COMMODORE TO ADMIRAL FOR "TONY THE TRUTH TELLER"
If you have been a regular follower of this blog since at least last March you may recall that we linked quite a number of times via YouTube to a guy we might call a video blogger who sometimes called himself "Pretend Commodore Tony". Tony comments on quite a few maritime issues including the problems in the sea of Japan and we couldn't have agreed more with him on his position that the islands China disputes with Japan are in fact, as a matter of international law, the territory of Japan. We also share his rather negative view of the Sea Shepard and Green Peace Organizations. We are all for environmental protection of the oceans but as former Coast Guardsmen who had to deal with both organizations we simply fail to see how creating collision hazards improves environmental safety. Japan loves Tony and refers to him as "TEXAS DADDY" because he so often speaks up on Japan's behalf.
Texas is one of the few states in the union that maintains a very serious Sstate Guard", this is a quite different thing from a state's National Guard. The Texas States Guard is a real military organization that does serious military work for the state and is entirely the creature of the state military department receiving no federal funds. The members volunteer for a term of 3 years at a time of basically reserve type duty. Much of the National Guard was in the Middle East when Hurricane Katrina struck and the governor called up the State Guard and they did a great military police job of handling traffic and providing security at the refugee shelters. The Fifth Division of the State Guard is a "marine division" built by Navy, Coast Guard, and Marine Corps veterans and is capable of a variety of maritime type assignments including waterway and port security and they have been active in the Rio Grande Valley helping set up the largely Texas Department of Public safety inter-agency task force that is doing the job Texas asked the Congress to assign to the Coast Guard. Texas, as a direct result of the treaty that brought it into the union has the right to maintain a navy. It has raised two combat navies in the past and the present Navy is mostly a commemorative organization dedicated to the preservation of Texas naval history and tradition. Most of the real naval heavy lifting is done by the maritime division of the State Guard though the Navy did maintain one major working vessel, a large dredge as a commissioned ship. All Texas ocean ports are located behind barrier islands on the naturally shallow waters of the Texas coast a submerged portion of the coastal plain. A dredge that responds to orders from the state military department could be very useful. So much for background.
Well, our friend Tony took to calling himself "pretend Commodore" when he learned that the "Captain" who ran the Sea Shepard organization was in fact not licensed by any maritime organization on earth. But Tony had to put away his "pretend commodore hat" because the Governor of Texas commissioned him an Admiral in the Third Texas Navy. It is way more fun to hear Admiral Tony tell it: Click here for the explanation direct from our new "admiral": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeUJhov6ZDk
and here is a link to a video explaining the Third Navy of Texas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Navy
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