Thinking about the recent massacre in Bali reminded me of a lunch me and Cornflake had with his step-Grandfather, a little before Cornflake moved down to San Diego. His gramps is one cool dude. He was a transport pilot in the South Pacific during WWII, and has a million stories to tell.

His war stories are great. Neither of my grandfathers are living, so I have to get my old-man war stories were I can. And this guy's a goldmine. Among tales of dangerous flights, idiot superiors, and a lot of dead Japanese, he eventually started talking about Australians.

“Yeah, those Aussie bastards were crazy. Dangerous, stubborn assholes, all of ‘em.”

“So, you didn’t like them,” I asked, surprised, always having thought highly of our prison-spawned cousins.

“Well, I liked ‘em well enough to marry one of of ‘em,” he said with a wide smile.

He then regaled us with stories of his leaves in Sydney; of delicious steak, cheap beer, and beautiful women. They were the kind of stories that only come out of crazy war-time days, when you never know what will happen tomorrow. He spoke fondly of the nation and its people.

“The Aussies,” he said, “are the only people in the world who are truly our friends. The French and Germans don’t give a damn about us. The Brits are split between hating us and loving us. But the Australians, they’re just like us. They understand us. And when things get rough, they’re the only ones who we can really depend on.”

I’ve only known a few Australians in my day, but I’ve liked almost every one of them. The Australians were with us in the World War II, fighting Hitler and Tojo’s fascists, in Korea and Vietnam fighting against the oppressive totalitarianism of Communism. Now they stand with us defending the free world from the Islamofascists and their allies. They’ve suffered their first large wound from our common enemy, but I doubt it will be the last. However, in the end, we will both stand triumphant, as we have in the past.

The Bali blast may prove to be proportionally more devastating (in terms of citizens killed to population ratio) to Australia than 9-11 was to us, but they don’t need sympathy. The Aussies are tough. They will deal with this, and they will get their justice, hopefully with a little American help.

No. Instead of sympathy, Australia gets something more important from me: my respect and admiration. That’s all there really is to say.