You're in the club Wang!!

Part II of Call a Spade a Spade

The stunned silence in the cockpit was interrupted by a comment from the back. “Holy Shit!” That sort of summed it up for the crew. Pyro was the first to shake it off. “Nav, mark this position, Loads (loadmaster/HF radio operator) you try to raise Kef’s search and rescue. Did anyone see chutes??” The Corporal in the back on the left side said “Sir, I saw two ejections right before it went down through the clouds.” “Those poor bastards,” the Gunny said. “That’s some cold water down there and even with Poppie suits (cold water survival suits) they may have about fifteen minutes to live. The SAR guys would never make it out here fast enough.”

Being fresh out of the AirForce C-130 school in Little Rock, Arkansas, I remembered that the Herc carried a seven-man raft somewhere in the back. “Sir,” I start. “How about tossing out the raft to those guys? It may give them some shelter till the SAR boys arrive.” This idea was pondered for a minute till the young Mech in the back came on the ICS (intercom), “Gents, with all the extra stuff we were bringing along, we had to leave that raft behind since we have the thirty-man rafts in the upper wings.” Well, that great idea was shot down.

Pyro asked, “Any luck getting ahold of Kef Ops?” The Loadmaster shook his head, “No,” and continued transmitting in the blind. Our plane continued to circle the last known spot where the F-14 disappeared in the clouds. As each idea was shot down, the tensions were running high. Short of burning all our gas due to flying lower into a raging storm and with the distinct possibility that we might crash too, our options were running out. It was a feeling of complete helplessness and frustration.

The sound of their distress beacon started blaring over the radio on the emergency frequency. We knew that activated either automatically or manually, but since we hadn’t heard from them, we figured it was the first. A silence fell over the crew as the realization hit that we weren’t able to help these guys without our plane running out of gas and our joining the same fate as Spade 16.

After all options were exhausted and we had loitered over the area for an hour with no luck contacting the crew, Pyro reluctantly ordered a heading back to Keflavic and the giant plane turned around to the North East. With the ICS ominously quiet, Pyro came on and, looking straight ahead, he said, “Gents, we’re in a pickle here.” He sighed and quietly continued, “We gave those guys gas on a bad hose. We knew it was bad and something like this could have happened. They will put the officers before a board of inquiry (they call it the long green table) to find out what we did wrong, and then they will take our wings from us for negligence, not to mention the loss of two Naval Aviators and a thirty-million-dollar jet.” Someone in the back piped in, “Sir, that’s not our fault, they would have crashed with or without us anyway.”

Wang added, “Sir, I think we tried our best. Surely they should understand that.” Pyro looked over at Wang, “For me, I’ve had a pretty good career, but I don’t want to fly a desk! How about you and Taco? You guys have what--200 hours total? Your flying careers in the Marine Corps are over and you’ll never touch the stick of a plane after this.” I couldn’t believe I was hearing this, and the direction it was taking. The Gunny clicked in, “Sir, What are you suggesting?” Pyro was silent for a minute, and then he turned around to look at all of us. “I say we forget the whole thing!! They were going to die anyway so why complicate matters by being involved. I say the crew takes a vote on it, and only if we have a complete consensus among the crew to put this little episode out of our minds will it work. Nobody can ever bring this up again or ever mention it to anyone.”

Wang was desperately searching the faces of the men on the flight deck to gage their reactions as Pyro called out the name of each crew member, from the lowest man to the highest. After he called out each person’s name, there followed a weak, “I’m in.” The Gunny, the most senior enlisted man said, “I’m not looking forward to reading about it the papers and knowing that the families will never know what happened to their sons/husbands if they were married. I hate to say it, but I’m in.” Wang looked back at me, and I dropped my eyes, “Taco” he called, the three of us were the last ones. I clicked my ICS ‘press to talk’ button, “I’m in.” Now it was down to Wang. Pyro looked at him and asked, “Wang?” Wang crossed his arms and didn’t say anything. A minute passed and then he deliberately motioned with his right hand pointing towards Kelavic, “I’m in.” It was very obvious that he was unhappy about his decision, and the weight of what he just agreed to was pressing him deep into thought.

Pyro let the silence continue for a few more minutes, and then finished with, “O.K. Then, it’s agreed upon by the crew, we will never mention Spade 16 again.” The silence was horrible as each person was consumed by his own thoughts. Finally, Pyro ordered Wang out of the seat and to put me in it. As Wang slammed his seat back, and unbuckled his straps, Pyro reached over to touch his arm. “Wang, before you get out of the seat, there’s something we have to tell you…”

Wang looked at him with daggers in his eyes, “Wang, there was no F-14, that was just a little drill we do for all new guys in the Squadron!!!”

The crew erupts over the ICS with laughter, especially when the pilot from Spade 16 came on again in his deep raspy voice, “Hey Lt, do you have any extra gas????” This was the Sergeant in the rear with an O2 mask on talking over the ICS. The Crew deserved an Oscar for their performance over the last hour. I only knew something was amiss when I saw the Gunny let the left hose out, felt the plane yaw to the left and looked out the galley window and didn’t see a hose going out. I had tapped the Gunny and pointed to the wing with a “What-gives-look.” He had put his finger to his lips, and winked.

Poor Wang weakly laughed and then said, “Well, I’m glad it was a joke because I was going to turn you all into the base C.O. when we landed.” All of a sudden all the laughter died away and Pyro keyed in “So…you AREN’T a team player, huh???” This caused Wang to start back peddling some more until Pyro just laughed and said, “Gotcha again, Wang!!!” Another round of laughter erupted over the ICS. Pyro piped in “Yeah, you should have seen Lt. Smith last month when we did it to him. He’s such a self-righteous prick that we didn’t tell him we were kidding till we landed. He didn’t believe us and ran straight to the duty shack to report an F-14 down in the Atlantic and gave them the coordinates.” The Gunny, laughing hard, said, “Yeah, I remember that and the look on his face when the Commander on duty informed Smith that there were no F-14’s based in Kef and no carriers around.”

“Yep, just another case of the phantom F-14 begging for gas.” Pyro continued, “O.K., you’re in the club now, Taco and Wang. You can’t discuss this with anyone or it will ruin our little fun in the future. Beers on me at the MarBar tonight!!!” We both agreed not to let the cat out of the bag for the new guys behind us coming into the Squadron.

Sounds like a cruel joke and it is, but in reality, it was a great training tool because we ran through every scenario that was possible. Funny thing is, later, on another flight, we got a real call to intercept a civilian light twin that was being ferried to Europe from Maine. All the things that we talked about, what we could do to save them, came to fruition. The plane came close to ditching in the rough North Seas, and we were ready to throw him the seven-man raft etc.

Well, I guess you can say that Marines are a tough lot on each other, but like what you just read, you can’t judge a book by its cover and that applies to our Marines in Jail over in California on charges of murder. Sometimes it isn’t what you think…
Semper Fi,
Taco

Call a Spade a Spade

The Marine KC-130 was flying over the chilly North Atlantic at twenty-five thousand feet taking my crew to Keflavik, Iceland. There was a layer of clouds about ten thousand feet below us hiding the cold water and howling winds. This was a milk run from Mildenhall, England, to drop supplies to the Marines there in Kef. It was my first trip in the plane as a T3P (third copilot) and the aircraft commander (AC) was in the back taking a nap while I sat in his seat on the left side of the cockpit. My buddy from flight school, Bruce Lee, sat next to me while a crusty old Gunny sat in the flight engineers chair in the middle.

Gunny was having a conversation with the Navigator, a young Sergeant, about the virtues of Hustler magazine versus Playboy. Gunny “The Don” Garcia, because he carried himself like the father figure in the “The Godfather,” was on the verge of retirement after 20 years on active duty in the Marines. He also was a proud contributor to Hustler and had been published numerous times. This, of course, would come out when he handed you a well-worn copy to peruse and you started to read the goofy letters sent in.

His letter started with the typical, “I couldn’t believe this would ever happen to me,” as he went on to describe a wild night in the Philippines with ten hard-bodied prostitutes. If you asked him if this was true, he’d say, “Of course, Lieutenant, I never have to make up stuff like that, chicks dig me.” I’m sure that it was probably the reason for his first of many divorces too!!

Bruce Lee Jr. was Korean, but everyone called him “Wang” because of some funky middle name that was too long to pronounce, and he looked like the Chinese exchange student in the movie, “Sixteen candles.” Wang was reading a book on the Civil War which he studied constantly. I had the Gunny’s Hustler and the chatter over the headset was a combination of one conversation with every other person’s input on the subject.

The AC came up and tapped me on the shoulder, and motioned for me to move out of his seat. His name was Captain Burns, but we called him “Pyro” after he ran around the Charleston O’Club, drunk as hell, butt-naked with a rolled-up newspaper stuck in the crack of his rear, on fire, and a green tee shirt over his head with two eye’s cut out. He made quite the impression on the Air Farce gang there that night…

“Pyro” leaned over to me yelling over the roar of the Allison Turbo props out on the wing, “How are we doing?” I yelled back, “Great Sir, only three hundred miles to go and plenty of gas with this tailwind!” He nodded and proceeded to strap into the seat. I moved back to the rear of the cockpit to inspect what food I had left in my airfarce box lunch. A half-eaten piece of fried chicken and some carrot sticks. HHMMMMM.
It was two bites later, over the chatter on the radio, that I heard the cry for help. “Marine Tanker, Marine Tanker, Spade 16 on guard, how copy?????” I looked around at the others, how could they miss that call? It came again; only “Wang” put his book down and his left hand up in the “stop” motion. All conversation ceased in the cockpit.

“Pyro” looked over at “Wang” and asked, “What’s the matter?” Wang, with a puzzled look on his face replied, “Sir, I think I heard a mayday, someone calling for us, not sure!” We all leaned forward on our seats pressing the headsets closer to our ears. “Marine Tanker, Spade 16 on guard, how copy?” Wang jumped on the toggle to radio them back, “Spade 16, you have Otis 10 go ahead.”

Pyro looked at Wang with a hand gesture as if saying, “Relax, I’ve got this one.” “Spade 16, come up my freq 344.0.” A few seconds later, the other voice replied in a muffled voice, “Spade 16, Roger that.” It didn’t take long before the Darth Vader voice, muffled and deep, came back on line. “Hey Guys, (heavy breathing in the O2 mask) are we glad to run into you guys!! Our INS (navigation system) died and we’re low on gas. Can you guys give us some gas and point us back to Iceland???”

Pyro responded with a fast “Standby.” He turned to his right and said to the Gunny, “Don, Don, work it out with the Nav and figure out how much go juice we can part with to this guy. Also, Nav, I want to be over head Iceland with five thousand pounds of gas.” He then looked at Wang, “I want you to get ready for the tanking, and you’ll run it for me O.K.?” Wang nodded his head and pulled out the proper checklist for Air to Air tanking with a Jet.

I was excited to think that on my very first hop in the KC-130, I would be privy to a real life no-shit emergency. Wang radioed to the jet, “Spade 16, say squawk, altitude, and type Jet.” The other pilot replied in a deep voice, “We’re squawking 2525 and currently at angels 350, F-14 Tomcat.” “Roger that,” replied Wang. The Nav and Gunny were huddled together for a few minutes and then broke up. “Sir, we have the gas to give the guy, but we have a problem. The right hose is inop and the left basket is also written up as being bad. We didn’t expect to tank anyone, so that’s why we took this plane.”

Pyro thought about this for a minute, and then made the command decision. “Gunny, go ahead and prep the left hose, it’s the only chance this guy has.” Turning to Wang in the right seat, “I want you to guide him to the left Stabilized position with the heading that the Nav gives you.” The Nav handed Wang a note that said, “Sir, tell him to steer a 310 course, that should line him up.” Wang passed on the instructions to our guest while Pyro briefed the guys in the back on what to do. The left hose came out; caught in the air stream as the twenty-seven inch diameter basket extended the hose out some eighty feet. The KC 130 pulled to the left as the parasitic drag from the hose slowed the plane down a bit.

A call from the back of the plane, “Sir, I see the F-14, he’s in a high Port-Stabilized position.” Pyro nodded his head at Wang, and then looked out the left cockpit window. Wang toggled the radio switch, “Spade 16, you are cleared down to the Stabilized position, report nose cold and weapons safe.” The jet was instructed to turn off his radar and ensure his missiles weren’t armed. He reported “ready” and was cleared into the basket. It seemed fine for a second, then the Mech in the back yelled out, “Sir!!! He has a bad seal and the gas is coming out of basket!” Just then the heavy breathing came back over our headsets “I got a bad plug, going back in again.”

The Gunny jumped up over the left side of the AC’s chair looking out the window and exclaimed, “Captain, I don’t like this one bit, I think he should back out and let me reset the hose.” Pyro was just about to answer him when all hell broke loose!! The kid in the back cried out, “Sir, the seal broke again and gas is shooting all over the front of the Jet!!” This is a serious thing, 300 gallons of JP-5 pumping a minute onto your jet is not good. Wang shouted on the radio, “Spade 16, breakaway, BREAKAWAY!!!” But it was too late. The Jet fuel went straight down his jet intakes and into the engine causing a massive fireball out of the back of the jet and covering the entire thing in flames. The Gunny had shut the fuel off before the fireball reached the end of the hose. The F-14, exploded right after we heard the words “Fire, Eject!!!!!”

Both “Don Don” and “Pyro” tore their glasses off as they looked out the left side of the plane. Wang was straining in his seat harness straps, trying desperately to see the falling Jet, but unable from the right seat.

Stay tuned for the rest of the story

When I grow up... I want to be a Pilot

Dear Gang,
This is a repeat and a post that a couple of folks have asked me to publish again from my “AnyMarines.com” days. So feel free to copy this and give it to you nieces/nephew’s sons and daughter’s if you think it will help. This is for the kids out there who have written me asking how to become a pilot. I teach goal setting back home and also Sub in our school district so this is the class that I teach the kids when the teacher doesn’t leave me a lesson plan for the day. I’m for hire if you have any programs you want put on too!!
Ok, step one to being a pilot or anything else in life, if you are in 7th grade right now, take heed!! If you are in H.S. you are a late bloomer, get moving bubba!! The first step in life goal setting is what job would you like to do? Is there a job you have seen on T.V. or your family member does that interest you? Take my Uncle Bruce, he flew the F-14 and after going flying in his personal Cherokee 140, I was bitten by the flying bug and knew that is all I wanted to do in life, to be a pilot. When I had my first commercial flight at age 6 (on American Airlines) they let me sit in the cockpit and after that trip, I would tell everyone that I was going to be a pilot. As I grew older I started researching into what it took to be a pilot. I set my goals to be an airline pilot after interviewing five airline pilots at National Airport (how did you become a pilot? What was your major in College? What aircraft did you fly to get here, how much money do you make, days off? Travel benefits? Where are you based? Is it good for family life? etc.) There are two kinds of goals in life that you need to set, there are long term (being an airline pilot, way down the road) and short term (getting an A on that next test on Friday).
Take a piece of paper out and write 1-3, put your ultimate job in the number one slot, then have a back up job in two and your dream job in number 3. My #1 job was to be an airline pilot, #2 was to be a school teacher and #3 was to be an actor. Now I realized that going to Purdue University for their flight school was out of my folk’s budget. So I then looked at the different services to have them pay for my flight training. The Marines are the only branch with a guaranteed flight contract. I took the test, passed and had a slot for flight school at age 19. I studied History and figured I could finish up to become an education major later if I needed to become a teacher because I love to teach. My dream shot was be an actor out in L.A. and one day star in a movie.
Now you have to be realistic about what kind of job you want. If you are a boy and say “I’m going to be a pro NFL football tight end” well if you aren’t already on your area’s all pro league teams, then you probably won’t be good enough for High School and College to make it to the pros. So make it a realistic job with skills that you can acquire or train for. You have to remember two things in life, you either make a lot of money or you have quality of life. If you make $200 thousand dollars a year on Wall Street, you might be working 80 hours a week to do that and won’t have time for a family or fun. If you like the outdoors and decide to become a Park Ranger, you won’t be able to afford the Porsche 911, but will be very happy. So you need to pick something that will make you happy and give you enough money to support your family in a life style that makes you happy. There is a fine balance there that must be met. You don’t want a job that you wake up every morning thinking of excuses why you don’t want to go to work.
Now on that piece of paper draw 7 boxes, the 1st box put JrHigh, then as follows, H.S., College, Masters, 1st job entry level, 2nd job medium, dream job final box. Go to the dream job and write in $150K, that is your dream job’s pay, the next one as you go left, medium job write $80K and next write $30k. O.K., now look left to right on that paper, you are in Junior High right now, but it’s not long before you are a freshmen in High School then to get into a college that may specialize in something. To get that ultimate job you have to do well in High School to get into a top college. To get into the University for your masters, you need the grades from college, to get your first entry job, you need to outperform your peers to start out and then eventually you will get to your ultimate job. Everything in the scheme of life is like building blocks. To reach your ultimate goal/job, seems far away and not something you need to worry about now. But guess what? When you are a senior applying to a college somewhere and you have absolutely nothing on your application but a bunch of “Fluff and Stuff”, don’t be surprised when you don’t get in.
So the one’s who are paying attention, start NOW. Think of this as prepping yourself early. I worked in Admissions in College. This is what they are looking for. Grades of course, next SAT scores, Extracurricular activities i.e. school clubs, plays, SGA, Boy-Girl Scouts, Civil Air Patrol, then Sports (builds better students who can balance school with Sports) part time jobs, Church work, community service projects. You get the picture. If you start in 9th grade with one club a semester, sports, that sort of stuff, full time jobs in the summertime, by the time you are a senior, your accomplishments page will be 3 pages long!! All this, without freaking out at the last minute. Colleges are looking for a well rounded student who has life experiences, responsibilities, and a hard work ethic. All the pencil neck geeks will end up at MIT anyway, but you will get into the college of your choice. Also, don’t waste your folk’s money mailing out a bunch of applications at 75-100 dollars a pop to make yourself feel good that you got into more colleges then your buddy. We call that the Spray and Pray method, put a lot of bullets down range and hope it hits the bad guy instead of taking your time and placing one well aimed bullet where it needs to go.
Always revamp your goals and update what needs to happen to make them come true. Remember too, the power of positive thinking and creative visualization. If you say over and over that you will win say that wrestling match, as you see yourself doing it in your minds eye, it will happen. Place big reminders on the back of your door “I will get an A on my Social Studies Test” and study. You will!! I will part with my favorite quote,
Some men see things as they are and say why - I dream things that never were and
say why not. By George Bernard Shaw.
Get going!!! Email me at thesandgram@yahoo.com if I can help you out in the future.
Semper Fi,
Taco

Mail-Box Wars Part One

It was the end of an extremely long day, flying around massive thunderstorms and a low pressure system built up between Chicago and New York City. Of course the ole motto, “Time to spare, fly by air” comes to mind as thousands of passengers were delayed to Newark, Kennedy and LaGuardia airports. By the time I made it to my hotel room, it was over 12 hours in the seat of my Super 80. My mind collapsed as I slipped into a mild coma with the blare of taxi’s below and the sound of rain and thunder outside my window.
The ringing of the phone woke me with a start, “Oh crap, I’m late for my sign in” I reach for the phone next to my bed, after two clumsy attempts and a dial tone to my ear, I realize it’s my cell phone that I forgot to turn off. I see two things as I reach for that, one it’s 0130 in the morning and two it’s from my wife. Mind you, she is tough and resourceful so for her to call me it must be a major emergency.
“Hey Honey, what’s up?” In a frantic, very angry voice, she tells me, “The little rat bastards came by and knocked our mailbox down.” My mind is full of cobwebs. “What are you talking about?? Mailbox??” She takes a deep breath and tells me how the sound of a loud Honda with those extended exhaust pipes woke her up with the addition of loud thumps as they smashed each mailbox down our side of the street. “Oh, that’s O.K. honey, it came with the house and I didn’t like it much anyway. I’ll buy another and replace it Sunday when I get home.”
“No,” she says, “they liked ours so much that they tied a chain around the post and pulled that out of the ground as well!” I’m trying to picture this and just see a hole in my front yard. “Don’t worry.” I say, “I’ll deal with it when I get back. Go pull the pellet gun out of the gun cabinet if they come back for some reason shoot at them.” Then I ask, “Did you call the police?” She tells me about the report she filed and I hang up with an “I love you and will talk to you in the morning.” Of course, my mind is thinking of how to deal with my neighborhood insurgents. I am finally able to go back to sleep, but the wheels turn and turn as I toss throughout the night.
Sunday, after relaxing a bit, I drive down to Home Depot for phase ‘One’ of my operation and buy a new 4x4 post, a big black mail box and one hundred pounds of Quickcrete. With my Sawzall, I cut a hole in the bottom of the mailbox, ram the post through to the top, seal the inside with speed tape and then pour seventy pounds of Quickcrete into my new “Yard Art.” After setting the post in the nice hole they left behind and adding the house numbers, it was just a matter of waiting. Of course, to be legal, I would be remiss if I didn’t add the following warning to the side of it, “Warning, hitting this mailbox yard art with any object, may cause death or serious injury”
Then I bought a wireless camera system and place it in the tree over looking the mailbox and on the roof of the garage to capture the insurgents in the act. (More so, to laugh at later over a beer with my Marine buddies) It took another six months for the “Rat Bastards” as my wife called them to come back. Of course, it’s a night that I’m on the road. They decide to throw a big pumpkin at the mailbox which exploded into a million pieces in our front yard. The twenty pound pumpkin didn’t do anything to the mailbox. I think it hurt their pride, so they made the unwise decision to come back at full speed, Johnny hanging out of the passenger window with a baseball bat. He pulls his best Barry Bonds (minus the juice, just beer) and swings for his homerun as the car passes the mailbox. Of course, connecting his baseball bat with a SOLID stationary object that one would expect to explode didn’t happen. It bounced right off hitting his car and dropping in the street followed by yells of pain and “Shit…Mother ffffffffff”as the car raced down the street to the emergency room I’m sure. Hell, how do you explain to your dad about the big dent in the car a broken back window and your two broken arms??? I would have loved to be a fly on the wall for that one. Anyway, we haven’t had a problem since. I’d like to think that the word is out about the crazy Marine and his mailbox. But, kids being kids and me being the biggest kid in the world, I can’t wait to use my new secret weapon this October for Halloween. I bought this little block of aluminum that has a trigger connected to a trip wire that when released hits the primer of a 12 gauge pepper spray shotgun shell. I’m going to attach this to my tree overlooking a nice fat pumpkin with it aimed down about two feet in front of the pumpkin. When the “Rat Bastards” try to steal the pumpkin, it will pull the almost invisible trip wire and boy will they get a treat!! One thing about Texas, you are allowed to shoot anyone who is in your yard “At Night” armed or not. Crazy law left over from the days of cattle rustlers. My local Police Officer says I’m within my rights to fire a Warning shot at them and not to worry if it’s just pepper spray or blanks. I just hope that I’m not deployed back to Iraq this fall, so I can see Operation PumpkinHead come to fruition. Anyway, that’s how we deal with “Insurgents” down here in Texas…
Semper Fi,
Taco

Go Jihad on the Media

Hey Guys, I was thinking about canceling my cable subscription to Dish this week. I have been so inundated with all the coverage about the two soldiers who were brutally murdered by “Al Killya” in Iraq. You know, the same guys who our Supreme Quirks said are covered by the Geneva Convention. It makes me wonder if any quarter would be given to our fine collection of politicians if they were captured over in Iraq while wasting taxpayer’s dollars on their fact-finding missions.
You know what really makes me mad, though? The fact that the networks didn’t give the abuses at Abu Grub prison enough media attention. Can you believe it? They “abused” these guys so bad that Muslims around the world were ready to invade America over it. Bet they don’t have to do a DNA test on these guys when they go home. Well, you are right, that never happened, they covered the wounded pride of the captured insurgents for weeks on end. It’s been over two weeks since our troops were murdered, and I haven’t seen ANY MUSLIM groups protesting in the streets over the treatment of our soldiers. Of course they would riot if you printed a cartoon of Mohammad in the papers, but stay quiet about this. Why? Because they all deep down think we deserve it.
Now, the question is why isn’t our press raising hell about this lack of condemnation by the Arab world? Because they think we deserve it as well. If anyone out there thinks our captured troops deserved the treatment they received then I will throw this out to you, send me your name and address and I will figure out a way to pay for your all-expense-paid trip to Iraq. You can give us an update on your condition, and I promise that I will make sure my Cox Cable for my high speed internet is paid up so I can see your pleas for help on the internet just before they bend you over and make you squeal like a pig. Do I sound bitter??? Yes, you can say that.
Is this the view of you folks out there in Cyberland? Well then, I’m going to throw a challenge out to each and every one of you. Write to your local paper and let them know how you feel about this double standard in the press when it comes to the treatment of their prisoners and ours. If you are published, send me a copy of your printed editorial and I will post it here then send you a cool Marine Corps Sticker, and if you get published in one of the following National papers, then I will send you a Marine Corps Coin for your effort. I have been published in USA Today myself and it is equivalent to winning the lotto, considering the number of letters they receive a day.
For USA Today, write a letter to editor@usatoday.com Include your address and daytime phone number for verification.
For L.A. Times Oped@latimes.com http://www.latimes.com/services/site/la-comment-oped,0,5293584.htmlstory
For Washington Post letters@washpost.com
For NY Times letters@nytimes.com
For the Boston Globe letters@globe.com

Remember to keep them short, sweet and to the point. Include your name address and phone number so they can call to verify YOU actually wrote the letter. Ask questions like why our politicians are not raising hell about this, and why we don’t see it questioned in the media? The Russian President at least threw out his promise that his goon squad will track down the murderers of his four embassy personnel and take them out. We need to do the same. Please feel free to pass this on to whoever you please. I encourage it!! I would love to see Americans rioting in the streets over this, but I know that will never happen. Maybe one of you will be published and will make others think about the double standard. I’ll get back to my usual satire next week after I cool down over our press, some of our fellow countrymen and our politicians.
Semper Fi,
Taco