I've been shot at, beaten and knifed. I've had a parachute malfunction at three a.m. in the pitch dark. I've been snake bit (twice). I've had a close encounter with a twelve-foot mako shark and a variety of other adventures I'd be too embarrassed to acknowledge. However, I have never been as fearful, and PO'd as I am NOW.

The unbridled idiocy, veiled as arrogance that redefines hubris, and makes the egos of Ulysses, Agamemnon, and Beowulf look like Pee Wee Herman at a Hells Angel convention, is almost beyond words.

To quote Albert Finney from the movie, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

As if Clinton's myopic bumbling were not sufficient to gag a maggot (Chinagate, Zippergate, Bimbos ad nauseum, Filegate, Travelgate, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Somalia, Haiti, massive reductions in military force, and turning the USA into Hessians), this latest adventurism in the Balkans is an obscenity. NATO has attacked a sovereign country for the first time in its fifty-year history. Notwithstanding the duplicitous diatribes of the Commander in Grief, President Clinton has become a co-conspirator with Slobodan Miloslovic and earned the United States the antipathy of former allies in the Balkans.

The DOPE (Department Of Propaganda Evil) has failed in its efforts to suppress, control, and spin the facts. DOPE has tried to position the USA as white hat heroes riding over the hill to save the oppressed from an evil villain. It was supposed to be quick, decisive, and heroic. It hasn't been, isn't, and won't be. This "Wag the Dog" may temporarily divert attention from the treachery of Chinagate, but the unintended consequences are rapidly mounting.

Smuggling is the tactic du jour in the Balkans. The Russians are reportedly smuggling resources to the Serbs, and NATO is smuggling out our dead. A front-page story in Friday's edition of the Athens daily, Atinaiki, reported, "First 19 Dead Americans in Thessalonika," The article was sub-titled "Mowed Down by the Serbs." Atinaiki says that the bodies were secretly transported from Skopje in containers guarded by select American officers. The Americans met at the Macedonian border by the Greek police, and escorted to the 424th Greek Military Hospital in Thessalonika, where the bodies were prepared for further transport.

Atinaiki says that the 12 bodies which arrived on Wednesday (Mar. 31) have already been shipped to the U.S. Seven more bodies, which arrived on Thursday (Apr. 1), were expected to be sent home on Friday.

Greek authorities, when asked to comment, stated that they knew nothing about it, Atinaiki said. The Greeks either didn't know anything, or they have embraced the Clintonista tactic of lie, deny, deny, deny.

Sunday morning I watched Senators McCain, Shelby and Liberman lay the groundwork for the introduction of ground troops. Conditioning America for the imperative of what was the unthinkable, as an inevitable necessity.

I'm not going to launch into a "I told you so" rant, but allow me this one military axiom. The entire combined arms might of the U.S. military is ultimately designed and intended to support the infantryman. That isn't brag, or inflated esprit ... it's a military fact. Million-dollar Tomahawk cruise missiles can be launched from multi-million-dollar aircraft, by multi-million-dollar trained pilots to excoriate entire grid squares on a map. Naval gunships can obliterate city blocks. However, eventually, INEVITABLY, it must be the individual 11-Bravo infantryman who is the sole resource that can take and hold an objective. That is a military fact. To suggest to any reasonable person that a Balkans war could or would be waged like a computer game is arrogant myopia which is worse than criminal.

Ayn Rand once wrote, "We are fast approaching the stage in the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest period of human history; the stage of rule by brute force."

Bill Clinton is a documented liar, misogynist, coward, and hypocrite of epic proportions. Back when he was scrambling to avoid the draft, he wrote a letter to Colonel Eugene Holmes. Quoting from that letter, he said, "No government really rooted in limited, parliamentary democracy should have the power to make its citizens fight and kill and die in a war they may oppose, a war which even possibly may be wrong, a war which, in any case, does not involve immediately the peace and freedom of the nation." Well, that was when he was struggling to save his butt from potential risk.

That was a time when he said he wanted to help Colonel Holmes "to understand more clearly how so many fine people have come to find themselves still loving their country but loathing the military, to which you and other good men have devoted years, lifetimes, of the best service you could give? To many of us, it is no longer clear what is service and what is disservice, or if it is clear, the conclusion is likely to be illegal."

You really should read Colonel Holmes' entire affidavit in response to Clinton's dissembling. However, in part, he said, "Even more significant was his lack of veracity in purposefully defrauding the military by deceiving me, both in concealing his anti-military activities overseas and his counterfeit intentions for later military service. These actions cause me to question both his patriotism and his integrity. When I consider the caliber, the bravery, and the patriotism of the fine young soldiers whose deaths I have witnessed, and others whose funerals I have attended. ... When I reflect on not only the willingness but eagerness that so many of them displayed in their earnest desire to defend and serve their country, it is untenable and incomprehensible to me that a man who was not merely unwilling to serve his country, but actually protested against its military, should ever be in the position of Commander-in-Chief of our armed Forces."

My heart breaks when I read Colonel Holmes' affidavit. I am heartsick that those who were compelled to follow the misguided, self-serving orders of a man not worthy to scrape the blood and mud from their boots have been twice robbed. Robbed by a small dollop of pond scum masquerading as man who has not only cavalierly spent their young lives, but now apparently robs them of the final recognition and honor of having given their lives by doing their duty. A duty eschewed by a leader who deserved their contempt, but received their obedience. Duty, Honor, Country. It is a sacred commitment. It should be reciprocal.