One, surrounded by weeds and brush, about 3 blocks from us, is a real doozie. It started out with nightly arrests for drunkenness, theft, and vandalism. Sometimes 4 incidents every 24 hours. Now it has graduated to ‘domestic violence’ and theft, ‘suspicious person’ and ‘vehicle theft’, with just about as many calls, and the mowing and clearing of some of the mess.
The other, a nice house, in what ought to be a nice neighborhood, but on the turn near a churchyard on one hand and a wilderness area on the other, has nightly ‘burglary’, ‘theft’, ‘assault’, and then ‘suicide’. More ‘theft’, ‘theft’, ‘drugs,’ nightly, ‘fight,’ ‘assault,’ and latest, ‘attempted suicide.’ Sheesh!
Then the avenue, which has no houses: ‘dui,’ ‘auto theft’, ‘malicious mischief’, ‘fight,’ ‘fight,’ ‘robbery,’ ‘fight’, and ‘stolen goods’, and then a wild wreck that jumped a guard rail, went through a fence, landed on 2 cars, and sent one wheel half a block down the street—not ours, thank goodness. The speed limit is 35.
Want to find out what’s going on in your neighborhood? http://spotcrime.com/account.php is a signup for the police actions in your area.
Also, thanks, bigtime, Xenophon—and hard as it may be to believe it sometimes, what you did serve for was to be sure that the wheels of justice don’t mow down the innocent in too great a haste: frustrating, when you know that the wronged party is you, not them, but at least we don’t live where a word from a Saddam Hussein can get somebody hauled off without trial. Sigh.
(But if ever they get a real truth serum, I think it should be mandatory, on challenge: you say, I’ll take it, and do, and they should then be obliged to, or forfeit the case!)
CJ, surely you can’t have forgotten the “Patriot” Act already? For the last Nine years our government has been doing the StarChamber thing and bundling people off incommunicado to points unknown where they can have their genitals connected with the wall socket, ice cold drenchings, hours of agonizing stresses on their joints and organs, sexual abuse et cetera performed by our Saddam Hussein wannabe proxy friends in various scenic hellholes around the world. [pant, pant, pant] Sorry for the rant, but if the Bush administration was truly Republican then I cannot possibly be one a single moment longer. Yours in Libertarianism; bhw
No thanks necessary, like Joe said ‘Somebody has to do it’ So might as well be me instead of another. Everybody should does their part, whether it was a combat role or not, they all do what needs to be done and support the effort when they could be doing more enjoyable or less risky things with their lives.
As for the justice system you hit the crux of the matter. Truth…How can you bring people to justice when there are those willing to lie of the stand? And confession under torture is no answer because it is just as unreliable. After a certain point the interrogated will say pretty much anything you want them to.
In the Infantry we called it the cue ball theorem i.e. the harder you hit something the more English you get out of it.(Apologies, soldier’s humor can be dark at times.)
Without concrete evidence it’s hard to really prove anything. Like “We weren’t misappropriating funds to pay our salaries, it was just an accounting error.” That was the downfall of my case against the gov. even though I had stolen supporting paperwork. Now I get to live with being blacklisted for speaking out against what I thought was wrong.
Saddam, Osama, Fidel, and Manuel were all our buddies at one time when we shared enemies, now they are our enemies. Does that say more about them, or how we aren’t too picky in choosing allies of convenience.
Even though I served 22 years, I never actually put my life on the line. I did go into one place where I was absolutely terrified, in the line of duty, I went in, did what needed to be done, and came back out. I wasn’t a Special Ops guy, just a regular sailor, but it was something that I was asked to do, and I felt it was something I could do. Afterward, I got the shakes. I don’t ever want to do that again, because someone else who did the same thing was later found dead in a motel room near Washington, D.C. I don’t believe the operation has ever been declassified, but even if it has, I won’t discuss it. No weapons, no funny sneaking around, no cameras, just going in, doing what my supervisors wanted me to do, and getting back home. This was overseas, a long time ago, and nothing ever came of it, that I’m aware of. If it did prove fruitful, nobody told me.
I am thankful I never had to go into combat, or that any ship I was assigned to ever had to go into combat while I was onboard. My feeling is that if military force is used, someone in the diplomatic sector failed to do their job.
I hope that the wheels of justice turn in your favor. I’d make a call to the State’s Attorney, since even if they aren’t going to press criminal charges, you can still press civil charges, which is a whole different venue. Best of luck!
Wearing moderator’s hat: peace, all, and again I say, thank you to those who’ve served our country, in whatever capacity.
I live in a village near Cambridge, England and one day came home to find 3 police cars in front of my house. Turns out they were going to clear out a cannibus factory accross the street and down a small cul-de-sac to a rental property. Never would have thought it, but this is becoming a common occurrence in this part of the country. Took them most of the day to bag and tag and clear the property.