"Ambush!"

How far back can you remember? Do you remember playing “hide and seek”? This game is fun for all kids, and when you have a large family, it can be a riot! As kids, we could hide in our pantry or the basement or the attic, behind furniture or the television set; the possibilities seemed endless. If you found a good hiding place, it could take your pursuer quite a while to find you, but eventually, you would get caught. If you were fortunate enough to stay hidden, the “looker” would yell out “Olly, Olly, Ochshen! Free! Free! Free!” and you would reveal yourself in victory!

In combat situations, you can also play a serious game of “hide and seek”. Sometimes you may have to set up an ambush, you would find a site that would conceal you and your men from the enemy and give you a good “field of fire” when the enemy approached. You and your squad would put on camouflage to blend into the surroundings, and “hunker down” in the weeds, waiting for the enemy’s patrols.

On the other side of the coin, at times you and your men are the “seekers” in this most dangerous “game”. A patrol of about ten men would spread out about three meters between each member, stay off trails, looking for trip wires and move as silently as possible, using hand signals to communicate. Total awareness is the key to the survival for you and all of your men; one misstep, one failed observation or one loud noise can cost you and your men their lives! This isn’t quite as much fun as “hiding in the pantry”!

This game usually ends with the sound of “claymore mines”, “m-60 machine gun fire” and “.262 rounds flying in all directions”; nobody yells “Free! Free! Free!” at the finish; you only get a “body count”. Somebody always gets caught!

Before we would go on a patrol, we always had some information on enemy movement, so we could have a “heads up” of what to expect ahead of us. The more information we had, the better off we would be; nobody wants to walk into a battalion! Nobody wants to be fooled or surprised by “the bad guys”. Intelligence is the key to success in a military operation, and also in an investigation; facts give you strength, and truth comes from knowledge.

Every day we fight on a battlefield in search of truth, in our life, and in our leadership. I want truthful leadership in America; everything else is unacceptable! I want a leader who is trustworthy and open. A squad leader always puts his men ahead of himself, their safety, and well being are dependent upon him. A President is like “America’s Squad Leader”. He must put America before his own needs, ahead of anything else. Before a patrol, the squad leader always has a meeting with the squad to explain the mission, so his men have as much information as possible to complete the mission and do it with as little danger as possible; he holds nothing back!

Congress is in the middle of an investigation into “Fast and Furious”; it has been going on for many months, and for most of those months, the investigation has been waiting for documents from Eric Holder. Suddenly, after all these months, President Barack Obama has decided to “hide” these documents under the cover of “Executive Privilege”; suddenly national security is involved. The question that needs to be asked is “Why did this take so many months to determine as an issue of national security?” If this was a security issue 18 months ago, then “Executive Privilege” should have been invoked then; why was it such a long wait, Mr. Obama?

Who is Mr. Obama protecting? Is America better off not knowing the facts of this scandal? Does this investigation go beyond the Justice Department? Is this a “cover-up”? Is America being caught in an “ambush” from the Obama White House? My only comment is this; “I wouldn’t want Barack Obama as my squad leader; I don’t trust him!”