Posting will be a little light, as I’m sure it will be around the blogosphere and many thoughts are percolating on this end, but I prefer to do justice to some of the topics, rather than hack out a few paragraphs unchecked.

In the meantime, my work schedule allowed me the opportunity to have a late and extended breakfast with Jim Helinger, Sr, the glider pilot, and we, as usual, discussed a wide range of topics.

We didn’t “go there” intentionally, but the discussions of the Middle Eastern situation led to “you know, some people are denying the Holocaust ever happened?” he said to me. Yes, I agreed. He went on to say that at V-E Day, they were stationed in Munich. Because the glider pilots didn’t have to any missions to fly, they sent them to Dachau, 60 miles away to help with the clean up of that death camp.

He described some of what he saw, which included piles of bodies and the bottoms of the furnaces covered with skeletal remains. He stood on that real estate and witnessed that it happened. I know Jim, Sr. He tells a good story, but not a one of them is false. I know, because of my association with him over the past few years, that the Holocaust did happen.

They can have all the conferences they like, but my mind will never be swayed. Thank God he made it, and after reading “Silent Wings at War,” I further thank God that he is here to share his memories and stories, for many in his military specialty were not so lucky.

I found this posted on Sea Witch’s blog, and since my version of WordPress has and “issue” with YouTube, just head over to her place and see how two brave West Point wanna be officers display their finest special ops intel collection skills in order to win the game this weekend….

Oh, yeah..BEAT ARMY!

Eagle 1 quote Ralph Peters here. Something about killing the bad guys when engaged in a war. Sounds like a tried and true technique, strategy and tactic, from well before the US of A was even a political twinkle in any one’s eye…

About a year or so ago, a gentleman came into my place of work to have us do some for him. He was older, and it was about the time we had seen the “Mission Accomplished” banner, and yet, we were still having internal security problems in Iraq.

As we talked, he said something, so I asked “the question” and yes, he was a Vet, in fact, US Army and a vet of not only Okinawa, but also he went to Japan as part of the occupation force.

I asked him what kind of problems they had with internal security. He told me pretty much none. He said as they marched to the town they would set up camp near and administer, the streets were clear, with only Japanese policemen at each intersection. As they came by, the police would come to attention and salute the formation as they passed. He said sometimes you might see a door on the houses cracked slightly open, and several sets of eyes peering out, but it was orderly and the population went about the business of rebuilding a nation.

He did say one time someone was killed, so the order went out to the locals: You have three days to turn in your weapons. After that, if you have a weapon, you will be shot on the spot.

How did it work? They came and they turned in any and everything that was a weapon, including the many heirloom samurai swords and daggers, some of great age, but…the bottom line, they complied to the letter. He said they never found anyone with a weapon and they never had any issues of anyone being attacked again.

This also, is the connection, as to how so many fine swords ended up in the hands of the vets after WWII. They were each allowed to go to the turn ins and take, for their personal property, one rifle, one pistol and one sword as the spoils of war.

Does this go against our 2nd Amendment rights? Yes, but then again, it was a necessary measure, to ensure the safety of our troops, and we took it.

Consider Iraq today….

Trackbacked to:
EagleSpeak

Revillie, REVILLE! All hands heave out and trice up!

Today is a decision day. Yes, local and national seats are up for election, but the inertia imparted in that mess rolling downhill has been imparted and with minor exception, the die is cast. We will jst have to wait out today to see the results.

My directive of the day: Do something constructive and forget about chewing your fingernails down to the quick, trying to figure out which party will control the House and the Senate, or the 30+ governorships.

What to do? Get back on task, because, Sgt Hook told us a few days ago, there is a more important mission. Nothing like a crusty old senior enlisted, tempered in the fires of the school of hard knocks to get he “Os” back on focus.

Valour-IT. Huge success last year. Beth said “Goal of $22K.” The Type As among us took that to read “$22K per service team.” Wisely she kept her mouth shut and kept us in the dark until the end, then told us what she really meant, about $108K later. we didn’t have a lot of press coverage, we had bloggers contacting everyone they knew and posting about it. My point? This year, we’re not on the flight path for a smooth landing.

Smadanek’s blog has been tracking our progress, as a whole and as teams. Capt Lex, with all his years of staring at “ROGER, BALL!” on the blunt end of a big gray thing (called “Mother” and kept afloat by those unnamed heroes wearing black shoes), would, metaphorically see himself looking at a red lower half of a circle and be hearing a frantic Landing Signal Officer on the radio yelling “Power! POWER!” if his plane is where we are now.

It comes down to this: We need to consider the warrior pledge, where soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines know no one gets left behind. We can’t afford, after the sacrifices these wounded men and women have made, to psychologically leave them on that battlefield where their wounds reshaped their lives forever. we have the means to help them see they can be productive in the job market, and they are no less important than Steven Hawking. We can give them a voice to express their ideas, to write reports, to carry on conversations, to tell their stories, to rech out to others, to provide hope where there seems to be none.

Enough for now. get to the polls, cast your vote and get back on task. If you’re signed on as part of the Navy Team and you don’t have a lengthy email titled “A few days left” from me, get me your address, and I’ll forward it.

One idea has come in overnight worth sharing: Enrevanche says try matching funds. For those who can afford it, it may pull a few more dollars through the door.

The last thought: Make contacts, today and throught the end of this drive, like some service member”s future depends on you.

Update: 8/11/2006: More thoughts here.

Trackbacked to: Outside the Beltway, Sgt Hook.

As we all know, it’s the officers who have to spin the sotiry, but if you want the real gouge, get a senior “Non Comm” and you’ll get the unvarished thruth.

My experience was the Master Chief Petty Officers could deliver a factual, yet blistering report, when necessary, knowing they were in that “place” where the thruth couldn’t be avoided. Sonar Technician Master Chief Petty Officer (Surface Warfare) David Frey was one of those men who I learned early in my career to trust and rely on for straight answers. Later in my service time, I served with him again, with Dave being on many of the inspections I was tasked to run on ships all up and down the East Coast. I watched Dave, on several occassions, resolutely bring the message to officers from the division level, up to ship captains, and also to admirals with various numbers of stars on their collar.

He was polite, yet “professionally insistent” in making sure they got the story right. He was a remarkable shipmate.

This brings me to the words of an Army blogger, one of the early ones, a man of great discernment and one who can tell a story. He’s a Sargent Major now, but his blog is “Sgt Hook.” He’s been there and done it and got a drawer full of t-shirts to prove it all, and most likely has done much more he hasn’t gotten a t for. Listen to him.

He linked this site to his post, but his post, in the post-John Kerry ridiculous remarks era, is worth your careful read, for he says it best in “More Important Missions:”

I went to work this morning more than a little hot under the collar at the implication, whether by botching a joke or not, that your Soldiers were stuck defending freedom because they had somehow failed to work hard in school so I decided to get out of the office and check on my Soldiers. It has gotten quite cold here lately and I thought the crisp air combined with talking to Soldiers would help calm me down and focus on what really matters.

Stopping in the motor pool I came upon a group of mechanics, dressed in coveralls streaked with grease stains, working inside an open bay. The large bay had tall sliding doors on both the front and back of the building and were both wide open. Several mechanics were working on a 40 foot trailer parked in the middle of the chilly bay, while others were attending to a second trailer outside, waiting to be pulled in, and still a third set were atop another trailer outside, on the opposite end having just been pulled out of the bay. When I asked one of them why both sets of doors were open causing them to freeze their asses off. The young mechanic enthusiastically explained that they had devised a system whereby one team worked on the electrical and air systems of the trailer as it waited outside the bay, while another team worked on a trailer that had been pulled into the bay completing services on the undercarriage and wheels, then a third trailer had been pulled out of the bay where another team finished up work on the topside of the trailer. “Kind of like an assembly line?” I asked. “Yes sergeant major, exactly!” he replied going on to explain that they were able to knock out full services on five times as many trailers in this manner than by the three individual teams doing everything on one trailer independently. Pretty smart, I thought. Telling the mechanics to get back to work and stop waisting time talking to the sergeant major, I went in search of more Soldiers.
[…]

Read the entire thing, if you know what’s good for your soul, in these pre-election negative on everything news days.

Oct 25th. No time for jovial stories, but a day of rememberance of the past.

My Oct 25, 2004 post on the Battle Off Samar

An Afternoon with Dick Rohde, a radioman on the USS SAMUEL B ROBERTS (DE-413) on October 25th, 1944.

My 60th anniversary post about Congressional Medal of Honor Winner Cpl Desmond T. Doss, a conscientious objector who refused to carry a weapon, but saved lives. What did his CMOH earned on Okinawa on May 5th, 1945 have to do with October 25th, 1944? He was ashore at Leyte Gulf that day. The heroic actions of “Taffy 3” saved that landing from being puished back into the sea. Not only that, at Leyte Gulf, Desmond Doss went out onto open ground to save a man shot by a sniper, despite the sniper not being located and killed. No shot was fired at him as he fearlessly went to aid a fallen brother.

Many heroic battles happened on October 25th.

Do you have anything to add? Please use the trackbacks to link to your writings!

From the The Canton Rep:

CANTON – When 1st Lt. Aaron Seesan died in combat on May 22, 2005, in Iraq, his parents did not know he had written a prescient poem, “Eulogy of the Common Soldier,” as a high-school senior six years earlier.
[…]

Here is the poem:

EULOGY OF THE COMMON SOLDIER

All mortal beings, which God brought forth, die the same
Man is not exempt
All will inevitably end as the dust from whence we came
It matters not of age
Do not mourn me if I should fall in a foreign land
Think this of my passing
In a far-off field a finer soil mixed with the foreign sand
A dust that is American
A dust that laughed, cried, and loved as an American
On this plot there shall be
A little piece of America, a patch for the free man
Which no oppressor can take
From this soil grows grass shimmering a little greener
Brilliant emerald ramparts
A Breeze whisping White Poppies with scent a little sweeter
Flowers towards heaven
Mourn not my terrible death but celebrate my cause in life
Viewed noble or not
I would have sacrificed and gave all that I had to give
Not to make man good
But only to let the good man live.

— Aaron Seesan

H/T: Old War Dogs

From Politics of a Patriot, Holly reports she got this email from Sew Much Comfort asking for some help.

I’m quoting it so you all can pass it along, and also take a minute and a few bucks to get a card in the mail to Sgt Kevin Downs:

OK, I have a favor to ask. There is a young soldier (a 23 year old Tennessee National Guardsman) named Sgt. Kevin Downs. He was blown out of his tank in Baghdad a year ago and left with no feet, mangled arms, and burns over 60% of his body. He is a Tennessee boy. Everyone else in the tank was killed. His condition is not good. A surgery to improve the use of fingers on one hand inadvertently caused previous skin grafts to break down, and the grafts on his legs are cracking as well and may require beginning over at square one.

Kevin is tired and low in spirits. He needs our prayers and support through cards. Would you please send him a note or card to let him know you are thinking about him? Remember him in your prayers as well. Now I am going to ask a special favor from me. Would you please send this to as many people that you can in your e-mail addresses? I would love to see him get cards from everywhere and hopefully he will know that people all over the country appreciate him leaving the safety of his home and country and fighting for our freedoms. I love America and know that it could very well be one of my family members. Thank you for all that you will do. God Bless.

His address is:
Sgt Kevin Downs
Brooke Army Medical Center
3851 Roger Brooke Dr.
Fort Sam Houston, TX 78234 USA

OR:
Sgt Kevin Downs
PO Box 118
Kingston Springs, TN 37028

Footnote: This is the mission of Sew Much Comfort:

Anyone want to help out?

It was a quiet day Sunday, so I reached for the remote and scanned the guide list of shows playing. “Patton” was on and had been playing for about an hour….I clicked to the channel and settled back on the couch.

The scene that was playing, when I cut in, was Patton giving a speech to a French audience on Corsica, talking about how he would soon be at work, liberating the homeland of Lafayette. Lots of cheers from the crowd. As he completed the speech, his aide told him the press wanted a few minutes with him.

If this “docudrama” has anything to do with reality, then I’m projecting that George S. Patton suffered as our current day commanders do, but with out instantaneous news cycles:

One an editorialist disguised as a reporter asked him about his future assignments: No comment. Some other questions, then Patton said: “Off the record, they are sending me to Malta.” To that, the editorialist disguised as a reporter asked: “will you be slapping any soldiers in Malta?” as Patton was walking away. Patton stopped, but did not turn around. After a moment, he then stepped off through garden and kept walking away. Sound familiar?

A few scenes later, a German staff officer delivers a message to a general. The General expresses dismay (this part was subtitled) that Patton was now moving to the central Mediterrean and starts barking orders to get more troops moved to Greece and Crete, and to let the Italians defend their own country. They had to get ready for the offensive Patton would surely be heading up.

So, once again, if the story presented has a degree of truth, then the media was leaking critical information to the enemy back in the early 40s.

There were other scenes where the press dogged the great military mind and General Bradley had to corral him several times, to prevent the Allies and later the US from being embarassed.

So what has really changed, except the speed of the news cycle?

Just thinking….

Oh, and speaking of the accuracy of the movie, I found this site that discusses the very issue:

Despite the way the movie makes it seem, Patton did not sack men without a moment’s regard to them, he did not curse like a sailor, he did not believe in “victory at all costs” in spite of casualty lists. He had a paternal care for his men unlike any other great military leader – he knew that little things, like a hot meal and dry socks, contributed more to victory than all the ammunition in the world. Why did Patton’s men love him so much? Because he never expected more from them than he was willing to give himself. A Third Army sentry recounted his only meeting with Patton as,“Oh, yes, I knew Patton, though I only saw him once. We were stuck in the snow and he came by in a jeep. His face was awful red, and he must have been about froze, riding in that open jeep. He yelled to us to get out and push, and first thing I knew, there I was with General Patton pushing right alongside of me.”

Quoted from “Patton Uncovered” by B. E. Boland.

After reading this page, the secondary lesson is Hollywood, as now, was distorting the true nature of military leaders in order to grab the audience….so what else is new?

And…for you staff officers, or those subject to a higher headquarters, this quote that indicates the some of the materiall on B. E. Boland’s book:

Yet, incredibly, General Patton himself was removed from the command of Third Army in disgrace. In >“Patton Uncovered” you can delve into the high-level politics surrounding the military maneuvers, and learn of the deceit, treachery, betrayal and back-stabbing that were commonplace at headquarters.

So, once more, as I said above: “so what else is new?”

Three lessons, one movie, and discovery of a book that seeks the truth of it all.