Hello, Kent,

What is this with you & the SSE?

A big project I have been working on for more than a year now could use your help? The next episode...Part IX, will have some work for you if you are interested.

Best regards, David Yuhas, Boulder, Clorado

Inland Empire, Part VIII

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=32480220566&ref=mf

To Proposed Personages...

General Contractor for the Great Western Railway-Great Plains Express Project...

Dwight Beranek, Railroad Designer, Army Corps of Engineers

Great Western Railway Project...

Peter G. Peterson, Blackstone Group

Paul Copeland, Beatty-Balfour Rail Inc.

William M. Stout, Atlas Railroad Construction

Jeffrey M. Levy, Railworks Inc

John Dineen, GE Transportation

Lt. Governor of Montana, John Bohlinger

Governor of Wyoming, Dave Freudenthal

Governor of Utah, Jon Huntsman Jr.

Governor of Idaho, C.L. Otter

Governor of Montana, Brian Schweitzer

Senator Mike Crapo, Idaho

Lt. Governor of Idaho, James Risch

Montana Congressman, Denny Rehberg

Idaho Congressman, Mike Simpson

Utah Congressman, Jim Mattheson

Great Plains Express Project...

Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

William Herzog, Herzog Railroad Construction

Peter McKenna, Skanska USA

John Cavanaugh, Electro-Motive Diesel Inc.

Governor of Nebraska, Dave Heineman

Governor of Oklahoma, Brad Henry

Governor of North Dakota, John Hoener

Governor of Texas, Rick Perry

Governor of Colorado, Bill Ritter

Governor of South Dakota, Mike Rounds

Governor of Kansas, Kathleen Sebelius

Western State Cavalry Project

Adm. William J. Fallon, USN (Ret.)

Monty Roberts, Flag Is Up Farms, California

Senator Jim Webb, Viginia

Inmate Infantry Project

Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger

Sheriff of Maricopa County, AZ, Joseph Arpaio

Secretary of California Dept. of Corrections & Rehab, Matt Cate

President, CCPOA, Mike Jimenez

Horse Procurement

Ms. Sally Spencer, BLM Wild Horse & Burro Program

Kyle Partain, Western Horseman Magazine

Plantation Design & Procurement

Wes Jackson, The Land Institute

Kent Whealy, Heritage Farms

Senator Jon Tester, Montana

Scrap Tire Procurement

Dick Gust, Lakin General Corporation

Charcoal Production Works

Michael Antal, University of Hawaii

Michael Lurvey, University of Hawaii

Academic Extension Course

Dr. C.P. Peterson, Chancellor, University of Colorado, Boulder

Professor Jeffrey Robinson, Dept. of Literature, University of Colorado

Prof. Daniel Boord, Dept. of Film Studies, University of Colorado

Dear Friends,

For "Roadside", they say "WUI" (pronounced Wooee), which statnds for "Wildland-Urban Interface"... for "Forest- Thinning" they say "TSI" which stands for "Timber Stand Improvement".

Now why, one may ask...rather that speaking in the secret language of young girls, does our Forest Service not simply say "Roadside Forest-Thinning"?

After all...with well over a million acres of dead & dying pine trees populating the Rockies...&, thanks to a hundred year Forest Service policy of Fire Suppression, with practically all recent wildfires being road-jumping, Crown Fires...most of what this agency should be doing at the moment is exactly "Roadside Forest-Thinning".

Apart from the wildfire issues, a fortune in perfectly good pine lumber is going to waste...lumber which would be key to turning out the twenty-eight million railroad ties needed for the Great Western Railway & its companion piece, the Great Plains Express.

As luck would have it, the projected Western State Cavalry would need a number of training camps to become familiar with four things...chainsaws, horses, K9s & light-weight revolvers. A dozen camps set up in the epicenters of the Pine Beetle Epidemic...camps that could house say, 200 Cavalrymen & as many Inmate Infantrymen, would be ideal for large-scale, forest-thinning projects.

The money for these camps might come from Chapter 31 of the GI Bill, Entitled "Vocational Rehabilitation"...which is much of what the Western State Cavalry would be all about. In the next couple of years, it is said, around 400,000 veterans of Iraq & Afghanistan will be returning home. Amongst this number...added to those already back, are going to be some thousands of "Josey Waleses"...not yet ready for civilian society...insisting on sleeping with their pistols...refusing to take an Elixir designed for the mentally ill...& hard pressed to find employment.

Meanwhile in the Golden State of California, the El Dorado of the world's prison population...173,000 prisoners are being housed in facilities designed for 80,000...with 200 new arrivals every day. With Level III & IV inmates costing the State upwards of $50,000 per year in upkeep...here, once again, is my plan for the Inmate Infantry.

Level IIIs & IVs in the California system, who are able-bodied, non-drug dependent & not in Protective Custody would be cordially invited to join the Inmate Infantry of the Western State Cavalry. This organization would do three kinds of work...lay railroad track, portage 9-foot timbers from forest to roadside...&...mostly in the summer months, provide the labor of the twenty Cavalry Plantations on the Great Plains.

The advantage of being an Inmate Infantryman, rather than, say, a yardbird at Pelican Bay is that one would work a 40 hour week...with weekends off for good behavior...have the same menu & medical care as a Cavalryman...& not have to worry about concrete walls, solitary confinement, shackles, or truncheons...as these would not be found at a Cavalry Camp.

The disadvantages (life being a series of trade-offs), would be a ban on visits & phone calls...as a Cavalry Camp, even with its double, chain link fence substituting for concrete walls, would be a Maximum Security facility...& would operate as a Restricted Area.

As your typical Cavalryman would not be a professional prison guard, & would have as his defense, only a lightweight revolver & a K9 for self-defense, as means of putting down disturbances & to stop any escape attempts, fire power & dogs are probably what he would rely on.

The protocol for joining the Inmate Infantry would be as follows...

1. Apply to the Warden.

2. Complete a 60 day period of incident-free, exemplary behavior. ("Oliver" the inmate in Lisa Ling's piece, "Surviving Maximum Security" showed it can be done).

3. Be transferred to Ironwood Prison, (which would be converted into training facility for Inmate Infantrymen), be issued Carhartt bibs, blue shirts & jackets for a four-week course in laying track...specifically, here, a line running between Needles & Yuma.

4. Be sent off to a Cavalry Camp in the Rockies to portage nine-foot timbers for railroad-tie production. The Twenty-eight million ties would not be needed all at once...but the supply would have to keep up with construction.

http://www.charterfirearms.com/

http://www.epsaddlery.com/

As most Cavalrymen would be doing many of the same tasks as Inmate Infantrymen...& as Level III & IV inmates, typically, are incarcerated for violent crimes, the standard issue handgun should be both lightweight & worn in a tanker holster. The handgun should be a revolver rather than a semi-automatic in the off-chance the Cavalryman has a a flashback & "goes NYPD" on someone. I would invite Charter Arms, whose revolvers come highly recommended, to get together with El Paso Saddlery, which makes very nice holsters, to put something together

Just as a driver who carries a spare car key in his wallet might never need this key, but would be very happy to have one, if he should need it, here is my design idea for a Cavalry boot that might be made by a notable boot maker

As luck would have it, the brand I wear, Nocona, is owned by Berkshire-Hathaway

In one boot there would be a built-in sheath for a 6 oz Gerber knife...& in the other boot, a holster for a tiny, 6 oz North American Arms revolver. As the pant leg would cover the top of the boot, no one has to know anything.

Best regards, David Yuhas, Boulder, Colorado

p.s. The next episode in this saga will concern the projected, twenty Plantations to be located between Lubbock & Fargo on the Grand Fork Line of the Great Plains Express. Unless they have some objection to being given a Cavalry assignment...(in which case they should let me know, & I'll take care of it), Messrs Wes Jackson, Kent Whealy &, perhaps improbably, Admiral William Fallon, should know they are on this Assignment List.