Reflections of An Uncommon Common Man

 A group called The Legal Clarity Team explains the Posse Comitatus Act this way. The Posse Comitatus Act, codified as18 U.S.C. 1385 is a federal law that limits the use of the U.S. military in civilian law enforcement. Enacted in 1878, it was designed to prevent military involvement in domestic affairs without explicit authorization from Congress or the Constitution. The statute states that anyone who “willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws” is in violation. While it does not explicitly mention the Navy or Marine Corps, Department of Defense regulations extend similar restrictions on these branches, ensuring the prohibition applies broadly. Several legal exceptions allow military involvement in domestic law enforcement. The most notable is the Insurrection Act, which grants the president authority to deploy federal troops to suppress insurrections, domestic violence, or unlawful obstructions of federal law when lo...

 There is a scene in the movie Lone Survivor where a Navy SEAL team runs into a group of Afghan goat herders. The SEAL team tries to avoid detection but are discovered. The goat herders are captured and the SEAL team is faced with a moral dilemma. This movie is based on the real life Operation Red Wings in Afghanistan. It's goal was to disrupt the operations of Taliban militias in the area. It took place in the Summer of 2005. Upon capturing these Afghan locals the four SEAL team members begin arguing over what to do with them. Since they are isolated and so close to the enemy they basically had three options. Kill them, tie them up and gag them or let them go. They know that if they let them go it will only be a matter of time before they are confronted with overwhelming odds but they they decide  that choosing this option would keep them out of trouble with the political left and the mainstream media. They let them go and predictably the goat herders ran back to their villag...

 President Trump has encouraged the Republican Senate to end the filibuster. After much thought I agree with him. For years I was strongly opposed to ending the filibuster because if the Democrats ever regain control over the executive and both legislative branches America will be finished. They will vote to end the filibuster and simple majority votes will transform this country into a Communist hell hole. The Supreme Court will be packed with Communists, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico will become states. The electoral college will be abolished. Their political enemies will be jailed and murdered. That includes average American patriots who resist. Believe them when they tell you that they want us dead. This is not hyperbole. We are one election away from tyranny and believe me that they will definitely end the filibuster if they regain power.  Trump makes a good point about the filibuster. We have a golden opportunity here. If Republicans can muster the backbone they have a...

   My great great grandfather Goodman Seagraves fought for the Confederacy. He was a private in the 4th Regiment Tennessee Cavalry (Mclemore's). He was born in 1829 in Wake County North Carolina near Raleigh. Goodman died in 1904 in Cherry Hill, Polk County western Arkansas which is near the infamous town of Mena. I am not sure when he enlisted but the unit was formed in May 1862 at Camp Robertson and I am assuming that he fought with the unit until it was surrendered to William T. Sherman in Durham North Carolina. It was assigned to Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry and fought at Parkers Crossroads, Chickamauga, the Atlanta campaign and the battle of Franklin. The men in the unit came from Wilson, Marshall, Bedford, Rutherford, Smith, Marion, Coffee and Franklin counties.  Goodman was married twice. A family story says that his first wife, and my great grandmother Narcissa Ellen Turner supposedly heard that he had been killed in battle. Thinking that she was a widow she ...

 No one but the Communist left is angry over the arrest and deportations of thousands of violent illegal aliens, sexual predators and D.U.I. offenders but some among the more right leaning patriots of the country get a little jelly legged at the prospect of rounding up illegals whose only sin was crossing the border illegally. They are seen as virtuous hard working people who are simply victims of circumstances trying to escape grinding poverty and oppression for a shot at the "American Dream". Is this really an accurate depiction?  How many of these people are committing fraud by working on stolen social security numbers? How many of them are driving without a valid drivers license and insurance? How many leave the scene of an accident because they don't have these things? These things drive up our insurance costs. How many are voting illegally canceling out the vote of legal American citizens? How many are being paid in cash under the table avoiding the payment of incom...

 This 100 year old WW2 veteran was weeping because America has gone to hell. He questioned whether his sacrifice and the sacrifice of others in that war was worth it. On our Veterans Day, which is Remembrance Day in in the UK a 100 year old British WW2 veteran was nearly in tears when he also questioned his sacrifice and the sacrifice of others. One of the hosts asked him why he would say something like that. If someone has to ask that question in Britain after that country has been invaded by multitudes who hate the country and want to destroy it. Also that British people are being jailed for exercising their right to free speech that simply proves the old veterans point. I have noticed that this video has already been removed by YouTube.  I think about this a lot. If I had a time machine and could tell those soldiers preparing to storm the beaches of Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima, North Africa, Sicily, Anzio or Normandy how America would be just eighty years later. W...

  Kind reader, right here my pen, and courage, and ability fail me. I shrink from butchery. Would to God I could tear the page from these memoirs and from my own memory. It is the blackest page in the history of the war of the Lost Cause. It was the bloodiest battle of modern times in any war. It was the finishing stroke to the independence of the Southern Confederacy. I was there. I saw it. My flesh trembles, and creeps, and crawls when I think of it today. My heart almost ceases to beat at the horrid recollection. Would to God that I had never witnessed such a scene!  I cannot describe it. It beggars description. I will not attempt to describe it. I could not. The death-angel was there to gather its last harvest. It was the grand coronation of d*ath. Would that I could turn the page. But I feel, though I did so, that page would still be there, teeming with its scenes of horror and blood. I can only tell of what I saw. Our regiment was resting in the gap of a range of hills i...

   While working at my security job in Nashville yesterday a man walked up to me and struck up a conversation. He spoke good English but with an accent. I asked what his country of origin was and he said Sudan. He asked if I had ever heard of the " Lost Boys Of Sudan". The only lost boys that I remembered were from the vampire movie of the 1980's starring Kiefer Sutherland. I told him no and he told me that he was one of the " Lost Boys of Sudan". He then began to tell me an incredible story that could easily be turned into a movie. When he was about six years old in 1987, I say about because he doesn't know exactly when he was born, the Northern Muslim Sudanese army murdered his parents. They destroyed his village and killed thousands of Christians in South Sudan. Over two million people died in that war. They ki8lled people in some of the most hideous ways including burning people alive. This was part of the Second Sudan War which lasted from 1985 until 20...

I lost two of my favorite people in 2012. My Aunt Goldie Brown Evans who was not only my Aunt but my second mother who raised me after my parents died. She was my mother's last remaining sibling. Also my father's last remaining sibling who was my Aunt Freddie Segroves Davidson. Freddie told me sometime before she died that she met Goldie, who we called by her nickname "Didi", before my father ever met my mother. During World War II they both worked at Liggett's Drugstore which was at the corner of 6th and Church Street in Nashville. After Didi passed away last May I found these two pictures of Liggett's. Didi is in both pictures.

 Yesterday I Googled Charlie Kirk's name because I wanted to know what religious denomination, if any that he was affiliated with. I was immediately struck by Wikipedia's description of him as a right wing activist. It went on to say that " his more disputed positions included his criticism of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Martin Luther King Jr. as well as his promotion of COVID 19 misinformation, false claims of electoral fraud in 2020 and white genocide conspiracy theory." Kirk is also described as a Christian Nationalist as if that is a bad thing. I will deal with Wikipedia's truly despicable mischaracterization of Charlie Kirk later but first I want to address the term right wing. Wikipedia and the media in general nearly always describes people on the right as right wing, or far right. Out of curiosity I looked up Jane Fonda, Whoopi Goldberg, George Clooney, Joy Behar, Barbara Streisand  and Michael Moore to see how Wikipedia described them. Fonda, Goldber...

   What will be the historical legacy of Donald Trump.? Will he be the president who saved America or will he be the president that just bought us a little more time? We measure the greatness of Lincoln based on the fact that he saved the Union. Like Trump he was hated but today most Americans consider him to be one of our greatest presidents if not the greatest. Many call him the "Great Emancipator" but freeing the slaves was secondary to saving the Union. The slaves would not have seen their freedom if the Union had not first been saved. Lincoln took bold action during the war in order to save the Union. Such as suspending habeas corpus and imprisoning people that he considered dangerous to the survival of the Union. These actions are still controversial today but we generally give Lincoln a pass because of the historical outcome of his leadership. America was saved and slavery was abolished.   President Trump faces a far more dangerous Democrat party today than Lincoln...

 Sergeant Edward F. Younger was one of six military pallbearers chosen to select the first unknown soldier to be honored at Arlington National Cemetery. Originally the Army wanted a commissioned officer to make the selection until Major General Harry L. Rogers, the Army quartermaster general intervened. He wanted an enlisted soldier to have the honor. Sergeant Younger was chosen because of his heroic record in WW1. He was severely wounded twice and had been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. Like so many combat veterans he was very humble and always denied that this was the reason that he was chosen. He felt that he was just an average soldier, just like the unknown soldier doing his duty.  Younger walked into the city hall at Châlons-sur-Marne, France, and gazed upon the four identical caskets that lay before him. He felt “overwhelmed” as he selected the Unknown: “I took the flowers and advanced to the little temporary shrine through a line of French troops. I entered t...

 While I was stationed at Erhac Turkey most Security Policemen were getting orders for Ellsworth South Dakota, Malmstrom Montana, Minot and Grand Forks North Dakota. These were all SAC or (Strategic Air Command) bases. It was the Cold War and if you were an SP you were either going to hump B-52 bombers on the flight line or guard ICBM missile silo's. Winters in the Dakota's and Montana are brutal. Temperatures can go as low as twenty below and the wind chill factor even lower. At Lackland, Kingsley, and Erhac I was always given a (dream sheet). You were allowed to make three choices of bases that you would like to be stationed at and I would usually choose places where the weather was warm. Bases like Patrick AFB in Coco Beach Florida, or Hickam AFB in Honolulu Hawaii. I also picked Sewart in Smyrna Tennessee until I learned that the base was going to be closed in 1970. At Erhac my third choice was Peterson Field in Colorado Springs. This was because a friend had been stationed...

In the 13 years that I worked at Stones River Mall I only had violent physical contact with two people. In both cases I was trying to help a police officer restrain someone that they were trying to arrest. There were many times that I felt physically threatened  but everything turned out good in the end. I never liked the fact that we were unarmed working in a mall but mall management didn't want the liability of having armed security officers. I hate the gun free zone signs that are posted in malls and other business establishments. They are just an open invitation for a bad guy to shoot the place up. Buford Tune, a career Metro Nashville police officer and owner of APP's, Academy of Personal Protection once told me that there were more security officers killed in the line of duty each year than police officers. A friend that was in my guard unit for many years was working armed security in Antioch a few years ago when he and his partner was shot by a disgruntled former employ...