I see it ruin people’s lives either through the waste of time that it is, or the poison that people are willing to put out online.
It reminds me of how much I loathe wokeness and the push to force people into sheep. Not me. It’s why my blog gets censored by TPTB.
Because if he was really guilty, this many investigations and impeachments would have produced actual evidence, like an illegal e-mail server or payments from FTX or Burisma or the CCP. That is overlooked though if you are in the deep state.
From the best economy ever to crap in 18 months. #FJB #LGB
No bias from big tech, nothing to see here
Sooner or later, enough of us figure it out. If we don’t, say goodbye to America, at least the one that was greats
Same with healthcare workers and the military. 2 years of lies are coming to an end.
And now there is 87,000 more agents and only a few hundred billionaires. They are after the regular people.
Didn’t we dump some tea over this once already?
They are just taking our money and giving it to others. They won’t spend 5 billion to close the border fence, but can’t wait to give $100’s of Billions to other countries and not us (to build fences on their borders). In no way are the current leaders thinking of our best interests. They are thinking of their investments (Pelosi anyone?) and getting re-elected on other people’s money.
Do you know that all of the money for foreign aid is wrapped up together? So is we are helping a needy country, it gets bundled together with money going to China, Russian, Iran and other state sponsored terrorists.
It leads to Socialism, which leads to higher taxes. Relatives in the Scandinavian country tell me that they get to pay upwards of 70% taxes. I get the free college and healthcare (it’s not free, they pay taxes), but I also know of the under the table system that goes on to avoid taxes there.
I’ll support the protection of the country and investment into the future, but the just passed Anti-Inflation bill that increases inflation and is a re-badge of the green new deal. It’s just money for politicians to pilfer and waste.
With this Act, there are 87,000 new IRS agents. There are less than 900 billionaires in the US. What is happening is that the CBO Confirms at Least $20 Billion From New Audits Will Come From Those Making Less than $400K
Yes, just like Bush 41, Biden lied. There will be taxes on those who can afford it the least.
History shows the larges tax revenue increases are from tax cuts, not tax increases. Why? because you stimulate the economy and more revenue is generated for everyone, including the government.
It only leads to one thing.
And to bring this to an unhappy ending, this is why history is importat:
My friend George, usually reliable with the facts recently sent me a text that said we needed more gun laws. I was stunned at the ignorance of this statement. He normally is for everything promoting freedom and what is law abiding.
With the latest shooting in Texas, there is the call for banning guns. It is blatantly ignoring the history of countries that banned or confiscated guns. Hundreds of millions died because if this action in China, Russia, Germany and every other country this has happened in. EVERYTIME. It is the slippery step to socialism, which is a slippery slope to communism.
Governments take away freedoms so they can rule over people, not govern. They teach this in history class.
Bad guys don’t obey the law. They are only meant for those who are law abiding, like George.
There are enough gun laws to protect the citizens if they would have enforced them.
I didn’t say anything to hurt our relationship because like Covid, people make up their minds and facts and history rarely change them. I don’t get into these fights anymore. It’s like arguing on the internet. Too bad for George. I hope he doesn’t need a good citizen that is armed to protect him.
No one gives much of a crap about colleges unless it’s theirs or it’s Football season or the Final Four, or they embarrass themselves.
Well, I graduated from UCF, although it was named Florida Technological University. It was started during the Apollo moon program to develop engineers for NASA. When that stopped, they had to try to be a business college.
I’m ashamed enough of what they have become that I changed my college to Faber College on LinkedIn. Knowledge is good.
I led the student advisory committee in the late ’70’s which recommended that the school start a football program. It is a big money maker and they have been nationally ranked. I won’t even go anymore. Hell, I’ll pull against them when they cross the line now as right is right and wrong is wrong.
It was all OK until they went woke, became a bunch of snowflakes and free speech Nazi’s. Now, they nationally are rank(ed) (smelling because being Woke). Unfortunately, I also went to school with some of the now board of directors (M. Grindstaff) and I’m not surprised that this group would allow this bias and contempt for the Bill of Rights. A lot of them are lawyers so what do you expect?
UCF fired tenured professor Charles Negy for tweeting the truth about black privilege, but it doesn’t matter, free speech should be protected (except for Negy). There is enough acidic speech against the position he was fired for that should have had them look at the real violations committed by UCF, it’s directors and spokespersons.
It turns out they violated free speech, Negy’s rights and acted like spoiled children. I’m embarrassed to be associated with them. I vowed never to step back on campus once I graduated and never have, knowing the kind of people they have running and advising it to be anti-constitutional. They had to re-hire him with back pay, bonus and tenure. Justice is served.
UCF is against freedom, free speech and the first amendment. Worse, they are Woke, a scarlet letter. They discriminate against conservatives, professors and white people. They also show a serious lack of judgement on their Board Of Emeritus Directors.
Get woke, go broke and be a loser, like UCF.
We previously discussed the effort to fire University of Central Florida Professor Charles Negy after he tweeted about “black privilege.” UCF President Alexander Cartwright abandoned any pretense of academic freedom or principle in failing to protect a colleague from an anti-free speech campaign. Now, after a major court ruling against the university, an arbitrator has awarded Negy all back pay and benefits from the time of his firing. That is good news. What is not good news is that, despite shredding core principles governing higher education, Cartwright remains the UCF president. To the contrary, the university issued a statement that indicated that it is undeterred by the adverse court rulings. Negy, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Central Florida, required police protection after he tweeted about what he views as “black privilege.” There was a petition demanding his termination with more than 30,000 signatures and, as we have seen in other schools, his colleagues were virtually silent as Negy was attacked for expressing his views. While classroom misconduct has been raised by some critics, most of the effort (and the focus of this posting) is on his statements on social media. That petition focused on Negy’s statements on social media as unacceptable and grounds for termination:
“We are calling on the University of Central Florida to dismiss psychology professor Charles Negy due to abhorrent racist comments he has made and continues to make on his personal Twitter account. In addition to racism, Negy has engaged in perverse transphobia and sexism on his account, which is just as reprehensible. While he has a right to free speech, he does not have a right to dehumanize students of color and other minority groups, which is a regular occurance [sic] in his classroom. By allowing him to continue in his position, UCF would simply be empowering another cog in the machine of systemic racism.”
Negy faced protests at his home and on campus, according to news reports after he explored the concept of “white shaming” as an academic, including his book “White Shaming: Bullying Based on Prejudice, Virtue-Signaling, and Ignorance.”
Negy’s work is highly controversial and his tweets have inflamed critics. In a now deleted tweet, he wrote “Black privilege is real: Besides affirm. action, special scholarships and other set asides, being shielded from legitimate criticism is a privilege. But as a group, they’re missing out on much needed feedback.”
He has also written, again on Twitter, “If Afr. Americans as a group, had the same behavioral profile as Asian Americans (on average, performing the best academically, having the highest income, committing the lowest crime, etc.), would we still be proclaiming ‘systematic racism’ exists?”
Again, the question is not the merits or tenor of such writings but the right of academics to express such viewpoints. There have been few comparable protests when professors write inflammatory comments about white culture or white privilege.
UCF President Alexander Cartwright told students that the university would investigate Negy, and that he and his Administration “are acutely aware of the offensive and hurtful Twitter posts that professor Charles Negy has shared on his personal page. These posts do not reflect the values of UCF, and I strongly condemn these racist and abhorrent posts.”
We recently discussed the Eleventh Circuit ruling against Cartwright and the university over its discriminatory-harassment and bias response team policies as violative of the First Amendment. The Eleventh Circuit overturned a district judge’s rejection of a preliminary injunction against the policy: “[I]t is imperative that colleges and universities toe the constitutional line when monitoring, supervising, and regulating student expression. Despite what we presume to be the very best of intentions, it seems to us substantially likely that the University of Central Florida crossed that line here.”
In oral argument, the university’s own lawyer struggled to define the terms or to say whether particular statements might be deemed prohibited. The court noted:
“The discriminatory-harassment policy’s imprecision exacerbates its chilling effect. To take just one example, what does it mean for one student’s speech to ‘unreasonably . . . alter’ another student’s educational experience? Both terms — ‘unreasonably’ and ‘alter’— are pretty amorphous, their application would likely vary from one student to another, and the university’s totality-of-known-circumstances approach to determining whether particular speech crosses the line only makes matters worse.”
Just as the university spent a huge amount of time and money to fight for these unconstitutional rules, it has litigated the matter over Negy to seek to strip him of his job and all benefits due to his exercise of free speech.
After teaching psychology at the school since 1998, Negy, 61, was fired in January 2021. As Cartwright turned the weight of the university against him, Negy had to sell his house to pay his lawyers.
The arbitrator noted that, while the school added objections to his teaching style, Negy received outstanding teaching reviews. Moreover, he noted Negy “demonstrated a willingness to entertain some change in his style of instruction; however, the record is devoid of any clear evidence that any member of his management requested such effort.”
Chad Binette, assistant vice president of UCF communications, indicated that the university remains undeterred by these losses. He stated that “UCF stands by the actions taken following a thorough investigation that found repeated misconduct in Professor Negy’s classroom, including imposing his views about religion, sex and race. However, we are obligated to follow the arbitrator’s ruling.”
What is not clear to me is how Cartwright retains his position as president in a Florida public university after such a record of attacks on free speech and academic freedom. He has not only sought to impose anti-free speech conditions on faculty but spent copious amounts of money seeking to preserve those rules and uphold those actions. These principles are the essence of any university and their abandonment constitutes a rejection of Cartwright’s obligation as a university president. I would not support his termination as an academic but, as an administrator, he has shown a serial failure to defend his faculty and free speech. Until university presidents are held accountable for failing to defend free speech, they will continue to yield to every flash mob that forms on a campus.
Instead of being known for being nice and apologizing, (eh), we now have dictatorial government more beholden to Klaus Schwab (WEF) than the people, who takes money from your bank account if you say you liked Trump or support Truck Drivers.
As for me:
SHOCK: Trudeau’s justice minister says that being “pro-Trump” is a factor that will decide if your bank account is seized under their Emergency Orders. https://t.co/Ez5GPgvup1
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 17, 2022
Trudeau’s Justice Minister, David Lametti, warns truck owners involved in the convoy protest that “you may now actually lose your trucking licence”.
See our coverage at https://t.co/DEN7zzSz9G pic.twitter.com/dwou2oRB2C
— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) February 17, 2022
Ottawa will even take away your pets. What will happen to your pets? Breitbart News reported:
While other branches of the Humane Society describe themselves as “no-kill” shelters, such as the Etobicoke Humane Society, a 2015 article on the Ottawa Humane Society website, written by Executive Director Bruce Roney, notes the shelter does euthanize animals.
Breitbart News spoke briefly to an Ottawa City employee who stated that animals taken into care under normal circumstances are managed by the Ottawa Humane Society, a non-profit animal shelter.
While other branches of the Humane Society describe themselves as “no-kill” shelters, such as the Etobicoke Humane Society, a 2015 article on the Ottawa Humane Society website, written by Executive Director Bruce Roney, notes the shelter does euthanize animals.
I moved from a Northern Blue State (South Florida) decades ago to raise my kids in what was know as a Bible Belt state. Due to the area nearby (RTP), it attracted many people from the Bluer states. It was also near eastern Portland/San Francisco (Chapel Hill). That is a concentration of people who consider themselves elites, but in reality were just a bunch of Woke/PC/SJW America hating socialists who were against anything morally proper. So in a way they are elitists, but that is not a compliment. They are a group of disagreeable people who live to try and tell everyone else how to live. They are loathed by most of the surrounding area.
It is safe to say that they ruined a perfectly good place to live with their constant whining to try and make it either NYC or California by standards. They were and still are a minority, but have infiltrated the University System (UNC-CH, Duke, NC State, Wake Forest, etc.) and make life miserable in a once very nice place to live.
Therefore, I moved to get back to the South, where people are normal and have beliefs that are not Marxist. I don’t want to say where for fear that the dicks from the blue states will come and ruin that also.
Just like in Florida, they would come there and say how much better it was in NY/NJ/Penn/Mass than where we lived. Go the hell back if it was so good. Don’t come to a good place and ruin it with the policies that you moved away from, starting with more taxes and more Government.
Even though the MSM, the democrats and those against protecting US citizens are claiming that 2 Senators stopped a power grab, it was really 52. Half of the Senate plus Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin saved us by voting not to kill the filibuster.
Harry Reid threw the nuclear switch on voting in Justices. Not long afterwards in 2016, republicans took control of the Senate where they are approved, and the left is still (bitching) licking it’s wounds that the Supreme Court is (supposedly) 6-3 conservative. Recent verdicts show that Roberts has sided with the liberal judges on important issues like Obamacare by calling it a tax. We still suffer with that albatross. I just went through the process of getting insurance and Healthcare.gov is just another unnecessary layer of red tape that doesn’t really help anyone other than politicians.
Most politicians care most about getting power and staying in power. The two “rebel” democrats risked being outcasts in the next election by doing what was right for the people of the USA. They protected citizens from the government so we don’t have to do it. (see my 2nd amendment post a few down from here)
They should be hailed as hero’s for keeping us a Republic (no Pelosi and Shumer, we didn’t hurt the democracy because we are a Republic) rather than a monarchy.
The House and maybe the senate should flip this November and it also protected the democrats from being run over by a Republican majority, even if it is not 60 members.
Most of all, the ability to stop power grabbing legislature, like the voting act keeps the country protected by those who want to rule us instead of govern us. That was the intent of the current voter protection act, which only protects those in power to keep them there.
So, we escaped that one, but the spawn of Satan who are in charge won’t stop. There will be another power grab soon. I hope that the election cycle, which causes all candidates to lie about being moderate will stop the idiocy. If not, more like Manchin and Sinema will have to grow a spine.
I think that by being true to the people, that Manchin gets re-elected. Sinema faces a state of people less educated on history and what is right vs wrong, but I would vote for her for doing her job.
The conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty.
– Antonin Scalia
It is the amendment that protects citizens against the government.
An analyst that I used to work with tweeted his commie statement about wanting to know just who were this militia? Well James G., there is your answer from one of if not the constitutionally best informed minds.
I left twitter a long time ago because of hate and snark just like this and other anti-American crap put out by people like James Governor, but I didn’t forget that it needed answering. I’m finally getting around to it.
You also claimed to be an American because you had a passport, but you are a Brit with dual passports. I don’t care because, only living the ideals and believing in America makes you an American. I know in your heart not only do you not love this country, your words indicate your disdain for it. I didn’t forget that either. You asked me if I questioned whether you are an American and yes, I do. Actions speak louder than words. In UK snark, you are what our execs called you, a wanker.
This goes for the rest of the liberal haters on what makes this country great. A lot of them are born US Citizens with generations of family who came here for a new life. Why you hate it is because you don’t understand what it took to make it great.
So James – read this:
Just look what happened to the Soviet Union, North Korea, Cuba, China and anywhere else they took away guns from the people. It’s just that the sheep and the idiots don’t grasp the concept of freedom, and the concept of what communism and socialism do to the population of a country.
Oh, they’ve banned guns in Australia, and now have kicked Djockovic out of the Aussie Open for not being jabbed. The people can do nothing about it. He had Covid twice so he has immunity. Same for Canada. Freedom is fleeting.
Update: Russia invaded Ukraine:
So James, here’s this:
And it has worked in places and in the political Blue. Oh yes, the Ivy league does everything it can to filter out any remnant of God and religion.
And the young are the ones who are buying into this nonsense.
Just like trying to impeach a president who wasn’t even in office when Covid was raging across the country, the assholes on parade in the house will prance around with the Media (MSM) instead of trying to solve important issues, say the supply chain or let the people arrested a year ago be given a fair treatment.
Oh, FakeBook Facistbook will ban anyone one who actually represents freedom of speech about it along with Twatter and the other hate groups.
We need to stop this nonsense and get about putting our country back on track. They haven’t accomplished anything other than helping themselves to money for a year now.
I can’t wait for the scripted cure the world and peace for mankind speeches from the girls who don’t want to be cancelled for saying the wrong thing.
Here is someone with a backbone that should really be awarded the crown, a person with integrity.
While this is sarcasm, there is a lot of truth in it. The Government is supposed to work for us, yet they act like they are ruling over us. Not wanting this was how our Country started…..just sayin’.
I remember how I was not PC at IBM when I posted that Muslims were the Terrorists in most cases around the world Junaidah Dahlan from our Malaysian office tried to say that she was offended. Well, history has proved my point and most terrorists are muslim. The facts are what they are.
The political rhetoric is about equality, but people are too different to be equal, at anything, even identical twins think differently. Equal opportunity to succeed is our best shot.
There is no magic bullet in life on Earth.
BTW, this is another censorship shot. I don’t think they like the real definition instead of theirs.
He lived through the ravages of Communism and wrote about it.
Why would anyone want that again?
“My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.”
It’s always been difficult to be unpopular. We learn this lesson in school. No one wants to be an outcast.
With the dreaded social media and their censors against only certain people and certain words that they don’t agree with, the visibility of this subject has leapfrogged past logic, reason and congeniality. You say the wrong thing to the wrong person and your head gets bitten off.
First, you have to care if what people say about you bothers you. I don’t give a flying fig anymore because if they like me they do. If they don’t, what they say probably isn’t going to phase me.
The real hero’s and leaders are those who will stand up against the sheep and go the other way, or lead the sheep. Oh, you are going to piss some people off, but they were probably just there to try and get in your way.
The moral is don’t be a sheep. Fight (say to others, don’t hit them unless you are in Portland) for what you believe in and the hill you want to make your stand on.
Most of all, when you have made your decision, don’t let public opinion or popularity contests sway you. When you are right you are. If you are not sure, you probably aren’t.
Most people who get in your way are jealous or get their kicks by bringing others down instead of worrying about what they should be doing.
He lives on in the College and University system today. Marx and his policies went from Frankfurt to Columbia in NY when the Germans were smart enough to get rid of his ideas.
|
Washington thinks they are going to take away our guns, so check this out……..sales of this new product may skyrocket.
“IN GOD WE TRUST” |
I slip in things like China Virus, IRS is big brother and other words just to give the censors something to do. Sooner or later they’ll move the line and you won’t see me for 30 days or whatever the penalty is for using the wrong work or pronoun that I probably couldn’t keep straight.
They can’t ban me on Fake book or Twatter because I fired them first.
I like people that are informed and right most of the time. Friedman was both. He was an economist. I take it for what it is. I suppose there are political overtones if you want to read into it, but I am trying to stay out of that pool so don’t.
There is a lot of things that can hold us hostage like addiction, debt, lying….you recognize them.
An Anti-Kremlin blogger got his ass beat outside his home. Of course the Kremlin denied that they had anything to do with it. If my blog gets hacked, we’ll know for sure that they did.
As for me, I like most of the rest of the world living in 2020 don’t buy it. See Putin on Friday. He of course was calling for free elections. I guess that is on the Kremlin do not do list.
I was hoping to post about Sports Stars being hypocrites and I’ll get to it, but this was too obvious….Here is a snippet and a link.
August 31, 2020
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Moscow police opened a criminal inquiry on Monday after anti-Kremlin opposition activist and political blogger Yegor Zhukov was beaten and left bloodied outside his home at the weekend.
The 22-year-old student, who was a leading figure in large anti-government protests last year, was taken to hospital late on Sunday after being assaulted by two people outside his apartment in western Moscow, his allies said on social media.
They published pictures of his bloodied face covered in bruises and gashes.
He was among more than 1,000 people detained in Moscow in July 2019 in one of the biggest crackdowns on anti-Kremlin demonstrators in recent years. He and other protesters had taken to the streets to call for free elections.
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.” – Thomas Jefferson
Remember, I’m an observer of trends and have taken a position of waiting to see where I’ll fall on any subject until enough facts are in.
Milton Friedman said people are greedy and power hungry when answering who would you trust to have power for your government. We’ve had a test run on what would happen with the struggle to re-open the country after the Wuhan/Covid virus. (here is a brief clip, but the entire discussion is there if you want to view it). He refers to Einstein, Henry Ford and others accomplishing what they did and how.
Some governors have shut down their states, while others are trying to re-open. It’s too early to see who is right, but the trend is leaning towards the virus dying down in both.
What does this have to do with the right to bear arms? It gives us the right to protect ourselves from our enemies. At the time it was referring to the oppressive British, but when setting the boundaries of what was to become the greatest nation ever, it was to protect us from an oppressive US government or any other government for that matter.
As always, history will show the outcome.
“I don’t fear failure. I only fear the slowing up of the engine inside of me which is saying, ‘Keep going, someone must be on top, why not you?’” — George S. Patton Jr.
Love him or hate him, he got things done and was feared by the enemy, so much so that they had a respect for his command. In these times of the Covid-19 virus, we need to keep going and not give up. Stay on top and don’t give up.
It is the celebration of the birth of our nation. People died for our freedom to start a new country that would arguably become the greatest ever.
My mom was born on the 4th of July. Captain America, the comic book hero fittingly was also born on the 4th, in 1918.
Nothing is more patriotic to me than the Star Spangled Banner and the Stars and Stripe forever, so here they are.
God bless the USA
In these days of divisiveness, there are some facts based on economics that are hard to refute, even if you don’t want to admit it. I enjoy discussion by people of high IQ and of great wisdom, something the world of Political Correctness is sadly overlooking.
It is interesting to think of what he observed in the mid 1800’s vs. the country we have in 2014. Here are his comments based on a visit:
Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that stuck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things.
In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of Freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America I found they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country.
Religion in America…must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom; it facilitates the use of it. Indeed, it is in this same point -of -view that the inhabitants of the United States themselves look upon religious belief.
I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion—for who can search the human heart? But I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of cities or a party, but it belongs to the whole nation and to every rank of society.
The sects that exist in the United States are innumerable. They all differ in respect to the worship which is due to the Creator; but they all agree in respect to the duties which are due from man to man.
Each sect adores the Deity in its own peculiar manner, but all sects preach the same moral law in the name of God.
Moreover, all sects of the United States are comprised within the great unity of Christianity and Christian morality is everywhere the same.
In the United States the sovereign authority is religions…there is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America, and there can be no greater proof of its utility and its conformity to human nature than that its influence is powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth.
In the United States, if a political character attacks a sect [denomination], this may not prevent even the partisans of that very sect, from supporting him; but if he attacks all the sects together [Christianity], everyone abandons him and remains alone.
I do not question that the great austerity of manners that is observable in the United States arises, in the first instance, from religious faith…its influence over the mind of woman is supreme, and women are the protectors of morals. There is certainly no country in the world where the tie of marriage is more respected than in America or where conjugal happiness is more highly or worthily appreciated.
In the United States, the influence of religion is not confined to the manners, but it extends to the intelligence of the people…
Christianity, therefore, reigns without obstacle, by universal consent; the consequence is, as I have before observed, that every principle of the moral world is fixed and determinate…
I sought for the key of greatness and genius of America in her harbors…; in her fertile fields and boundless forests; in her rich mines and vast world commerce; in her public school system and the institutions of learning. I sought for it in her democratic Congress and in her matchless Constitution.
Not until I went into the chutes of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power.
America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.
The safeguard of morality is religion, and morality is the best security of law as well as the surest pledge of freedom.
The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other.
Christianity is the companion of liberty in all of its conflicts–the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims.
They brought with them…a form of Christianity, which I cannot better describe than by styling it in a democratic and republican religion…From the earliest settlement of the emigrants, politics and religion contracted an alliance which has never been dissolved.
The Christian nations of our age seem to me to present a most alarming spectacle; the impulse which is bearing them along is so strong that it cannot be stopped, but is not yet so rapid that it cannot be guided; their fate is in their hands; yet a little while and it may be no longer.
Read the rest of this PolitiChicks.tv article here: http://politichicks.tv/column/2014-alexis-de-tocqueville-esque-year-restoration/#5ulfUJKsDb9hcb3G.99
On the anniversary of one of the most historic battles and largest amphibious landing, here is a round up of coverage and events taking place.
I’ll be adding links throughout the day. If you have a suggestion, please leave a comment and I’ll add it.
Remembrances of the men who were there
The War that had to be won to make D-Day a success
D-Day photo’s still haunting after the invasion
WSJ – D-Day Veterans Gather to remember
D-Day Memorial Anniversary Events
WWII Vets Travel To Normandy to Remember
BBC – Staged Landing and Remembrances Event
D-Day Historic Battle Re-created
The Darkroom, pictures and video’s of D-Day
Blackfive – The President’s Prayer, Eisenhower
Blackfive – Courage beyond measure
France will never forget what it owes these soldiers
What does D-Day Stand for and other facts?
The eyes of the world were upon us on the longest day
One of the finest speeches ever delivered at Pointe-du-hoc
93 year old re-creates parachute jump over Normandy
89 year old veteran sneaks out of nursing home to attend ceremony
WSJ – The debt owed to the hero’s of D-Day
I’ve written about D-day before here and here, but I’ve recently found research about the planning and the pre-landing war at 25,000 feet. One of the issues that the strategists had to deal with was the mighty Luftwaffe. Almost a year before the landing in Normandy, Operation Overlord or D-Day would have been much different if air cover had been used against the Allied landing force. They had to find a way to get rid of German air superiority before the landing or it would be unsuccessful.
In the month after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the US Army’s Eight Air Force was established in Savannah, Georgia. Less than a year later, it is tasked with defeating the most powerful air force in the world, the German Luftwaffe. By the end of the War in Europe, there were thousands of B-17’s and fighters produced. Unfortunately, the early fighters couldn’t match the bomber range so they flew without cover both to and from the target until the fighters could find and protect what was left of the Bomber squadron. It was thought that with 17 machine guns protecting each plane, they would be self defending against the Messerschmitt’s. Unfortunately, it was a turkey shoot for the Germans. Almost 75% of the airmen would fail to complete the 25 missions which would complete their duty in the European theater. (Authors note: I have the greatest respect for the contribution and sacrifice of the other countries who participated. Their efforts can be found by other authors and should be read and celebrated for what they did).
Much of this was proved on Big Week which ended on February 25, 1944 when more than 2,000 American airmen failed to return from their mission. The U.S. fighters were not able to engage the German fighters deep over Europe until the advent of the P-51 Mustang which was faster, better armed and had the range to protect the B-17’s the entire mission. It was discovered that the Mustangs could win the battle against the German fighters, but they had to beat the deadline of D-Day to stop the Luftwaffe.
It has been written in documentaries that with the knowledge that the German’s would come after the B-17’s (the Germans used radar) and that the P-51’s would win, they used the bombers as bait to knock out the enemy’s air power. This was a certain death sentence for the crews of the bomber squadrons, but knowing that the landing at Normandy and the entire Operation Overlord would fail unless this was accomplished sealed the fate for the Eighth. Nevermore was this apparent when the Eight was ordered to bomb Berlin on March 6, 1944. This was the center of German government and the most heavily fortified city against air attack with an estimated 70% of the Luftwaffe fighters and 750 anti-aircraft weapons were placed. Although ten’s of thousands of pounds of bombs were dropped, 69 bombers were lost. The goal of reducing the Luftwaffe was accomplished as more than 179 German Fighters were destroyed. The difference was that American planes and pilots could be replaced, the Germans couldn’t produce any more and these were their best pilots.
Two more raids were then ordered on Berlin, some say to draw out the fighters so they could be eliminated. It was the beginning of the end of the Luftwaffe. This strategy ensured the goal of Allied air superiority over Normandy, but at a very high cost.
By the end of the war, the 8th Air Force would suffer 26000 combat deaths. This was more than the Marines suffered in all of World War II.
We honor the soldiers who gave their all, many with the ultimate sacrifice to secure freedom in Europe and likely for the world. We know from history the amphibious landing and the issues and outcome. It all came at great cost and reminds us that freedom is never free. It always comes at some cost. For the year prior to the landing at Normandy, there was a great cost at 25,000 feet.
For more on D-Day at 70, you can read about it here.
This is not only very inspiring, it is some of the best advice on the Interweb. For those in a good way, it will make you better, for those in a bad way it will show you how to begin to pick yourself up. If you are young, it is a good lesson in how to live your life.
AP Photo/The University of Texas at Austin, Marsha Miller
UT alum Adm. William H. McRaven gives students the “hook ’em horns” at the university’s commencement last week.
U.S. Navy admiral and University of Texas, Austin, alumnus William H. McRaven returned to his alma mater last week to give seniors 10 lessons from basic SEAL training when he spoke at the school’s commencement.
McRaven, the commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command who organized the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, stressed the importance of making your bed every morning, taking on obstacles headfirst, and realizing that it’s OK to be a “sugar cookie.”
All of his lessons were supported by personal stories from McRaven’s many years as a Navy SEAL.
“While these lessons were learned during my time in the military, I can assure you that it matters not whether you ever served a day in uniform,” McRaven told students. “It matters not your gender, your ethnic or religious background, your orientation, or your social status.”
We remember those who served for our country, sometimes fighting for the freedom of other countries. Most of all, we honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice.
Never forget, Freedom is not Free.
Memorial Day is a day of remembrance of those who have died serving our country.
Memorial Day was a response to the unprecedented carnage of the Civil War, in which some 620,000 soldiers on both sides died.
From the practice of decorating graves with flowers, wreaths and flags, the holiday was long known as Decoration Day. The name Memorial Day goes back to 1882, but the older name didn’t disappear until after World War II. Federal law declared “Memorial Day” the official name in 1967.
4. The playing of ‘Taps’
The 24-note bugle call, is played at all military funerals and memorial services.
It is customary on Memorial Day to fly the flag at half staff until noon, and then raise it to the top of the staff until sunset.
These are the two most popular items people use to remember soldiers.
Memorial Day is observed on the last Monday of May.
America’s Top 10 Deadliest Wars.
From Blackfive: The Gates of Heaven
What is Memorial Day really about? While we are busy gearing up for the weekend, I thought I should post this annual reminder about the holiday. It may surprise some of you.
If you are relatively new to Blackfive, you should read this story about a Memorial Day eleven years ago – Mathew Schram’s Memorial Day. And, unfortunately, we’ve posted many memorials to our Fallen Americans.
The words to “Taps” are:
Day Is Done,
Gone the Sun,
From the Earth,
From the Hill,
From the Sky,
All Is Well,
Safely Rest,
God Is NighWhen Taps is played at dusk, it has a completely different meaning than when Taps is played during the day. No soldier really wants to hear it played during daylight. For when the bugle plays Taps in the daylight…that means a soldier has fallen…There is a belief among some that Taps is the clarion call to open the gates of heaven for the fallen warrior and letting them know to “Safely Rest”…
Of course, Memorial Day is about remembering the sacrifices that our military men and women have made over the last 237 years. We are still a young nation, but one that has made many sacrifices to remain free. We should also take time to remember the families who have lost loved ones.
We have focused on just a few of the fallen over the last few years. I’ve lost good friends during the War on Terror. And I write about the others to ensure that we don’t forget their sacrifices – I do that for me as much as for anybody.
Click on the link to read the entire blog post.
AOMDA Honors War Vets Buried Overseas
There will be many Memorial Day observances here in the U.S. this weekend, but loved ones of service members buried abroad can rest assured their veterans will not be forgotten.
The American Overseas Memorial Day Association (AOMDA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to honoring the memory of those who gave their lives in World Wars I and II, whose final resting places are in American military cemeteries or separate graves all over Europe and even Africa…….
Memorial Day, the day to honor those who gave their lives for the freedom we all enjoy. We must protect our country so they did not die in vain.
While he was not an American, he was a great leader that sums it up…
You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life. —Winston Churchill
“Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor, and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”
Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be. That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks, for his kind care and protection of the People of this country previous to their becoming a Nation, for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war, for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed, for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.
And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions, to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually, to render our national government a blessing to all the People, by constantly being a government of wise, just and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed, to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shown kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord. To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and Us, and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.” – George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1789
Anniversary of D-Day b the Army
On D-Day, 6 June 1944, the Allied nations landed around 156,000 troops on the Normandy coastline. The American forces landed numbered 73,000: 23,250 on Utah Beach, 34,250 on Omaha Beach, and 15,500 airborne troops. In the British and Canadian sector, 83,115 troops were landed (61,715 of them British): 24,970 on Gold Beach, 21,400 on Juno Beach, 28,845 on Sword Beach, and 7900 airborne troops.
The War Years has created a range of D-Day commemorative designs and merchandise. Each of our designs incorporates QR barcodes that enables anyone with a smartphone or similar web-enabled mobile device to connect to our digital content, such as this Omaha Beach video. We also use 2D QR codes so that you can connect to our social media pages on Facebook and Twitter. Checkout our website: http://www.thewaryears.co.uk
The Assault on Omaha Beach
On D-Day, the untested 29th Infantry Division, joined by nine companies of U.S. Army Rangers redirected from Pointe du Hoc, were to assault the western half of the beach. The battle-hardened 1st Infantry Division was given the eastern half. The initial assault waves, consisting of tanks, infantry, and combat engineer forces, were carefully planned to reduce the coastal defences and allow the larger ships of the follow-up waves to land.
However, the assault on Omaha Beach did not go to plan. Almost all the specially designed amphibious DD tanks, that were to provide much needed covering fire for the infantry assault waves, sank off shore. Navigation problems caused the majority of landing craft to miss their targets throughout the day. The defences were unexpectedly strong, and the Germans inflicted heavy casualties on landing US troops. Under heavy fire, engineers struggled to clear beach obstacles; later landings bunched up around the few channels that were cleared.
Many troops were drowned or killed the moment they hit the beach. Many landing craft hit under water obstacles or were destroyed by mines. The surviving assault troops could not clear the heavily defended exits off the beach. This caused further problems and consequent delays for later landings.
Eventually small groups of Rangers and infantrymen scaled the heavily defended bluffs commanding the beach. Allied naval gunfire supported these improvised assaults. By day’s end, two small footholds had been won, which were subsequently exploited against weaker defences further inland, thus achieving the original D-Day objectives over the following days.
By The War Years Online http://www.zazzle.com/trumpess
Remembering that Freedom is never Free.
Thank You Memorial Day Hero’s!
May we be worthy of their sacrifice.
“If you are able, save for them a place inside of you and save one backward glance when you are leaving for the places they can no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say you loved them, though you may or may not have always. Take what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own.
And in that time when men decide and feel safe to call war insane, take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind.”
Major Michael Davis O’Donnell
1 January 1970
Dak To, Vietnam
Have A Good Memorial Day Infidels
When I’m Gone – TOP THREAD
The Last Full Measure – Wilmington Cemetary
And I Won’t Forget The Men Who Died
In Honor of Memorial Day: War and Battle, the Great Quotations
Memorial Day 2013: Honor the Fallen
Memorial Day, an Honest Man vs. a Liar
The Debt We Owe Our Servicemen and Women
Why are Americans so united? They would not resemble one another even if you painted them all one color! They speak all the languages of the world and form an astonishing mixture of civilizations and religious beliefs.
On 9/ll, the American tragedy turned three hundred million people into a hand put on the heart. Nobody rushed to accuse the White House, the Army, or the Secret Service that they are only a bunch of losers. Nobody rushed to empty their bank accounts. Nobody rushed out onto the streets nearby to gape about.
Instead the Americans volunteered to donate blood and to give a helping hand.
After the first moments of panic, they raised their flag over the smoking ruins, putting on T-shirts, caps and ties in the colors of the national flag. They placed flags on buildings and cars as if in every place and on every car a government official or the president was passing. On every occasion, they started singing: ‘God Bless America !’
I watched the live broadcast and rerun after rerun for hours listening to the story of the guy who went down one hundred floors with a woman in a wheelchair without knowing who she was, or of the Californian hockey player, who gave his life fighting with the terrorists and prevented the plane from hitting a target that could have killed other hundreds or thousands of people.
How on earth were they able to respond united as one human being? Imperceptibly, with every word and musical note, the memory of some turned into a modern myth of tragic heroes. And with every phone call, millions and millions of dollars were put into collection aimed at rewarding not a man or a family, but a spirit, which no money can buy. What on earth unites the Americans in such a way? Their land? Their history? Their economic Power? Money? I tried for hours to find an answer, humming songs and murmuring phrases with the risk of sounding commonplace, I thought things over, I reached but only one conclusion… Only freedom can work such miracles.
Cornel Nistorescu
Instead of leaving the country in better shape as every generation until now has done, debt is weighing on us like a herd of elephants. The taxpayers, likely the next generation will be taxed ad infinitum.
For example, here is the Student Loan Debt Clock
Mass shootings rose between the 1960s and the 1990s, and dropped in the 2000s. Mass killings actually reached their peak in 1929. (According to Grant Duwe, criminologist with the MinnesotaDepartment of Corrections.)
“States that allow law-abiding citizens to carry concealed handguns enjoy a 60 percent decrease in multiple-victim public shootings and a 78 percent decrease in victims per attack.” John Lott, Jr. and Bill Landes, “More Guns, Less Crime.”
“With just one single exception, the attack on congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson in 2011, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns.”– John Lott, Jr. Co-author with Bill Landes of “More Guns, Less Crime.”
“Until the Newtown horror, the three worst K–12 school shootings ever had taken place in either Britain or Germany.” [John Fund, NRO. “The Facts About Mass Shootings.”]
Total violent crime from 1973 to 2009 decreased 65%, or is about one-third as high. (Bureau of Justice Statistics)
The U.S. murder rate decreased 8.1% between 2008 and 2009, and has fallen every year since 2006. (Bureau of Justice Statistics, based on FBI data).
The United States ranks 24th in the world in terms of its murder rate. It also has the most highly armed civilian population.
“International evidence and comparisons have long been offered as proof of the mantra that more guns mean more deaths and that fewer guns, therefore, mean fewer deaths. There is a compound assertion that (a) guns are uniquely available in the United States compared with other modern developed nations, which is why (b) the United States has by far the highest murder rate. Though these assertions have been endlessly repeated, statement (b) is, in fact, false and statement (a) is substantially so.” (Kates & Mauser, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Vol. 30, No. 2)
“The political causation is that nations which have violence problems tend to adopt severe gun controls, but these do not reduce violence, which is determined by basic sociocultural and economic factors.” [Then why does Luxemburg have nine times the murder rate of Germany?] (Kates & Mauser,Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Vol. 30, No. 2)
“The Middle Ages were a time of notoriously brutal and endemic warfare. They also experienced rates of ordinary murder almost double the highest recorded U.S. murder rate. But Middle Age homicide “cannot be explained in terms of the availability of firearms, which had not yet been invented.” (Kates & Mauser, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Vol. 30, No. 2)
The odds of being in a victim of a mass shooting are far less than that of being struck by lightning.
First to Fight, the Marines are one of the 5 Military Branches that protect and serve our country. They have protected our freedom and the countless lives of many around the world. I am a big supporter of the military and celebrate each branch for what they offer.
BACKGROUND
On November 10, 1775, the Continental Congress passed a resolution stating that “two battalions of Marines be raised” for service as landing forces with the fleet. This established the Continental Marines and marked the birth of the United States Marine Corps. Serving on land and at sea, early Marines distinguished themselves in a number of important operations, including their first amphibious raid on foreign soil in the Bahamas in March 1776, under the command of the Corps’ first commandant, Capt. Samuel Nicholas. The 1783 Treaty of Paris ended the Revolutionary War and as the last of the Navy’s ships were sold, the Continental Navy and Marines disbanded.
Following the formal re-establishment of the Marine Corps on July 11, 1798, Marines fought in conflicts with France, landed in Santo Domingo and conducted operations against the Barbary pirates along the “Shores of Tripoli.”
Marines participated in numerous operations during the War of 1812, including the defense of Washington at Bladensburg, Md. They also fought alongside Andrew Jackson in the defeat of the British at New Orleans. Following the War of 1812, Marines protected American interests around the world in areas like the Caribbean, the Falkland Islands, Sumatra and off the coast of West Africa, and close to home in operations against the Seminole Indians in Florida.
During the Mexican War, Marines seized enemy seaports on both the Gulf and Pacific coasts. While landing parties of Marines and Sailors were seizing enemy ports, a battalion of Marines joined General Winfield Scott’s army at Pueblo and marched and fought all the way to the “Halls of Montezuma,” Mexico City.
Although most Marine Corps service during the Civil War was with the Navy, a battalion fought at Bull Run, and other units saw action with blockading squadrons at Cape Hatteras, New Orleans, Charleston and Fort Fisher. During the last third of the 19th century, Marines made numerous landings around the world, especially in the orient and the Caribbean.
Following the Spanish-American War in 1898, Marines fought during the Philippine Insurrection, the Boxer Rebellion in China, in Nicaragua, Panama, The Dominican Republic, Cuba, Mexico and Haiti.
In World War I, Marines distinguished themselves on the battlefields of France, as the 4th Marine Brigade earned the title of “Devil Dogs” for actions at Belleau Wood, Soissons, St. Michiel, Blanc Mont and the final Muesse-Argonne offensive. Marine aviation, which began in 1912, was used for the first time in a close-air support role during WWI. More than 309,000 Marines served in France and more than a third were killed or wounded in six months of intense fighting.
During the two decades before World War II, the Marine Corps began to more completely develop its doctrine and organization for amphibious warfare. The success of this effort was proven at Guadalcanal, Bougainville, Tarawa, New Britain, Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Saipan, Guam, Tinian, Peleliu, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. By the war’s end in 1945, the Corps had grown to include six divisions, five air wings and supporting troops, about 485,000 Marines. Nearly 87,000 Marines were killed or wounded during WWII and 82 earned the Medal of Honor.
As the Marine Corps attempted to modify the Fleet Marine Force (FMF) for operations in the nuclear age, the Corps began a decade long struggle to save the FMF and, in affect, its own existence. The Marine Corps had peaked in strength in 1945 at nearly half a million men in six divisions and five aircraft wings. The postwar Corps shrank to fit federal budgets rather than adjust realistically to fit the contingency needs of the Cold War era. Available manpower fell to 83,000 men in 1948 and dropped to just over 74,000 by the spring of 1950. About 50,000 men were assigned to the operating forces, but the FMF had only about 30,000 men in the two skeltal divisions and aircraft wings. Fewer than 12,000 Marines comprised FMFPac which included the 1st Division at Camp Pendleton and the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing (MAW) at El Toro, California. On the East Coast, the 2d Division at Camp Lejeune and the 2d MAW at Cherry Point, making up FMFLant, numbered just under 16,000 Marines. At the outbreak of the Korean War, no Marine unit of any size was based or deployed in the Far East.
The Corps’ supporting establishment was so small and its tasks for maintaining Marine Corps bases so extensive that many FMF troops spent more time housekeeping than training. The Marine Corps share of the federal budget was simply not enough to buy adequate manpower, training, or new equipment. The main threat to the nation was seen in inflation and unbalanced budgets rather than in the Soviet armed forces. On the eve of the Korean War, the FMF seemed doomed to fall to six battalion landing teams and twelve squadrons in 1950.
While Marine units were taking part in the post-war occupation of Japan and North China, studies at Quantico, Va., concentrated on attaining a “vertical envelopment” capability for the Corps through the use of helicopters. Landing at Inchon, Korea, in September 1950, Marines proved that the doctrine of amphibious assault was still viable and necessary. After the recapture of Seoul, the Marines advanced to the Chosin Reservoir only to see the Chinese Communists enter the war. In March, 1955, after five years of hard fighting, the last Marine ground forces were withdrawn. More than 25,000 Marines were killed or wounded during the Korean War.
The realities of the Korean War brought major changes in the basing and deployment of Marine Corps forces. The Corps strength ballooned to 192,000 men in June 1951, to 232,000 a year later and nearly 250,000 by June 1953. More than half the troops actually served in the operating forces, and the 1st Marine Division and 1st MAW, operationally employed in Korea, were kept up to strength. In the meantime, the 2d Marine Division and 2d MAW reached full strength for their European contingencies. In June 1951 Headquarters activated the 3d Marine Brigade, built around the 3d Marines at Camp Pendleton. In 1952 the brigade expanded to become the 3d Marine Division, and the same year the 3d MAW formed and occupied a new base in Miami. In another important reorganization, Headquarters in 1951 formed an organization known as Force Troops in order to provide the heavy artillery and other combat support and combat service support units necessary to sustain a Marine division in a land war.
The three-division/three-wing force structure decreed by the June 1952 passage of the Douglas-Mansfield Act, gave legislative support to the stated roles and missions of the Corps. The defense assumptions and programs of the Eisenhower Administration, however, left the Marine Corps role, and the corresponding basing and deployment strategy, less clearly defined. The emphasis on strategic forces over conventional forces, coupled with domestic economic implications of high defense costs and unbalanced federal budgets, challenged Marine Corps leaders of this period.
During the years 1953 to 1955, significant changes in the basing and deployment of Marine forces were realized. The 3d Marine Division deployed from Camp Pendleton to the Far East in the summer of 1953. Based in Japan, the Division followed regimental landings in Japan and Okinawa with a full-dress division landing exercise on Iwo Jima in March 1954. Significantly, the division began redeploying from Japan to Okinawa in 1955 and by February 1956 the Headquarters of the 3d Marine Division was moved to Okinawa where its remains today. Teamed with the 3d Division, the bulk of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, in Japan with headquarters at Atsugi, provided the air portion of a ready U.S. expeditionary force in the Far East.
The 1st Marine Division, meanwhile, which had been in Korea since the summer of 1950, was returned to Camp Pendleton in 1955. The 3d MAW during the same period moved from the East to the West Coast to support Pacific deployments.
In 1954, the 1st Provisional Marine Air-Ground Task Force, built around a reinforced infantry regiment and a reinforced air group, was established at Hawaii in response to strategic requirements in the Pacific Theater. One reinforced regiment of the 3d Marine Division, together with elements of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing were shifted from the Far East to Oahu to build the task force, later called the 1st Marine Brigade, to desired strength.
On the other side of the world, the commitment of a Marine battalion landing team to the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean, which began in 1948, continued except for brief periods in 1950-51 and 1955. During the Korean War, this practice was briefly interrupted due to wartime needs and during 1955 a reduction in amphibious shipping forced the termination of the rotating assignment for nearly a year. The deployment to the Sixth Fleet was designed to give the fleet commander a ready landing force in an area left unstable in the aftermath of World War II.
Events in the Far East from 1955 on likewise pointed out the need for a ready battalion of Marines afloat with the fleet, and from 1960 on, the 3d Marine Division maintained such a floating battalion under Commander Seventh Fleet.
In July 1958, a brigade-size force landed in Lebanon to restore order. During the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, a large amphibious force was assembled, but not landed. In April 1965, a brigade of Marines landed in the Dominican Republic to protect Americans and evacuate those who wished to leave.
The period from 1956-1960 witnessed the Corps’ continuing development of a permanent base structure to support its force in readiness mission as well as the procurement of supplies and equipment for a wide range of contingencies. Bases were developed stateside for cold-weather training at Pickel Meadows, and for desert warfare and supporting arms training at Twentynine Palms, both in California. Budget cuts and resulting reduced end strengths, however, became formidable obstacles to meeting desired manning levels for FMF units. The reductions resulted in all three divisions being placed on reduced manning levels in 1957 and total Marine Corps strength fell below 200,000. Commandant of the Marine Corps Annual Reports for the years 1957 through 1960 reflect the reduced manning levels throughout the FMF, stating of the Divisions and Wings, “their capability for sustained combat has been seriously diminished.” Reserve training also suffered during this period due to lack of funding.
By 1960, Marine Corps strength had fallen to 170,000 – down 30,000 in just three years. Over the same period the Marine Corps “green dollar” budget dropped from an already austere $942 million in FY1958 to $902 million in FY1961. Certain elements of the FMF had to be placed in cadre status. Perhaps just as damaging to the Corps’ readiness posture was the low priority given in the “blue dollar” budget to the construction of amphibious shipping and particularly helicopter-carrying ships, which threatened the development of the vertical assault mission.
To improve readiness in the Pacific, a system was implemented to rotate infantry battalions between the 3d and 1st Divisions. Beginning in 1959, the “transplacement” program had battalions forming and training in the 1st Division, then deploying to Okinawa for fifteen months’ service as a cohesive unit. The 2d Division began a similar program in 1960 which aided personnel stability and continuity, but as in the Pacific, it meant that several battalions could not be easily deployed in a crisis.
Nevertheless, in 1960 the Marine Corps began a five-year surge in its readiness that brought it to its highest level of peacetime effectiveness by the eve of the Vietnam War. The results of the Presidential election of 1960, coupled with internal redirection in the Corps, combined to form the highly favorable conditions for the Marine Corps to consolidate its amphibious force in readiness mission. The “Flexible Response” strategy of the new administration was ideally suited to the Marine Corps — stressing conventional force improvements in manpower, equipment modernization, and strategic mobility. Marine Corps budgets grew, as did the strength ceilings, and just as significantly, improvements were realized in obtaining amphibious shipping. During this period, as well, Headquarters enhanced the readiness of the Reserve with the formation of the 4th Marine Division and 4th Marine Aircraft Wing in the Marine Corps Organized Reserve.
The combination of increased amphibious exercises and contingency deployments kept the tactical units of the FMF busy during the early 1960s. The size of the possible Marine role in Europe grew as Headquarters aimed at a larger role in NATO. In 1964 II MEF conducted Operation Steel Pike I, an amphibious exercise in Spanish waters that exceeded all earlier exercises in both the size of the Marine force deployed and the distance covered. An amphibious force of 60 ships carried 22,000 Marines and over 5,000 vehicles to the amphibious objective area.
While FMF Atlantic forces were being exercized in Europe, the Caribbean, and Africa, FMF Pacific units trained throughout the Far East, Hawaii, and California. In 1964 there were 45 landing exercises worldwide, and by the beginning of the major U.S. involvement in Vietnam, in 1965, the FMF, both regular and Reserve, was as effective a force as the Corps had ever fielded in peacetime.
The landing of the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade at Da Nang in 1965 marked the beginning of a large-scale Marine involvement in Vietnam. By the summer of 1968, after the enemy’s Tet Offensive, Marine Corps strength in Vietnam rose to about 85,000. The Marine withdrawal began in 1969 as the South Vietnamese began to assume a larger role in the fighting. The last ground forces left Vietnam by June 1971. The Vietnam War, the longest in the history of the Marine Corps, exacted a high cost, with more than 13,000 Marines killed and 88,000 wounded.
The Vietnam War proved to be the ultimate test of the Corps’ basing and deployment decisions of the 1950s and early 1960s. From the March 1965 landing of Marine ground troops as Da Nang until the departure of the last large Marine units in June 1971, the war impacted drastically on all Marine forces within and outside the III Marine Amphibious Force. Peak Marine strength in Vietnam was reached in 1968 when more than 85,000 Marines were in Vietnam out of a Marine Corps numbering just over 300,000.
By 1972 the Marine Corps was once again down to 200,000 men and post-Vietnam redeployments had returned the Corps to the same basing and deployment patterns that had been in effect from 1960 to 1965. The 3d Marine Division was back on Okinawa and the 1st Marine Brigade had been reconstituted in Hawaii. The 1st Marine Division was back in Camp Pendleton and the 3d MAW remained at El Toro. On the East Coast, the 2d Marine Division and 2d MAW remained in North Carolina.
In July 1974, Marines evacuated U.S. citizens and foreign nationals during the unrest in Cyprus.
During the 1970s, the Marine Corps assumed an increasingly significant role in defending NATO’s northern flank as amphibious units of the 2nd Marine Division participated in exercises throughout northern Europe.
As it moved into the 1970s, the Marine Corps once again faced close scrutiny of its missions, force structure, and personnel policies. The Marine Corps continued to emphasize global strategic flexibility and reemphasized the Corps’ amphibious mission, developing the concept of “sea-basing,” which aimed at greatly increasing sea-borne logistic support. At the same time, FMF Atlantic launched its first time NATO exercise outside the Mediterranean when a Marine Amphibious Unit (MAU) conducted maneuvers in Norway and northern Germany in 1975. These exercises, which became annual and expanded to brigade size, and their underlying mission of preparing to assist in the defense of NATO’s Northern flank, represented the Marine Corps single most significant change in deployment patterns until the end of the decade.
The revolution in Iran, the seizure of the U.S. Embassy and hostages there, and the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in 1979 gave impetus to a Department of Defense plan to improve U.S. non-NATO military capability. The Rapid Deployment Force was created in response to the realization of the range of contingencies short of general war that faced the United States. In particular, the CONUS-based joint task force, with designated forces from all four services, was created with responsibility for operational planning, training, and exercises for designated rapid deployment forces worldwide with the initial focus on Southwest Asia and the Indian Ocean. The new force widened the FMF’s force in readiness role without compromising its amphibious mission.
The Corps played a key role in the development of the Rapid Deployment Force, a multi-service organization created to ensure a flexible, timely military response around the world. The Maritime Pre-Positioning Ships (MPS) Program was instituted in late 1979 with the goal of providing three Marine amphibious brigades ready for airlift to potential crisis areas where they would unite previously positioned ships carrying their equipment and supplies. The MPS concept gave the Marine Corps and the U.S. a significant new dimension in mobility, sustainability, and the global response.
An increasing number of terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies around the world took place in the 1980s. In August 1982, Marines landed at Beirut, Lebanon, as part of a multinational peacekeeping force. For the next 19 months these units faced the hazards of their mission with courage and professionalism. In October 1983, Marines took part in the highly successful, short-notice intervention in Grenada.
In December 1989, Marines responded to instability in Central America during Operation Just Cause in Panama to protect American lives and restore democracy.
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 led to the largest movement of Marine forces since World War II. Between August 1990 and January 1991, 24 infantry battalions, 40 squadrons (more than 92,000 Marines) deployed to the Persian Gulf as part of Operation Desert Shield. The air campaign of Operation Desert Storm began Jan. 16, 1991, followed by the main overland attack Feb. 24 when the 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions breached the Iraqi defense lines and stormed into occupied Kuwait. Meanwhile, the threat from the sea in the form of Marine Expeditionary Brigades held 50,000 Iraqis in check along the Kuwait coast. By the morning of Feb. 28, 100 hours after the ground war began, the Iraqi army was no longer a threat.
In December 1992, Marines landed in Somalia marking the beginning of a two-year humanitarian relief operation there. In another part of the world, land-and carrier-based Marine Corps fighter-attack squadrons and electronic warfare aircraft supported Operation Deny Flight in the no-fly zone over Bosnia-Herzegovina. During April 1994, Marines once again demonstrated their ability to protect American citizens in remote parts of the world when a Marine task force evacuated 142 U.S. citizens from Rwanda in response to civil unrest in that country.
Closer to home, Marines went ashore in September 1994 at Cape Haitian, Haiti, as part of the U.S. force participating in the restoration of democracy in that country. At the same time, Marines were actively engaged in providing assistance to America’s counter-drug effort, battling wildfires in the western United States, and aiding in flood and hurricane relief operations.
WORLD WAR II
Not to diminish any other time in their history, but to call out a particular time of sacrifice before technology and exemplifying hand to hand combat to save the world from oppression, I found this:
Photograph of the USMC War Memorial, which depicts the flag-raising on Iwo Jima. The memorial is modeled on Joe Rosenthal’s famous Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima.
In World War II, the Marines played a central role in the Pacific War. The battles of Guadalcanal, Bougainville, Tarawa, Guam, Tinian, Cape Gloucester, Saipan, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa saw fierce fighting between Marines and the Imperial Japanese Army.
Philip Johnston proposed the use of Navajo as a code language to the Corps. The idea was accepted, and the Navajo code was formally developed and modeled on the Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet.
During the battle of Iwo Jima, photographer Joe Rosenthal took the famous photograph Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima of five Marines and one Navy Corpsman raising the American flag on Mt. Suribachi. Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, having come ashore earlier that day, said of the flag-raising, “…the raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next five hundred years.” The acts of the Marines during the war added to their already significant popular reputation. By the end of the war, the Corps expanded from two brigades to six divisions, five air wings, and supporting troops, totaling about 485,000 Marines. In addition, 20 defense battalions and a parachute battalion were set raised.[43] Nearly 87,000 Marines were casualties during World War II (including nearly 20,000 killed), and 82 were awarded the Medal of Honor.[44]
Despite Secretary Forrestal’s prediction, the Corps faced an immediate institutional crisis following the war due to the low budget. Army generals pushing for a strengthened and reorganized defense establishment attempted to fold the Marine mission and assets into the Navy and Army. Drawing on hastily assembled Congressional support, and with the assistance of the so-called “Revolt of the Admirals,”the Marine Corps rebuffed such efforts to dismantle the Corps, resulting in statutory protection of the Marine Corps in the National Security Act of 1947.[45] Shortly afterward, in 1952 the Douglas-Mansfield Bill afforded the Commandant an equal voice with the Joint Chiefs of Staff on matters relating to the Marines and established the structure of three active divisions and air wings that remain today.
Finally, what makes the title Marine so valuable? Click to find out!
SEMPER FI
I saw this question by analyst James Governor in an obviously sarcastic tweet a while back during a twitter debate on the 2nd Amendment. I did not want to engage in a useless waste of time in a twitter-fest over a subject because James is educated on tech, but very wrong on certain issues such as this.
I also did not have as eloquent answer as Allen West, Representative from Florida. An African-American tells how even whites would be held in slavery were it not for the 2nd Amendment as well a lesson in history as to who are the militia and why it exists. Lessons that real Americans know. Commies want to take away guns to control the population, right James?
Allen is a true American hero and forgetting the 2nd Amendment issue, is the standard for which politicians should be held to for integrity.
Here, he defines the enemy:
Also, he notes there are never any anti-gun protesters or appeasers at NRA events. At least they are smart enough for that.
I also note that the cities with the highest crime have the most limited concealed carry laws.
It is about preserving order.
An armed man is a citizen, an disarmed man is a subject.
George Washington: “Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples’ liberty’s teeth.”
For those that have questions about why we have guns or that we should ban them, please answer these questions first.
1. How will you get all the guns?
2. How will you stop the bad guys like the Taliban and Al Qaeda from using other weapons?
3. When in history was man not covetous enough to use force to take his neighbor’s property?
4. Prisoners are able to make weapons in prison without gunsmith ability, how will you stop criminals from making guns?
5. The best protection from terror and attack are the best defense or the greater ability for offense. You have now taken that away. What is your protection?
6. When in the history of man have we not been at war somewhere in the world?
So here is the answer. Send your complaints to Allen, but be prepared for a beat down like you’ve never experienced.
Below, Yamamoto was the Commander of the Japanese Forces and architect of the Pearl Harbor attack. He was educated and lived in the US.
Warren Buffett, in a recent interview with CNBC, offers one of the best quotes about the debt ceiling …
“I could end the deficit in 5 minutes,” he told CNBC. “You just pass a law that says that any time there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election.”
The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months and 8 days to be ratified! Why?
Simple! The people demanded it.
That was in 1971 – before computers, e-mail, cell phones, etc.
Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took one (1) year or less to become the law of the land – all because of public pressure. Warren Buffet is asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise. In three days, most people in The United States of America
will have this message.
1. No Tenure/No Pension
A Congressman/woman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they’re out of office.
2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security.
All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.
3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all other Americans do.
4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.
Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.
5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.
6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.
7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen/women are void effective 12/1/12.
The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen/women.
Congress made all these contracts for themselves.
Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career.
The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.
If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days
for most people (in the U.S.) to receive the message.
Don’t you think it’s time?
First of all if you read the dates on the gravestone, Happy Birthday Mom.
So it’s Independence Day, declared in 1776 from the rest of the World. The USA has in its short life (compared with other countries) given more to others in benevolence, freed and saved more people, helped former enemies to recover, sacrificed more than others and established a new way of running a country other than a Monarchy. Unlike the Monarchy’s around the world, the land wasn’t taken from others in a border dispute war or outright takeover like those we declared freedom from….. and has contributed more development, medicine and technology than most other countries combined. So why are our leaders trying to run it in a way that has failed?
Ronald Reagan said, “The American dream is not that every man must be level with every other man. The American dream is that every man must be free to become whatever God intends he should become.”
Most of this is a blessing from our Creator, mentioned in all the documents of the Founding Fathers, yet the government of today is trying to leave that model and get back to the type of behavior we declared independence from. Why?
First, let’s start off with the Star Spangled Banner.
Here is a round-up of the best posts for today.
Michelle Malkin – Happy 236th Birthday
John Ransom – Washington’s First Fourth
America joining the One World Crappola from the Daily Kos instead of celebrating why we are different (see our Judeo-Christian history) I tried finding something patriotic just for fairness, but it’s just a different world view I guess
America Haters from the Usual sources, Hollywierd
The other America Haters – The Media
Paul Greenberg – The American Idea
Rasmussen poll – Liberty and Justice for all
Speaker Boehner’s Independence Day Tribute: “Here’s to the Spirit of ‘76”
Joshpundit – America’s Birthday Edition (lots of links here)
Robert Samuelson – Love of Country 2012
Fleming: What Life Was Like in 1776
For levity, The Hot Dog eating contest where an American is the favorite
Finally, here is the Declaration of Independence, from tyranny and taxes. Have we come full circle?
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long-established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:
Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton
Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean
Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton
I wrote this as humor years ago. I thought it was a joke, but due to tracked digital footprint and Big Data, it turns out to be true.
Memorial Day, when we remember that many sacrificed for our freedom, many made the ultimate sacrifice.
It pains me to see those who protest against those who serve and served, when their ability to make mendacious and hateful comments against our military are protected by those who defended that right to free speech. Except for Jane Fonda who was over in Viet Nam and conspired with the enemy, John Murtha and John Kerry who served and later demeaned our soldiers, most of these protesters haven’t been there and have no idea of the hell these people go through.
The solemn act of honoring those who have fallen in battle is a custom that seems to have faded in importance to our nation over time.
Nowadays, many Americans have forgotten the meaning and traditions of Memorial Day. At cemeteries across the country, the graves of the fallen are sadly ignored, and worse, neglected.
While there are towns and cities still planning Memorial Day parades, many have not held a parade in decades. Some think the day is for honoring anyone who has died, not just those fallen in service to our country.
Perhaps they do not know how deeply our nation once appreciated those who sacrificed their lives in defense of the principles we hold most dear. Perhaps those very principles of individual sovereignty, freedom and liberty are no longer so important.
It was not always so.
In 1868, on May 5th, Memorial Day, originally called “Decoration Day,” was officially proclaimed by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11.
General Logan asked that we cherish “tenderly the memory of our heroic dead, who made their breasts a barricade between our country and its foes. Their soldier lives were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains, and their deaths the tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms. We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders.”
Freedom is never free.
Here is a round-up of coverage.
The importance of Memorial Day
If you leave the blog here, watch this short video narrated by John Wayne on taps:
Memorial Day by Blackfive, a MilBlogger
Times Free Press, note it has the casualties from each war.
US Department of Veterans Affairs listing of Events
From the Raleigh WRAL sometimes news.
WASHINGTON — Death, taxes and now health insurance? Having a medical plan or else paying a fine is about to become another certainty of American life, unless the Supreme Court says no.
People are split over the wisdom of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, but they are nearly united against its requirement that everybody have insurance. The mandate is intensely unpopular even though more than 8 in 10 people in the United States already are covered by workplace plans or government programs such as Medicare. When the insurance obligation kicks in, not even two years from now, most people won’t need to worry or buy anything new.
Nonetheless, Americans don’t like being told how to spend their money, not even if it would help solve the problem of the nation’s more than 50 million uninsured.
Can the government really tell us what to buy?
Federal judges have come down on both sides of the question, leaving it to the Supreme Court to sort out. The justices are allotting an unusually long period, six hours over three days, in sessions that started Monday, to hear arguments challenging the law’s constitutionality.
Their ruling, expected in June, is shaping up as a historic moment in the century-long quest by reformers to provide affordable health care for all.
Many critics and supporters alike see the insurance requirement as the linchpin of Obama’s health care law: Take away the mandate and the wheels fall off.
Politically it was a wobbly construction from the start. It seems half of Washington has flip-flopped over mandating insurance.
One critic dismissed the idea this way: “If things were that easy, I could mandate everybody to buy a house and that would solve the problem of homelessness.” That was Obama as a presidential candidate, who was against health insurance mandates before he was for them.
Once elected, Obama decided a mandate could work as part of a plan that helps keep premiums down and assists those who can’t afford them.
To hear Republicans rail against this attack on personal freedom, you’d never know the idea came from them.
Its model was a Massachusetts law signed
My fath
er saw Europe tear itself apart in the 40’s, a continent that has been at each others throats for hundreds of years. My uncle saw the atrocities of the Pacific Theater as a B-29 bomber Captain. We now face attack from radical terrorist Muslims from the outside and socialism attacking Capitalism or those who invent faux issues like Anthropogenic Global Warming from the inside. Now, other religions are trying to take our holiday from us.
We must stand on the principles that made this country great, honor the memory of those who gave their lives to make us free and stand up to those who wish to defeat us now, or tear us down because we are not like them or are able, willing and ready to defend ourselves and our freedoms This is unlike the pacifistic and appeasers and even some of our current deleterious leaders who didn’t understand what Patton, MacArthur, Nimitz, Bradley and others knew. You fight to win, then you negotiate the terms of surrender and how business will be conducted. Even on my blog, there are some that just have no clue as to what we are about as demonstrated in the absurd comments of this entry.
Others feel this way also like Ricky Gilleland, quoting from this article:
Quiet, soft-spoken 17- year-old Ricky Gilleland spends most weekends surrounded by tombstones, as he walks through Arlington National Cemetery just outside Washington, D.C. looking for the burial sites of those individuals who have died in the line of duty since September 11, 2001. Gilleland has taken on the job that the historic cemetery has not been able to do itself.
Through his website, preserveandhonor.com, Gilleland has cataloged the thousands who are laid to rest in Section 60 of Arlington Cemetery. With a camera in hand, Gilleland shoots a photo of both the front and back of the headstone, “to provide a virtual place for loved ones and friends to both locate the graves of the fallen and reflect on the memory of their sacrifice.”
Delusions of Adequacy 