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On my third night at home after I returned from Iraq, I woke with a start: my rifle! I could feel the negative space where it should have been. I could feel the absence of the webbed sling tucked under my elbow, the ghost of the handguard along my forearm, and the missing stock of the weapon against my thigh. I got out of bed and began feeling along the floor beside the bed and around the sides of the nightstand before my brain joined me in the present. I whispered an expletive or two and then slipped silently through the house. The doors and windows were locked, and there was no one lurking in the yard. I went back to bed and lay awake for the rest of the night.
This happened semi-regularly with decreasing frequency over the following months. Each time, I caught myself a little sooner in the process than I had the time before, but I always got up and checked the doors and windows.
Some years later, I traveled internationally for work and often carried one or two thousand dollars in cash. That money and my passport were like mosquito bites I couldn’t reach—never completely out of mind and worse if I tried to stop thinking about them. I never put myself in a position where my cash and passport would be left behind if I had to exit an aircraft via the emergency slide. Important but less critical items could go under the seat in front of me, but always in a bag with handles that I could stick my foot through if I decided to close my eyes for a while.
I still keep my valuables attached to my body when I travel. At home, I sometimes double-check the doors in the middle of the night and regularly exasperate my wife by locking doors in situations where it creates very little extra safety but a whole lot of inconvenience. It’s a habit. I am security conscious, not hypervigilant.
If only Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem were so security conscious. For most people, having $3000 cash in a purse would keep that purse from escaping their attention, no matter how delicious their dinner or how sparkling the conversation at The Capital Burger. After all, over one-third [ [link removed] ] of Americans could not come up with $400 cash in an emergency, and more than half would need to use a credit card instead of cash for an unexpected expense of $1000 or more. Surely, the former governor of South Dakota can relate to those who are living paycheck to paycheck, and she must understand that $3000 cash is a pretty big deal for most Americans.
The DHS access badge and the passport in Noem’s purse should have aroused her attention as well. Couldn’t those small items have been on her body somewhere? She has all those extra pockets for lip liner and other tactical gear in her ICE-raid Paramilitary-Barbie outfit. Isn’t that what DHS secretaries wear to dinner? If not, she must have at least had some flex cuffs nearby. (Does she go anywhere without them?) She could have used them to attach her bag to her ankle or to the leg of her chair.
I’m not so sure security is Kristi Noem’s thing. She would be a better fit as Secretary of Instagram. She could keep her ICE-commando gear and add a utility belt with a selfie-stick holster. Instead of sending USAID to feed hungry children or run AIDS clinics, the United States could send Kristi Noem to pose in front of them. Those kids would still be hungry, but they would also be immortalized on Noem’s official “Insta.” Maybe Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. could accompany Noem and tell the children how lucky they were to have fluoride-free drinking water and not be at risk for obesity. Also, he might add, none of you have seen a doctor and your reported rates of autism are very low. That cannot be a coincidence.
The least we could do for those poor kids is give them a cell phone with the Signal app installed and a profile name like, THE Jack Daniel. That way, their village might accidentally get some intel on what time American F/A-18 Hornets will arrive and what munitions they’ll be dropping. Someone ought to benefit from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s inability to keep really cool operational information to himself.
An investigator looking into my background for a security clearance asked friends and neighbors if they would trust me with their money or to keep a secret. The Secretary of Homeland Security clearly cannot be trusted with money, and the Secretary of Defense is likely to spill a juicy secret, especially after Pentagon happy hour. Noem and Hegseth were picked for their great hair and slavish devotion to Donald Trump, not their security expertise or leadership abilities. The good news is that the United States will dominate in any conflict that comes down to a Zoolander-style pose-off. And Hegseth might give us the edge if things must be resolved with a drinking contest.
It is comforting to imagine that more sober, professional people would replace Kristi Noem and Pete Hegseth if they were moved to Secretary of Instagram and Secretary of the Manosphere, but we would probably end up with two more amateurs with great hair and decent camera awareness. Doug Burgum has made a valiant but misguided attempt at great hair. He strayed too far from the Fox-News-host haircut to one that looks like Gavin Newsome borrowed hair extensions from Kristi Noem.
Not that I should talk: A commenter on one of my social media posts once said that there was no way he was voting for “that guy with the cop haircut.” I should probably be Director of the FBI.
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