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RIP Chuck Norris
Somewhere near the Persian Gulf an American serviceman is at this moment scribbling a Chuck Norris joke (some call them Norris “facts”) on a porta-potty wall. It may be one everyone has heard a thousand times but still smiles at in the worst of conditions, or something new, to be repeated as it works its way across the Gulf on hangar walls and in mess halls, written on the sides of weapons to be dropped, or just passed on verbally as troops crouch in some bunker. It will make the men laugh even as the air raid sirens try (and fail, it is a Chuck Norris joke after all) to drown it out.
If you’re one of the handful of people on earth who has never heard a Chuck Norris joke, here’s a couple: Chuck Norris doesn’t have a bearskin rug in his den; he’s just convinced the bear to lay still. Chuck Norris can light a fire by rubbing two ice cubes together. Chuck Norris doesn’t flush the toilet, he scares the waste out of it. Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door. There is no theory of evolution, just a list of animals Chuck Norris allows to live. Chuck Norris does not cough, nothing escapes Chuck Norris. And Death once had a near-Chuck Norris experience.
Chuck did of course pass away just about a week ago at 86. During his life he made some pretty cool martial arts movies, and some mediocre ones that almost slipped into self-parody. He created a genre, and paved the way for Stallone, Van Damme, and others. The many obituaries written about Chuck touch on all this, but seem to fail to understand how much Chuck will be missed within America’s armed forces. Chuck Norris occupies a curious place in American cultural memory in general, where the boundaries between real military service, cinematic heroism, and internet mythology blur into something larger than the man himself. To write about Chuck Norris and the military is to navigate not only his actual biography, but also the symbolic role he has come to play, a figure representing discipline, toughness, and an idealized version of American virtue.
The tens of thousands of jokes Chuck spawned (when Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, he already had three missed calls from Chuck Norris. Chuck beat the sun in a staring contest) helped hold American soldiers together. At one small helicopter base I spent time at when in Iraq with the State Department, an entire office door was devoted to nothing but Chuck Norris jokes, hundreds of them written in every color of Mil-Issue Sharpie. If you wanted to add one it had to pass the laugh test among all the soldiers waiting there or you were shamed into sitting back down. Nobody except maybe the old M*A*S*H* TV show seems to write about the funny side of war but it is there.
And this helicopter base was a place where soldiers needed Chuck. You would wait there, sometimes hours of forever, for a storm to pass, or a mission to be scrubbed, or something to be fixed, or anyone more important than you to arrive late. The TV was often broken, or tuned to some Middle East soccer match nobody cared about because U.S. military TV was broke. WiFi had barely been invented and someone had thrown away any naughty magazines left behind. Chuck got you through it, making people laugh via his memes through some of the darkest and dullest times. The Norris door from Iraq was eventually taken back to the U.S., where it lives on in the hands of a private collector.
None of the current Norris obituaries really land hard enough on the time the real man spent traveling to remote combat outposts, starting in Kosovo right through Afghanistan. He was sponsored by USO to spend time with troops far enough out there or in dangerous enough places as not to see USO shows very often. My colleague got to attend one, and explained Chuck spent only a few minutes on stage and most of his time mingling with people, often famously putting soldiers into a headlock when they asked for a selfie. He acted as if he had nothing else to do in the world but hang out in Fallujah (Chuck Norris doesn’t wear a watch; he decides the time) and he was loved for it.
One other reason Norris was so popular was because of his unabashed conservative politics, which matched that of most of the soldiers, and stood out from the other Hollywood entertainers USO would bring out. Not only did Chuck endorse Ronald Reagan before most of the soldiers were born, he went on to politick for Trump 1.0 long after most made it home. But Chuck also believed and spoke sincerely about conservative issues with a small “c,” not candidates but the Second Amendment, Christianity, and support for law enforcement (Norris got pulled over by police once. He let the cop go with a warning). It was this way of thinking that earned him the scorn of much of left-leaning Hollywood.
For example, Variety, the liberal Hollywood trade newspaper, remembered Chuck this way: “Chuck Norris was a great action star — but politics may overshadow his legacy. In nearly every Norris movie, he’s muscling into a foreign land or othered community, kicking a bunch of a–, completing his mission and hitting the road — or neutralizing the new threat that came into his town. An all-American loner has to gun down outsiders who threaten his way of life, or go to another country to make sure justice is done.” Like the U.S. in Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran, hint, hint?
The obit goes on to say in 1993 Norris took on the title role in the TV series “Walker, Texas Ranger,” about a modern lawman “who always does what’s right, even if he doesn’t have a warrant or is quick to just kill the bad guys… the black-and-white, right-and-wrong simplicity of ‘Walker’ is cop-agenda.” Then, in case you still did not get it, Variety ends its Norris obituary saying that all “seems less fun in a year in which our country is funneling money into bombing Iran and ICE agents are acting like one-man militias. Given our nation’s divisions in morality, information literacy, and overall sense of reality, it’s easier to see Norris’ characters as justification for a fringe conspiracy movement rather than a moral standing… his legacy transitions from escapism to dangerous propaganda.”
Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., responded on X on behalf of so many of us, stating “Chuck Norris spent an enormous amount of time celebrating what was great about America with those who kept us free and safe. And you showed in your arrogance why we hate Hollywood.”
Chuck is in heaven now, where he said to God “Hey, you’re in my seat.” Chuck Norris — the actor, the humanitarian, the jokester — passed away peacefully, knowing he had made the lives of an uncountable number of servicemembers a little better. R.I.P.
Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
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Rich Bauer said...
1And American Conservative actually paid you for this?
04/1/26 7:18 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
2TACO gonna give a speech tonight. Some believe he will endorse spraying bleach over the Straits of Hormuz. Some believe he will say he was never for attacking Iran but the Dems left him no choice. Some believe he will fall asleep in the middle of his speech. Most hope it is to announce his resignation.
04/1/26 8:05 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
3The Brits Circus has stopped sharing classified intelligence with the Trump Circus, realizing it is a transit point to Putin’s desk. Peter will be hard at work writing all about it…after he finishes his Chuck Norris love novel. The title is “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Clown.”
04/1/26 8:19 AM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
4I doubt Norris’s stuff will spark a discussion 100 years from now just as M*A*S*H OR HOGANS HEROES will not even merit a passing paragraph since all were pretty juvenile diversions. The laugh track for MASH was absolutely preposterous! but Colonel Potter’s character was endearing.
Didn’t PVB watch the old KUNG FU tv show? I sort of miss Grasshopper but Carradine’s demise sort of soured me on scripted TV.
04/1/26 9:07 AM | Comment Link
Joe said...
5I definitely remember all the Chuck jokes from over in the sandbox. And how they helped keep us sane (more or less) while dodging (or trying to dodge in some cases) rockets, IEDs and all the rest on behalf of Uncle. And I’m also absolutely stunned at how Variety tried to politicize his career and death on behalf of a political agenda. What an absolutely tacky, tasteless and mean-spirited way to treat someone’s passing; the guy was just a martial artist turned actor, who had his own political views. I wonder how the hack who wrote the Variety piece would feel if *their* eventual passing was treated as a cause for celebration and lecturing? RIP Chuck, via con Dios muchacho.
04/1/26 12:33 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
6In the insane words of Donnie Dementia, good that he is dead. Now he can’t hurt anyone anymore.
Fast Fact: After President Barack Obama’s first term ended, Norris campaigned against his re-election with a PSA, warning that the country “could be lost forever” and that another Obama win would lead to “1,000 years of darkness.”
Up Chuck and die?
While time is running out on most of us, it is really running out on US. Time is on Iran’s side, yes it is. Oh how the mighty idiots like HeadUPHisAss have Fallen. And that’s not all. The US is running out of interceptor missiles. Who could have foreseen…
The criminals like Drumpf don’t accept consequences. They kill somebody, somehow it’s not their fault. But Chuck, you should have known better. Imagine 160 little girls are waiting to tell you you were wrong.
04/1/26 3:22 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
7So Kristi’s husband gets reviled for getting his freak on with a woman’s bra, but loveseat Vance parades around in a dress and gets no blowback ? BTW: Demented expected to announce Vance and Kristi’s bosom buddy are opening a bed and breakfast on Fire Island this summer.
04/1/26 5:13 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
8RIP, Donnie
Boy, that was some powerful speech you gave. Strait-jacket time, bro. It is over. All your stupid war mission accomplished was damage the US.
So you Better get your WH bunker built, Donnie. They will be coming to drag you out of there and send you to stand for your war crimes. Dont expect your cult to save you. They ran out of gas.
REST IN PRISON, POS.
04/2/26 4:42 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
9Demented’s Joke on US
“The U.S. president, looking addled and unsure of himself, unleashed a torrent of lies, untruths, misrepresentations, deceptions, and distilled nuggets of crapola so vast that it may well live up to the most Trumpian of descriptive phrases: “nobody has ever seen anything like it before.”
Compounding the fact that he managed to speak for almost 20 minutes without uttering nearly a single truth was the equally mind-numbing reality that, despite the White House having advertised his national TV appearance as a major address on the Iran war, nothing newsworthy crossed his thin, ever-so-lightly glossed lips.”
04/2/26 10:18 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
10RIP MAGA
MAGA’s favorite, The Ford F-150, costs $150 per tank, up nearly $40.
04/2/26 12:12 PM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
11Most of us, including notable celebrities, have cherished convictions. Needing our convictions to be infallible is when the lock and load mentality kicks in. Hegseth’s need for politically validated certainty means those school children who died in America’s initial missile volleys against Iran didn’t matter. Ted Bundy also didn’t have a conscience- well not one trained analysts could discern.
04/2/26 3:14 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
12Epstein: I destroyed the lives of so many girls and almost got away with it.
Trump: Hold my beer.
04/2/26 3:54 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
13Rest in Prison, Bondi..Pam Bondi
Demented is throwing everything at the wall to distract from his Iran Epic Fiasco. Bondi is just the latest to go. Next up is Tulsi Gabbard and Keystone Kash Patel. Demented is just Biden his time until he can hand the whole stinking mess over to VD for a pardon…OR IT is RIP, DD.
But the peons don’t want scalps, you moron. They wants their gas under $4. They wants their groceries for the price they paid under Biden.
Poor Demented, his ratings are headed for DJT Stock levels.
04/2/26 9:59 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
14Chuck is in the darkness now and for a thousand years.
When he told God “Hey, you’re in my seat” God passed judgment on Chuck and kicked him in the ass harder than any MMA opponent.
Chuck hated God’s children…especially non-whites..
Chuck: If these solutions don’t stop the tides of illegal flow in and out of our borders, a friend of mine has a Texas-tough alternative and answer to replace the government’s virtual fence failure. In fact, he says, we don’t need a security fence at all. All we need to do is to post signs and position manned trucks at key points, just like our government does at Area 51, the top secret military airfield in remote central Nevada, around which there are no fences or walls. There is never a breach or unwanted border crossing there, at least that we hear about! And why? Because the boundary sign reads and is never questioned, “Warning: Use of deadly force authorized.”
So burn in hell, Chuck..and all his ilk.
04/3/26 11:04 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
15DIRE Straits
Imagine how humiliating it is for Demented to beg FRANCE to save his fat ass. All his life Demented needed someone to bail him out of his stupid decisions. But now his demented daddy ain’t around, and Putin would give him an anchor if he was drowning. Dont turn your back on VD—
VD Dance: Friends, MAGGOTS, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Demented, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Demented. The noble Rubio
Hath told you Demented was Hitler:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Demented answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Rubio and the rest–
For Rubio is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable men–
Come I to speak in Demented’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Rubio says he was ambitious;
And Rubio is an honorable man.
04/3/26 3:41 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
16Donnie Dementia was a covert agent…for the Dems. How else to explain his actions?
Hire the dumbest a holes on the planet for his cabinet.
His Liberation Day tariffs, since ruled unconstitutional, caused instant market chaos.
His mass deportation campaign of attacking U.S. cities with paramilitary forces turned his most popular position into a net negative.
His bungling of the Epstein Files turned his own brand of conspiracies against him.
His Big Beautiful Bill slashed health care spending, causing millions who get insurance through the Affordable Care Act to lose it due to huge price spikes.
That last point is key to his biggest problem: most of his major actions have caused price increases, in complete contradiction to his core campaign promise to lower domestic costs. His on-again, off-again tariffs led to widespread price increases on a range of goods while his immigration crackdown has led to increased costs in fields like in-home elder care and agriculture.
Meanwhile, the full impact of the Iran war on prices, particularly for gas, has not yet hit.
It is obvious DD’s actions have killed the Repugs chances for the next 10 years. To do it so openly, nobody thought it was his plan from the beginning.
04/4/26 8:11 AM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
17Bauer- this might be my last posting on PVB’s blog. How can PVB sort of cover for Trump knowing one of Trump’s sexual fetishes is randomly copulating with an “adult” film star because of…….proximity happenstance. What is PVB hiding that he could tolerate such behavior?
04/4/26 3:40 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
18JP,
Sorry to hear you are signing off. Intelligence is such a rare thing on the WWW.
04/4/26 8:44 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
19Donnie Dementia : Open the F—– Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.
DD impression of Greg Stillson in the “Dead Zone”
04/5/26 9:31 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
20Good thing DHS has created 200 detention centers. When the War Crimes Tribunals start in 2028, Leavenworth won’t be able to detain all the Repugs and military officers.
Most will be named after Trump.
04/5/26 12:51 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
21TACO TUESDAY….AGAIN!!!!!!!!
The mad man in the White House says this Tuesday he really means it. Nb. If the guy wasn’t such a pussy, the price of oil would be $150.
So Donnie Dementia can either chicken out again and the price of gas kills the Repug s chances in November, or he can commit war crimes by destroying civilians and civilian targets, and the gas price in November will be much higher.
DD: Iran Away from the Epstein Files and still ended in prison.
04/5/26 3:54 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
22Demented aka TACO TUESDAY aka STUPID HITLER warned “if those bastards don’t open the Straits, he threatened to destroy most of Iran.” The lunatic pointed out that this not a war and therefore no war crimes can be committed.
Hitler: Damn, why didn’t I think of that?
04/5/26 11:36 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
23MAGA is obviously headed for defeat in November when poor Peter panders to AmCon morons with articles about Up Chuck and die and DEI. HE AINT GOT NUTHIN ELSE. Demented Donnie has screwed America First with Israel and Saudi First. They pay so well.
MAGA AFFORDABILITY GETS A BIG FAT F.
Gas prices are surging and new home sales are stalling. Dumbass is only concerned about building his golden ballroom whilst his House is burning to the ground.
A CNN poll conducted in July 2025 found 40 percent approval of Trump’s handling of the economy. By March of this year, that number had dropped to 31 percent, a decline exacerbated by the Iran War. Other polling tells the same story. Nearly half of Americans say groceries are “unaffordable.” A new car is unattainable for nearly 75 percent of Americans. And on the price of gas, more than one in four respondents said prices are too expensive. The one bright spot in the poll, which was conducted before the war began, has been completely obliterated by this administration’s war of choice, which has sent oil prices skyrocketing.
What me worry? Demented is lost in his delusions. What is real in his world other than Israel?
That “affordability crisis”—which Demented tried to wish away like Covid is real, despite first claiming it was “fake news” spun up by Democrats.
MAGA, WELCOME TO DEMENTED’s WORLD. YOU DID THIS.
04/6/26 11:53 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
24RIP, MILHOUSE JOHNSON
Things are looking dire for the Repugs. In a survey specifically of people who voted for Trump in 2024, it was revealed that 20 percent have already decided not to support the GOP in the midterms. What’s more, nearly 60 percent of voters who had previously voted for Joe Biden before swinging to Trump in 2024 say they are considering not voting for a Republican this time around. So now you know why the Repugs want to kill the elections.
Poor Mikey Milhouse. When the Repugs lose the House this November, little dick Johnson ain’t got nowhere to go. The Hague is nice in November.
04/6/26 3:00 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
25TACO TUESDAY GETTING HIS LUNCH HANDED TO HIM
IRAN anticipated Donnie Dementia would not chicken out tomorrow and would attack its civilian power plants. In defense Iran destroyed all of Israel and Saudi desalination plants and power plants. It’s not a war crime. Donnie Dementia made that clear.
04/6/26 8:59 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
26TACO BELL, MAGA YOU ARE DONNE
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee, MAGA.
04/7/26 8:34 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
27RIP AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE
AmCon helped to create the TrumpFrankenstein. Now that the TrumpFrankenstein may nuke Iran, the AmCon folks are up in arms fearing they have created endless war. In the demented words of their Frankenstein Prezidunce, AMCon should join him in hell.
04/7/26 9:11 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
28The Trump Nazis in my neighborhood said they will support his war crimes in Iran to the End Times, saying they must hang together or surely they will hang separately when the Dems win in 2028.
04/7/26 11:27 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
29MAGA, don’t miss “Dr. Strangelove meets The Dead Zone”
Premiere Tonight at 8 pm. It will be wild!!!
Donnie Dementia stars as General Jack D. Ripper and Greg Stillson.
A cast of millions dead.
Next week “Unforgiven”. We all got it coming.
04/7/26 1:58 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
30Coming attractions: Fail Safe meets Apocalypse Now
Logline: A deranged Prezidunce kills 500,000 Iranians in the classic Vietnam War fiasco move “destroy the village to save it.” But the prezidunce only crashes the world economy by shutting down the Straits. Iran only will open it if the US military nukes Mar-alongo.
04/7/26 2:13 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
31TERRORIST-in-Chief
By all accounts the law of war prohibits “acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population.” It is difficult to read the sick fuck’s egregious threats of great destruction as anything but intending to spread terror, making it even more incumbent on U.S. military professionals to ensure strikes are limited in their impact on the Iranian people.
Moral injury requires one to have morals. To be sure individual components of Iranian civilian infrastructure may constitute lawful military targets under specific circumstances in which they contribute to the enemy’s military action and their destruction would provide a definite military advantage. Nuking the entire country would generally be frowned upon.
04/7/26 4:32 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
32TACO TUESDAY DEMENTED CHICKENS OUT AGAIN
As Demented cornered himself with committing war crimes in Iran, his next move won’t result in the Epstein Hung Jury. Demented will chicken out lest he be the chicken and service his prison mates for the rest of his disgusting life. As for HeadUpHisAss, that won’t be the only thing when he rots in prison.
04/7/26 5:52 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
33Chuck not the only thing buried today
Old senile Donnie Dementia was still intelligent enough to know if he put boots on the ground in Iran, MAGA would have buried him.
04/8/26 8:02 AM | Comment Link