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so I was
All on fire and constructing this poetic and effective blog in my head about the refusal of appeal of execution for the DC sniper (a mentally disturbed man suffering from Gulf War Syndrome set to be executed on Veteran’s Day of all days…yay rah..makes me proud to be a Veteran)…and I jumped up and decided I needed candy before I did that.
Then I immediately jumped to the fact that I have eaten the entire stock of vanilla Charleston Chews from the corner store (where for some reason my nickname is “White Baby”). So I was intensely thinking about murdering Veteran’s on Veteran’s Day and what type of candy I could get when I stepped out the door and closed it.
After, of course, carefully locking it.
And realized I had just locked the Mad Kitten and myself outside.
So I went and got candy.
Nonpareils (very disappointing) and caramel creams (which I love but always make me sick) and came back to discover that yes…the door was still locked.
So began the process of balancing on a upturned recycle bin, prying at the bay door with a piece of broken fence and fishing around with a telephone wire I found in the garbage to try and unlatch the top and bottom bolts. All while the mad kitten raced and raced up and down the driveway (which she never ventures into without me) playing in the leaves.
And on and on it went till at last I looped the bolts and pulled them open.
By then I had sucked down all my candy without enjoying it at all.
John Allen Mohammed is a Veteran of the US Military who served in the Gulf War. He went with some mental difficulties, came out with the same and a passel of other problems. PTSD and the Gulf War Syndrome. And he received the typical care that a Veteran of a war receives in our country, which is just abysmal.
He was not a high functioning man.
When he began sniping he was successful because he had a helper who drove him and watched out for him. The helper got life. John was sentenced to death. John, would not have been able to kill as many people as he did and evade capture without that helper. Yet again…the imbalance in justice. The inconsistency in what we choose to apply the death penalty to.
I said he was not a high functioning man and yet he was capable of high functioning planning of the attacks and how to prep the car so he could shoot from it. This is not indicative that he was high functioning enough to understand the totality of what he was doing. All he did was follow what was perhaps the only repetitive and structured training he ever had, had to best kill some one.
The military, back when I served, aimed all of its course at an 8th grade level comprehension because that was the general education and comprehension level of the majority of its enlisted forces. While I was in the service they dropped that to a 6th grade level and changed the nature of the ASFAB (the test you take to get in) because the comprehension level of the people still willing to enlist had dropped sharply.
Military training is designed to make people who function on the mental and emotional levels of an 11 year old efficient and self-sufficient combat machines. Everything about it is designed to be successful in that arena. A non-functioning adult in everyday society can function well in a military one. It is…it is as structured as a group home or psychiatric society. Until, that is, you get into combat and then already damaged people are thrust into an intense and erratic situation that damages them further. They are usually deemed unfit for duty and discharge into a veteran’s support system that (as was revealed this week and has been all year) is about as good at monitoring the capabilities of their physicians and psychiatrists as the Roman Catholic church has been at managing their paedophiles.
Speaking of which, the psych community is rocking and a reelin’ from a study released out of Britain that tackles the subject of Women Paedophiles and their prevalence. What they have found is challenging all our social myths that they either do not exist or are only coerced by their male partners. But I am not up to writing about that now.
Now…I am wondering if it is worth a longer walk to the other store with my keys in hand to get a Charleston Chew.
copyright 2000-2009 Cassandra Tribe.
All rights reserved. For permission to use any of this material please contact info@loveandwords.com
Cassandra Tribe is a member of Newsy.com
Then I immediately jumped to the fact that I have eaten the entire stock of vanilla Charleston Chews from the corner store (where for some reason my nickname is “White Baby”). So I was intensely thinking about murdering Veteran’s on Veteran’s Day and what type of candy I could get when I stepped out the door and closed it.
After, of course, carefully locking it.
And realized I had just locked the Mad Kitten and myself outside.
So I went and got candy.
Nonpareils (very disappointing) and caramel creams (which I love but always make me sick) and came back to discover that yes…the door was still locked.
So began the process of balancing on a upturned recycle bin, prying at the bay door with a piece of broken fence and fishing around with a telephone wire I found in the garbage to try and unlatch the top and bottom bolts. All while the mad kitten raced and raced up and down the driveway (which she never ventures into without me) playing in the leaves.
And on and on it went till at last I looped the bolts and pulled them open.
By then I had sucked down all my candy without enjoying it at all.
John Allen Mohammed is a Veteran of the US Military who served in the Gulf War. He went with some mental difficulties, came out with the same and a passel of other problems. PTSD and the Gulf War Syndrome. And he received the typical care that a Veteran of a war receives in our country, which is just abysmal.
He was not a high functioning man.
When he began sniping he was successful because he had a helper who drove him and watched out for him. The helper got life. John was sentenced to death. John, would not have been able to kill as many people as he did and evade capture without that helper. Yet again…the imbalance in justice. The inconsistency in what we choose to apply the death penalty to.
I said he was not a high functioning man and yet he was capable of high functioning planning of the attacks and how to prep the car so he could shoot from it. This is not indicative that he was high functioning enough to understand the totality of what he was doing. All he did was follow what was perhaps the only repetitive and structured training he ever had, had to best kill some one.
The military, back when I served, aimed all of its course at an 8th grade level comprehension because that was the general education and comprehension level of the majority of its enlisted forces. While I was in the service they dropped that to a 6th grade level and changed the nature of the ASFAB (the test you take to get in) because the comprehension level of the people still willing to enlist had dropped sharply.
Military training is designed to make people who function on the mental and emotional levels of an 11 year old efficient and self-sufficient combat machines. Everything about it is designed to be successful in that arena. A non-functioning adult in everyday society can function well in a military one. It is…it is as structured as a group home or psychiatric society. Until, that is, you get into combat and then already damaged people are thrust into an intense and erratic situation that damages them further. They are usually deemed unfit for duty and discharge into a veteran’s support system that (as was revealed this week and has been all year) is about as good at monitoring the capabilities of their physicians and psychiatrists as the Roman Catholic church has been at managing their paedophiles.
Speaking of which, the psych community is rocking and a reelin’ from a study released out of Britain that tackles the subject of Women Paedophiles and their prevalence. What they have found is challenging all our social myths that they either do not exist or are only coerced by their male partners. But I am not up to writing about that now.
Now…I am wondering if it is worth a longer walk to the other store with my keys in hand to get a Charleston Chew.
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Video Release: October 2009copyright 2000-2009 Cassandra Tribe.
All rights reserved. For permission to use any of this material please contact info@loveandwords.com
Cassandra Tribe is a member of Newsy.com
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