You don’t, I mean, you really, really don’t know how blessed we still are in the US. Our system is allowing us, for the most part, to keep pushing off the suffocating weight of socialism.
As the DNC Media and their party mouthpieces go on their TDS rants about the raid to capture Maduro, one thing hit me very personally. The legit, pure joy of the Venezuelan people, both in Venezuela and abroad. The tears, the unbridled celebrations.
I got a very tiny taste of that sense of relief when I returned from the Middle East in 2003. It hit me as I was walking across the tarmac at Dulles Airport on Christmas Eve after my flight landed from Heathrow. It was the end of 17 hours of traveling, 15 in the air, from Kuwait International.
What was I doing waking across the tarmac at Dulles where there is literally normally no access to the ground outside the plane?
I’ll explain. First, enjoy some of the Venezuelan people after hearing that this vulgar, half-life, demonic piece of garbage ruining their country had been removed by a US Spec Ops raid. The picture below is linked to a short video. There are thousands of these.
So why was I waking across the tarmac at Dulles Airport? How is this connected? One word. Freedom.
I had done a support project for a week from Arifjan, a US Army base south of Kuwait City. The soldiers I was with were, for the most part, running supply missions to support combat operations to the west and mostly north into Iraq.
The week was filled with situations and interactions with soldiers that are hard to explain. Respect. Awe. The simple joy of sitting around a fire having a smoke, smuggled hooch, and not being shot at.
I left them there after what one soldier called, my touch and go. Don’t let people back home forget about us, he said.
I was fighting tears about the whole flight from Kuwait to London. In my carry-on were desert combat boots and a combat helmet. Gifts from my “body guards.” Info for later.
The British Airways flight landed at Dulles. We were stopped on the way to the normal tram-like access carrier vehicle that basically takes you from the plane to the arrival terminal. Not today.
I’m sitting next to a returning soldier who had slept most of the flight. The plane stops short of the terminal.
An FBI agent starts talking across the intercom. “Please stay seated and have your personal identification ready. Keep your hands where we can see them. Please.”
This was the Oh sh_t moment. The soldier and I quietly and quickly said if it hits the fan, we work together, in so many, but very few words. We were looking around the plane. It was pretty simple. We were ready for anything.
The main door opened and several armed agents entered the cabin. At that time I was thinking I really wish you would have done that unannounced instead of warning the bad guys you were about to take them out.
We are carefully and firmly directed off the plane isle by isle under the watchful eyes of our new security guests. One by one we were checked at the door. Our carry ons searched. When the FBI agent saw my boots and helmet with the Kuwaiti stamp on my passport, he actually stepped back, saluted, and said welcome home, Sir. Not knowing how to react, I said thank you as I was observing to my right two Middle Eastern looking men in zip ties sitting on the floor against the wall.
Their had been intel info of a potential terror attack involving this particular flight. I don’t know any more of the details, but this was what the roundup experience was like. Having never gotten all the way to the normal arrival gate we had to do a short 150 foot or so walk across the tarmac to stairs up to the arrival area while the security team finished their sweep.
The week with the soldiers. The holidays. The 17 hour flight. Not sleeping all that well in the tents. The emotions raw. It hit me as I was walking across that tarmac. It’s very hard to describe. My feet were on free ground. Like I could breathe again after struggling for air. I had this overwhelming feeling of freedom and safety.
All that after a few months work and one week of travel.
Back to Venezuela. Imagine your plane has been boarded, then occupied by the bad guys this time… for 14, 15 years.
Whatever the real motives are for Trump’s actions, whatever negativity the left is trying to throw up on the wall, whatever the legitimate concerns are about proper or improper use of US military power, there is one very simple result that will wilt all these news worthy themes around the event should it return in full measure to Venezuela. One word. Freedom.