Skillful wordsmith, gleeful humorist, devotee of the female form, master of the comma, friend—these are but a few of the descriptives I attach to Smitty of The Other McCain.
I would not swap the favor of kings for the friendship of Chris “Smitty” Smith. I have “known” Smitty for two of the three-and-a-half years I’ve been blogging. I remember reaching out to Smitty when No Sheeples Here was a fledgling site.
Countless times, Smitty and Stacy linked to this blog and helped to drive traffic my way. I owe both gentlemen a great debt for helping to grow my readership.
Often, there would be an email in my inbox from Smitty with an idea for a Photoshop™. Smitty’s sense of humor and his deft use of words would bring a delightful and humorous twist to a story that was breaking on the Intertoobs.
In Cogadh No Sìth Smitty writes, “I hold orders to activate in mid-November and report to Kabul, Afghanistan in time for Christmas. Bandwidth and latitude for skylarking online will not exist until the end of 2011.”
It is difficult for me imagine The Other McCain being bereft of Smitty’s postings.
Smitty is a tender soul. A little over a year ago I received one of those emails from him that I mentioned above. In it, he asked if I would create a graphic in remembrance of LCDR Robert Randolph Elseth for Project 2996.
In his post for September 11, 2009 he wrote of Elseth:
The Crown of Life Bob wore,Invisible yet ever present:Worthy of Christian striving.The unfathomable Will of God,Placing him in the PentagonOn that day is joyous and bitter.Calling him home so soonImmortalizes his memoryWithout hugs for the remaining.Though my wife would object,At the time, I, a bachelor,Would have cheerfully traded places.Did you get that? He would have cheerfully traded places with Bob on that horrible day when the Pentagon was attacked on September 11, 2001. You can almost visualize the tears rolling down Smitty’s face. It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who wrote, “A man's growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.”
Smitty is a man of faith. For his impending deployment, Psalms 18:32-36 seems most appropriate:
“It is God who arms me with strength, And makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like the feet of deer, And sets me on my high places. He teaches my hands to make war, So that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. You have also given me the shield of Your salvation; Your right hand has held me up, Your gentleness has made me great. You enlarged my path under me, So my feet did not slip.”
Smitty is a patriot. For us he reminds, “And that the attitude that must be presented to the enemies of liberty; Taliban in Afghanistan, or Progressives closer to home. Thinking you stupid, they will continue to say that you ‘vote against your own interest’, and turn down their bread-and-circus substitutes for Liberty. Liberty ain’t cheap, and rejecting Progressivism may resemble pain for a while. That’s not pain. That’s Socialist weakness leaving the country, and don’t let these liars sell you otherwise. Stand and deliver, the way a Progressive cannot, for, at heart, modern Progressivism is a synonym for cowardice.”
Give the enemy hell while you are in country, Smitty. We will wait right here for you in prayer and thoughts of friendship and thankfulness that men of courage fight so that we may live in freedom. Godspeed.
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