Hey man, don;t be dissin’ on my man Barnett. He was the real deal before his latest big book and his wussy job as a REMF at the Naval College.
The guy answers every e-mail he gets too. That’s huge. He did work on East/West Germany (using intelligence gathered by the finest long range surveillance and intelligence gathering organization on earth) long before he wrote “The Pentagon’s New Map”.
The vision in that book is pragmatic and realistic.
Basically, the non-integrated gap could just be themselves, hang out, behead people, abuse women, wreck the environment, commit genocide, exploit children, use chemical and biological weapons on each other and writhe around on the ground after natural disasters, practice religious intolerance, promote illiteracy, not seperate church from state, not practice due process, deify egotistical self-appointed despotic leaders, not live by the rule of law and do all those things they do now and more and just leave us alone and everything would be fine.
We could rationalize it somewhere in our conscience to just turn our backs on them while we sipped latte’s and stressed over wide screen TV purchases, what SUV to buy and our bike fits- important things like that.
However, we did that from about 1921 to 1933 (Isolationism) and we discovered that if you don;t watch your back, the Non-Integrated Gap crawls up our back and bites us in the neck.
They aren’t happy enough to enjoy their ignorant misery alone, they have to spread their doctirne of misery and deprivation to the world under a long list of guises such as religion.
Now, you could argue, we do the same things. And we do. But we are nice.
We don’t kill our own people with rare exceptions. Kent State is a distant reality from what Saddam did to the Kurds.
No, we aren’t perfect. As a nation, as a culture as a society. At our very best we are merely a projection of our individual character’s on a grander scale- good and bad.
But we are a damn sight better than some of those third world hell-holes where a child’s life is utterly worthless and toilet paper is money.
So, if we export some of our most valuable resources like information, knowledge, education, tolerance, diversity, connectivity and most of all- hope, to the non-integrated gap then they can decide from a menu of things how they want their own lives to look. And I wager, two life times removed from now, it will look a lot different than it does not, largely due to tough decisions we have made now.
Look at Germany and Japan today. Now, look at them retrospectively 3 decades ago, 5 decades, 6…
That is Iraq. That is Afghanistan. That is the dream of the non-integrated gap. That one day they will contribute instead of just detract. It isn’t conquest or empire. It’s peace.
I wager (I’m 43) it will be 25 years before I sit in downtown Baghdad on a street corner cafe’ after doing the Baghdad Triathlon and visiting the war museum in Fallujah and the memorial to Scott Helvenston on the bridge there. It will take that long. But one day I will travel under the crossed sabres at the gates of Baghdad as a free and safe man on vacation in a land of happy, free people who steer their own government the way they see fit, like Germany and Japan do today.
I’m looking forward to that. Biography for
Scott Helvenston
Mini biography
Scott Helvenston was born in 1965 in Ocala, Florida and raised in Leesburg, Florida. In 1982, he received special permission to join the U.S. Navy and, at 17, he became the youngest Navy SEAL in U.S. history. After graduating BUD/S, he deployed with SEAL Team Four, served for 2 years, and later moved to San Diego, California, where he deployed with SEAL Team One. Since his early years, Scott always excelled at physical fitness and athletics. As a result, he applied and became an instructor at BUD/S, leading PT (Physical Training) every morning for 4 years. With a fond memory for his airborne training, Scott later became an AFF (Accelerated Freefall) Instructor for 4 years until he was medically discharged from the Navy in 1994 for back, wrist, and ankle injuries due to a partially collapsed canopy malfunction.
With high aspirations, Scott recovered, resumed his fitness regimen, and became an actor and stuntman in Hollywood. His many credits include “Face-Off” and “G.I. Jane.” Scott was the man who got Demi Moore into that incredible physical shape for the film.
In 1997, Scott founded Amphibian Athletics, a Navy SEAL Training and fitness company with the goal of teaching people the skills to excel in outdoor activities, and life, in general. His Navy SEAL Training Camps became quite popular and frequently were spotlighted on television and in the newspaper. Due to the success of the training camps, Scott drew from his PT background and designed a video workout series, allowing greater access to his fitness education. With 11 videos to his credit, Scott became quite well known in the fitness world.
In 2003, after the United States led a coalition to remove Saddam Hussein from power, Paul Bremer was named the head of the Provisional Coalition Authority. With a demand for experienced operators in Iraq, Scott was asked to join the security team tasked with protecting Ambassador Bremer. After heading back East to sharpen all his combat skills, Scott deployed to Iraq. Then, on March 31, 2004, the news returned to the States that Scott was one of four American contactors who were ambushed, brutally murdered, and set aflame in Fallujah, Iraq, while an angry Iraqi mob cheered on live TV. Scott left behind two young children.
In a short amount of time, Scott Helvenston accomplished many goals that we can all admire. In addition to his success as a Navy SEAL, he was a two-time, gold medal-winner in the pentathlon, and to this day, Scott remains the only human contestant on the popular TV program “Man against the Beast” to win, racing against three different chimpanzees on an obstacle course. Scott also represented the Navy SEAL Teams on the television program “Combat Missions.” He always seemed to be the last man standing.
