Over at The Cool Blue Blog there is a first person story of the days leading up to and on the invasion day aboard the Navy’s oldest battleship.

Omaha Beach and the USS ARKANSAS. It’s a good read…

Note: Our wounded service members need some help…see details on Valour-IT funding laptops with voice recognition software here.

Thanks for your considertaion of this great project!

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See D-Day Remembered on Black Five for more stories commemorating this day in history.

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Part I,Part II and Part III of the Adventures of Jim, Sr

Jim Helinger, Sr, USAAF

I can’t say this post is full of D-Day info, for Jim Helinger, Sr, Glider Pilot, USAAF, doesn’t talk about combat much. He says there are plenty of other things to talk about, and he is right. I choose to take a few words to highlight Jim’s service in this battle , as well as the others.

CG-4A WACO Glider Info

The links at the top of the post take you to the story Jim told to me over dinner last year. He was one of those men in the gliders on D-Day, being towed over the English Channel in order to get supplies and troops on the ground, and then return to fly again. As a part of the 442nd Troop Carrying Group, he hauled some of the 82nd Airborne Division into battle on this day, 62 years ago.

Jim also had other duties beside flying. He was tasked to determine airworthiness of the gliders on the ground. He said he guessed he always made a good guess. Ever wonder how they got the glider pilots back? How about you find a glider that looks sound after it’s landing, tell the surviving pilots to get in and strap in, you set up a pair of goal posts, stretch a line between them, attach a tow line (nylon) to the line across, then shoot a flare for the orbiting C-47 to see. That signals the C-47 to come do a low altitude pass, dangling an arresting hook like arrangement, that snagged the glider back into the air and ultimately home.

Jim in the pilot’s seat – taken by his co-pilot

He also flew at least 40 other combat glider missions, and ended up doing a little defensive work on the ground at the Battle of the Bulge. Jim said not all the pilots took the ride home from D-Day. Besides being pilots, they also had to dismount and fight with the troops until the area was secure. He siad a few of the pilots fought on the ground all the way to Germany, and at the end of the war, they finally met back up with their units.

The glider crews don’t get a lot of pages of print, nor combat artwork, for the most part. The C-47, and a fine airplane it is, gets the lion’s share of the credit for hauling lots and lots of paratroopers, as it did. It also hauled the WACO and HORSA gliders, too. JIm said they mostly only saw the C-47 pilots when they were briefing for a mission, but they pretty much stayed apart during normal working routine. The glider pilots were at least qualified as Co-Pilots in the C-47, in case they needed extra hands.

A glider pilots view of the tow plane

D-Day was a phenomenal efforts, and many parts and pieces went into making the battle plan function. Jim Helinger, Sr, was one of those men who did his part that day.

Thanks to BlackFive for the D-Day Blogburst!

When: May 6th, 2006.

Where: The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina.

Who: Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Peter Pace, USMC

The text is here.

The audio (mp3) is here.

Summary:

First: Grow where you are planted. Some of you are going to go to jobs that were not your first choice. Some of you in the military will go into specialties that were not your first choice….

Second: Check your moral compass frequently. I have seen it both in combat and in peace. If you do not know who you are walking into a situation, you may not like who you are when you’re done….

Third: Make decisions….

Fourth and last, and this is the most basic: Take care of those in your charge. Whether you’re fortunate to have one or a hundred or a thousand or whatever number of individuals it is who are looking to you for leadership. Do all in your power to understand what their needs are and as best you can to provide it for them….

Now, in light of the Haditha mess, I believe General Pace would never be the one you could accuse of covering anything up:

Second: Check your moral compass frequently. I have seen it both in combat and in peace. If you do not know who you are walking into a situation, you may not like who you are when you’re done. When I was a lieutenant in Vietnam, I lost Lance Corporal Guido Ferranaro from Bethpage, New York, a 19-year-old Marine, to a sniper—the first Marine I’d ever lost in combat. I was filled with rage, and I called in an artillery strike on the village from which the sniper fired. Between the time that I called in the strike and the rounds were fired, my platoon sergeant didn’t say a word, he just looked at me. And I realized I was doing the wrong thing, and I called off the artillery strike, and we did what we should’ve done, which was to sweep through the village. And all we found in that village were women and children.

I do not know how I could live with myself today if I had carried that first instinct forward. The time to decide who you are and what you will let yourself do is not when somebody gets shot, it is not when your wingman gets shot down, it is before you get in that situation so you have an anchor to hold on to. This applies elsewhere.

Quite a display of honesty, transparency and humility, I’d say, as well as a look into the character of a man who has been where the Marines of Haditha have been.

Quite an amazing story about two bombers that collided enroute their return from Germany and landed together in France….The last remaining crewmember, Capt Rojohn just passed away.

From the 100th Bomber Group achives, here’s the story:

LT GLENN ROJOHN; PIGGY BACK LANDING AFTER THE 31 DEC 1944 HAMBURG MISSION. COLLISION WITH LT MacNAB WHILE BOTH WERE ATTEMPTING TO FILL THE SLOT IN THE FORMATION CAUSED BY THE LOSS OF LT WEBSTER. ACCOUNT GIVEN IN “CENTURY BOMBER” FOLLOWS: AT 1244 HOURS AND AFTER LEAVING THE ENEMY COAST, NAVIGATOR DANNY SHAFFER, WHO FLEW WITH THOMAS HUGHES, NOTED IN HIS LOG: “TWO 17’S HOOKED TOGETHER, 43-31987, PILOTED BY GLENN ROJOHN, HAVING CLOSED UP INTO THE SPACE LEFT BY THE LOSS OF LT WEBSTER. UNFORTUNATELY B-17 43-38457, PILOTED BY WILLIAM MacNAB, HAD RISEN SLOWLY FROM BELOW TO FILL THE SAME POSITION..” ANOTHER PILOT, ETHAN PORTER, WHO IS LISTED AS HAVING NO KNOWN ADDRESS BY THE VA(1992), IMMEDIATELY SHOUTED A WARNING VIA RADIO, THE TWO FORTRESSES COLLIDED AND LOCKED TOGETHER, CONTINUED FLYING PIGGY-BACK OVER THE SEA.’

FINDING THE ELEVATORS AND AILERONS STILL WORKING, ROJOHN AND HIS CO-PILOT WILLIAM LEEK, ‘CUT THEIR ENGINES, AND BY USING THE ENGINES OF THE LOWER AIRCRAFT, THREE OF WHICH WERE STILL RUNNING, SLOWLY TURNED THE TWO AIRCRAFT TOWARD LAND. FOUR OF THE CREW BAILED OUT ON ORDERS AND ROJOHN DESCENDED TO RECROSS THE ENEMY COAST AT 10,000 FEET. ON LANDING NEAR WILHELMSHAVEN THE TOP SHIP (43-31987) SLID OFF MacNAB’S 43-38457 WHICH EXPLODED. BARELY HURT ROJOHN AND LEEK WALKED AWAY FROM THE WRECKAGE OF 43-31987 AND INTO CAPTIVITY. AS FOR THE MEN WHO BAILED OUT, THE ROG EDWARD NEUHAUS CAME DOWN ON AN ISLAND; TTE ORVILLE ELKIN CAME DOWN IN THE WATER TEN MILES OFF SHORE AND WAS DRAGGED TO THE SHORE BY HIS CHUTE. REPLACEMENTS NAVIGATOR ROBERT WASHINGTON AND GUNNER JAMES SHRILEY LANDED ON THE COAST. ALL SURVIVORS WERE TAKEN PRISONER. NOTHING WAS FOUND OF BTG JOSEPH RUSSO AND WG FRANCIS CHASE.

I received this interesting story via email, and it is reported as thruthful by Truth or Fiction website:

Read the rest of this entry »

There are many ways you can help, if you have a little extra. Extra doesn’t have to mean money, maybe it’s the time to write a letter.

I’ve “borrowed” some logos for the several funds and organizations I’m away of, to help the troops, or their familes. I’ve placed these on a separate page (look under the header picture, near “About Me” and “Contact Us.” I figured they may be too far down the sidebar to get seen, and I also wanted to provide some room for growth.

Please take a few minutes and chase the links. Thank you.

Oh, the humanity!

The disaster preparedness crowd is all over TV. It seems (yeah, unlike any OTHER YEAR!) Hurricane season is upon us, yes, for a limited time only, AGAIN!

Governor Bush: I know you are concerned about being “Nagined,” when citizen, who purposely choose to exercise their rights to be idiots stay behind after an evacuation order, but….well, this is America and we have a right to be idiots take risks. Hurricanes have a habit of not “landing” where the forecasters say, when they are 10-12, and even 3 days out from landfall (HELLO! Hurricane Charlie!).

I understand how bad it would look if these people then complain that you didn’t come to their house and take care of them personally, but, please….be a leader and tell them to be ready and get back to the work of your office.

Of course, if you’re still scared of the political fallout, school is out now, so crank up those school buses and drive us all to GA, NC, SC and WV now, while you have a chance to get us out in a staged manner, and none of us will have to run out of gas on he Interstate system and take a leak in the median.

Oh, then have these signs modified like this:

On the plus side, in case your political equivalents of Carl Rove didn’t point out to you yet: Ray Nagin got Re-elected….Nature, she can be a bitch….get used to it.Thanks to Mudville Gazette for the Open Post.

From “The Hill”

Hastert tells President Bush FBI raid was unconstitutional
By Patrick O’Connor

House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) told President Bush yesterday that he is concerned the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) raid on Rep. William Jefferson’s (D-La.) congressional office over the weekend was a direct violation of the Constitution.

The rest of the article, as do many others, goes on to say something went of the tracks constitiutionally.

What I haven’t seen, but then this is America and the era of the mass media who seems to rarely check facts anymore, is a reference to any part of the Constitution that states, directly, or even indirectly implies, that the Congress is exempt from any action, decsision or regulation of the other two branches of the Federal Government.

There is a reference to the Speech and Debate Clause here:

In the Speaker’s lengthy statement, Hastert complained that the seizure of legislative papers, no matter how innocuous, was a violation of the “the principles of Separation of Powers, the independence of the Legislative Branch, and the protections afforded by the Speech and Debate clause of the Constitution.”

In Article 1, Section 6 of the Consititution of the United States, it does say members of the Congress can’t be arrested, but to leave it at this would fall unde the “partial truth” rule, which I once heard a wise man say: “A partial truth is a whole lie.” Read on for why this applies.

My presumed applicable extract from the Constitution that is being referenced (since Denny Hasert won’t say exactly what part he’s discussing:

“..be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House,…”

The history behind why this Spech and Debate clause exists, with freedom from arrest precedes even American history, with some good logic. From FindLaw.com:

Privilege of Speech or Debate

Members .–This clause represents ”the culmination of a long struggle for parliamentary supremacy. Behind these simple phrases lies a history of conflict between the Commons and the Tudor and Stuart monarchs during which successive monarchs utilized the criminal and civil law to suppress and intimidate critical legislators. Since the Glorious Revolution in Britain, and throughout United States history, the privilege has been recognized as an important protection of the independence and integrity of the legislature.” 380 So Justice Harlan explained the significance of the speech-and-debate clause, the ancestry of which traces back to a clause in the English Bill of Rights of 1689 381 and the history of which traces back almost to the beginning of the development of Parliament as an independent force. 382 ”In the American governmental structure the clause serves the additional function of reinforcing the separation of powers so deliberately established by the Founders.” 383 ”The immunities of the Speech or Debate Clause were not written into the Constitution simply for the personal or private benefit of Members of Congress, but to protect the integrity of the legislative process by insuring the independence of individual legislators.” 384

The protection of this clause is not limited to words spoken in debate. ”Committee reports, resolutions, and the act of voting are equally covered, as are ‘things generally done in a session of the House by one of its members in relation to the business before it.”’ 385 Thus, so long as legislators are ”acting in the sphere of legitimate legislative activity,” they are ”protected not only from the consequence of litigation’s results but also from the burden of defending themselves.” 386 But the scope of the meaning of ”legislative activity” has its limits. ”The heart of the clause is speech or debate in either House, and insofar as the clause is construed to reach other matters, they must be an integral part of the deliberative and communicative processes by which Members participate in committee and House proceedings with respect to the consideration and passage or rejection of proposed legislation or with respect to other matters which the Constitution places within the jurisdiction of either House.” 387 Immunity from civil suit, both in law and equity, and from criminal action based on the performance of legislative duties flows from a determination that a challenged act is within the definition of legislative activity, but the Court in the more recent cases appears to have narrowed the concept somewhat.

There is more, but I think that quotation covers much of the issue.

Now, I’m not a lawyer, but I thankfully am a graduate of a school system before the NEA got their hooks into it, so I can still read and know a few big words. Taking the entire Article 1, Section 6 of the Constitution and reading it gives an entirely new spin to this discussion, one in which I would say was the definitive one:

Section 6.

The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

This section clearly says Congress people will still be allowed to attend Congressional sessions if they have committed minor crimes, read: misdemeanors. Felony charges are not exempted, which, taking bribes would constitute. And even at that, it only applies during the time of the sessions, and the travel too and from. When Congress is in recess, they are, under this section, subject to having to be just plain old citizens from a law enforcement standpoint.

From FindLaw on this Article:

Privilege From Arrest

This clause is practically obsolete. It applies only to arrests in civil suits, which were still common in this country at the time the Constitution was adopted. 376 It does not apply to service of process in either civil 377 or criminal cases. 378 Nor does it apply to arrest in any criminal case. The phrase ”treason, felony or breach of the peace” is interpreted to withdraw all criminal offenses from the operation of the privilege. 379

The Congress is protected, when it comes right down to it, just as we are. They are free to debate, but they still cannot commit felonious acts, nor acts of treason (do you hear that, Congressman Murtha?). Not above any law, but it just clearly laid out a protection of allowing them to speak during sessions of Congress. Once the final gavel drops, they are subject to be accountable for their actions, as any of us would be.

From a pratical standpoint, Congress is specifically given the duty and responsibility of passing laws. The Executive branch is then obligated to enfoce them. If the Executive Branch had the ability to pass laws, then also enforce them, it would be a completely different debate, but our Founding fathers wisely did not give the Executive Branch the abillity to put laws in place. All the Justice Department and the FBI did was to hold a citizen accountable for the breaking of a law, which was passed by Congress. How can this come close to the issues for the reasons the Speech and Debate was written in the first place?

Hey, Representative Jefferson: Who passed the law against bribing of Federal officials? It sure is tough playing by your own rules, isn’t it? That comes back to my single most important lesson from War College: It’s allways dangerous to set a precedent, for you never know when you will have to live by it yourself.

Note: In the writing of this post, or in the story that has drawn so much ire from Congressional representatives, NO ACTUAL CONGRESSMEN WERE ARRESTED, nor were any harmed, except for their feelings getting hurt.

Oh, yeah, I was in my wallet last night and realized I have “Legislative Papers” of my own…..

I may be worng, for like a good chilled wine, there may be temperature specifications, besides physical ones, that define what really qualifies as “legislative papers.”

Thanks to Mudville Gazette for the Open Post.

A long time ago (now) in my universe which seems so far away (removed by 20+ years), I recevied training in Soviet Doctrine. The instructors were very knowledgeable regarding the attachment of Soviet political officers to virtually every unit, and how the indoctrination into Communist Party thought took primacy over tactical training.

With our somewhat justified arrogance, we felt quite superior in our ability to train for the fight first and then there were some other details to be discussed. I read the news these days, and see we have become much like those we won a major war against, the war to save people from the subjugation under socialist totalitarian rule.

Not to say there are not some issues that needed to be addressed, but somewhere along the line, we have forgotten that most everyone who has served, or is serving in the US Military, are good and decent people with fine moral compasses that work well. We also seem to have forgotten that bad things happen, but the normal condition is good, and the very abnormal conditions don’t show up very often in our society, and therefore within our Military as a whole.

The society of “me” has taken over and the team mentality has been left for professional sports it seems, if you do see any evidence of it reported. In actuality, that isn’t the truth, for major natural, and not so natural disasters in this country and even outside of our borders, show that Americans can roll up their sleeves and collectively get their hands dirty to “git ‘r done.”

The MSM/HBM would have you believe otherwise, not by telling you that teamwork has died, but negelecting to ever report it often, possibly hoping you’ll forget and then filter your other decisions through data points of what is being reported.

Back at the ranch the purpose of this post:

Because of an incident, or which little reality has been sorted out just yet, in the manner in which any of us, being in the boots of the Marines and Corpsman, would certainly want to be, the Marines (and I’ll predict the Army will soon “follow in their wake”) will all get “core values” training.

My response: Great. Just. Flippin. Great. Great idea: Lets stop everything we are doing, and tell those who had nothing to do with this, that they need to be mindful of a set of standards that has been successfully serving them for years. No doubt, some handsome checks will be written to some egghead, never wore a uniform types, to pull from pop current cultural info just what it is Marines need to know about how to react in battle, or around civilians. Just what’s needed: Pile more money on people to create a “cirriculum” to be presented (no doubt with a strong warning to do it by reading it exactly), so the Marines can then tell the people of the nation “we told them!”

Hey! Note to Generals: You’re supposed to lead, not react. Marines in an ambush are to react. Get a clue and tell the world your Marines are already the most well versed warriors, in terms of how to handle a war where the enemy has no flag, no uniform, uses actual civilians as ablative shielding and “PR” fodder, has been known to purposely set up multiple IEDs to continue attacks, etc, etc, etc, in the entire world, if not the best versed in all of the history of mankind in conflict….Don’t shield murderers, but don’t you dare fry the innocents just to keep the public opinion polls up for the war and the President.

So, to wrap up, back to the Soviets. They had their brain washing sessions and had to toe the party line. The consequences were not just being passed over for the next promotion, but they could be far more terminal. There are a variety of issues in the past decade that have caused us to halt when one person, or small unit, goes “off the reservation,” be in in dating realtionships, community “get togethers,” sexual encounters, or just because someone got their feeling hurt over a word they didn’t like, and use up valuable man hours that could be used to train warfighters to be even better.

What a message we send to the troops in the field? Maybe something like this:

Generals of Marines: “We will not have you embarassing us!”

Troops in the Open: “What did we do now?”

GOMs: “Well, we know it wasn’t you directly, but…(note the “but” – “disregard everything I said before “but” but) if one did it, then one more of you may do it and we want to make sure you understand not to do that.”

TsIO: “It wasn’t us, it was a few guys somewhere else.”

GOMs: “Not to worry, we can’t afford another publicity attack like this again, so, this is an order: Sit down, listen to the training we are sending out. report up the chain of command attendance, and if some don’t receive training on the appointed day, follow up and report completion of training to all hands. Make service record entries to document attendance. And, in case it wasn’t clear, we do mean this is ‘All Hands’ training, with NO EXCEPTIONS!”

TsIO: “Aye, aye, sir!”

The more I think about it, the more I realize this is becoming a very lawyer-like approach to damage control, and more like the way civilians, private sector businesses handle things: Give the employee a book/manual/seminar. Write down they went. If they do anything to violate that, hands have been washed in advance, and management can declare: “It wasn’t my fault!” It helps in keeping law suits away in the civilian sector….

I personally was involved in one such follow up, whcih I intend to blog about during the anniversary of the time frame when it occured. Suffice it to say I travlled the entire East Coast fleet, to include chasing some ships as far as the Red Sea, just to be able to file reports saying “that will never happen again” when it was one ship that failed and killed people in an exercise. It was a fairly costly trip for four of us, not to mention the four jobs that had to be covered by others for a period of almost three months.

We have become, in this case, our former enemy. I guess I’ll continue to wonder at what is causing us to continue to adopt the methods and procedures of failure….

The solution: Get the general and flag officers to let the American people know, and the President, that it will be handled properly, in accordance with the UCMJ, and that our military is well equipped to do the right thing. Oh, yeah, people with stars on their collars: Act like you believe in abd trust your people. It was you who trained them….

Note to the more refined readers: One “label” above was picked for the symbolism, not by accident…

Fianl note to BGCol Karpinski: Shut up and shit down. You’re not in the loop or the game. You failed, take it like and officer who was given great responibility. Many have been in your shoes, so quit whining.

Thanks to Mudville Gazette for the Open Post.

May 22nd, 1968 – USS SCORPION (SSN-589) was lost at sea, off the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean, with a loss of all hands.

The submariner community knows all too well, regardless of the nationality of those who have put to sea in undersea craft, from the TURTLE and the HUNLEY to the USS THRESHER (SSN-593) and the USS SCORPION (SSN-589), know that an accident at sea more than likely does not bless them with any survivors.

A former Army officer and business consultant, Jack Yoest, posted a personal story about his connection to the family of one of the men who never came home, QMCS Frank Patsy Mazzuchi.

Thanks to Mudville Gazette for the Open Post.

How about a computer that fits into a standard electical wall socket form factor?

With a monitor and a keyboard mouse, you’re all set….More news here about this new “toy” on ZDNet.

Toss one of these in your compter bag (also available from ThinkGeeks.com) and then it’s the choice of monitor that will ultimately determine how mobile you can get…oh, yeah, you’ll need your humongous USB drive with your own data, coupled with web based applications,/a>….Think about it….

H/T: Gulf Coast Pundit

Maybe you have a hard time keeping your laptop plugged into a wall socket due to cord length:

Not too shabby for $34.99 to get 300′ feet of extra reach without the liabillity of someone tripping over your cord at Borders…..Details on ThinkGeek.com here.

H/T: CPU Magazine.

Thanks to Mudville Gazette for the Open Post!