I refer any parties interested in my feelings on this development to the Kelly Bundy vid in the previous post.

Argentinian President Javier Milei To Join Trump At Presidential Inauguration
Argentinian President Javier Milei confirmed Tuesday that he plans to attend the upcoming inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump in Washington this January.

The news was first reported by Bloomberg, citing an Argentine government spokesperson. A spokesperson for Milei confirmed the news, according to CBS News. Milei recently echoed Trump’s slogan and took to social media to show his support.

As preparations for the inauguration continue, Milei is slated to be the first confirmed world leader at the Jan. 20 ceremony, with others reportedly making arrangements, CBS News reported.

“Attend”? Pish-tosh! Argentina’s Miracle Man of right ought to be flown up on a specially-chartered Trump Force One flight; chauffeured out of Andrews AFB to the Inauguration venue in the most luxuriously appointed, stretchiest limo EVAR (the BEAST!!); escorted down a plush, ankle-deep red carpet by a bevy of dynamite chicks, each one lovelier than Faye Dunaway; and shown to his exclusive front row seat as not merely an honored, respected, and welcome guest of his American counterpart, but as a close personal friend and trusted partner of Trump’s as well. From all appearances I don’t think it would be overstating the case much to say the two reformist Chief Executives are birds of a feather, feisty twin brothers born of different mothers. Thus, OMB would be well advised to treat Javier Milei as such.

I very much hope (and expect) that President The Donald is savvy enough, wily enough, to recognize this signal occasion for exactly what it is: a unique, not-to-be-squandered opportunity to rub Uniparty statists’ noses vigorously in both his own and Milei’s resounding triumph right from the git-go. If he does, and conducts himself accordingly, the traditional Inaugural after-party—parties, actually—will be well and truly lit, in a way and to an extent none has ever been before.

Let solidarity be the watchword here, sayeth I. May these like-minded stalwarts stand shoulder-to-shoulder in mutually-supportive defiance of the common foe. Not one (1) degree of separation ought to be allowed to intervene betwixt them going forward—not physically, not ideologically, not in practical terms.

The renewed flood of sweet, sweet shitlib tears alone would make giving Milei the full-on Royal Treatment well worth any conceivable inconvenience and/or expense.

In a struggle so desperate as the present one is shaping up to be, it simply is not possible to have too many allies. Having known so many combat-blooded warriors so well over lo, these many years and lent an attentive ear to the harrowing war-stories they had to tell, I have yet to hear a man Jack of them complain that the battlefield on which he fought was just too dang crowded with friendlies. Years ago, on one of the terribly rare occasions he’d even speak of his experiences there at all*, my Korea-vet dad (US Army, Chemical Weapons Corps) solemnly assured me that there are no atheists in foxholes; from what I can make out, there ain’t no loners to be found there, either.

* Apparently, my poor ol’ Dad saw more than enough mind-bending horror in Korea to do him; as a kid, I well remember being terrified out of my wits whenever he had one of his recurrent flashback-nightmares; one night, he vaulted from a flatfooted start on my bedroom floor straight to the top of my dresser in one go, whooping and shouting like a banshee, calling for reinforcements right the hell NOW, screaming out re-deployment orders to squad-mates I couldn’t see, pointing out advancing enemies in division strength which existed only in his memory. I’ll never forget it; it was seriously awful, like all the Korea stories he eventually divulged to me were. My mom was stunned to hear he’d told me anything whatsoever when I talked to her a few years back about it; he never once opened up to her over their whole 27-year marriage, although the nightmares pretty much said it all, I suppose

Update! Off-topic, sure, but what the hey: since I brought my Old Man up and all, here’s a portrait done in his Army days.

That one enjoyed pride of place on the wall of my grandma’s tiny den/family room/TV room as far back as I can remember and beyond, until one fine day years after she’d passed on my Aunt Ruth took it down unasked and gave it to li’l ol’ moi. It now enjoys pride of place on my dining-room wall, and will until I croak. His decorations—quite a few of them, actually—lived in a beat-up old cigar box of my Macanudo-chomping Uncle Murray’s nestled in the top drawer of Dad’s tall chest-of-drawers along with the cuff links, tie tacks, business cards, loose change, and sundry other male impedimenta. When our parents weren’t home to catch us at it, me and my brother Jeff used to sneak the expressly-off-limits-for-us box from its hidey-hole and look at the medals, ribbons, citations, and such all the time. No idea what they were for or what might’ve became of them, I regret to say. Maybe Jeff ended up with ‘em, I dunno. I certainly hope so, anyway.

One of my dad’s most distressing Korean War stories was of a shot-to-shit F86-D that wobbled and staggered weakly over my dad’s base-camp area at under 500 feet, steadily losing altitude and airspeed until it finally gave up the ghost of powered flight altogether and augured into the side of a large hill/small mountain and caught fire. My father and a handful of his buddies raced over to see if they could rescue the pilot before he burned to death. Alas, when they arrived at the crash scene and pried the ex-Sabre’s canopy off, all that was left of the luckless aviator was, in Dad’s words, “just a bunch of red jelly” painted liberally all over the ejector seat, instrument panel, cockpit interior, and windscreen—at which gruesome tableau he and his buddies puked prodigiously. Then they all walked slowly, silently back to base-camp together, depressed to their very socks at having failed in their ill-starred rescue mission.

After the war-conversation ice had at last been broken between us once and for all, my father recounted this tragic event two or three more times, and without exception as the unhappy ending approached his eyes would puddle up, his hands would start to tremble, his face would redden, and his throat would constrict so badly that he could barely even croak out the words, so powerful was the effect they had on him. Knowing what I know now, I pray to God above that calmly, quietly discussing these shattering experiences with his firstborn son afforded him at least some surcease, however fleeting, from the never-ending anguish the memory of them brought. In Jesus’ name, I pray it. Things like this may be buried, but they can never truly be laid to rest.

Another tale, less grim and almost funny in a bleak sort of way, regards the afternoon a supply train pulled in to the base, parked up at a siding for unloading, and caught fire. Seeing the incipient conflagration, my pop led a small crew of four or five intrepid souls into one of the loaded boxcars and began unloading the cargo as quick as could be, without any inkling of what might be in the gnarly wooden crates they were pulling from the burning boxcar and dragging clear.

As it turned out, their mad dash to save the unknown-to-them cargo was one of the acts of soldierly heroism and derring-do my Dad received a medal for: the crates were full of Willie Pete, a/k/a White Phosphorous, a highly-flammable and volatile load that, by a miracle, didn’t explode and torch every last one of them. He said that, when the Captain informed them afterwards of what they had on their hands, praising the men for their bravery Above And Beyond etc and selflessness, he almost fainted dead away on the spot: his knees got weak, his eyes lost focus, his head started spinning, and if his friends’ faces were any indication, he went white as a fresh-bleached sheet. Laughingly, he said his fellow impromptu firefighting squad all later agreed on at least one thing: if they’d known beforehand that the boxcar was stacked floor to ceiling with crates of WP, they’d all have run as fast and as far as they could away from that damned train.

My Dad said his primary duty as a Chemical Corps PFC was running a flamethrower, still in widespread use during the Korean conflict. According to him, shooting his flamethrower was a heck of a lot of fun, he really liked it…until the not-so-frabjous day arrived when he had to torch live enemy soldiers for reals, which for him kinda took all the joy out of the whole backpack-napalm-squirter business. He found turning actual living, breathing people into charcoal briquets, soot, and drifting flakes of foul-smelling ash, regardless of enemy-combatant status, not nearly as diverting and/or satisfying as incinerating kitchen trash pits, practice range targets, termite mounds, bald Jeep tires, and assorted piles of useless junk had been. As those years-later frightmares would attest, he never got over the soul-searing horror of it.