Category Archives: Random Thoughts

My Military Daze, Random Thoughts

They Don’t Make Halloween Like They Used To

I truly don’t know the history of Halloween and I can’t push myself to find out.  I may be better off not knowing.  It’s a time when kids can dress up in costumes and race around the neighborhood collecting candy from their neighbors.  This is very important to the economy.  All the grocery stores, drug stores and Walmart make lots of money selling candy to people who have no choice but to buy it.  That reminds me, I saw a cartoon in the Washington Post where Obama was on the television saying, “If you are happy with the candy you collected on Halloween, then you can keep it.”  The little kids in front of the TV looked horrified!

I don’t remember dressing up when I was in college.  But I guess it’s a problem, because the University of Colorado has put out rules as to what students shouldn’t wear.  I think they went overboard. They don’t want anyone to wear a sombrero or to dress up like a cowboy or an Indian.  What in the world are they doing?  They said you shouldn’t have a theme party where people dress up like “white trash” or a “hillbilly.”  I’m not an expert on political correctness, but I think it is quite insulting to call a group of people “white trash.”  So I don’t think the PC people at Colorado University should be referring to this group that they are trying to protect as “white trash.”  Just as I have refrained from calling the CU PC people pretentious jerks.

When I was a kid, “trick or treat” had meaning.  We all had a bar of soap (or paraffin), and if no one opened the door, we decorated their window.  Now the kids don’t even go door to door.  There is something called “trunk or treat.”  Parent drive their vans and SUVs to the school or church yard and open up their “trunks” and the kids, hopefully not dressed like a cowboy or “white trash” get treats out of the trunks of the cars.  I’m concerned as to where this will lead. What if the parents have a small economy car?  Kids will be saying, “Gee, he doesn’t have a very big trunk.”  This could lead to trunk envy.

One thing I did learn from the CU instructions.  I found out that “squaw” is an offensive word.  Some Native American woman explained it all on Oprah, so that makes it official.  I must have missed that show.  I’m just sitting here trying to figure out what we should call Squaw Valley.  How about Native American Woman Valley?

When I was stationed at Cooke Barracks in Goeppingen, West Germany, we had a Halloween party at the Officers’ Club.  About two weeks before the party we had an incident on post.  A brand new Second Lieutenant who was assigned to the Engineering Office beat up his wife.  He really did a job on her and she ended up in the Army Hospital in Stuttgart.  She didn’t want anything to happen to her husband and without her help, we were at a loss.

They even came to the Halloween party at the Club.  The Second Lieutenant came dressed as Dracula with blood on his fangs and the petite little wife appeared as a ghoul with blood dripping and her body wrapped in gauze!  After that, I quit worrying about the poor little damsel (I wonder if it is alright to say damsel?).

At the same party was a newly assigned major and his statuesque wife.  He came dressed as a special forces night fighter and his bride came dressed like Jeannie in “I Dream of Jeannie.”  If you are too young to remember Barbara Eden, it’s your loss.  Anyway, between ghouls and “I Dream of Jeannie,” it was quite a night.

The problem with writing a lot and getting older is that you can’t remember what you have published.  Carole thinks I have already written about being struck by lightning in Viet Nam.  I have used the available search engines on my site and I can’t find it. She is still probably right.  So, I’ll make this quick.  A few years after the Halloween party, special forces night fighter and I were assigned to the 1st Cav headquarters in Viet Nam.  Carole and “I Dream of Jeannie” were both spending the year at Schilling Manor in Salina, Kansas.

We got rocketed every night, but never twice a night.  The VC would set up, hit and run.  I never told Carole about the rockets. I truly did not feel threatened.  However, the special forces night fighter would tape messages to “I Dream of Jeannie” during the incoming. Jeannie told Carole and Carole wanted to know what was going on.  I tell her there’s about as much chance if me being hit by a rocket as being struck by lightning.  Three weeks later, I was talking on a poorly grounded telephone line when lightning struck the wire and knocked me across the room.  I survived!

Written by PJ Rice at www.ricequips.com
Random Thoughts

It’s Been Five Years. I Know You Are Out There.

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One of the inside jokes in the Army is “All Army programs are doomed to success.”  That’s a head scratcher.  But, if you think about it, it’s the only way the Army can get rid of a bad program. Declare it a success and move on.  For example, “Zero Defects” was a disaster. Any mistake was a defect and the Army was prohibited from having any.  Hey, let’s declare that mess a success and get rid of it.  

Then there was “McNamara’s 100,000.”  This was back in the Sixties. Secretary of Defense McNamara was convinced that the Army should draft 100,000 Category Fours.  Cat Fours were those we considered too intellectually challenged to join the Army.  That’s right, really, really dumb (IQs of 65 or below).  Well, the Army did it for three years.  They gave distinctive service numbers to the Cat Fours so they could be identified and tracked.  I guess there might have been a few success stories.  The program was run by a bunch of Army sociologists whose purpose was to make the program succeed.  It succeeded as all Army programs succeed.

My personal experience was to represent one of the 100,000 as he cut a swath through Deutchland.  I was a young Captain doing defense work for the 4th Armored Division in Goeppingen.  I was appointed his counsel after he got in a fight downtown and tore up a gasthouse.  Lieber Gott.  I think his name was Jake and I can almost see him.  He was not a big guy and looked harmless enough. He had a twinkle in his eye.  I think I got him off with an Article 15 (nonjudicial punishment).  From then on, it was like I had him on a retainer.  Later, he got into it with a German taxi driver.  It was always hard to understand him, but I think he decided he was being overcharged.  So he didn’t pay.  The cab driver produced a pistol and Jake took it away from him and beat him with it.  Jake was not good for German American relations. Because the pistol belonged to the cabbie, I had some success in getting Jake off.

The last time I saw Jake was when he came by my office to say goodbye.  He had his arm in a sling.  It appeared he had recently flipped a jeep.  His buddy was still in the hospital, but was going to be OK.  Jake was being reassigned to Viet Nam.  I thought long and hard about whether I should notify someone.  I wasn’t concerned about him hurting himself, but what about the soldiers in his unit?What about the cab drivers in Saigon?

If you are wondering whether all this is leading to me declaring this blog a success, rest easy.  I’m having too much fun. GoDaddy.Com manages my web site, so all I have to do is write and publish.  Plus, every time I go to GoDaddy.Com, I get to see Danica Patrick.

GoDaddy also keeps stats on how many visits I get.  When I started out, I got very few visits.  Of course, I had very few blogs up.  If I got a hundred hits a week I was delighted.  Now, I have over 230 blogs/articles and I have had my site “visited” over a thousand times in one day.  GoDaddy has assured me that none of these visits to my site were from web crawling bots!  What in the world is a web crawling bot?  All I can think of is in the movie, Matrix, there were all these mechanical bees that were always attacking.  Maybe they were web flying bots.  The only thing I know for sure is that if the web crawling bots visited my web site, they were not counted. Web crawling NSA?  I’m not so sure.

In 2008, I wrote a blog entitled, “Bomb Threats at Washington Square.”  Washington Square was the name of the building I worked in.  A disgruntled former employee of Morton’s Steakhouse, located in our building, called in 20 to 30 bomb threats over the summer.  Life was bad.  Anyway, I got an extraordinary number of hits on this blog.  I finally figured out it was our federal spooks checking up on me.  But, anybody dumb enough to put “Bomb Threat” and “Washington” in the same title deserves to be checked out.

Anyway, I know you are out there, but I would like to hear from you. I have a half dozen dear friends who send me comments and once in a while, out of the blue, I get an email from someone who liked something I wrote.  But, let me know you are out there.  I wrote a blog entitled, “It’s a German Thing.”  It was accurate, but not complimentary of Germans.  I got a comment from a German written in German using the “F” word.  Yes, they too have the “F” word.  The beauty of the system is that with one stroke I deleted the comment.  I wonder if he was a cab driver.

Written by PJ Rice at www.ricequips.com
Political Thoughts, Random Thoughts

Redskins Forever

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Things you can count on: Death, Taxes and someone complaining about the name of the beloved Redskins.  I don’t blame President Obama for raising the issue.  If I were the President and fumbling through my fifth year like a rookie, I, too, would be trying to divert attention to mundane matters like the name of the Washington Redskins.

Obama said, if he were the owner of the Redskins, he would think about changing the name.  If he were the owner, and ran the Washington Redskins the way he is running the country, he wouldn’t have to change the name.  The famous franchise would collapse faster than Solyndra and there would be no Washington Redskins.

Bob Costas used his two minutes of half-time, prime-time to say that the name Redskins was an insult and a slur.  Of course the Redskins have been around since 1933 and all the fans, including many Native Americans, have been honoring the team.  I’m sure Bob Costas has been referring to the Washington team as the Redskins on radio and TV for at least 30 years.  I guess it was alright for him to use that “insult” or “slur” for all that time and now, to become righteous. Hallelujah.  The scales have fallen from my eyes.

I will say that the term redskin can be used in a derogatory manner. So can Yankee.  Believe me, there are thousands and thousands of people in this country that use the name Yankee as an insult.  I’ve been called a Yankee when it was definitely intended as an insult, a slur.  What’s the rule?  If one person is offended?  Whoops, there goes the New York Yankees.  I never liked them anyway.

Owner George Marshall changed the name of his team in 1933 from the Boston Braves to the Boston Redskins (Shortly thereafter, the Washington Redskins).  This was done to honor and bring attention to their coach, Lone Star Dietz, who believed he was a Sioux.  He went to an Indian school in Oklahoma and then to the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.  He played football at Carlisle with Jim Thorpe.  If you don’t know who Jim Thorpe was, please go back to reading some tweets.  Later, questions were raised as to whether Lone Star actually was an Indian, but so what? Maybe he spoke with a forked tongue, but it is irrelevant to our discussion.

One TV show asked people to comment on whether they were offended by the name Washington Redskins.  One viewer wrote in and said the part of the name that offended him was Washington. When the Irish immigrated to this country, they were a minority that was known for heavy drinking and fighting.  So some people might think that calling a team the “Fighting Irish” is an insult or a slur. What do you think, Bob?  At one time, it probably was.

I’m sensitive to not insulting people.  If a group wants to be called something, I say OK.  I’ll call them that.  And, if a few years later, they decide for the third or fourth time, they want to be called something else, I’ll go along.  But for 81 years, we have been honoring the Redskins and for some politically correct numbskull to claim we are insulting somebody is outrageous. 

I’m not a big Dan Snyder fan and I blame him for much that has gone wrong during his ownership (I have written on this before), but I’m with him on not changing the name.  I hope he sticks it out. He is taking a lot of heat and for that one thing, I commend him.  I wish the PC crowd would move on to deciding what Chrysler should do about the Jeep Cherokee.  

Written by PJ Rice at www.ricequips.com
Random Thoughts

Live in DC and Meet the President

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I was asked the other day why we are still living in the DC area.  We are at an age where most thoughtful people have moved to more comfortable and warmer environs.  Almost anywhere we moved would be less expensive.  But, hey, it’s only money.  We have never really sat down and put together a plus and minus list.  I suspect I know why.  Let’s just say we are comfortable with out situation (except for all the steps in the house).

Then, again, how many of you have recently said hello to the President? So what if it was in the bathroom at the Fort Belvoir Golf Club.  I’m not sure whether I would put that on the plus or minus list.  It seems like he comes out to Fort Belvoir to play our golf courses every weekend, but it is probably just two to three times a month.  The reason that meeting the President under these circumstances would go in the minus column has to do with the disruption he causes when he comes to play golf.

Of course, they never tell us he is coming, but I’m a quick study.  When I pull into the parking lot and find that half of the lot is blocked off with distinctive green cones, I know we are in for a bad day.

I generally don’t play golf on Saturday.  But, I do like to hit the driving range sometime over the weekend.  Don’t want to lose the edge.  Well, on three occasions I have not gotten away before his arrival.  When he arrives, all cars are stopped.  We are required to step out of our cars and stand next to them.  Then we have to wait until he has warmed up and played the first two holes before they release us.  I have waited 45 minutes in the parking lot before being released.

A couple of weeks ago, I finished up hitting balls and needed to pick Carole up at the Commissary.  I headed back to my car.  There were at least 50 secret service, MPs, state and county police and rent-a-cops around the area.  I asked one of them if I could get out of the parking lot before he arrived.  He told me, “You better hurry.”  Hurry I did.  I threw my clubs in the trunk and drove out of the lot in my golf shoes and golf glasses.  I made it!

So this week, it is Saturday and we are doing our little run.  I drop Carole off at the Commissary and slip over to the golf course to hit balls for 90 minutes (the edge).  Carole says, “Well at least with the Syrian situation, you won’t have to worry about Obama showing up.”  Wrong!  Now I know why he passed the buck to Congress.  So he could play golf on Saturday. When he announced on Saturday morning that he was going to request Congressional approval, was I the only one who noticed that he was wearing golf shoes?

When I got to the course, there were the infamous green cones.  Three security personnel were standing by the main entrance.  So as I walked by, I asked them if he was here yet. One fellow smiled at me and said, “Sir, I have no idea who you are talking about, but no one is here.”  I smiled at him and said, “I don’t understand you, but thanks.”

I understand the security requirement.  I’m not an Obama fan, but I certainly don’t want anything bad to happen to him.  I’m good with the searches. They have portable wands for searching and I have even been sniffed by one of their big dogs.  They asked me to stand still.  I couldn’t have moved if I had wanted to.  Nice Fido

Saying hello to the President under the above circumstances definitely goes in the minus column.  But the Commissary and the golf courses and the great medical care go in the plus column.  There needs to be a third column that is neither plus nor minus for such things as being able to go to a Wizards’ basketball game.  In this electronic age, I can go bloggity-blog from anywhere.  So why not West Springfield, Virginia?

We just lost one of our pluses.  Our favorite Chinese buffet closed.  The sign on the front door said, “Closed until further notice.”  We made three trips back to check and finally the sign was gone.  Carole inquired at the store next door and was advised that the closing involved the police and a rather nasty family dispute.  Chinese buffets generally don’t survive nasty family disputes.  Maybe the closing was a good thing.  I am sure there are things you can get from a four-day-old General Tso’s chicken that aren’t yet listed in medical books.

I’ll bet some of you don’t even know what a Case-Lot Sale is.  That’s when a whole lot of big trucks show up in a commissary parking lot and sell large volume items at ridiculously low prices.  That’s a plus.  Carole has never missed a Case-Lot Sale.  Our basement looks like a well supplied bomb shelter for thirty people.  However, because of the Sequestration, there were no Case-Lot Sales this year.  So Mr. Obama was correct when he said that the Sequestration would make everyone suffer.  Carole is really bitter.

I don’t think we are here because of inaction.  Our children are spread out, so there is no place to move which would be closer to them.  We like our house, but it is getting too big for us.  But, if we don’t find another Chinese buffet pretty quickly, we may be out of here!

Written by PJ Rice at www.ricequips.com
Random Thoughts, Short Shorts

It’s OK to Put Your Elbow in Your Ear

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After all these years, I now find out that “ear wax is beneficial and self cleaning.”  That is why you shouldn’t put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear.  Of course, they also said that the tooth fairy recovers teeth that are left under pillows.  I’m not sure what to believe!

All these years I have been avoiding the benefits of earwax.  I don’t want it back.  Of course, most of it was absorbed into those terrible Q-tips.  Q-tips is the cotton swab of choice.  Some of the lesser brands really do a number on your ear.  Q-tips had done everything possible to make it feel comfortable in your ear.  There is “more soft cotton on the tip,” and it has a bendable shaft.  It is a life insurance policy, too.  No, no.  That’s another stupid commercial.

I get a kick out of the Q-tips box.  It has a warning.  It says, “Do not insert swab into ear canal.”  If people stop inserting Q-tips into ear canals, sell your Unilever stock. Then the warning goes on to say, “If used to clean ears, stroke swab gently around the outer surface of the ear only.”  Why would anyone want to stroke around the outer surface of the ear?  That isn’t where the tickle is coming from.  I guess that annoying tickling feeling is also beneficial.

If you haven’t figured it out, I will tell you that I clean out my ears with Q-tips.  Now, as an experienced user, I will give you some important tips.  Never clean out your ears while jogging.  It can be done, but it is too tricky for a beginner.  Next, while sitting perfectly still, grab the swab at a very short distance from the cotton end.  That way, even if you jam it in it won’t hit bottom.  Next, keep the swab pressed against the side of the ear canal.  If you feel a sharp pain, you are in too deeply.  If your Q-tip has blood on it, you belong to that 10% who can’t pitch or catch a softball and you should seek medical help.

When I was 13, I went to Champaign Urbana, Illinois to play in a state baseball tournament.  I think it was a three-day tournament.  I woke up the second day with a terrible ear ache (this was before I knew what a Q-tip was).  Everything sounded like I was in a twenty-foot well.  Each coach had a different remedy.  One held me upside down.  Another put my bad ear towards the ground and pounded on the other side of my head.  It didn’t help my ear, but I felt better when he stopped pounding.  The third coach lit up a cigar and blew smoke in my ear.  Nothing helped.  They finally quit trying when they found out I could still play, even though I was hurting.

I should mention that the article that says ear wax is good for you goes on to state that after you are 65 years old, the wax gets thicker and contains more ear hair.  I didn’t even know I had ear hair and now I find out it is falling out.  The article concludes that 12 million people a year go to the doctor for impacted ear wax.  They want you to believe that that is caused by people pushing the ear wax deeper into their ear with cotton swabs.  Don’t believe them.  It is those people who aren’t cleaning out their ears with a Q-tip.

Written by PJ Rice at www.ricequips.com
My Military Daze, Random Thoughts

Bill Suter, Clerk of the Supreme Court

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On the 12th of June, Bill Suter had his retirement party.  It was held at the Supreme Court of the United States.  Bill will retire as the 19th Clerk of the Supreme Court sometime this fall, but if they waited until then to have the party, the Court would have trouble finding a quorum.  As you probably know, the Court finishes up its opinions in June and then goes on an extensive recess.  So June was the best time for the party.

Bill and I go way back.  We reported for duty on Tuesday, September 3, 1962 at Fort Knox, Kentucky.  We had both received direct appointments as first lieutenants in the JAG Corps and our first assignment was the Armor Officers’ Basic Course.  This raised the question as to whether we would be able to handle our court room duties if we could not fire the main gun of a M-48 tank.

Over 50 years later, I was sitting in the Great Hall listening to Chief Justice Roberts praise the incredible job that Bill had done as the Clerk for the last 23 years. The ceremony started with the Marshal of the Court, Pam Talkin, coming to the lectern and announcing, “Ladies and gentlemen, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.”  The Chief Justice then said, “Thank you for that warm and generous introduction.”  The laughter that followed set the tenor for the ceremony and the following party (a party that didn’t cost the taxpayers a penny).

At Fort Knox, while on a three-day field operation, which was to conclude the armor portion of our training, we sat in the dark on a bleacher and listened on a transistor radio to President Kennedy announce the “quarantine” of Cuba.  The Soviets had been slipping nuclear missiles into Cuba and Kennedy had decided we would go to war before we would permit nuclear weapons that close to the United States.  We had little communication with the rest of the world for the next two days.  Rumors of sunken ships and war were rampant.  I even heard that our class was on its way to Florida to be ready for the attack.  Today, on reflection, I know how absurd that would have been, but back then, it had us all shook up.

As soon as we came in from the field, we started cavalry instruction.  Bill and I were sitting in a small amphitheater and we all remember what happened like it was yesterday.  Bill Suter, Larry Henneberger, Don Wolf, friends for life, remember that moment.  Our country was holding its breath to see if we would be at war with the Soviets.  A cavalry instructor was babbling about how one out of three in the class would be assigned to a cavalry unit.  Those of us who were JAGs were ignoring him. Then the door to the classroom swung open and a secretary came rushing in carrying a piece of paper.  The instructor took the paper and spent 30 seconds reading it.  Had a pin dropped, it might have shattered somebody’s ear drum.  The major looked up and said, “Listen up, this order seems to impact all of you.  Effective immediately, the members of this armored officers’ basic class are assigned to Troop B, 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry.”  Still extreme silence, confusion and disbelief.  Then the major said, “See gentlemen, it would be just that easy for you to be assigned to a cav unit.”  IT WAS A JOKE.  It was the way he started off every one of his cavalry orientation classes.  But his timing with our class left us weak.

I couldn’t get over the dignitaries that had assembled for Bill’s ceremony.  What a distinguished group.  And I was amazed at how many of them I knew.  I felt honored to be there.  Sitting two seats away from me was Susan Crawford.  She had held any number of distinguished positions with our government, but when I was working in the Office of the Judge Advocate General in the Pentagon, she was the Army General Counsel.  I also had some contact with her when I was the Commandant of the JAG School.  When I was trying to get a political appointment with the first Bush administration, I needed someone with political connections to recommend me and Susan was the only one I knew.  I called Susan and she made things happen.  At Bill’s ceremony, I thanked her again for the major impact she had on my life.  She responded by saying she was just happy someone took her call.

Chief Justice Roberts mentioned that through the years, Bill had probably done more towards making counsel feel comfortable before they argued than anyone else.  Bill had written a “Guide for Counsel in Cases to be Argued before the Supreme Court of the United States.”  It answered all those questions a first time counsel so desperately needed.

After Bills comments and just prior to the conclusion of the ceremony, Jeanie, Bill”s wife and Ashley, his grand daughter, unveiled his portrait.  Yep, they still do things like that.  Even in the days of Twitter and Face Time.  And, it was magnificent.  Bill’s portrait will hang in the Supreme Court from this time forward.  Richly deserved.

In November, 1962, Bill and Jeanie and Carole and me arrived at the JAG School in Charlottesville, Virginia.  Bill and I were members of the 37th Special Class.  Brand new JAGs.  Because of the length of the class, we would be in C’Ville over the Christmas holiday.  The School did not want their basic class students hanging around over Christmas.  They wanted the students to take leave and disappear.  We were told if we stayed, we would be put to work.  Most of the class disappeared.  Bill and I stayed over the holiday and “went to work.”

We were assigned the project of preparing a paper setting forth the reasons why the Advance Class (later called the Graduate Class) upon their graduation should receive a master of laws degree, rather than just a diploma.  We put a lot of energy into the project and came up with a half a dozen good reasons the degree should be awarded.  Of course it was a make work project and nothing came of it.  Nothing came of it until 26 years later when Bill was the Assistant Judge Advocate General and tasked me as the Commandant of the School to make it happen.  In 1988, Congress passed the law granting our graduate students a Master of Laws Degree in Military Law.

I would like to tell you that I dug out the paper that Bill and I prepared in 1962 and used it as our rationale, b
ut I think it was used to start kindling in the officers’ club fire place.  But the ideas were still keen in our minds.  So to all the JAG Graduate Class students since 1988 who are proud recipients of master of laws degrees, Bill and I say, “You’re welcome.”

Written by PJ Rice at www.ricequips.com
My Military Daze, Random Thoughts

Save Our Commissaries!


On Sunday, the Washington Post devoted it’s front page to out-of-control military spending.  Well, it is the government.  Then, this expose took a sharp right turn and devoted most of the article to the need to eliminate our commissaries.

It appears that three summers ago, a Richard Spencer, a retired investment banker and member of the Pentagon advisory board, proposed shutting down all the commissaries in the United States.  Spencer was surprised by the furor he created.  I’m thinking, if that surprised him, he couldn’t be too smart.

Spencer was in the Marine Corps from 78′ to 81′ and remembers the commissary at Camp Lejeune.  He insisted that they only sold basic staples, “much of it leftovers from the mess hall.”  Golly, I knew those Marines were tough, but I didn’t know that their wives were purchasing mess hall leftovers at their commissary.  And this is the kind of background information our leadership is using to make financial decisions. 

As most of us military types know, the commissary is a real benefit to the military family.  Almost everything is sold to us at cost and we save 20 to 30%.  When I came in the military, I made $281 a month and it was nice to shop at the commissary.  We knew we wouldn’t get rich in the military, but it was nice to be working toward a retirement pension and medical care for life, and serving our nation.

The argument goes that in order to give us such great prices, DOD must budget over a billion dollars a year to keep the program running.  Some of that has to do with too many employees and mismanagement.  Unfortunately, if the government runs it, it will be mismanaged.  Look at Federal Express, UPS and the US Postal Service.  Guess which one can’t even break even, even.

In 28 years in the Army, I have seen the government contract out “to save money.”  Then they consolidate everything within the government “to save money.”   It never works.  They can’t get any responsible grocer to run the commissaries, but if they could, somehow it would cost more.

I came on active duty in 1962.  That reminds me.  When I was in the commissary last week, I saw some sacks of potato chips.  I don’t remember the brand name, but they stated they had been proudly making their chips since 1992!  I thought, I’ve got socks older than that.  In 1962, many women were prohibited from going into the commissary or the post exchange in slacks (or God forbid, shorts).  When we traveled to another post, Carole carried a skirt in the trunk of the car, just in case.  If slacks were forbidden, Carole would slip into a ladies room and put on a skirt.  I think commanders at those posts thought that women in slacks were part of the slippery slope; or, their wives were running the post.

Speaking of potato chips, neither the Fort Myer nor the Fort Belvoir commissary (not even a trip down to Quantico would help) carries Gibbles potato chips.  This is a real kick in the teeth to those of us who think the Gibbles is at the top of the food pyramid.  I don’t think their departure was an austerity move by the commissaries.  I think Lays just outmaneuvered them.

I don’t think the commissary article was serious.  It was just something to keep the IRS off the front page.  If you can believe the President, he found out about the IRS scandal at the same time as the rest of us.  I guess he is either lying or his staff is hiding the ball from him.  I can’t figure out why a dedicated staff would keep him in the dark.  I hope this last paragraph doesn’t get me audited.

Written by PJ Rice at www.ricequips.com

Random Thoughts

Micky – All Dog

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Pets are a lot like children, only you don’t have to give them an allowance.  It seems like we have always had a dog.  We had been married for about a year when we got our first one.  I was in law school at the University of Missouri and we were living in University housing (10-I University Terrace).  This was 1959 and University Terrace was brand spanking new.  No pets were allowed, but I’m a little fuzzy about what we knew and when we knew it.

We found out that someone out in the country had some terriers for sale.  So we drove out to look at them.  We found the farm and there really wasn’t much to see.  They only had one puppy left and he was black and tan and gray and white.  He was a small little dirty creature.  We were sure when we got him home and washed him, he would look better.  We were wrong.  After he was washed, he was the same little dirty looking puppy.

We named him Micky because his face looked like Micky Mouse.  When he was fully grown, he weighed 12 pounds and had stumpy little legs.  His head was too big for his body and his ears were too big for his head.  His tail had disappeared before we got him.  He looked like a little piglet walking down hill.

The little apartment had only one closet and, of course, no door on the closet.  One night, while in bed, we heard something rattling around in the closet.  We flipped on the light and there stood Micky with a slipper in his mouth.  We read him the riot act and he seemed to grasp that slippers were not a good idea.

With Carole working and me going to law school, Micky was either in the apartment all day or outside all day.  On those days he was outside, he ran the campus.  Leash laws were not yet in existence.  One day while I was walking past the book store, here comes Micky from the other direction and he has someone’s lunch sack in his mouth.  I acted like I didn’t know him (he acted like he didn’t know me).  Ships passing in the night.

Micky wasn’t the most famous dog at MIZZOU.  That honor belonged to Tripod, a three legged mutt, well known on campus.  Legion had it that the Veterinary School used to practice surgery on unsuspecting dogs.  After the dog recovered from the amputation, they would put him down.  But Tripod escaped.  The stories vary as to how he got loose.  Everyone loves a conspiracy theory.

Micky also had a skin problem on his back.  He lost some of the hair and the vet would give us a salve to make him feel better.  That must have been the purpose, because it sure didn’t heal him.  His back must have itched and one of the ways he got relief was from rolling around in dog dirt.  I would come home from school and there was the smelly little creature, happy to see me.  I would pick him up very carefully and dump him in the bath tub.  Washing a 12 pound short haired terrier was no big deal (once you got past the smell).

On days when he was left in the apartment, he would climb up on the back of the front room couch and look out through the drapes.  I believe that is how we got caught.   All of our neighbors knew Micky and were “cool” with his presence in the “hood.”  Well, we received a letter from the University telling us that Micky had to go or we had to go.  One of my classmates wives came through for us.  Penny and Dick Sonnich rented a house close to campus and they agreed to take care of Micky.  Penny was so sweet to take on the task.

The Sonnichs kept Micky tethered when he was outside.  But, Micky had a masters degree in escape and evasion.  There were still Micky sitings all over campus.  About  three months before I was to graduate, I received a phone call from our vet.  He said, “I guess you know your dog is dead.”  There has to be a better notification process.  I was overcome with grief.  It appears he got into a dog fight with three big dogs and before anyone could break it up, Micky was beyond recovery.  Carole was about six months pregnant and took it worse than I did.  Her doctor fixed her up and life moved on.

Micky was the only male dog we ever owned.  The memories are all good.  He was small, muscular and feisty, but a loving pet.  We had a movie camera back then, but the only movies we have of Micky is of him scooting into the University library.  Maybe it was lunchtime.

Written by PJ Rice at www.ricequips.com

Random Thoughts

Protecting Our Borders


No, you can’t blame this one on sequestration.  It happened when there were plenty of Keystone cops running around the airport.  In fact, if there had been fewer security guards, the operation might have been more efficient.

The whole thing started last year when a good friend of mine, a retired Marine colonel, was diagnosed with prostate cancer.  I have read that one out of every six guys will eventually end up with prostate cancer.  The odds are no better than Russian Roulette.  Well the good news, if there is any, is that the ways of treating prostate cancer keep getting better

I have another close friend (I’m at the age where if you have six friends—) who when diagnosed, decided to use fiducial marker seeds to clearly identify where the radiation should be concentrated.  The seeds are about the size of grains of rice and are gold.  Well, his procedure was completely successful with practically no side effects.  He told me the other day that if he dies first, his wife wants the gold seeds!

My Marine buddy’s procedure was different.  It’s called brachytheropy.  Yes, there was implanting of seeds.  But, these seeds had radiation in them.  So the seeds could be planted close to or even in the tumor.  The only disadvantage in this procedure is that your wife doesn’t get any gold when you kick the bucket.

I have no way of comparing the two procedures.  I am clearly not qualified and I hope I don’t have to make a decision in the future.  I can say that both of my friends are doing exceedingly well.

Every year, my Marine buddy takes his wife and goes to Mexico for a couple of weeks.  They meet family and friends down there and he gets in a number of rounds of golf.  This year was no exception and a good time was had by all, until they tried to get home.

While passing in front of an immigration agent at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, the agent’s radiation monitor alerted.  He was immediately arrested for trying to sneak radioactive material into our country.  I was personally pleased to find out we do have a system in place for identifying radioactive material coming into this country.  So he was thrown into the “tank” with a number of unwashed suspected illegal visitors from Central America.  That was the best part of the exercise.

The fun began when the security agents tried to locate the source of the radioactivity (clearly there was the possibility of a dirty bomb).  I was advised that at least three agents spent an hour scanning his groin with a half-a-dozen radiation meters.  Some didn’t work, some perhaps worked.  The problem was that the results needed to be inputted into a computer to get the results needed.  This required some knowledge and competence.  Shouldn’t he have had a letter from his doctor explaining all of this?  He did!  But the agents weren’t interested.  They had to follow their procedures.  And, of course, anyone devious enough to hide radioactive material in his prostate, wouldn’t have any trouble getting a bogus letter from a doctor.

My friend began to realize that if the folly continued, he was going to miss his connecting flight.  Let me politely say that he has a way of letting people know when he is unhappy.  And, he was becoming very unhappy.  The immigration agents decided to take him down to Customs.  Customs also deals with these issues.  Again he was zapped and questioned.  The Customs agent wanted to know if he had a letter from his doctor.  Duh.

The Customs agent bought the letter and gave him the green light.  Now all he had to do was get through security and find his gate.  By the time they passed through security, their flight had almost completed boarding.  He commandeered an overloaded curtesy cart and they made it to the gate with two minutes to spare.  He told me that for next years trip, he is going to purchase some lead skivvies.

Writted by PJ Rice at www.ricequips.com

Random Thoughts

Smile, Unless You Have Something to Hide


Life is just a series of mistakes.  Some big, some small.  Some you recover from, some not so well.  How many times have you said, “I should have done this or that.  I should have said this or that.”  As you get older, you recover from mistakes better.  Sometimes you even do or say this or that, and sometimes things get better (and, sometimes worse).

When I was a kid, I had a nice smile.  There wasn’t much orthodontic work back then.  I don’t think we knew what an orthodontist was (someone who watched birds), but my teeth lined up fairly well.  I also had dimples, so I loved to smile.  When I was 11, I got into an argument with a kid at the movies on 40th and Waverly.  We went outside allegedly to fight.  One of my buddies told me that the other guy was too smart to fight me.  After we got outside and while I was waiting to see what was going to happen, he punched me right in the mouth.  I became furious and beat the hell out of him.  But my upper left front tooth was really loose and very painful.  That bit about the victors and the spoils is overrated.

The nerve of the tooth was dead.  It quit hurting, but over a period of time it started getting darker.  I ended up going to a dentist and having a root canal.  That was supposed to keep the tooth from getting darker and it probably did.  But I still had a dull tooth right in the middle of my smile.

I went through high school, undergraduate school and law school with a shaded tooth.  Under our present school system, I am sure there would have been a counselor to discuss my shaded tooth and self-esteem issues.

When I got in the military, I received free dental care.  At Fort Hood, Texas, I had a dental corps lieutenant colonel examining me.  He said, “Rice, you have a dark tooth and your eyes are too close together.  I said, “Colonel, it’s a good thing you are in the Army, because on the outside, with your bedside manner, you would go hungry.”  He said he couldn’t do anything about my eyes, but he could bleach my tooth.  And he did!  So for the next ten years, I had reasonably normal looking teeth.

Five tours later, I was teaching on the JAG School faculty on the grounds of the University of Virginia.  Mr. Jefferson called it the grounds and not the campus, so saying campus identifies you quickly as an outsider and, even worse, perhaps a Yankee.  My only concern is whether “grounds” should be capitalized?! 

One of my neighbors was a dentist at UVA and after examining my mouth, he decided that he might be able to make enough money out of my mouth to go into private practice.  I ended up with more caps than a toy six shooter.  He also decided that he should cap my troublesome front tooth.

The cap he put on my front tooth was too white.  It wasn’t as white as a Chiclet.  More like a four-day-old Chiclet.  We all knew it was way too white, me, the doc and his assistant.  I think this should be covered by the hippocratic oath.  I should have spoken up.  I should have said, “This is unacceptable.”  But, I felt like he was doing me a favor.  He had convinced someone down at Fort Lee to pay for it.  He was just getting his business started.  Blah, blah, blah.  Anyway, by not speaking up, I wore that headlight for the next twenty years.

Twenty some-odd years later, in the 1990s, I disposed of my four-day-old Chiclet once and for all and replaced it with perfectly normal, perfectly natural bridge.  They are now using my tooth at the Cape Henry Lighthouse at the mouth of the Chesapeake (from one mouth to another).

So there you have it.  Lots of little mistakes.  I shouldn’t have let that bastard sucker punch me.  I shouldn’t have let my neighbor, the dentist, stick that Chiclet in my mouth.  I shoulda, shoulda, shoulda.  Here it is, 20 years later and I think I need a counselor.

Written by PJ Rice at www.ricequips.com