Today's post came from a reader

A reader sent me a letter via IM on a website I frequent. It's pretty good so I figured I'd share it.


Pic,

I am a long time reader of your blog, and I've shared it with my oil field buddies too. I have a question for you, as I like how you think and how you write. If you are interested in responding, I am interested in hearing what you think on the below topic. If you decide to use this publicly on your blog, I would appreciate that it remain anonymous.

I read the gloom and doom that the country has gone down the tubes. Game over man, etc.

I don't hold to that. Yeah it sucks, yeah we've got a lot of disappointment in the way things are going and have been run nationally for quite a while... Possibly dating back to LBJ and the "great society" or even before.

I am joining the U.S. Air Force Reserve and taking a big pay cut from my civilian job to do it. I have signed up for a 10 year minimum commitment as a pilot, flying a weapons system that hangs it out in harms way quite often. I feel I am tying myself and my families future to the United States economically and potentially with my life. There are a lot of folks that are telling me "shame, its not 'Merica anymore, kid" In my opinion, fuck that defeatist attitude. Yeah it sucks, but dammit, I am not giving up like I feel so many doing. I grew up here and I think the country is still the best country in the world. We may decide to go down the road to a total lack of national character along with utter moral and economic destruction... But I am not throwing in the towel yet.

I am going to keep doing what I can to bring it back. We aren't alone. We have freedom still, and things CAN turn around in a generation! It happened in antiquity and hell, it happened in Canada.

God Bless America, the U.S. Air Force, the other branches, AR-15s, 1911s, and M14s. anyway, I digress.

Hardship sharpens man, and I feel that my generation really has a polar contrast of shitheads and good young men and women. I really hope and pray that we can turn things around. I am not giving up. We may turn into the U.K. nanny state eventually, but I don't see the point in the gloom and doom or giving up just yet.

Very Respectfully,

Mike


I hope the hell he's right for those I am leaving behind when I pass on.


my other blog is: http://officerpiccolo.blogspot.com/ http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/