Reply #78: My Story [View All]

I'm a software engineer, 15 years paid experience in development. Learned how to program when computers had lots of blinking lights on the front panel. Before that I was a hardware technician for 10 years. I was fixing computers when they had transistors instead of chips.

Since the Bush coup, I've been laid off 3 times. Since I hold no degree, it's a bit more difficult to get through the HR gauntlet to land the interview, and about half the time I have to overcome an elitist academic attitude of the interviewer.

In the past 3 years I've worked about half of the time, unemployed the other half. Savings are gone. My current salary is reduced by 25% of its peak, with the same mortgage and my commute has doubled to 100 miles per day.

My marriage has failed after 13 years, so we can add child support for the next 5 years to that too. Thankfully I don't have alimony obligations.

Those costs are small compared to the additional ones I am dealing with.

I am a cold war submarine vet (SSBN). My family has a proud tradition of serving that goes back to the revolution (I have distant cousins who are Cincinnati). We immigrated during the French and Indian War. There are place names all over the mid-west US that bear the name. Let me tell you the apple indeed does not fall far from the tree.

I am considering counseling to deal with the deeply rooted emotions I am experiencing, but, I fear that those records could end up in the hands of the cabal and used against me. I've not cut my hair since Nov. 1, 2004, at that time I sported a flat-top. I don't know why that's important to me, but, it is. Perhaps being raised in the 60's I associate long hair with protest.

I want Justice. It's that simple. With every fiber of my being, every wisp of my soul. It matters not to me what party whomever is responsible belongs to. I want justice, and I will not be denied. As a teen I volunteered my life to protect the Constitution. I took a solemn oath. If the tree of liberty needs my blood for nourishment, so mote it be. I am no longer an activist, I am a warrior.

Thanks for the therapy session DA.

-Hoot