Flight of the Blue Falcon

Blue Falcon: a version of the military acronym BF which stands for Buddy F*&%er. That is what someone who behaves in a manner which elevates his personal needs or desires above those of the unit to which he belongs. i.e. John Kerry. Let me let you in on a little secret. Not everyone in the military is a selfless, heroic, patriot. No matter where you go or what you do, you will always run into that 10% of people that are completely self absorbed idiots. This is just as true in the SEAL Teams as it is at your workplace. People squeak by, they finagle, they schmooze their way into a position of responsibility or trust that they do not deserve. Or they may go into a situation with good intentions, but when the heat is on they just can take it. Either way the results are the same, somebody else has to pick up slack because Mr. 10% is not shouldering the load. Usually the ones with good intentions realize that they are not cut out and remove themselves from the herd, but the other ones, the schemers will milk the system for all its worth and get away clean with a legitimate resume bullet that the average Joe could never dispute.

I had one of these guys in my last SEAL platoon, his name was Joe actually and he was one of the schemers. Joe was a large body builder type covered in tatoos with an attitude to match. I met him as a new guy fresh out of BUD/S trying hard to make himself a reputation as a hardcore operator and all around bad ass. Joe started out by letting everyone know that he was in the Israeli Defense Forces before he joined the Navy. He would never get into what it was he did there, but he was content to float that out and let people think he was some kind of war hero. Well, Joe spent his work days shirking his responsibilities in the platoon, and his nights kissing up to anyone he felt would be able to advance his career. His efforts didn't carry him very far in the platoon where we knew he was Blue Falcon, but sucking up to the XO got him a ticket to sniper school, which afforded him the cool guy title of Navy SEAL Sniper. No matter that he was a lousy operator, was unreliable, tactically unsound, a poor shot, and a weak swimmer. He had his ticket punched, and now he's a Blackwater contractor making $1000 a day. But the rub is that Joe isn't happy, and as long as he remains a Blue Falcon and not an upstanding citizen he never will be. I saw him last weekend at the reunion and he revealed as much in our 5 minute conversation. Once people like Joe and John see that their phony exploits and machinations actually can be used to an advantage for a time, they become dependent upon them. So long as nobody looks at them too hard, they'll get a way with it and come out on top. But the damage is done on the inside, and I wouldn't trade anything for success at the expense of integrity. There are mirrors all around us, and you can't turn away forever.

Usually, people like this cruise through life on their phony resume and only manage to ruin a few lives that directly intersect with their own miserable existence. But every once in a while one of these people really reach for the stars on backs of colleagues they have stabbed. John Kerry is one of these very elite few. By inflating the heroism and honor of his service he knew that he would have the solid credentials to put him into public office someday. But apparently, someday was too long to wait. So he wiggled his way out of completing his duty in Vietnam on a technicality. Sure, he had the 3 PHs to go, but to have the stones to invoke it 4 months in to a 12 month deployment with nary a scratch is breathtaking Blue Falconry. Screw the brothers, those saps could carry his load while he went home to lay the foundations for his monument to me. Obviously, the piece de resistance was his absolute and total betrayal of not just his fellow vets, but ultimately the people that he said we were exterminating, the South Vietnamese. He had to know that the torturers in Hanoi would use his words to menacing effect against his own countrymen. Even if every word he said to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was true, which of course it wasn't, stating it publicly from his position as a decorated vet will go down in history as one of the worlds greatest acts of political narcissism. And then, 35 years hence, after flinging his decorations in a symbol of shame and defiance, to once again ride on the backs of the veterans he stabbed into the Oval Office is staggering. Chew on that thought for a moment, I mean really breathe it in. Has any stench of hypocracy and betrayal ever smelled worse? Not to my nose.


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