I live in the shadow of a very famous mountain. It causes us to have sunset about 45 minutes earlier than most. About a thousand feet below the top of the mountain is a cave full of super-secret stuff. In this cave they monitor things going on all over the world (it's where they keep the Stargate!). Access to this cave is restricted to people who have some pretty high-power clearances. During the Cold War, mine was not such a desirable neighborhood, seeing as how, if a shooting war started up, them pesky Rooshuns wanted to put about three or four big, dirty, nukes into that mountain to stop all that secret monitoring and such. Reducing the shadow considerably as well as reducing the value of the property around here. It isn't so much that the Rooshuns don't want to do us any harm anymore, it's just that they aren't as capable of it anymore...we hope. In any case, the folks who work up there are reluctant to talk too much about what they do and what goes on. I knew an Air Force senior NCO who worked up there. He deflected questions with humor. Like the time I commented that they must know everything that is going on everywhere. He responded by telling me that if a ten-megaton nuke went off on the top of the mountain, they would all look at each other and ask, "What was that?" It's military humor, don't ask me to explain. Once I mentioned that they sometimes have guided tours through the facility. His response was that those really disrupted the work day. I assumed he meant that they had to cover up whatever they were working on until he said he couldn't wait for the tourers to leave so they could break out the cards again.
Believe it or not, that isn't what I wanted to write about. Well, it is...kinda. I was thinking about the Right-Wingnut radio guy who always says that "words mean things". The problem is that words usually mean different things to different people. Lately we have been inundated with words about health care, lousy economy, Iran, Iraq, Afganistan, etc. Some folks make a living coming up with the clever use of words...I'd like to meet the wingnut who came up with the question about what "is" is. So we have a batch of teenagers who believe oral sex isn't and lying isn't perjury.
But that isn't what I wanted to write about either. I was thinking about a specific word and how it may seem to mean the same to everyone, but there are some subtle differences in the way it is understood by different groups. I hear a lot of talk about "National Security" and I wonder what folks think that really means. National is not really tough...but security is another matter. At a very young age I learned that security meant a lot more than I thought. People were killing each other over "security". When an infantry formation moves through heavy foliage, people are put way out in front; this is called the point. Then a guy in the back hangs back a little to cover the rear. And a couple of guys are put out to the sides a few yards...they call them "left and right flank security". At night, when the formation stops moving for the day, or when night ambushes are set up, people are placed around to provide security for the rest. Anyone who has tried to stay awake in a very dark, scary place (where there could be folks who mean you harm out and about) knowing that the rest of the guys are trusting you with their lives, has a very different take on what "security" means.
And that brings me back to the cave in the mountain and security. The company I worked for a few years ago had a contract to repave the entrance to the cave. The large semi-trucks were too big to go inside the tunnel so it was decided to carry the hot asphalt up to the entrance in the semis and transfer it to smaller, two-axle dumps which would actually take it in. The drivers were all screened the week before the job began, and they were briefed that each worker on the crew and each driver would have a badge issued to them that had to be displayed at all times inside the tunnel. They were also warned to stay in their vehicles unless they had an escort. The crew working at the paver and the rollers and front-end loaders and everyone else would be under armed guard at all times that they were in the tunnel. No one would be allowed to move about unescorted. I have a few years experience in the military; some of that time I dealt with security-conscious evirons, so I warned the drivers that the young men with the guns took their security VERY seriously. The majority of the crew and drivers had little or no military experience so I guess their idea of security-consciousness was not the same as mine. In any case, here's what happened:
One of the drivers on the two-axle trucks took his jacket off; it was warming up in the tunnel with the 200 plus degree asphalt on the ground and all. There was a delay while some adjustments were made on the paving machine so the driver hopped out to talk with some of the ground crew. His badge was still in the truck, pinned to his jacket. He jumped down being loud and jokey, as drivers sometimes are, but before he got any good lines out, he was face down on the asphalt, hands cuffed behind his back, and an M-16 stuck in each ear. Two very large and serious-looking Air Force Security Guards held him at gunpoint while a third went through his pockets - after cuffing him, of course. When the foreman ran over to try to calm everything down, one of the M-16s swung around and settled to a steady bead right about the center of the foreman's face. It took a few minutes to figure everything out and get the M-16s pointed in a neutral direction. The driver was given the rest of the day off, ostensibly to avoid further problems but rumor has it that he needed to change some of his clothes. But see what I mean? Security. Means different things to different people.
That is what I wanted to write about. National Security. The words mean something. And while the meaning should be clear, I am afraid that too many folks have a...well...a lazier definition of those words. In the world of real, not the world of Washington's cloudy vision, we have to choose a path leading to National Security that really is secure. They have talked and talked about the concept and we still have huge gaping holes in our security. Our ports are practically wide open, our trains have virtually no protection, airports are still porous, and the borders are laughable. The argument has been made that the military isn't geared for securing borders. Really? We kept the East Germans in East Germany for more than forty years...who is better at it? Border Patrol? Knowing that shooting at a suspect can land them in prison with the same folks they put there? The military is the only way to provide National Security and they should be allowed to do it.
How many shoe-bombers you think could get into NORAD?