THE ENDURING SWAMP

THE ENDURING SWAMP
by Andy Weddington
Friday, 04 August 2017

Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected. George Washington

Last weekend and the first of this week past I visited the hub of the swamp - the swamp President Trump promises to drain.

Not all is dismal.  

Sunday afternoon I met and spoke briefly with Mr. James McCloughan - our country's newest recipient of the Medal of Honor. President Trump draped the medal around his neck the following day.

Monday evening, following the retirement ceremony of a former commanding officer and longtime friend at 8th & I (Marine Barracks, Washington, D. C.), I was privileged to be included in a post-ceremony photograph with Colonel Harvey Barnum, USMC (Ret.) - awarded the Medal of Honor for actions in Vietnam. 

Colonel Barnum had the medal tucked away in his jacket pocket and, upon request from the evening's honoree, pulled it out and palmed it for the photograph.

Shoulder to shoulder with two Medal of Honor recipients in two days. Remarkable. 

And also Monday evening in the company of hundreds of Marines who, too, hold the swamp in disdain.

Alas, there is (some) good in the swamp. 

With a Marine, General John Kelly, as current White House Chief of Staff add another good thing in the swamp. 

General Kelly makes three Marines in President Trump's top-level circle. 

Marine General Joe Dunford, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Marine General Jim Mattis, Secretary of Defense.

This morning circling social media a meme pictures the trio in camouflage utilities. The caption: When needing to drain the swamp send in the Marines.

Moments later on the news was segment of the trio's boss, President Trump, at a rally last evening in West Virginia. He, again, commented on draining the swamp. It makes the crowd (momentarily) happy.  

But talk is cheap.

Marines, especially Trump's trio, well know that truth.

Too they know hope is not a course of action.

Drain the damn swamp!

To be clear, the swamp cannot be drained until Hillary Clinton faces justice; for, at a minimum, the (investigated and substantiated) crimes she did. 

And that goes for her connected, inseparable gang.

Do your promised and moral duty, Mr. President. 

Make (your) Marines (and all of us) and the people (more than momentarily) happy. 

If not, the swamp endures. 

Simple as that - as President Washington, first superintendent of the swamp, surely knew.