The Scouting Report: A weekly digest

9/11 with Mayor Pete, dictators convene, private school challenge, scourge of fentanyl

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg spent the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in South Dakota, starting at the Chamberlain airport and ending up that evening in Sioux Falls. Rep. Linda Duba arranged for Buttigieg to meet with about 20 first responders at The Treasury in downtown.

Duba tells The Dakota Scout that the event was low-key. The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, wanted to meet with first responders to commemorate the anniversary.

“No fanfare, no public speeches,” Duba said. “Just having a beer with real people.”

The casual event lasted about an hour. Police Chief Jon Thum and Fire Chief Matthew McAreavey also attended.

Buttigieg ran for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. As doubts grow about President Biden’s fitness for a second term, Buttigieg could find himself in the mix for 2024.

Word comes from Canton that Army veteran Kip Crawford is retiring from his duties of raising the American flag for Canton High School football games. Crawford is 93 and has been raising the flag before games for 25 years.

Kala Hazelhoff, a writer for the Sioux Valley News, asked Crawford about his favorite memories. “I’d like to comment on all the people showing respect for the flag,” he said. “They were very respectful, which is something to look at.”

Crawford graduated from Canton High School in 1948. He hung around caring for his sick father. When his father died in 1953, Crawford joined the Army. He was stationed at the White Sands, New Mexico, missile range. After active duty, he joined the Army National Guard.

In international news, North Korean psychopath Kim Jong Un visited Russia. Perhaps fearing attack by Indians or bandits, Kim chose an armored train as his mode of transportation. It’s unknown if the train was powered by Chinese batteries or adequately decarbonized.

Kim reportedly met with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, who faces an uncertain future after launching an invasion of Ukraine that failed. The now grinding war has exposed not only Russia’s military flabbiness, but it has also revealed that Russian industry does not have the ability to manufacture enough weapons and equipment to keep up with the demands of the war.

Enter North Korea, which boasts an army of more than a million sometimes starving troops. Kim enjoys dabbling in missiles, and Russia could be interested in procuring armaments from North Korea, which, if true, would show how low Russia has sunk. For those of you who recall the great Soviet menace, can you imagine the U.S.S.R. stooping to begging North Korea for military scraps?

North Korea arouses occasional international condemnation by shooting off a missile. But where the missile will go, nobody knows. In 2017, Lance Gatling, an Asian defense analyst, joked about North Korea’s technological achievements with missiles: “The safest place you can be is where they are actually aiming because they don’t really know where it’s going.”