City of Camanche, IA Administrator Kida,
The evidence in your response to my previous records request indicates that you failed to include the electronic mail below that was provided by another Iowa government body in response to the same records request. If this conclusion is accurate, I would be willing to speculate that its contents may have inspired your alleged decision. I respectfully request that you take a second look and see if you can find any additional electronic mail in your government body’s possession that matches the requested criteria.
I have included one electronic mail chain stored and preserved by the United States Navy and a memorandum from my last Commanding Officer before I retired after serving for twenty years that may help you find light regarding the weight that I carried on my shoulders in my personal life. At the same time, I defended the freedoms, rights, and liberties of others during my professional life.
We live in a world that has many Veterans who bravely serve and defend the lives of others. At the same time, their own life is lost in a world of domestic abuse that they are unable to defend themselves from. A secular world quickly concludes the proper and easy conclusion is to walk away or leave. At the same time, I believe that in a land of one million churches that raised me, many others exist who give everything they have, trying to maintain and strengthen what evidence indicates is a failed relationship while trying to follow their beliefs.
Who are we as a people and a state when those who have served us come home and ask us for help, and the evidence indicates that we falsely accuse them of criminal conduct, attack them behind closed doors, and produce evidence of other unethical behavior, possibly because those who have not lived among us for twenty years provide a view of ourselves that we do not want to look at.
The Form of True Shipmates
My lifelong best friend and I were first classes on a mine sweeper in the Persian Gulf. He advanced to Chief Petty Officer a few years later. We met up a couple of years later when we were both stationed in San Diego, CA.
Merritt: “How are you doing Chief?”
Doc: “Merritt, if you ever call me that again, I will kick your _______”
I am thankful for the blessings God has given me in my life. At the same time, I respect the Hanibal Smiths, who built me and taught me everything I know, and I know every Hanibal Smith I have served with will not touch cryptographic equipment or material produced or maintained by the National Security Agency (NSA) unless it is managed by Murdock.
Those who judge others by the rank given to them by others or their social class provide evidence of the contents of their souls. Those who value others based on the contents of their souls provide evidence of their proper rank in Heaven.
An elected or appointed position or specific rank does not reveal true leadership. Proper leadership is displayed by the evidence manifested by those among us who possess the honor, courage, and commitment required to stay the course while working to build something better for others, regardless of what they may lose in this life.
Doc: “What do you mean Merritt won’t leave the ship?”
Tropic Thunder: “He said he doesn’t want to be in certain “environments” because of his spirituality.”
Doc: “Ok, places have doors right?”
Tropic Thunder: “Yeah.”
Doc: “So we tell him we are going to a restaurant. Look, Merritt doesn’t drink, we need a designated driver with brains that we trust that will keep us out of trouble and none of us will remember his jokes tomorrow anyway.”
OG: “I like his jokes.”
Doc: “IT2, when you make Chief, you can have an opinion. Now, someone go find Merritt; my laptop crashed again.”
The United States Navy retired me in 2017. I am not finished serving the freedoms, rights, and liberties of others.
Respectfully,
Cipher “Murdock” Hunter
Legal Disclaimer: The legal name of the originator of this correspondence is Michael J. Merritt, as documented on birth records stored and preserved by Marshall County, IA.
