Page 14 THE VILLADOM TIMES II • June 2, 2010 and an armed combat correspondent in Vietnam. He growled like a grizzly bear at the mention of John Wayne and laughed at flag-wavers who had never served. This man, indeed, had falsified his age to get into the Marines. I think he was 15 when he joined up and he missed Guadalcanal, much to his chagrin, but made it for the sequel at Bougainville. One of his thrills was getting drunk with anybody who pulled a trigger for either side. He was one of the bravest men I’ve ever met, and one of the least appreciative of home-front patriots. My senior brother-in-law was a kamikaze pilot, and he says that based on bibulous get-togethers with U.S. Navy and Marine fighter pilots, it’s hard to remember they were on different sides. We’re talking real men here, on both sides, not wily wimps who fake previous service on enlistments, or fake military service entirely, so they can get a quick promotion and a softer job than packing a rifle through the sands of Iraq and still stay fed. Things have gotten so bad that serving in the military isn’t a macho thing; it’s a jobs thing. Mother Army will always take care of losers who get in with no intention of combat when they want three squares and a sack. They’re known as “Armed Service Bums.” Those who want to fight get the respect and the promotions. The others get fed and housed at the taxpayers’ expense and find reasons to stay out of harm’s way. The armed services are full of some very brave men and women, but also full of shirkers who aren’t viable in the private sector. Draft dodgers, especially those who ducked during Vietnam, don’t know that, or are afraid to say it. The guy who would have been a shoo-in for the U.S. Senate from Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal, recently shot himself in the foot when it turned out that his career in “Vietnam” consisted of five student deferments and a nice safe stint in the stateside Marine Reserves – lots of push-ups, lots of sit-ups, but no hostile bullets. He never got there, but he claimed he did. He claimed it a lot. Smart people often took the easy way out in Reserve units when jobs were plentiful and the other folks were capable soldiers. When people start to lie their way into the U.S. Army for safe jobs when there is even a chance of combat – trust me – it means that things on the outside are really, really bad. This happened during the Depression of 1873, it happened during the Great Depression of 19291939, and it’s happening today. We’re really in for it. How to we cope? How do we show we’re real Americans who don’t have to rely on the massacre or oppression of foreigners at the behest of other people’s governments and bribed politicians to keep the economy going? We scrimp, personally and collectively. For openers, with reference to Armed Service Bums as opposed to real fighters – how much money do you think we could save if we turned the armed services back into a real fighting machine? Try trillions of dollars. If Congress wasn’t clogged with people who took the easy way out during Vietnam and waved the flag to cover their umpteen deferments, they might be able to talk tough to those washed-up generals who got where they are losing wars to Third World countries. I hung out with an older cousin who fought the Japanese for Saipan, the Philippines, and Okinawa. Another cousin died while dropping bombs on Hitler’s Germany. The first editor I worked with, a personal buddy, fought for Bougainville and Okinawa and Seoul and Saigon. My father signed up a couple days after Pearl Harbor. I volunteered for Vietnam – never got there, but I got a medal and an honorable discharge. I’m not afraid to say that the politicized armed service establishment we have now is a huge waste of money – though perhaps not as huge as the school system, which ignores things like IQ and tells gullible parents that enough class time will turn any double-digit IQ sports illiterate into a Ph.D. in biochemistry if we just keep giving the teachers raises. Save that money and let people bank it or pour it back into the private sector. Fire the bums who got us into Iraq, cancel the hopeless war on Islam, and defend our own hemisphere. Tell the school system to admit that kids who won’t read aren’t college material. Get the government’s hands out of the taxpayers’ pockets and let them save and invest so they can retire early and leave their jobs to the next generation. Here are a few ideas I picked up covering a few budget trimming sessions. Teachers should teach. Wyckoff saved significant figures by telling the schools that the taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for teachers to take courses outside the district while clueless substitutes are dragged in and paid to cover the regular teachers’ classes while wasting the kids’ time. What a great concept: paying people for doing their jobs. A guy in Glen Rock stuck his neck out and said that a low-crime town had too many senior police officers and too many police officers in general. He was half right. Instead of reducing the number of police officers, we should increase the revenue by jacking up the motor vehicle fines: try $500 for use of a horn except as a legitimate warning, $1,000 for jabbering on a hand-held cell phone while driving, $2,000 for speeding in a residential neighborhood, and $5,000 for blowing a red light. People will love the police twice – once for saving our lives from obnoxious maniacs, and once for contributing to the tax base. Incidentally, anybody who flips the bird at motorists who refuse to exceed the speed limit deserves jail time along with a $5,000 fine and a two-year license suspension. We can all get through this if we remember what made America great: self-sufficiency and self-respect. Real men and real women would rather pay their own bills than lie their way into the military and spend 20 years ducking combat. People who want to know how bad things really are in the United States don’t have to attend a lot of budget meetings like the ones I’ve been attending lately. They need only reflect on the fact that one big national story concerns a young guy from Texas who actually lied to get into the Army instead of lying to get out of the Army. The young man in question fabricated a four-year hitch in the U.S. Marines, complete with a tour of Iraq, and the U.S. Army enlisted him on the spot, not just as a Private E-1, which as I remember from 40 very odd years ago was considered the very lowest form of human life, but as a sergeant, a role appropriate for demigod who tumbled from Mount Olympus and landed among mere mortals to rule them with an iron hand. The trouble was the new sergeant had never served in Iraq and he wasn’t a real Marine. He had dropped out of a 12-week Marine Reserve course in the sixth week, and never completed Boot Camp. His bogus Marine status won him a responsible job in the Army, but the irresponsible way he got it may have won him a trip to Leavenworth. It’s too late to do the appropriate Marines Corps thing and throw him to the Japanese, who are now busy trying to figure out how to scare North Korea away from South Korea. It has to be tough on Tokyo when they know the U.S. Secretary of State took money from China under the table. Japanese sources say the amount was $10 million just for starters -- and Hillary isn’t about to offend her creditors. That will teach the Japanese to mess with us and lose. They are still stuck defending Asia for America just like they were in 1905 – read “The Imperial Cruise,” a work of consummate courage by James Bradey -- but now they have to do it with only 100,000 soldiers and sailors. It can’t be easy. I have a hard time comprehending guys who lie to get into the Army. This didn’t happen much when I was young. Before I went through that great human food processor that was the Reception Center in Newark, a guy showed up in full drag, with a bra, panties, and a lacy slip. He was excused. I could have beat the rap on excessive height, flat feet, and allergies, but I didn’t even try. I would have felt like a chicken if I had beat the draft for anything less than a missing limb, so I went through the mill with a lot of other guys who had some pride in their manhood or felt they owed something to America. My best friend in high school, on the other hand, drank eight cups of black coffee in two hours and beat the rap with a heart murmur. His heart didn’t bother him ever again. Bruce Springsteen wrote a monologue about a similar experience that was his own. People applauded. John Wayne, slayer of cinematic Japanese in “Flying Tigers” and “The Fighting Seabees” even before “The Sands of Iwo Jima,” notoriously pulled every string he could to keep his deferment. When he showed up to entertain some Marines who had lost limbs or eyes, they booed him and he wept all the way to the bank, still walking on both legs and counting the money with both hands. One of the first editors I worked for had served as an under-aged kid on Okinawa, a gunnery sergeant in Korea, Some cheerful suggestions Letters to the Editor Dear Editor: It may be a misinterpretation on my part but I see the recent election in Ridgewood as a statement on not only the pool issue but on spending, budgeting and fiscal responsibility. In reviewing the budget, there are alarming trends that will not only bode ill for future generations of Ridgewood residents but undermine existing home values and life in Ridgewood. In reviewing the budget the following questions arise: Why are we seeing budgeted increases in excess of the overall cost of living? The inflation rate is two percent, but the budget comes out at well over that year after year including this year at 5.16 percent. Why, when many individuals are limited to cost of living income increases tied to inflation, do the budgets continually exceed such a limit, pushing to -- and even attempting to obtain approvals to outstrip -- inflation and mandated tax ceilings? Why do we defer capital improvements until it is necessary to issue a bond which will defer immediate costs, but build in future costs to Ridgewood’s next generation... and ultimately ensure that tax rates will continue to outstrip the home value to tax paradigm? Already deferred projects represent 5.5 percent of the budget. Note: The idea that all of the Ridgewood schools needed new roofs at the same time is indicative of how we have deferred necessary improvement until we are forced to mortgage Ridgewood’s future. And the current budget continues that trend by choosing the capital improvement line item as almost $1 million to defer. Urges ‘aggressive view’ of budgeting Why do we find it impossible to treat government as a business and “bite the bullet” as it relates to budgetary management or to get ahead of obvious trends in the economy? The current fiscal condition is no surprise, and the idea that state funding is declining should have been obvious to all concerned, yet, we seem to have been caught by surprise. More importantly as we see home values diminishing significantly, the current budget presumes an assessed valuation decline of only 0.4 percent. Where exactly does that come from? As vales have escalated, the valuation has followed closely, but similar assumptions do not seem to be following the downturn. Should there be any revaluation movement by Ridgewood homeowners, it will only exacerbate the budget shortfall. Reality in budgeting will only help future budgets for all. Why, in this environment, should any line items go up? As an example, have employee group consortiums with other towns or governmental entities been considered to reduce insurance costs? While alternate bids may have been sought, perhaps more creative thinking is required when insurance costs represent a 26 percent increase of over $1 million for this year alone. Why have salaries and wages decreased less than one percent? The argument that seniority based staff reductions will diminish services is offensive to long-term employees. More importantly, it speaks to management’s lack of fiduciary responsibility in collective bargaining if contracts are structured in such a manner as to create an environment where employees with seniority represent a diminishing in (continued on page 15)