Ode To Americas Great Ladies

by Nadra Enzi, Contributing Writer

The death of First Lady Nancy Reagan underscores the centrality of great ladies in maintaining our Republic. Credited with guiding American icon Ronald Reagan on his prodigious path to the White House, she reminds us that great ladies are a resource we can’t afford to lose.

She quietly helped our country win a cold war which threatened humanity and combated illnesses robbing senior citizens of recollection and competence. The same urban war declared when crack cocaine launched itself into Black communities saw Nancy Reagan surrounded by urban children famously telling them to “Just Say No! (to drugs and yes to life)” in defiance of this existential threat to their young lives.

Skeptics scoffed at the initiative and revisionists demonize Reagan era anti-drug trafficking laws as racist, while ignoring the brutal bias of low-income communities under chemical and gang attack. A great lady pulled a national neighborhood becoming a rudderless Hood to her bosom – and by extension – to the forefront of popular consciousness.

Nancy Reagan now joins the ode of American great ladies belonging to eternity. Her example challenges us, men and women alike, to discharge our duties with dignity and diligence. Even political foes unite to trumpet her grand example. She also joins other great ladies like my late grandmothers and mother in Yahweh’s infinite embrace.

Nadra Enzi aka Cap Black, Your UrbanSafetyist, Brothers and Badges Together Advocate. 504 214-3082.
http://www.urbansafetyism.blogspot.com Updates @ http://www.gofundme.com/capblack

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MLK Brings Brothers and Badges Together

by Nadra Enzi, Contributing Writer

It’s not unkind to note that law enforcement, from local to federal, weren’t exactly fans of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Some beat him, others arrested him on trumped up charges and survelllance summed up police abuse he endured.

To be fair, Dr. King was also protected by various levels of law enforcement, too. At no time during these ordeals did he promote attacking police nor demonize the profession. This duality captures how profound a divide can exist between brothers and badges.

Ironically, the 21st century offers closure between descendants of cops who harmed King and contemporary reformers in our community. Violent inner cities can unite police officer and advocate alike by sheer necessity, given the threat commonly faced.

Shared peril can force folks to view each other anew. It’s in this vein that similarity can also draw police officers and community advocates together.

Complaints of bureaucratic bias and media misrepresentation made by police unions and civil rights groups both articulate the plight of high profile minorities, one due to a profession under color of law and the other because of pigment under color of skin. Cops and community advocates feel targeted by politicians, agitators and opinion makers.

Dr. King’s methodology of focusing upon overlooked commonality is particularly instructive in this case. Well-intentioned police officers and community advocates who are honest brokers are allies behind horrible headlines and riotous protests.

Dr. King provided a model for uniting disparate demographics – paid for with his life – which can unite brothers and badges today, thereby saving lives which happen to wear blue and those which happen to wear black skin. Sounds good to me.

Nadra Enzi aka Cap Black, Your UrbanSafetyist!

http://www.urbansafetyism.blogspot.com

Remembering 9/11: Another Perspective from ‘Across the Little Pond’

by Genevieve, Sr. Advisor and Editor

I received the following thoughts in an email just when I was stumped about how I could contribute to the 9/11/01 and 9/11/12 remembrance. How uncanny. I consider the sentiments expressed appropriate as reminders of the atrocities and disrespect.

Thought you might like to read this letter to the editor of a British national newspaper. Ever notice how some people just seem to know how to write a letter?

Written by a housewife, to her daily newspaper:

‘Are we fighting a war on terror or aren’t we? Was it or was it not started by Islamic people who brought it to our shores in July 2002, and in New York Sept 11, 2001 and have continually threatened to do so since?

Were people from all over the world, not brutally murdered that day in Washington, and in downtown Manhattan, and in a field in Pennsylvania?

Did nearly three thousand men, women and children die a horrible, burning or crushing death that day, or didn’t they?

And I’m supposed to care that a few Taliban were claiming to be tortured by a justice system of the nation they come from and are fighting against in a brutal insurgency.

I’ll care about the Koran when the fanatics in the Middle East start caring about the Holy Bible, the mere belief of which is a crime punishable by beheading in Afghanistan.

I’ll care when these thugs tell the world they are sorry for hacking off Nick Berg’s head while Berg screamed through his gurgling slashed throat.

I’ll care when the cowardly so-called ‘insurgents’ in Afghanistan come out and fight like men instead of disrespecting their own religion by hiding in mosques and behind women and children.

I’ll care when the mindless zealots who blow themselves up in search of Nirvana care about the innocent children within range of their suicide bombs.

I’ll care when the British media stops pretending that their freedom of speech on stories is more important than the lives of the soldiers on the ground or their families waiting at home to hear about them when something happens.

In the meantime, when I hear a story about a British soldier roughing up an insurgent terrorist to obtain information, know this:

I don’t care.

When I see a wounded terrorist get shot in the head when he is told not to move because he might be booby-trapped, you can take this to the bank:

I don’t care.

When I hear that a prisoner – who was issued a Koran and a prayer mat, and ‘fed special food’ that is paid for by my taxes – is complaining that his holy book is being ‘mishandled,’ you can absolutely believe in your heart-of-hearts:

I don’t care.

And oh, by the way, I’ve noticed that sometimes it’s spelled ‘Koran’ and other times ‘Quran…’ Well, believe me! You guessed it …

I don’t care!!!

“Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But, the Marines don’t have that problem.” President Ronald Reagan

I have another quote that I would like to add:

Only six defining forces have ever offered to die for you

1. Jesus Christ

2. The British Soldier

3. The Canadian Soldier

4. The US Soldier

5. The New Zealand Soldier, and

6. The Australian Soldier

One died for your soul, the other 5 for your freedom.

September 11th: Twelve Years Later

by Cap Black

September 11, 2001 found me busily visiting my downtown post office box, oblivious to foreign affairs despite having a lifelong interest in them.

I walked into the main area, and noticed a radio playing loudly – which was very odd. I asked the postal worker what was wrong and she said, “They attacked us.”

She then described two airliners hitting the World Trade Center in New York and I immediately called my maternal grandmother and filled her in.

From that point forward, I knew things would change. The specifics of said changes would come in time but one thing I knew with deadly certainly was this generation of Americans would be facing some form of mobilization.

Fast forward to 2013 and with hindsight I see this mobilization hasn’t quite assumed the universal call to arms of the Greatest Generation during World War II.

The presidential baton has passed from Bush to Obama and some loudly wonder if government is mobilizing against the public.

For me, September 11, 2001 means a tragic day when flame and spilled blood forged a bond that suspended racial and partisan bickering, as we became ‘one’ to face a brutal enemy whom experts knew had been stalking America for years.

As an anti-crime activist and Frederick Douglass liberty messenger (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYu6hfmVZk8 [Preview]) the worst crime is if the pregnant warning of this day of days goes unheeded:

Free your people to defend themselves instead of over regulating their right to self-defense against enemies, foreign and domestic, without any regulations!

Cap Black The Hood Conservative

Anti-Crime Activist

http://www.capblackhood.blogspot.com

 

Cap Black is a Contributing Writer to The Bold Pursuit

September 11, 2001 … A Journal Entry

by Mark S., Modesto, California

Hard to imagine 10 years has passed since that fateful day. Seems like yesterday for us, and always will be. It had proven otherwise to be a wonderful summer vacation. One memorable point was en route back to California, we’d just got done seeing friends and family near St Louis, and got back onto I-80 just east of Omaha. Just then the radio station started playing an old Bob Seger favorite of mine, Turn the Page … opening up with the words, “On a long and lonesome highway, east of Omaha …”

Little did I realize those words would be etched in my memory forever in the next 12 hours … it was 10:30pm local time, and it was to be the last night of Peace as we knew it … and for 17 hours the next day, we would have no idea what hit us, who hit us, or even why …

Upon waking up that morning, we decided to go get some coffee. It was quite the vacation, clear to NYC, my son’s first time, and he loved it. Even met some old friends, Mike Arnold and Jerry Dominguez then at Port Authority PD. Jerry showed my son around the places and it was one for the books.

We’d wished we got the chance to go up into the WTC, but it was Sunday, and the best times to go up were Tuesday and Wednesday, so that was out, as I was already late to get my son enrolled in high school, his freshman year, too. We were out of time, so headed home then.

We really weren’t too concerned with the dazed and confused looks on everyone faces that morning … at least at first.

We just thought they were strange locals, and nobody uttered a word. Little did we know at that moment we were about to get a rude shock.

As we took off, my son, Dave turned on the radio … man, we thought the Bob & Tom Show was one sick joke, claiming the WTC had just collapsed.

I had Dave change the station – I wasn’t up for any sicko BS that early on, as I thought it very poor taste.

What we soon found out was, it was on every single station … suddenly, it sobered us up … fast. Realizing this wasn’t a joke, my son looked at me with that 1000-yard stare, scared to death, repeating “Dad? DAD!”

I took over, same thing … every station was the same voices.

I kept trying to reassure him it was ok. Somehow … it HAD to be ok. It was the last thing we needed. We almost wished our semi-denial wasn’t unfounded … somehow.

Hearing reports of a total FAA ground-stop I looked as if to verify there wasn’t a vapor trail in the sky, where normally it’d be filled with them flying cross-country, corroborating the FAA reports.

Few vehicles were on the road at all…and many more military vehicles than normal were out. I knew we were at war, but never dreamed how close, or deadly serious, it had become. We just weren’t ready for what we were about to see that day.

By then I had been flying at 90+mph, so much so that the overdrive kept cutting out on me at 95 … and knew I’d have to gas up soon. It took us to the WY state line to realize we’d need breakfast, and gas. All I knew was “get home! … now!” But home was 1200 miles away, such as it was, and we knew we had to get back there.

On approach to Cheyenne, I saw something I thought I’d never see…going by some of Warren AFBs missile silos scattered about the area, some close to the highways, and seeing them OPEN! Yes, the sliding block concrete slab had been moved away from the hatch. Right then I knew the President was in the “snap count.”

“My God! They’re actually going to do it,” I’m thinking. And I didn’t even know why … yet. I thought, my son, deserving a long and rich life, wasn’t going to get it. I tried so hard not to cry. I had to keep it together.

Still, I got gas at the TA truck Stop in Burns, just east of Cheyenne, but paused long enough to see the TV screen, along with the mass crowd of truckers standing in stunned silence next to me, and watching the towers falling on replay. Dave didn’t even want to see it – I was simply transfixed. The towers we just saw the other day were blasted off the face of the Earth – it seemed to defy logic of the possible … but it happened.

One cause for some relief-no missiles flew yet, so I knew someone had the sense to at least put it on hold, maybe get their bearings, and just what was going on, before resorting to it.

I didn’t stop for the next gas-up until Evanston WY, right at the Utah line … still watching TV screens when I could as we ate & ran like hell. We made Salt Lake by 7pm, getting dark but long enough to see what radio reported as military convoys headed for the airport. Above I could see 2 fully loaded F-16s escorting a KC-10 tanker, and the airport, with all the civilian planes pushed to the east side, were loaded up with an entire squadron of B-52s on the west tarmac, waiting for the convoys, which turned out I saw the codes on their crates – they were nuclear weapons bound for the bombers, waiting, lights on & flashing. The radio said not to interfere with them or we’d be shot…they blazed past us at 100mph, so I stayed well out of their way. Obviously, there was still a chance things would fly … I knew they would, as I knew the process. They’d fly on order.

I saw my son trying not to cry-he was just 14 … I reassured him things would be ok, that I’d never let anything happen, and reminded him we were well out of the cities and harm’s way, should worse come to worst. I wasn’t sure what else to say that would prove better comfort for him.

If he hid his grief, he fooled me well – it seemed as if my talk helped. All I knew was we had another 750 miles to go, so I knew I wouldn’t make it home tonight-maybe tomorrow afternoon.

By the time the days adrenalin calmed down, it was 2am local time, and we made it to Winnemucca NV, calculating in my head, another 350mi past SLC, 176mi from Reno, and 376 miles from home-it was all I could do being in combat mode … after 1300 miles nonstop.

We got a room, it made Dave feel safe, even for the time being-that was critical, especially at that moment in time. Bad enough at the time I’d just gotten him after a nasty custody battle, now this … My God, I thought – how the hell was I gonna get us through all THIS?

Now our nation was at war, too. Nobody needed to tell me that one.

Every possibility was flying through my head … wondering what hit us, who hit us, and why … moreover, why do this to my son, why mess up his world? The usual million things ran through my mind … was it something I did, or didn’t do right? … was God mad at me? or did he let this happen for a reason?… I got to the point where even the absurd wasn’t beyond consideration.

Too tired to think, but too keyed to sleep … I stayed up until 5am watching in total disbelief the day’s events, over and over. I watched until I couldn’t keep my eyes open further.

During the whole time, I began pleading with God … if he wanted me, to take ME, don’t take my son, should it come to that, His will be done. Turns out, he took neither.

Then, for some reason I cannot explain to this day, as I prayed … perhaps for some absolution from whatever it was that brought this on, and for aid and comfort for families of those who didn’t make it … this feeling came over me, warmth, comfort, serenity … even courage, as if a gentle hand touched my shoulder, being reassured somehow that things will be ok. I just wished I could’ve known how at the time.

Well, at least I knew that, for now, no nukes went off, and we were in one piece. It was all we had to hold onto-to go on … and for the moment, that was all we needed. Dave surprised me when he woke for a moment, knew my hurt, grief, and dilemma, and told me “Dad, it’s ok … hey, even if something bad happens, at least we made it this far together.”

He has a knack for saying the right thing at the right time … he knew we were just getting things back to some normalcy for our own family before this, as it would be a tough road alone, apart from today’s nightmare … and was glad for what we did have … the eternal optimist, he seemed.

I didn’t know why, but I knew there was a purpose for it all. It also didn’t help when we found Jerry had died at the WTC, and Mike explained it all to us the next year, when we went back to pay our respects … He died doing what he loved to do, being a cop – that just tore Dave up. He’d only met him just a month before. Mike barely survived, and now graying early … I can see why.

But all that would come soon enough … as I still had no idea who hit us by nightfall, as nothing was really clear …

For now, I was relishing that peaceful moment.

The peaceful moment, albeit short-lived, helped me fall asleep just when I needed it most – and didn’t wake until 10am, when we took off for the final leg home … and see what we had to work with to survive this round, but I knew somehow, we’d make it.

“Failure is not an option.” I’ve learned, especially now.

But for my son, it was his Pearl Harbor … he grew up a lot that day, as well as going through a custody battle, so he’d been through a lot.

It was also both our Day of Days …

The Tomb of the Unknown

The Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, is also known as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, although it has never been officially named.Sentinels salute the Tomb of the Unknown, Courtesy: Arlington National Cemetery

The Unknown of World War I

On Memorial Day, 1921, four unknowns were exhumed from four World War I American cemeteries in France. U.S. Army Sgt. Edward F. Younger, who was wounded in combat, highly decorated for valor and received the Distinguished Service Medal in “The Great War, the war to end all wars,” selected the Unknown Soldier of World War I from four identical caskets at the city hall in Chalons-sur-Marne, France, Oct. 24, 1921. Sgt. Younger selected the unknown by placing a spray of white roses on one of the caskets. The chosen unknown soldier was transported to the United States aboard the USS Olympia. Those remaining were interred in the Meuse Argonne Cemetery, France.

The Unknown Soldier lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda from his arrival in the United States until Armistice Day, 1921. On Nov. 11, 1921, President Warren G. Harding officiated at the interment ceremonies at the Memorial Amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery.

The Unknown of World War II and Korea

The World War II Unknown was selected from remains exhumed from cemeteries in Europe, Africa, Hawaii and the Philippines. Two unknowns from World War II, one from the European Theater and one from the Pacific Theater, were placed in identical caskets and taken aboard the USS Canberra, a guided-missile cruiser resting off the Virginia capes.

The Unknown of Vietnam

The Unknown service member from the Vietnam War was designated by Medal of Honor recipient U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Maj. Allan Jay Kellogg Jr. during a ceremony at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, May 17, 1984.

Many Vietnam veterans, as well as President and Mrs. Ronald Reagan visited the Vietnam Unknown in the U.S. Capitol. An Army caisson carried the Vietnam Unknown from the Capitol to the Memorial Amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day, May 28, 1984. President Reagan presided over the funeral, and presented the Medal of Honor to the Vietnam Unknown.

The president also acted as next of kin by accepting the interment flag at the end of the ceremony.

Information and images courtesy of Arlington National Cemetery.

 

The Sentinel’s Creed 

My dedication to this sacred duty
is total and whole-hearted.
In the responsibility bestowed on me
never will I falter.
And with dignity and perseverance
my standard will remain perfection.
Through the years of diligence and praise
and the discomfort of the elements,
I will walk my tour in humble reverence
to the best of my ability.
It is he who commands the respect I protect,
his bravery that made us so proud.
Surrounded by well meaning crowds by day,
alone in the thoughtful peace of night,
this soldier will in honored glory rest
under my eternal vigilance.
“The Sentinel’s Creed are the 99 words we live by. The words bring vast emotions to the surface when spoken by a Sentinel. We tend to stand a little taller, back a little straighter and our head just a little higher. These words capture the true meaning of why we are Tomb Guards. When ever a Tomb Guard salutes a commissioned officer, they always say in a loud voice:

 

“Line Six, Sir!”

This Memorial Day, The Bold Pursuit salutes our fallen heroes and those who currently serve our country at home and abroad.

The War of 2012 … The Beginning

Noel Alcoba, Political Cartoonist to The Bold Pursuit

We are delighted to announce that Noel Alcoba has joined The Bold Pursuit as our official Political Cartoonist. Noel entertains and informs a large following of fans on Facebook with edgy and topical cartoons. The Bold Pursuit welcomes Noel as a regular weekly contributor to our website. Please visit Noel’s website, RighthandedCartoons.com, for more information about Noel and his work.