Donald K. Allen for President

Top of the Week

September 15, 2008

Each week from now until Nov. 4 I will explain my plans for America. This week’s topic is,

“The United States of America’s Armed Forces ”

From the very birth of our country, our armed forces have established and determined the future of this Nation. From the Revolution that freed us from the dominion of Great Britain, to defense of the Free World in two World Wars, our men and women in uniform have fought to maintain our hard-won freedom and ensure that the United States of America would endure where other nations have not. We stand today as the longest-lived democracy thanks to the many sacrifices of those who have served and continue to defend this land.

I believe in a strong military, well-trained and ready, superiorly equipped, and more than adequate in numbers to meet any challenge to our country’s security. I also believe in non-intervention. Not isolationism, but taking care of what is truly important to the USA and not serving the world as an international police force. Supposedly, that is the role of the United Nations, but we all know that the UN, for all the money that flows through it, is ineffective in or incapable of projecting military force.

1. Maintain an all-volunteer military force and offer many incentives to stay in uniform, further education, and provide for military families.

2. Enlarge our Army and Marine Corps by 10 to 15 percent (two to three divisions Army, one division Marines).

3. Provide our Marine Corps, Special Operations units, and elite forces with the very best in equipment, selected by the men and women who actually use this equipment and not the Pentagon, Congress, and military contractors’ lobbyists.

4. Continue funding to ensure that our Navy, Coast Guard, and Air Force always are the best fighting forces of their kinds in the world.

5. Review the Department of Veterans Affairs from the ground up, eliminating inefficiency, overstaffing, and over administration. Inspect all VA hospitals and medical facilities to ensure that our injured servicemen and women receive the finest care available, and provide funding to hire the best doctors and medical personnel, not those who find the VA a last resort in employment. The VA administers one of the largest health care systems in the world, with 1,353 facilities around the world, including 157 hospitals nationwide. I also want to make it one of the best.

6. Reduce our overseas military presence by 50 percent in four years. We now have U.S. military forces serving in nearly 130 countries, but the majority of our overseas military are located in Japan (40,000), Korea (40,000), 97,000 in Asia, and Europe (116,000; 75,000 in Germany). I would suggest that these host countries stand up their own forces to offset the reductions. This alone would save our government billions of dollars that can be used to improve and grow our own military forces.

7. Since our military forces are required to protect our entire country, and every citizen, I would withhold Federal funding to any municipality, school, university, company, or organization that refuses military recruiting functions. The strength of our Nation and security of our future relies on unity of all Americans, and although we all have a right to protest, that right does not extend to exclusionary action regarding military recruiting.

Sept. 1, 2008 topic: “Restoring America’s Manufacturing Base.”

For What It's Worth: Sent to other independent and third party candidates on Sept. 5, 2008:

A fellow veterinarian who visited my campaign site said, “I like your platform, for the most part, but I know Nothing about you other than a few web pages, and we are talking about the most powerful position in the world. I take it serious, as my Grandfather, D-day survivor, taught me to do.” He’s right, you know, but he can say the same thing about any of the Presidential candidates.

The campaign is like a job interview, and those of you who have been in a hiring position know that the person you interview is not always the same person that is working for you six months later. During the job interview, they look, smell, and sound the very best they can, but after they’ve landed the job they revert to their true selves. I told my vet friend that you can’t really know somebody unless you live with them or marry them, then you know what they’re REALLY like.

So, we listen to the media’s 24/7 coverage of the two principle candidates’ “electable rhetoric,” which are the words and sentences that the voting public wants to hear to garner their votes. Do we really know much about these people? I heard from a Navy veteran that the scuttlebutt is John McCain is a “flamer.” When I asked my Vice Presidential candidate, Chris Borcik, what that meant, he said it refers to a flight instructor that yells at and chews out his students. I’ve heard from other sources that he has a bad temper. Of course, you won’t see that until after he gets the job!

How about Obama? His main claim to work fame is that he was a community organizer on the south side of Chicago. OK, that means he was a protégé of Saul Alinsky, the radical leftist who basically invented community organizing. He seems very proud of this period in his life, so he must believe his work was a good thing, and Saul Alinsky’s ideals are inspiring. Welcome the new socialist America!

What scares me the most is the fact that the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has an agenda for the USA. That agenda includes the further formation of a North American Union, including the NAFTA superhighway and the Security and Prosperity Partnership with Mexico and Canada. You could safely say that the CFR is a shadow government steering our Congress and Executive Branch. Both McCain and Obama are members of the CFR, and previous Presidents have not only been members, but appointed many other members of the CFR to high administrative positions in our government. And you think our elected officials are working for us? Just take a few moments to read Wikipedia’s “Council on Foreign Relations,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_on_Foreign_Relations and decide for yourselves. Do the American people really believe they are in control of their government?

Yet some of us persist in our efforts to gain public attention and gather support for our campaigns. We believe that what we are doing is what our Founding Fathers wanted us to do; to get involved in our government and serve our country. They conceived a government of citizen legislators, who left their homes and jobs, professions and trades to go to Washington and participate in running this great country. Would they be astonished and ashamed of the professional politicians of today, who spend their entire adult lives in Congress, never having held a “real” job? How would they look at Joe Biden, who went from law school to Congress and has spent 35 years in Washington? There are many more who have put in more than the required 20 years for retirement benefits, yet love the job so much that they won’t leave. When they do leave, they are worth millions, and some then become lobbyists like Charlie Wilson, who works for Pakistan.

What’s the answer? Term limits for Congress, set at 12 cumulative years combined service in the House and/or Senate. Go home and let someone else run our government. If you can’t get things done in 12 years, you are ineffective and wasting our time and money. Heck, in 12 years you can become a cardiologist, or dig the Panama Canal, or put a man on the moon. After 12 years in Congress you are just spinning your wheels and getting fat.

Don't give up,
Don