I walked on farther. I hiked for another two hours over loose rock, through pools of water, past small falls running down the sides of hills, past railroad signal stands, dragging equipment detectors, flange greasers. I saw the prints of animals with hooves. I saw evidence of small animal scat. I am always watching for scat. Big scat means big animals. I have seen bear prints in the snow and mud. Years ago, an SP engineer hit his horn numerous times and slowed his entire train to a crawl, just to warn me he’d just seen a huge brown bear near the tracks. He said I was walking right towards it. As you might expect, I am customarily quite well armed when I hike the tracks in the mountains, with either extra magazines or speedloaders. Wrong or not, I almost always hike by myself.

I wish I’d known about this a year ago. It was over a year ago that my father, a WWII US Army Air Force pilot, was diagnosed with leukemia.

It’s too late for my father; he passed away on February 11th of this year at age 88.

It may not be too late for your father, your grandfather. If he was a veteran of WWII, please take advantage of this wondrous opportunity:

The Honor Flight Network, as is written on their website:

Honor Flight Network is a non-profit organization created solely to honor America’s veterans for all their sacrifices. We transport our heroes to Washington, D.C. to visit and reflect at their memorials. Top priority is given to the senior veterans – World War II survivors, along with those other veterans who may be terminally ill.

Of all of the wars in recent memory, it was World War II that truly threatened our very existence as a nation—and as a culturally diverse, free society. Now, with over one thousand World War II veterans dying each day, our time to express our thanks to these brave men and women is running out.

It’s not too late to take this journey. Too late for me. Please. Make it not too late for you.

Take the adventure. If you have a loved one, make it the adventure of their lives. Accompany them, hold them, honor them. Recognize their amazing achievements.

Trust me; they won’t do it themselves. You have to do it for them.

Honor them now. Hug them now. Kiss them now. Life is so fleeting. Don’t be me. Don’t make my mistakes.

Every day is a new blessing.

For actually having the temerity to enforce immigration laws.

When the federal system won’t.

Justice Dept. Investigates Arizona Sheriff for Enforcing Immigration Law – Thursday, March 12, 2009
By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer

(CNSNews.com) – The Department of Justice (DOJ) has launched an investigation of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona following requests by congressional Democrats and allegations by liberal activists that the department has violated the civil rights of illegal aliens.

A consortium of four Demorats [Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.), Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), and Robert Scott (D-Va.) ] demanded the investigation.

As the result of this, our Sheriff Joe stated:

I will not back down. What I am doing is upholding the laws of the state of Arizona, and I will not be persuaded to turn my back on my oath of office as sheriff of this county.”

Let me break this story down to its barest of essentials:

Sheriff Joe Arpaio has been and continues to embarrass the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) arm of the federal government. He dares to do nothing more than enforce laws already extant. He, as opposed to the Fed, feels unencumbered by politics and Politically Correct views. Sheriff Joe Arpaio is very much his Own Man and, as such, likely takes his Oath of Office quite seriously and literally.

As a sworn peace Officer for the State of California, I had to ceremonially state:

I, ___, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter, so help me God.”

My guess is that Sheriff Joe had to similarly swear upon the US Constitution and Arizona’s constitution.

Leave Sheriff Joe Arpaio alone.

There are 150,000 Mexican military deserters — and they are predominantly employed by the Mexican drug cartels. Because they pay better than the Mexican military.

It’s a matter of time until the City of San Diego goes under. It already has huge budgetary issues regarding Mexican nationals.

And Phoenix, Arizona is the kidnap capital of the United States:

In what officials caution is now a dangerous and even deadly crime wave, Phoenix, Arizona has become the kidnapping capital of America, with more incidents than any other city in the world outside of Mexico City and over 370 cases last year alone. But local authorities say Washington, DC is too obsessed with al Qaeda terrorists to care about what is happening in their own backyard right now.

The drug violence of Mexico spills over. More:

Two men with a gun grabbed the 34-year-old from his van and dragged him 50 yards to a waiting SUV. His wife threw rocks at the car, then gave chase in her own SUV. Neighbors in northwest Phoenix called police. Yet when police found her later, she at first denied there was a problem.

Judicial Watch writes:

A major U.S. city long known as an illegal immigrant sanctuary has the nation’s highest rate of ransom kidnappings, virtually all of them connected to Mexican drug cartels that have penetrated the area in the last few years.

Federal law enforcement officials have crowned Phoenix the country’s kidnap-for-ransom capital, according to a news report published this week. Arizona’s largest city, also the nation’s fifth most populous, by far has more ransom kidnappings than any other U.S. municipality and most every victim and suspect is connected to Mexican drug smugglers from Sinaloa which is located along the Pacific Coast several hours south of Arizona.

Video here. And here.

American Sentry writes:

As our operations wind down from the successes in Iraq, and the National Command Authority is ramping up our presence in Afghanistan with an additional 17,000 combat forces, little has been addressed in the mainstream policy wonkery about Mexico’s instability and brush with Civil War between the brave, but by all measures ineffectual, Mexican security and law enforcement forces, and the ruthless, well funded, well equipped, and increasingly brash Drug Cartels. I have been monitoring this for several weeks, and there are those within the periphery of National Strategy and Policy that recognize this as a serious emerging problem, but is just now getting some greater play within the Mainstream Media. What coverage it does get focuses on the crime and corruption aspects and doesn’t link the severity and scope as a National Security issue for the US. I am more and more convinced that this is in fact a serious challenge to US national security, and three recent reports substantiate my position.

The first of these predictions that got considerable play back in January came from the outgoing Director of the CIA, Gen. Michael Hayden. He commented in numerous interviews that the CIA concluded that after a potential development of a nuclear weapon from Iran, the possibility and ramifications of Mexico failing as a state as a result of the inability of the Federal government quelling the violence perpetrated by the Cartels in their continued fight for smuggling routes and market share was the second most threatening issue to US National Security. With Al Qaeda lurking around, having found proof of their desire to weaponize a biological or chemical agent to unleash on innocent Americans, let alone a dirty bomb, that is quite a statement on Hayden’s part…and ominous.

American Sentry also writes here.

This bomb, this IED, is ready to explode on both sides of the border.

And yet we ignore this presence.