Something isn't right and I can't put a finger on it. Gut feelings.

Over the past week, I've been feeling a little out of sync. Can't put my finger on it but, over my lifetime, I've experienced it before and the many times that has happened, something bad always came from it. With these new feelings, I've found myself thinking about everything from my child hood all the way to current times.

Whether it was the concerns a 7th grader has about running into bullies in boarding school or reading an article today from Americannews.com, there always seems to be a warning of some sort that the shit is about to hit the fan. The article I'm referring to was titled "Muslims demand that the Army allow turbans and beards in the military".

When I read it, I immediately had a flashback to the mid 1980s from reading 13 volumes of Barry Sadler's "Casca". He wrote about the end of the Roman Empire coming from the influences of foreigners serving in the Roman Legions. I accept that Sadler's books were fiction but the years I studied the Roman Empire in boarding schools, mentioned the same thing, and that was a long time before Sadler came along. Foreigners in their military and that part of the story, was true.

I remembered flying Scouts over the jungle in South Vietnam near Phu Loi and, after a couple of days of some pretty serious fighting, I remembered smelling that unmistakable odor from the dead that were left behind. I knew that smell and that there were always bad guys that were still alive in the area. That was not a good thing to be flying around at a very low altitude.

I couldn't see them but I smelled them just the same and I remember telling my gunner Loren Bustin, :"Watch close, I can smell them". Within minutes I found a footprint on a trail that had muddy water in it, an indication that someone had recently passed through the area. Foot prints with clear water in it meant that they were long gone. Not long after that, some of the gunners from the Scouts wanted to serve as my gunner because the rumor spread that "Mr. Butler can smell the dinks".

In the late 90s, my beloved common law nephew, Joey Scarpinatto, gave me a nick name. I became "Mr. Risk Averse" because I would refuse to take part in a number of things he wanted to do. I did that because of experience and I would laugh at him and write it off as a lack of experience on his part, not mine. During times like that I told him that "momma said all the intelligence in the world wasn't in the library, it was in the nursing homes".

That attempt was to use actual experiences in life as an example to show that experience was worth a hell of a lot more than an idea that might sound like fun. I remember preaching that: One has to rely on personal experience when ever possible. It didn't work and I'm still Mr. Risk Averse.

In any event, I have enjoyed the benefits of experience throughout my life but most of it has been relative to business or combative situations. My last employer told me that I had the best strategic mind in the business. I remember saying that the visions came from being around a large number of ruthless, crooked business people  along the way. The end result was the same. In most cases, I could smell a rat before it ever jumped ship. I feel like that's where I am today. These uncertainties are driving me nuts. That's when I began to wonder about you guys and decided to write this gut feeling post.

It seems to me that we, as Americans, wait too late before we make a move. I always think about Pearl Harbor as evidence of that. I always thought that we should have had PBYs flying all over the Pacific west of Hawaii and that an entire fleet of submarines should have made it easy to verify the suspicions that that Japs were coming. We already knew the Japs were killing civilians in Nanking and that they were going all out to gain oil and other resources all over Asia.

When we asked them to stop using babies for bayonet practise, they walked out of "The League of Nations". I've already written about that and firmly believe that Woodrow Wilson should have named it the "League of Civilized Nations" and from that, we never should have invited the Japs or the Germans to take part. That would have effectively put the entire world on notice that these uncivilized barbarians might be back again and that the entire world of civilized nations would kill them all if they tried.

Now comes the barbaric ISIS people and Ebola. If I was running the show, the border would have been closed the day after 911. With regard to Ebola, there would have been a shut down of all flights originating from anywhere in Africa. In any event, I wouldn't be shipping Ebola infected people all over the USA because that only increases the danger. It's one thing to have a shit load of guns and ammo but if you leave the doors open, what else could you expect?

In conclusion, let me say that it's past time to start talking to your neighbors. Who are those FEMA camps designed for? Who is supposed to fill those body bags? That seems to be a couple of really good questions to ask. Americans? Makes me wonder.