My Marine Corps Pilgrimage

Last week I had the honor of meeting a few dozen Marines at Officer Candidate School (OCS). My personal experience with officers in the Corps was usually positive, but not always, and recent public developments concerning the Marine Corps in incidents such as Haditha and "Hadji Girl" has left me a little less than impressed. However, I must say that meeting these Marines was a breath of fresh air. I found the newest crop of Marine officers to be highly motivated with great presence of mind.

Although my exposure to them was limited by time and purpose of my visit, I was inspired as I walked out of there, and I'm confident that if there is anything that the leadership lacks right now, these men and women of great character and discipline are being trained as well as any group of Marine officers, and I know that I could trust my life and my country to them wholeheartedly.

After our second visit to OCS, my brother (who was also a Marine) and I went to visit The Globe and Laurel, a restaurant owned by author and frequent History Channel guest, Major Rick Spooner, who is as fine of a man as I am ever likely to meet. The Navy made Maj Spooner get out after 29 years, but from talking to him, what a wonderful 29 years it must have been (in spite of a brief stint as a POW)! Full of stories with his love of the Corps and America dripping from every word he spoke, he also had a quiet humility about him.

When we arrived, Maj Spooner, who, as he told it, was demoted to 2nd lieutentant from gunnery sergeant at some point in his military career, was talking to a batch of Marine platoon sergeants just back from Iraq. When he was done, he graciously came over to our table and chatted with us for awhile. My father remarked candidly that a lecture from such a legend of the Corps must have been very inspiring to the young Marine sergeants. Major Spooner, looking as if my dad had just kicked his dog, humbly replied, "They inspire me!"

After visiting OCS and seeing how these men carry themselves, continuously look to improve, do their duty in the most stressful of situations, and show honor and respect to those around them, I know exactly what he means.

Thank God for those who live in the spirit of Semper Fidelis (and the book by the same name) close to their hearts. Not only does that spirit profit the Marine Corps, but it also makes this nation a better place to live. I will never forget that day for the rest of my life.

God bless the Marine Corps!

The Last Refuge of Scumbags

I love reading controversial opinions. They simultaneously describe things I never knew existed (and perhaps still don't exist) as well as the tendency of otherwise intelligent people to be absolutely full of themselves. This is especially true among lawyers and judges, who either are attempting to convict those who have done nothing wrong or exonerate those who have committed egregious crimes--which leads me to the recently decided court case, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (No. 05-184).

Upon reading the Decision of the Court, written by John Stevens, and subsequent dissenting opinions by Anthony Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, I learned that Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act in 2005, which limited the courts' jurisdiction by forbidding them from hearing habeas courpus requests.

Congress is afforded this authority to limit the court's jurisdiction by Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution, which states that:

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

What I find remarkable isn't the merit of the argument that these foreign detainees ought to have access to our court system or that the military tribunals held to try them are or aren't lawful. That is a subject for a different column. No, what is remarkable is the court's argument that the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 doesn't apply in this case because, essentially, Congress didn't say "Simon Says."

And this sums up the complicity of all three branches of government have in the destruction of the plain meaning of the Constitution. In a sane world, the executive would ignore such a ruling, and Congress would refuse to fund--and in fact would actively defund--any attempt by the courts to try such cases that Congress has declared the courts ineligible to try.

Going one step forward, courageous members of Congress would also seek to remove guilty justices from the office that they are only entitled to during periods of "good behavior." Flagrantly violating the Constitution certainly qualifies as "bad behavior" in my book.

What about yours?