US Navy Adm. William McRaven, a former Navy Seal said recently, he would “consider it an honor” if Trump revoked his security clearance, following his decision to revoke former CIA director John Brennan’s security clearance. As a military retiree, I find it necessary to repeat the following opinion tweeted earlier this year.  Edifying to John Kelly, the honor of military service, after the firing of Manigault and degrading of Brennan.

January 2018

In the search for veracity in the idiom “country before party,” this post was blogged on twitter and was addressed to the current Chief of Staff who serves at the pleasure of the President. There are no creative words in the mind’s eye that will assist the process of this post reaching, let alone penetrating the mindset of the addressee. As was also with “A Tweet to the Speaker of the House” Aug 16, 2017, and “A Tweet for the President of these United States” Feb 6, 2017. https://twitter.com/hlf442207 Therefore this post is strictly for going on the record. Mr. John Kelly, sir, and with all due respect for your service to our country. We, as occupancies of a free society, are free to say whatever choices of words we want. But, we are not free from the penalties of those words. Despite best intentions, there are times in which one can become careless in their choice of expressions, e.g., empty barrel. But in politics, words can lead to dire consequences, and personality clashes have become the hallmark of divisiveness, with this presidency. It has now been a few months since stating you would not apologize for the false attacks you leveled against Rep. Frederica S. Wilson (D-Fla.) as you seek to defend the President for his handling of a condolence call. However, in your case, your silence has been golden, with the incident fading into oblivion, but I can not accept the nostalgia of letting it die a quiet death.

As a military veteran of more than twenty years, my allegiance has always been country before a party with a belief in the “no soldier left behind motto.” In my heart of hearts feelings, I do not believe things in our great nation will ever get better when divisive politics is the status quo. This post is not a political stance, just a public avowal of principles with a statement of cause and effect. You may not see it, but because of your principles, you have dismissed Representative Wilson in your mind to the status of irrelevancy. She is a soldier in her right, a public servant and slighted into a virtual left behind-ness. You have seemingly brought some simulation of stability to the White House with Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon gone. But, it takes tremendous courage to say the words “I was wrong.” Either there is a tarmac of infallibility in your acquired politics with your short tenor, or you have the “I am a General syndrome,” i.e., admitting wrong carries the indignation of being weak. Therefore someone else dignity is sacrificed. Regardless, retiring as a General or like me as a senior enlisted, there comes the inevitable culture shock with becoming a civilian. Civilians don’t respond as military subordinates do, with ideologies and stigmas becoming barricades within mindsets. With that said, and knowing the chances of you seeing this post being slim to none, I apologize for you. For you know not what to do in the area of humility. Representative Wilson not only deserves it, but I am also sure as a human being she would appreciate at least a private phone call.

In an era of rapacious fake news, hacking of emails, politicians trolling of each other, election tampering, and the banning of a news reporter, one must wonder about twitter censorship as with the following excerpt from a blog titled “A Tweet for the President of these United States,” posted February of 2017 @ https://bookmystorydomain.blog/.

“I have high regards for the office of the presidency, in keeping with the oath I took and re-took four times for a total of 22 years. However, in the words of Denzel Washington, “Anything you practice you can get good at, including BS.” 

 Before this particular blog, this site for the month of January in 2017 alone, generated 479 views. A trend progressively upward, which for a none-syndicated writer was fabulous. Now, subsequently, a downward direction with less than 200 views out of 32 blogs a total seven month period.

Tweeting for a free and sensible America is not a poor man’s portal.

Most times when I set down to put my thoughts on social media, I feel I am writing to myself, for I am not out to attack anyone, which nowadays, makes for dull commentary.  However, and I hope and pray that this time will be different. I placed my life on the line with enlistment and re-enlistment for 22-years with the following words as part of my oath: “I, Henry Lee Faulkner do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” The private summit of Trump and Putin, a history-making event,  gave a chance for the president to do just that and he didn’t.  This debacle should not be a chance to jump on the president, as it will do no good, but an opportunity for all Americans to be on the same page or we as a people will perish in the swamps.  I watched the president of the United States, cut down our Intelligence Agency’s and give support to a dictator.  As a twenty-two-year military veteran, I immediately began to feel empty, a deep weak sadness. For we have reached a point in this country where most people are just instinctively looking for an argument; taking sides and forsaking the neutrality of reaching a point of understanding for the sanctity and security of our nation.   There’s a significant distinction between the details of a situation or problem and the big picture as it is displayed before our eyes. Details can be skewed to serve the mindsets of constituents even when the big picture distinctively shows the sky is not red. It’s a sad commentary when some politicians and appointed officials take an oath feverously to serve those constituents, putting politics over country.   God Save America!

God and Me

Long ago, while at sea, there was this hand that reached out to me.

It had a glow bright with spree…..

and then it called me Henry Lee.

I did not hide nor did I dart,

as it warmed the cockles of my heart.

Of a speaking hand, I did not flee

for I knew it was clearly…..  God and Me

Henry Lee Faulkner  “Guidance Against the Odds” ©2016

              “I Stand,

    So That You Can Kneel”

By the time I was 39, I had served 22 years, half of my life in the Navy. For 22 years, looking over my shoulder, on the daily, came the possibility of some form of micro-aggression. In high school, it was outright overt racial bullying. Learning early in life through the nurturing love of my mother how to trivialize the many statements of darkness. Sticks and stones may break your bones, but names will never hurt you.

My love of reading and knowledge of the Uniform Code of Military Justice allowed me to become a chameleon on the surface while suffering indignation inside. It was a means of survival. A dilemma millions of men of color deal with on a daily. One slip and the welfare of a family could be jeopardized.  Self-publishing an autobiography about my first 39 years as now served many purposes. A book I’ve never promoted in the traditional sense. Giving away copies as to demonstrate motive/intentions were not of a monetary nature.   Individual copies were sent to many elected officials. Requesting its inclusion in public libraries etc. etc., it wasn’t surprising, nor will I ever be critical of the non-responders. The implication, if you will, hedged on critical race theory, a book-banning scenario for sure it was a hot potato.

Nonetheless, one of the highlights of those 39 years was becoming a Racial Awareness Facilitator. The climate of race relations, unbeknown to the American public, had reached mutiny levels during and following the Vietnam War. Creating operational readiness problems. Admiral Zumwalt, the then Chief of Naval Operations supported by the Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, implemented equal opportunity goals, even though there was pushback from a group of reactionary congressmen. Overshadowed by “Watergate,” the programs of racial awareness became funded, garnering a captive audience as described in John Sherwood’s book “Black Sailor White Navy.”

I consider “Guidance Against the Odds” and “Black Sailor, White Navy” messages in a bottle. Which someday will wash ashore in the open minds of a more pure generation. For, “If there’s no enemy within, the enemy outside cannot hurt you.” (African-Proverbs)

 

“I Stand So That You Can Kneel” by Andrew Freborg

I stand to honor the promise the flag represents.

You kneel because that promise has been broken.

I stand to affirm my belief that all are created equal, and to fight alongside you for that promise.

You kneel because too few stand with you.

I stand because we can be better.

You kneel to remind us to be better.

I stand to honor all that have fought and died so that we may be free.

You kneel because not all of us are.

I stand because I can.

You kneel for those who can’t.

I stand to defend your right to kneel.

You kneel to defend my right to stand.

NBA rookie player Sterling Brown arrest video released by Milwaukee police. A nightmare of intimidation lived over and over by 100’s of 1000’s of Black Men, with some losing their lives’.

Paragraph 4, Chapter 12 of the autobiography “Guidance Against the Odds: the First thirty-nine years,” by Henry Lee Faulkner.

It was after midnight on the morning of August 16, 1981. I was leaving the city of Montgomery, heading north on Interstate 65. My wife at the time had decided that she and the kids would remain behind in her hometown of Mobile, Alabama. She did not want to revisit the housing issues we had suffered years earlier in Jacksonville, Florida. Realizing where I was, driving a late model Chevy Monte Carlo with Maryland tags, I set the cruise control to the posted speed. About three hours into a ten-hour drive, my fears of law enforcement materialized. An officer pulled me over, and I visualized the worst happening. Flashbacks were playing in my mind. Understanding the predicament but hoping it was just a dream, I intuitively handed him my insurance and identification, which included my military ID. I asked, “What’s the problem?” I didn’t give him a chance to speak, which seemed to irritate him. “You know why,” he answered abruptly in a condescending manner. After examining my documents, he inquired, “Where you headed, chief?” “Louisville,” I answered. “Slow it down if you want to get there. I’ll give you a break this time,” Then he handed me my IDs. Feeling like I had just been spit on, but I also wondered how the outcome would have been different if I had not shown him my military ID. He must have been former military assuming he knew the acronym CPO in rank which meant chief petty officer; since he addressed me as Chief.

The incident was disturbing, although the outcome wasn’t disastrous, the awareness of how far I had ventured outside my safety zone hit home. If it were not for the interstate road system, I would have passed through numerous small towns, some of which would have been sundown towns. I had protected my family, but who was protecting me? I had let my guard down, get comfortable within my skin, alone in the middle of nowhere (figuratively speaking), in the heart of the South. It was a full moon, casting eerie shadows off the long-leaf pines, landscaping the reclusive miles of highway in central Alabama. The uncertainty of what Louisville, Kentucky had to offer began to fill my thoughts with apprehension…… for the first time, giving way to serious thoughts of retiring to a reclusive island. Baltimore had given me refuge, but now I had reentered the unknown, the predatory forestry of my own country.

After seven decades and a lifetime of negative experiences, I still capitulate to a mindset of fear rather than safety in the sight of law enforcement.   Now the NFL chooses to fight against those who protest racism, rather than racism itself.

A GOOD READ ……….

Human beings are reactionary, for the most part, the norm, judging from afar rather than being activist in a quest for the communion of souls.    ……. We have become a society increasingly predicated on fear and hatred, with mistrust of thy neighbor depicted in a resentful eye, a dominating factor in our daily lives.

In our cults and tribes, the love may flow with the ease of a setting sun with the power of Niagara Falls.  But the dam of hate, built through political insurrection and dog whistle politics has become cascaded in the walls of our democracy.  The decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire would be the perfect example of where the direction of our country is headed.  The causes and effects are substantially many, with politics leading the charge.  The Roman Empire’s ruling body lost the strength to exercise effective control thru the instability of the economy, the incompetence of the emperor, the religious changes of the period, the inefficiency of the local civil administration, and racism.   Finally, there was an increase in threats from “barbarians” outside.  Sounds familiar?

By not comparing and contrasting the impending and imminent dangers, notwithstanding all the above indicators, we as a nation fail to smell the smoke nor see the irony of Aesop’s fable “The Four Oxen and the Lion” and in the idiom “United we Stand divided we fall.”

   The Teaching of hypocrisy unto – perfidy – unto our younger generations becoming the norm. An example of what can happen is the non-fiction book “When Good Men do Nothing: The Assassination Of Albert Patterson” by Alan Grady. Patterson, who was nominated as Alabama attorney general in 1954, a World War 1 veteran crippled in battle, was shot and killed while leaving his office.

White House aide as he was ill and dying Kelly Sadler reportedly said of Senator John McCain’s opposition to CIA nominee Gina Haspel: “It doesn’t matter; he’s dying anyway.” Just another display of what trickles down from the personality in powder, as the president calls the ‘leakers’ traitors and cowards. I call them consciousness and human.

The President of the United States’ words, “I like people who weren’t captured,” speaking of John McCain, is a demonstration of the fact. The White House Chief of Staff refusing to apologize, unto this day, for the false attacks leveled against Rep. Frederica S. Wilson (D-Fla.) Something he will never do, not even for humanity’s sake, as he feels it’s a sign of weakness.  

There’s a wave of Republicans leaving Congress regardless of their reasons; it’s called abandoning the ship rather than standing up for the sanctity of The Preamble to the Constitution, “We The People.”      Our children are watching.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,” Edmund Burke.

Prayer was removed from the nation’s public schools in 1962.  Since 1963, there have been five negative developments.

• Academic achievement has plummeted
• Increased rate of out-of-wedlock births
• Increase in illegal drug use
• Increase in juvenile crime
• Deterioration of school behavior

We must teach our youth the power of Prayer.

 

In April 2018, two men were arrested for setting and not ordering in a Starbucks.   When I was a teenager, over 60 years ago, I was taught to carry a submissive demeanor if I wanted to be free of the havoc that could be rained upon me if I were to act otherwise.  In the year 1994, Denny’s paid out 54 million in race bias suits. Nothing has changed in my lifetime on the presumption of encroachment on another person’s fears when the color of the skin supersedes a submissive demeanor.  Unfortunately, the only subscribers to this reality are the ones being passive, and we’ve seen many times how the act of flaccidity works out.  The closed mind is the security blanket of the unvarying soul. And now Ahmaud Arbery has been shot to death for merely jogging while black.

“The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing.” Edmund Burke