Cutting Out the Salute Might Help
The U.S. military is always under civilian control, right? The President of the U.S. is Commander in Chief. And he is always a civilian, right? Of course. Always. So why is George W. Bush snapping off return salutes to those military sentries, mostly Marines in dress blues, that are caught by the TV news cameras as he comes or goes? The hand salute is a military courtesy. Civilians don't salute.
It was the same with Clinton I remember. Where did it start? I've seen newsreels of Truman when he was traveling and don't recall any salutes from him. Likewise with President Eisenhower, former General of the Army. No salutes recalled. There may have been, but I really doubt it. I don't know how far back this custom goes. But whenever it began, it's unnecessary and, I believe, harmful.
It's unnecessary because sentries "present arms." In that case no return salute is required. For instance, say we're at a football game, say at Kyle Field in College Station, Texas. When the color guard enters, all uniformed military personnel in the stands stand and present arms as the flag approaches. The salute continues until the flag is passed. Nobody expects a return salute from the flag. Then when the Star Spangled Banner is played it's the same. The military types stand at attention, facing the flag, and hold their salute until the music stops. Or a soldier somewhere, maybe at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, leaves a PX and, on the sidewalk, hears the first notes of Retreat. He'll turn toward the sound of the bugle and present arms as long as the sounds of Retreat continue. As I said, sentries present arms, whether the one being saluted is a military officer or a civilian of rank such as Commander in Chief, and the salute continues until the person honored has passed.
I believe the custom is bad because now we could have a civilian playing general. Obviously civilian control of the military has little effect where a President sees himself as a Napoleon. Is that happening now? Well, I don't know, but I'm not the one who began referring to somebody in particular as "King George."
Forget It, Guv; You'll Look Like an Idiot
"Govenor hesitant to back slavery apology." (Houston Chronicle headline today.)
In a typically poorly written article appearing in the Chronicle, it appears that the Georgia legislature has passed-- or maybe is just debating-- a measure that would issue an apology for Georgia's part in the slave trade, illegal in all states after 1808. And, apparently, Govenor Sonny Perdue is supposed to deliver this message, something he's reluctant to do. Yesterday that racial pressure group, the NAACP, was at the capitol lobbying for it.
But Perdue is reluctant. Of course. Who's he going to apologize to? Who's he going to apologize for? Anybody who was in the slave trade, whether slaver or slave, has been dead 150-- oh, say, 120-- years or more. How's Gov. Perdue going to claim he has the authority to apologize for dead people? Obviously, he cannot. Neither can those legislators. The govenor was never a part of the slave trade, doubtless never would want to be. He has absolutely nothing to apologize for. Neither does the legislature.
As for the descendants of slaves in this country, without the slave trade not a single one living today would exist. You know, that one egg, one sperm thing. If my mother had been sick or my dad had been out of town on business the day I was conceived, no me-- ever. Oh, my parents would have had a first child at some point, but that child would not have been me. Like my younger brother is not me. It was just a result of the depression that they both happened to be in McKinney, Texas in 1932 when they began dating. Had any one of a number of happenings been different that what actually happened, no me. I wouldn't exist. The same is true for descendants of slaves. Had things not gone as they did for generation after generation... Think about it.
In one movie, I think it was "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon," John Wayne uttered a line that has lived after him: "Don't apologize; it's a sign of weakness." That is true a lot of the time, probably not true even more. But to apologize for somebody else, individuals you have no authority to apologize for, for the slave trade, to people who are at least eight or ten generations removed from it-- well, that's not only weakness, that's idiotic weakness.
