Just a link to make you reconsider letting Barney the doberman near your beanie baby collection that’s highly valued….or anything else of value….:)

Capt Lex tries to convince us he has brain lock. Not a chance for the master poet/author and philospher of all things Naval Aviation related….

I, on the other hand, sometimes think like that, yet, via the magic of the net (invented by Al Gore), lo and behold, things of interest just appear….

For example: Last night while looking for pictures of ships, I came across a poem, in hand written an illustrated form, that speaks to the fine life of the legendary destroyerman. A creature of iron constitution, a stomach that can handle greasy food in a hurricane/typhoon, eagle eyes (correctable to 20/20 and not color blind, but possibly partly deaf from too many gun shoots or years as the MPA/CHENG/DCA/ELECO/AUXO/B DIV, etc), and a sense of dark humor of their own.

The larger version is here, but difficult to read.

Fear not, my few readers….Here it is in more legible form, even if it lacks the character of the original graphics.

Destroyer Life
by Berton Braley

There’s a roll and a pitch a heave and a hitch
to the nautical gait they take,
For they’re used to the cant of decks aslant
as the white toothed breakers break,
On the sides that thrum like a beaten drum
to the thrill of the turbines might,
As the knife-bow leaps thru the yeasty deeps
with the speed of a shell in flight.

Oh their scorn is quick for the crews that stick
to a battleship steady “floor,”
And they love the lurch of their own frail perch
at thirty five knots or more.
They don’t get much of the drill and such that battleship sailors do,
But sail the seas in their dungarees,
a grimy destroyer crew.

They needn’t climb at sleeping time
it to a hammock that sways and bumps,
Don’t leap, Kerplunk! In a cozy bunk
that quivers and bucks and jumps.
They hear the sound of seas that pound
on the quarter inch plates of steel,
And close their eyes to the lull abyes
of creaking sides and steel.

They’re a husky crowd and vastly proud
of the slim grey craft they drive.
Of the roaring flues and hammering screws
that make her a thing alive.
They love the lunge of the surge and plunge
and the mark of her smoke screens, too
As they sail the seas in their dungarees,
a grimy destroyer crew.

Back to Neptunus Lex for a moment and some analysis:

After he made his rhetorical post, he made two more and has already made three today. Go figure.

Chap, Lex and Eagle1 need to check their systems for security.

I do envy them, but, hackers being hackers, they love a challenge.

I found this speech when a friend gave me a small reprint of it in a booklet that he thought I had loaned to him. It wasn’t me, but I told him I’d like to read it myself. It’s a good topic for the times and a well done speech. Given by William Bennett, the former Secretary of Education and now well known talk show host, it was addressed to the Midshipmen of the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD, November 24th, 1997.

It is a bit strange to me that a well-worn former government employee and sometimes philosopher like myself should be asked to address this assemblage on matters of ethics and honor, right and wrong, on the question, “Does Honor Have a Future?” But as Sir Thomas said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you these times.”

And what do we make of these times? These are good times and bad times. We all know that there have been troubling, and even terrible, incidents here at the United States Naval Academy and other academies as well. While we should be bothered by these incidents, we should also be bothered by the superficial, flawed analysis these events have sometimes received. Most of these bottom on the limp excuse that the academy simply reflects more general changes in society. It goes something like this: “There are problems like these problems everywhere – so why not here? The Academy is just a reflection of the larger society.” To which I would respond: No, it is not. Whether we are talking about Annapolis, West Point , or Colorado Springs, you are supposed to be different – and in some important ways, you are supposed to be better. It is a wise man who said that when a man enters military life, he enters a higher form of civilization.

Former Assistant Secretary of the Army Sara Lister, who called the U.S. Marines “extremists,” did not sufficiently grasp the point. But, thank goodness, many others Americans do.

Read the rest of this entry »

August 2nd, 1943:

John F. Kennedy’s PT boat was run over while patroling the Ferguson and Blackett Straits near the islands of Kolumbangara, Gizo, and Vella-Lavella.

And, as an aside, it seems the great ship finder, Robert Ballard found the wreckage in 2002.

From Black Five, a post about a project to have each of the 2996 victims from 9/11/2001 to have a blogger each post a tribute (on 9/11, of course).

This link will get you there. Take a few moments, fellow bloggers, to sign up, and then connect your life with one that was cut short.

The cost involved is your time and your compassion, nothing more. There only to the 1100s….so there are plenty of names left.

Arrived in email today. Comments?

From Station Commando:
“It was hard work for Habib to get all those ninjas to stand still long enough for a pic. Shortly after this photo was taken there was a sudden puff of smoke and Habib was found with numerous throwing star wounds and a stray set of nunchucks was found lying at his feet.”

Pearls Before Swine Strip of 7/30/2006:

A few days ago, I blogged out loud about the muddled assumptions. One comment I made was I didn’t think we had faced a situation where we had had a populace with a significant number of citzens who held an allegiance to something above the nation itself. I wrote that before the shooting in Seattle at the Jewish Federation Building, but the behavior of the man who entered the building, using a hostage to get in the door is exactly the mindset that is so troubling:

Amy Wasser-Simpson, the federation’s vice president, told the Seattle Times that Haq got past security at the building and shouted, “I’m a Muslim American; I’m angry at Israel,” before he began shooting.

I’ve rethought the issue, and we have had a situation like this before. It began on Dec 7th, 1941, but the outcome is not the same. Back then, the response from the Japanese-American community, was to send forth the 442nd Regimental Combat Team:

On December 7, 1941, the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was attacked by Japan. This act thrust the United States into World War II. All men who were eligible for military duty were called upon to fight, except Japanese Americans. Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Japanese American men were catagorized 4C, non-draftable. Moreover, they and their families were placed into concetration camps by the United States Government. However, on February 1, 1943, the government reversed its decision on Japanese Americans serving in the armed forces and announced the formation of the 442nd Infantry Regimental Combat Team.
The 442nd initially consisted of Japanese American volunteers from the mainland United States and the Hawaiian Islands. There were many different reasons why these young men volunteered. Despite the rampant racism towards Japanese Americans during this period, many volunteers felt that if there was to be any future for Japanese in the United States, they had to demonstrate their loyalty by fighting for their country.

The majority of volunteers from Hawaii and the mainland were sent to Camp Shelby in Mississippi. Initially, tension existed between the Hawaiians and the mainlanders. The mainlanders often degraded the Hawaiians for their poor speech and “barbaric” aggressive manners, thus causing them to feel inferior. Due to the excessive fighting and dissension among the troops, the commanding officers were ready to terminate the training. However, a suggestion was made to have the Hawaiians and mainlanders visit relocation camps. After Hawaiian Japanese Americans visited some of the camps, they realized the hardships mainlanders had gone through and a new sense of respect developed for each other. One Japanese American remembers, “the regiment was not formed when we volunteered, nor when we arrived in Camp Shelpby, but rather, it was formed after this (relocation camp) visit” (Matsuo, Boyhood to War. 73)

When this unified unit arrived in Europe, they still had to prove their competence, as well as their loyalty to white soldiers and commanding officers. However, after liberating the small town of Bruyeres in Southern France and rescuing the “Lost Battalion” (141st), Japanese American soldiers gained the respect of their fellow soldiers, the townspeople of Bruyeres, and particularily the members of the “Lost Battalion.” For their performance, the 442nd has been recognized as the most decorated unit in United States history. 18,000 total awards were bestowed upon the 442nd, including 9,500 Purple Hearts, 52 Distinguished Service Crosses, Seven Distinguished Unit Citations, but only one Congressional Medal of Honor (Crost, Honor by Fire. 179). Although their impeccable service earned the 442nd the respect of their fellow soldiers, they were not perceived in the same way by American society when they returned to the West Coast.

Immediately following their return, the 442nd realized that the attitudes of many Americans had not changed. World War II veterans of Japanese ancestry were welcomed home by signs that read, “No Japs Allowed,” and “No Japs Wanted.” In many cases, veterans were denied service in local shops and restaurants, and their homes and property were often vandalized or set on fire.

Joe Byrne
Kyle Higuchi
Jason Opdyke
Mario Sani

Notice the mentality shift. In 1941, those oj Japanese descent felt they owned it to their new nation, and the rest of the citizens, to demonstrated in a courageous manner, their loyalty. Their nickname: “Go For Broke.” we know what that means and that’s how they fought, becoming the most decorated regiment in the US Army.

Get a load of this:

The 442nd Regimental Combat Team was the most decorated unit for its size and length of service, in the entire history of the U.S. Military. The 4,000 men who initially came in April 1943 had to be replaced nearly 3.5 times. In total, about 14,000 men served, ultimately earning 9,486 Purple Hearts , 21 Medals of Honor and an unprecedented eight Presidential Unit Citations.

Anyone who questions service like that has lived in a hole their entire lives. They, like the units comprised of African-Americans, such as the USS MASON (DE-529) and the 761st Tank Battalion, were accepted at the front lines as fighting men, equal to the challenge of combat.

The situation of the day, vs the time of the reloaction camps of the 1940’s are opposite in how communities of non-native Americans handled the decision of loyalty.

I also think, having found the very consise history of the 442nd I quoted above, that is it interesting to observe how the rest of the population reacted. Once again, it is from oppostie ends of the spectrum: At the end of the war, the Japanese-Americans (and African-Americans) who stepped up to the plate and shed their blood for “the Man,” suffered cruelty and assaults from those who they had defended. In this day, while the Muslim-Americans don’t stand and proclaim their alliegance to the nation that affords them freedom, and, most notable, does not relocate them into camps, which conficating their money, personal property and businesses to divide between the Americans in their communities, we also go out of our way to make sure no one is offended by the words in print or on TV, nor any action taken by law enforcement that might be looked upon as “profiling.”

One group showed us they were with us, while the military members from the land of their ancestors, pilaged, raped and murdered their way across China and the Pacific Islands and Rim before cannibalizing our aviators at Chi Chi Jima.

Today, those who have come to us from the Islamic countries openly condem us when we discuss taking action to secure the freedom of all of our citizens, to include them. It’s a world upside down.

To the men of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, I salute you and the legacy you gave your new nation. To the Islamic-Americans, I challenge you to read their history and decide your response.

Update 8/01/2006: CDR Salamander has a post regarding this topic…

A few months ago, I finally decided the blog needed to “grow up.”

Summary: Do your homework, and pick a place to host your blog and DON’T MOVE! It’s worse than changing email addresses!

Details for those without much to do:

I paid for a doamain and left the free service of Blogger. I yeaned for the improvements I saw in WordPress. I began a blog at WordPress (also free), and decided it would give me some additional capabilities to separate posts by self-defined categories, but, I was concerend that there may be control issues down the line, so I went to a paid for domain. I got a great deal, they offered WordPress blogging software and away I went.

Things wnet smoothly on setting up the blog, but….then I figured all the other sites who linked with me would need to be updated. The challenge: What blogs were they?

I left the old blog intact, for history, and many of the obvious links from other places would come there. I also could check at Technorati to see where the inbound links originated. There were quite a few. I began the emailing to the bigger ones, at first, requesting that the next time they were doing link maintenance to check and please update my blog’s address. Some did, some did not. You know, like asking all your family to update your email links in Outlook….’nuff siad.

One issue is not all links are actually direct links from those blogs and I embarassed myself once (but found a great blog….) when I sent an email and I wasn’t on the owner’s blogroll. So, scratching my head, I realized I had been linked from their blog because, they, as I, had signed up for like minded weblog groups, and their site now linked back to the master list at some other website….

So….I sent a few emails to the owners of the groups, asking for updates….not one of those have been changed. Well, looking at the Sitemeter for the original blog, not many people went there anyhow, but a few popped in from that source….

Now, several months later, the old blog does get hit, and, depsite putting a large banner in the header saying the site has moved and a link to the new blog, it just isn’t too successful.

There is another issue, and I’m sure it’s assocoatied with WordPress somehow: I used to generate a lot (well, ok, most all) of my traffic by taking advantage of the Open Posts at Mudville Gazette. I did this before using HaloScan by sending manual trackbacks. It was great for the ego, seeing people “show up” and better when the meter logged them in for more than 0 seconds. Now, despite following the directions for WordPress for trackbacks, my posts don’t show up at Mudville Gazette, and even trying standalone trackback programs, I still get an error message back. The strange thing is the inclusion of links for many, but not all other sites have worked. I’m still wondering about this (any hints would be good. Email or comments are welcomed!).

So, as I was trending upwards in readership, which gave me a sense of accomplishment, I’ve dropped off to about 1/2 the hits a month on the new blog. I still have a significant amount of hits on the old site, but combined, I’m still not where I used to be.

Anyhow, that’s my sad tale. If you’re not blogging yet, I hope this helps you in making some decisions about planning your first steps into the blogosphere more successful in the long run.