-zip or half-zip pullover or full zip fleece jacket are all good because they provide venting if you feel to warm, but I’d avoid using a windproof fleece because it is less breathable and wicking. Some people prefer a hood and others not, so that is a point of personal preference.
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Bear Mountain, MT| May, 2020 Submitted by AE7AP
Summit:
W7M/HB-093
Voice Cellular Coverage:
Don't know
Data Cellular Coverage:
Don't know
Cellular Provider:
N/A
APRS Coverage:
Full two-way messaging
2.9 mi, +1,800 feet, -200 feet
From the I-15 Bernice exit (exit 151) several miles west of Basin, head south along the frontage road that is on the east side of the interstate to the well signed Bear Gulch trailhead. The road to the trailhead is suitable for all vehicles. The hike can begin here, or you can proceed further up the 4wd/ATV road (closed to motorized use Oct. 15 – Dec.2). The trail has degraded enough that it is not practical for full-sized vehicles beyond about 0.8 miles (+250 feet) due to a cut-bank that is causing the road to fail. The first 0.8 miles is not a difficult 4wd trail, but it is narrow and has some locations that could cause bumper dragging or scratches in many vehicles.
Hike up the ATV trail to a beautiful meadow with the wreckage of an old car where the trail splits. Continue straight (right) and follow the ATV track as it climbs up and to the left, then back to the right (west). The ATV track will intersect a good 4wd road near the ridge crest. Turn right (northerly) and follow the road beneath the power lines to an old Quarry. Leave the road to the right (northwest) near its terminus in the quarry and sidehill to the south saddle and ridge of Bear Mountain, crossing the barbed wire fence that is near the quarry. While the first portion of the bushwack is young, thick lodgepole, it quickly improves to become an open lodgepole forest with a floor of grouse whortleberry and grass. Follow the ridge up & bypass the large rock outcrop near the summit (see photo) on the right (east) via a steep earthen gully. Upon reaching the summit ridge, traverse approximately 100 yards northeast to reach the actual summit.
The road to the quarry appears suitable for most vehicles and would shorten the hike to 0.5 miles and +500 / -80 vertical feet. This road can be accessed from Galena Gulch (I-15 Exit 160) between Boulder and Basin. There are lots of roads in this area and lots of deadfall, so it is advisable to take a map and a chainsaw if you choose this route. I drove most of the road after our activation and it was suitable for most vehicles, but I was blocked by a downed tree that had only been cut wide enough for an ATV.
Pictures:
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
The Unspooling by James Howard Kunstler
What “the Resistance” really fears more than anything is General Michael Flynn’s mouth. He’s been under a judicial gag order since his case went before Judge Emmet Sullivan’s federal district court. Understandably, Gen. Flynn wasn’t eager to complicate his unjust plight with a contempt citation. Judge Sullivan’s recent shenanigans have one object: to keep that gag order in force as long as possible. The moment Judge Sullivan confirms the DOJ’s move to dismiss the charges, as he is duty-bound to do, General Flynn will be free to offer his views to the public. That might be inconvenient in an election season.
I’m sure he has a lot to say. Gen. Flynn was head of the Defense Intelligence Agency for two years (2012 – 2014) under Barack Obama, and he knows a ton about every crooked operation Mr. Obama presided over, including the Benghazi fiasco, the Ukraine regime change op, and especially Mr. Obama’s hijacking of the NSA supercomputer surveillance database known as “the Hammer,” which was set up originally to track terrorists and then used by DNI James Clapper and CIA chief John Brennan to spy on Americans, most particularly Mr. Obama’s political adversaries. It’s rumored that Mr. Obama took the database with him when he left the White House, and it is said to contain great gouts of usefully damning information about just about everyone in government, including senators, congressmen, and Supreme Court justices.
Gen. Flynn became an antagonist to Obama & Co. when he objected to the nuclear deal they were cooking up with Iran and when he spoke out against the CIA’s 2013 Timber Sycamore op to arm and give money to Isis terrorists opposing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Mr. Obama canned Gen. Flynn in 2014. What really sealed Gen. Flynn’s fate was when he started publicly complaining about the politicization of John Brennan’s CIA. The New York Times quoted him saying, “They’ve lost sight of who they actually work for. They work for the American people. They don’t work for the president of the United States. Frankly, it’s become a very political organization.”
And a few months later, he jumped on Donald Trump’s campaign bandwagon. When he led the cheer “Lock her up” at the Republican convention, you can imagine how that gave the heebie-jeebies to a whole lot of other Deep State denizens besides She-Whose-Turn-Was-Foiled. And then, Lord have mercy, he was appointed to sit at Mr. Trump’s very elbow in the West Wing as National Security Advisor! Well, you can imagine the tremors that provoked. Gen. Flynn had declared his intention to completely reorganize, partially dismantle, and audit the intel community monster that had spread like a slime mold through the government. Mr. Brennan especially feared the audit part of the deal, since his agency regarded the billions of dollars that flowed in and out of it as just another one of its sacred secrets. Flynn had to be stopped.
So, John Brennan concocted the RussiaGate scam to put over the idea that General Flynn was an errand boy of Vladimir Putin —lock him up! — and for good measure, Mr. Trump probably was, too. Once they embarked on that grand misadventure, and enlisted the foolish James Comey and his FBI zealots to assist, the gang found themselves involved in a dangerous game of sedition, poorly thought out and executed desperately. And finally, by all that’s holy, the improbable Mr. Trump actually won the election, ensuring that he would be privy to every dark secret moldering in the vaults of the US government.
For three years, the whole wicked scheme has been slowly but steadily unspooling. The hapless (and perhaps senile) Robert Mueller was brought in to cap what threatened to become a political nuclear meltdown. We must suppose that Mr. Mueller was just a figurehead, and yet the supposedly brightest gang of Lawfare attorneys he enlisted — Weissmann, Van Grack, Rhee, Zebley, et. al. — absolutely blew it. They came up with zilch on Russian collusion, they muffed the attempt to nail Mr. Trump on an obstruction of justice rap (and watched helplessly as the inept Schiff & Nadler flopped fecklessly at impeachment), and now, having been exposed in the malicious prosecution of Gen. Flynn, they were forced to drop the case against him.
Finally, Judge Sullivan was recruited by The Resistance in a last-ditch effort to keep Gen. Flynn silent for a couple months more by ginning up an amicus circus that would invite a zillion bogus filings of briefs to be meticulously examined and argued, a pointless exercise in sound and fury. In doing so, he contradicted 25 of his own previous rulings against amicus filings by the defendant, and also moved in violation of a Supreme Court decision (Sineneng-Smith, 2020) and a DC Circuit case (Fokker Services 2016), as well as federal court rules against the use of amicus filings in criminal proceedings.
Now he has a few days to answer a mandamus motion from the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit to cut the shit and do his bound duty in the case. I won’t rehearse the separation-of-powers argument, except to say that Judge Sullivan doesn’t have a leg to stand on, and will be lucky if he is not reprimanded by the higher court. He’s been played by the Lawfare gang and exposed as a useful idiot. They’ve tossed aside his personal honor like a banana skin. Gawd knows what else prompted him to lawyer-up.
The colossal melodrama of a sedition conspiracy is unspooling swiftly now. Before much longer, US Attorney John Durham will weigh in with something, whether it’s a mere report detailing gross abuses of power, or perhaps a string of hard indictments against the seditionists. With bales of evidence of their misdeeds now in the public domain, the various players must be turning on each other viciously now. There’s probably not enough room under the proverbial bus to throw anybody else. They’ll need a train.
Also, comically, FBI Director Christopher Wray opened an “internal investigation” last week to ascertain whether any current members of his agency engaged in any misconduct around the Flynn case. That’s cute. It only took him three years. Of course, most of the major perps have already been fired, Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page. Why is Mr. Wray even still in that job, where his main occupation has been obstructing the release of court-ordered and congressionally subpoenaed documents?
You know what would be really a great move? Fire Chris Wray’s ass and replace him with outgoing Acting DNI Richard Grenell. Let Mr. Grenell just be Acting FBI Director for the statutory six months moving toward the election. Don’t even bother to nominate him and go through a senate confirmation. I bet a lot remaining information would get unstuck fast.
Oh, and get ready for Gen. Michael Flynn to speak. He might have a few interesting things to say. Not all of the news media will ignore him, and then those who do will have a lot to answer for about their long-running complicity in the criminal conspiracy to overthrow a president.
MEMORIAL DAY: A RETIRED ARMY RANGER REFLECTS ON WAR AND LIFE By Jariko Denman
Keep sending him up,” Viper said. As a child of the ’80s, I tend to use the classics of that period as analogies to help me through life — and “Top Gun” is no exception. These movies have been my unofficial therapists in times before I had one, sometimes to the detriment of my mental health. But sometimes mental health doesn’t matter. Sometimes it’s just business.
As a child, I remember being confused as to why Viper would immediately send Maverick up to fly again after he was cleared of responsibility in the death of his backseater, or why they even investigated him to begin with. I also wondered why Maverick would be conflicted about flying again, even though Goose’s widow implored him to.
I was a staff sergeant — a junior squad leader in the 2nd Ranger Battalion — when I first deployed to combat. I had many peers by my side and served closely with my subordinates. I executed orders, and aside from voicing bitches, gripes, and complaints, I was not yet in a position to implement any changes to standard operating procedure or policy. In retrospect, that phase of my military career seems pretty simple and straightforward. Rangering wasn’t exactly easy, but in those days, it wasn’t complicated either.
The war continued, and I put a few more combat deployments under my belt. But then there was the trip I knew was different than all the rest. I still consider it a defining point in my life, watching too many very competent men killed and wounded during some up-close and nasty fights.
To ease the blow of my seemingly invincible comrades’ deaths, I chalked it up to just being the way combat goes — a law of averages. Of course we had guys killed, I thought. Of course we had guys wounded. We were in combat facing suicidal fanatics every night. I scoffed at the cold-hearted idiocy of “investigations” after people were killed in combat. War is war. People die and it’s no one’s fault but the enemy.
RANGERING WASN’T EXACTLY EASY, BUT IN THOSE DAYS, IT WASN’T COMPLICATED EITHER.
When we returned from that deployment, I had a whole new swagger. I had seen the elephant. We constantly evolved to counter the actions of the enemy, but it was never from a place of fear. My frame of reference during those changes was a tactical one, not strategic. But my voice was heard, and I had finally done the things I thought I joined the Army to do.
I was focused when we started training for the next deployment. I was confident and knew without a shadow of a doubt what my men would need to survive the next round.
Training cycles in the 75th Ranger Regiment are predictable, if not mundane when viewed through the lens of someone just returning from combat. Airborne operations were almost always the first up on the training schedule since we almost never conducted them during our deployments. As a jumpmaster, this included going through hours of refreshers, to in turn put novice jumpers through their own refreshers before we started exiting actual aircraft in flight.
As with anything the Regiment does, the T’s were crossed and the I’s were dotted — every aspect of what we did was checked and rechecked. Attention to detail was our hallmark. But that doesn’t mean bad things can’t still happen.
During our first night jump in this block of training, we had a fatality.
Everyone heard the likely scenarios of what caused the death, and everyone agreed: It was no one’s fault, just a dangerous job.
But then the machine went to work. An investigation was put into motion that made me thankful I was not a jumpmaster on the fatality’s aircraft. Our thoughts turned from grieving for the Ranger we’d lost to “whose fault is it?” Simultaneously, our leadership announced that we would be making another, unplanned jump the next day.
Any fear we had of jumping right after a fatality was turned into fiery anger at what we saw as an out-of-touch chain of command who’d have us jump again rather than mourn our fallen. We took our grief and sadness and spun it into laser-focused attention to detail on the tasks at hand.
The next night we conducted the jump, and I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a little bit different. That the stakes weren’t a little bit higher.
My pre-jump routine was flawless, and I inspected every jumper like it was the first and last one I’d ever put out of an aircraft. In doing so, we unknowingly turned that Ranger’s death into something that would be a learning point for every man in that battalion who had to exit an aircraft. It was a lesson we all carried with us for the rest of our careers.
I don’t remember that Ranger’s memorial ceremony, and I didn’t know him that well. But I knew that if I didn’t cut a corner, I wouldn’t have to constantly wonder about it if something catastrophic happened. And I could keep using fate as the excuse. The chain of events portrayed in “Top Gun” made perfect sense: push aside your emotions and make it about business. It’s not healthy, or even right, but it’s sometimes necessary for survival. Especially when you have the lives of others in your hands.
As my deployments stacked up and years passed, I started reading the findings of every after action report. I gained enough experience to read between the lines. I started to notice trends, as did my peers and superiors. These trends shaped the tactics and standard operating procedures that me and many others would carry into every deployment going forward. These changes came to be commonly referred to as “lessons written in blood.”
In the early 2010s, I was on my 14th of what would be 15 deployments. No longer that young squad leader on his first trip, I was the senior enlisted advisor to a regional special operations task force composed of smaller teams dotted across central and eastern Afghanistan. I held this billet during what came to be known as the fighting season, a deployment window every Ranger hopes they get.
And a fighting season we had. This task force was going out nightly on anywhere from one to eight raids during the most kinetic time of the year in arguably the most enemy-populated region of the world at that time.
We fought — a lot.
Besides going out with the platoons I was colocated with and circulating our other outstations to do the same, my responsibilities as the senior enlisted advisor were largely administrative. On numerous occasions I found myself having to be the asshole to guys for doing the same things I did as a junior Ranger.
As the physical challenges of nightly raids in the mountains started taking their toll on my old frame, the mental strain of knowing I had stuck around long enough to become the villain was an equal weight to bear.
This was never more obvious to me than when we had casualties. After the death of a unit member, there are so many administrative requirements put in motion at the leadership level that, if you let it, you stop seeing the deaths as personal and start seeing them as just another part of the job.
ON NUMEROUS OCCASIONS I FOUND MYSELF HAVING TO BE THE ASSHOLE TO GUYS FOR DOING THE SAME THINGS I DID AS A JUNIOR RANGER.
In those times, when we took a casualty, my mind immediately went into action on what had to be done right now. I’d seen countless KIAs across the units I belonged to at this point, and someone being killed had shifted from a time to pause, memorialize, and grieve the warriors we’d lost to a time to conduct the unwritten battle drill: react to death.
I focused on the checklist of tasks that ensured the casualty transfer and notification procedures were executed perfectly. It was a no-fail mission, afterall — one we could not fuck up. Many times over I set emotions aside to issue directives down the chain of command in the execution of that mission. This realization, combined with the speed of war, unwittingly put me in Viper’s shoes.
I coldly pushed my men through memorial ceremony rehearsals and grilled leaders for their recently deceased subordinates having not properly filled out their next of kin information. I’m sure those Rangers cursed my actions, and unbeknownst to them, I was cursing myself, too. But there was a mission. I had responsibilities.
I was not armed with the time or the energy to get through those things while also showing empathy to the Rangers that were close with the fallen — or forgive myself for what I was doing. Their deaths became a part of my job, no different than zeroing my weapon or counting a chalk of Rangers onto an aircraft. There were clearly defined steps and clearly defined metrics for success in the eyes of the organization.
My feelings didn’t matter any more than anyone else’s, and certainly they didn’t matter more than the mission. Aside from brief moments of reflection during a memorial ceremony (which also took a backseat to operational requirements), there wasn’t much time or need to fully grieve for and appreciate the immense sacrifice that one of my comrades — or, in a few cases, one of my best friends — had laid down for me.
The best way to put into context all of those deployments, training cycles, and my compounding experiences is to say that I issued myself mental equipment. I put all of my feelings into modular pouches on my emotional plate carrier. Vigilance, fortitude, and aggressiveness were in mag pouches on my non firing side — readily available to close out any and all problems. Presence, self care, and empathy were stuffed into my contingency bag under my bunk, next to those vapor barrier boots and a wool scarf that I also never used.
I transitioned from seeing sacrifices on the battlefield as an unavoidable tragedy to seeing them as problems to solve. What went wrong? What was to blame? Who was to blame? What can we change? What pattern did we fall into that our enemy exploited? What can we do differently from now on? It may seem harsh, but it was necessary to save the lives of others. And, in turn, it was how we truly made the deaths of our comrades mean something, even if we didn’t know it at the time.
Had Maverick been given the all-clear to take a break with no investigation, and had he not been pushed after he went back up, he probably wouldn’t have pulled out of his next flat spin … and we’d all be speaking Russian now.
As leaders, we are told that everything our unit does or fails to do rests on us. This is true. It is always the leader’s fault. But the other golden rule of leadership is to always take care of your people.
With Memorial Day approaching, we will be showered (rightfully so) with the call to arms that we should live amazing lives as a means to celebrate the lost. This is my mantra as well. “Die living” and “live a great story” are the internal pep talks I give myself daily. But how do we take the individual faces we see on every anniversary across the year — and then all of them at once every Memorial Day weekend — and allow ourselves to process and grieve these amazing people? Living life to the fullest is an excellent catch phrase to toss on an Instagram post one day in May. But until we can peel the onion back and take a harsh look at the life we live the other 364 days of the year, are we truly benefiting from the sacrifices we claim to hold so dearly?
We must use the same survival principles that we applied to our formations in the military, but now apply them savagely to ourselves.
Just as we examined deaths in training and combat with a ruthless eye for detail without regard for individual feelings, we must do this to ourselves, too. If we hope to embody the spirit of living our best lives, we need to lose the idea that grief is equal to respect, admit that we want to be happy, and put the deaths of our friends in the same pile of experiences that led us to where we are today.
UNTIL WE CAN PEEL THE ONION BACK AND TAKE A HARSH LOOK AT THE LIFE WE LIVE THE OTHER 364 DAYS OF THE YEAR, ARE WE TRULY BENEFITING FROM THE SACRIFICES WE CLAIM TO HOLD SO DEARLY?
We must apply the rule of “taking care of your people” to ourselves. Just like the unpopular decisions we made as leaders that saved the lives of our subordinates while ensuring mission success, sometimes we have to apply the same harsh, objective analysis to the things we do to survive day to day. Truly examine our lives. Are we living life to the fullest for those whose deaths saved us? Are we celebrating these men and women — or using their sacrifice as an excuse to justify the circumstances of our own habits and decisions?
I struggled for years. Less with the men I knew, loved, and lost, but with my lack of caring. Even as I type this now, I have to remind myself that caring about how it’s all affected me is the true way to honor the fallen. I’ve come to realize that reflection and remembrance is best done while staying in the present. I have come to honor the dead by including them in my present and letting their sacrifice accompany me through all the moments of happiness and triumph I can finally let myself bask in.
This isn’t about me. And it isn’t about you. It’s about the sacrifice of our fallen being something that truly makes the world a better place. We don’t make that happen by posting a picture of a KIA bracelet next to a glass of bourbon and a unit coin twice a year or by wallowing in how empty we think we are without those we lost. We get that by pausing to smile and remember how amazing it is to be alive in the moment we have our breath taken away by a sunset. It takes work and intention to go about your life with a full heart and to love yourself with the same commitment that you loved those men and women you would have given your life for, had things gone a little differently. If they could sacrifice for us, we owe it to them to drop our egos and do the same.
I do this by using my phone to record great parts of my day. I’ll flip on the video camera and talk to one or all of my friends and tell them how amazing I’m feeling. I thank them for the great meal I ate earlier or for the breeze carrying the smell of honeysuckle up my street when I walked my dog that morning. They’re little movies I make for myself to appreciate and remember the moment and to honor the gifts I’ve been given by the men and women of our past. They earned that for us.
Let’s keep the torch of the fallen burning through each of us for as long as we’re blessed to walk this earth. Smile, and speak their names often. Tell their stories, so the dead may never die. This isn’t meant to tell you not to grieve; grief and sadness are as important and powerful as celebration and happiness. But we set aside those feelings for years, and when they come due, that bill will be compounded with interest. You can pay for them, or you can cash them in. No one said it’d be easy — nothing worth having is.
Just ask Maverick.