Proud Pictures

Ten years ago this month, I stood on a parade field in Hawaii and received the colors of the 1st Battalion, Third Marines. The next eighteen months were some of the most rewarding, and quickest, months of my life. Commanding an infantry battalion was not as tactically fun as commanding a rifle company had been ten years previous, but it provided a whole different level of thrills and challenges. Riding herd on nearly a thousand super-charged teenagers and twenty-somethings, trained to fight at the drop of a hat, will keep your heart racing 24/7.

Among all the plaques and mementos in my office, there are two (not as grand as many of the rest) that mean most to me. They both have a photograph as centerpiece. The first is a plaque with a photo of the seven officers of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, Eighth Marines. We are standing in a tent, faces subdued by camouflage paint. Those four platoon commanders, my XO, our Artillery Forward Observer, and I had built the best rifle company in the Marine Corps out of 200 of the finest young Americans this nation has ever produced. The large brass plate under the picture lists the officers by name and bears the inscription, "What's he trying to prove?"-- a reference to what a faceless voice in the dark had queried in the middle of one of the countless challenges to which we subjected the company during long hours of training.

The other plaque dearest to me bears a photo of the 46 officers of the 1st Battalion, Third Marines taken during our deployment to Okinawa, Japan. It is the only instance outside of the Change of Command ceremonies at either end of my tenure as Commanding Officer, that I had all of the officers assembled in the same place at the the same time. I had driven my staff crazy trying to find just the right jungle backdrop for the photo. We had gathered ten or twelve cameras to make sure that we got a good picture. The best picture (the one on the plaque) came not from the expensive Nikons, Cannons, and Pentaxes, but from the little cardboard disposable camera I carried in my pocket, and had pitched to the photographer at the last second.

I made sure every officer in the battalion got a copy of the photo, and charged them to keep it safe. I knew most of them didn't care much about it at that moment, but with the passing of time it would become an important artifact and touchstone in their lives.

It is in mine.

Mississippi Movin'

Miss Brenda and I are selling our place on the Redneck Riveria and "going home to Ole Miss." Since we made the announcement, if I've heard the Thomas Wolfe refrain "you can't go home again" once, I've heard it a hundred times from family and friends. To which I respond that since this Air Force brat and career Marine doesn't really have a "home," I can "go back" to anywhere I want.

So, we are cashing out in Florida and buying a home in the country on 57 acres, 15 minutes north of Oxford and Ole Miss. I intend to raise deer and turkeys and keep the pond well stocked for the grandkids. I also intend to become an Ole Miss football season ticket holder and subject myself to that ritual misery up close and personal.

Miss Brenda says I can't tell any of my old Ole Miss buddies where we are going to live now. What's that about?

Hovering History

Today is the last day of my 51st year of free-breathing on God's green earth. I got to thinking last night about all the places my life has taken me, and with the the help of Google Earth I went back and visited some of them. I started with some easy ones--places in the US and not as deeply recessed in the wrinkly grey matter of my pea-sized brain. I found satellite pictures of my quarters at Parris Island, SC (or, where my quarters used to be--they tore it down right after I left and built a new house--a coincidence of course), our student housing in Newport, RI for the Navy War College, and our $50,000 house on a $5,000,000 lot at Kaneohe Bay in Hawaii.

When I tried to zoom in on our place aboard Yongsan Garrison in Seoul, Korea, the picture got too fuzzy to make out anything--we don't want to give the North Koreans too easy of a targeting solution.

I found satellite views of our Alabama abode, and the three places in Georgia (in three years) in which we arranged our worldly goods. The house in Jacksonville, NC was relatively easy to find, as well as the two sets of base quarters we occupied during our first tour at Camp Lejeune. Our two different sets of quarters at Quantico, VA seemed tinier than I remembered, even for a satellite view. Our efficiency apartment's building on the campus of Ole Miss is a small rectangle that hardly seems big enough to hold one residence, let alone ten.

The houses Miss Brenda's family and mine occupied on Howard Air Force Base in the Panama Canal Zone are still there and look to be in good shape, but the streets of the abandoned base are eerily devoid of cars. England Air Force Base in Alexandria, LA is also defunct, but the house on Royce Drive is still there; as well as the house on Horseshoe Drive out in town, where we lived for several months waiting for base quarters. Our quarters on Oklahoma Avenue aboard Little Rock Air Force Base can be easily found with a satellite view, along with the Little League ball diamond on whose outfield I dawdled and daydreamed.

Perhaps the most amazing find last night was the house in which we lived on another defunct US Air Force Base in Morocco. I found it by scanning the desert outside of Marrakesh for a runway and then traced the long road through nothing to the base housing. I was only 5 and 6 when we lived there, but I can still remember details from that place more sharply than others in my vagabond life. I remembered that the housing was arranged around a central empty square, and when I found that more memories came creeping back into my consciousness like little lost children looking for attention. I traced the road from the housing area back up past the "big kids" school, by which I have a indelible memory of frantic bike pedalling. As I remember it, the kindergarten and first grade classes I attended were in a building at the top of a small rise past the bigger school. At the end of the day we were normally let out a few minutes before the other school and those of us with tiny bikes scrambled to make it down the hill past that place before the "big kids" got out and filled the road with their bullying.

I wonder what if there is some "big kid" out there who has a fond Moroccan memory of racing from class to stand in the middle of the road and try to knock kamikaze kindergartners off of their bikes.

Bambi's Revenge

We're starting to laugh about it now, but it wasn't funny two weeks ago. My mother's message on my answering machine two Saturdays ago said that my brother had fallen from a tree stand while deer hunting and was in intensive care in a hospital in Richmond, Virginia. The word and concept "helpless" is best defined by what is felt by recipients of news like that. I couldn't race to my little brother's defense from the neighborhood bully. I couldn't be of any immediate help. There was nothing I could do but pray.

What could easily have been a fatal accident, was, praise God, only a very serious one, from which my brother should recover fully, if not quickly. The broken collar bone should knit quickly enough; the six busted ribs will take longer.

As is the custom in my family once immediate danger is past, we have begun the little-recognized, but nonetheless clearly clinical, expression of humorous relief phase in our normalcy recovery. Dad's first question to his second and last son was did he have the presence of mind to attempt any acrobatics on the way down. My aunt asked for reading material recommendations so that she could send him a recovery care package and I opined that safety manuals would be appropriate.

When she overheard my brother telling me over the phone that the deer he shot proximate to his rapid evacuation from the tree stand was "kinda small," his dear and darling bride was clearly heard exclaiming from another room, "It only weighed 43 pounds!"

Perhaps the funniest anecdote was provided by my niece as she visited with her dad in the hospital. She told him that if he was going to do any future tree-stand deer hunting, she would buy him a rope to secure himself. My brother countered that there were nice harness and safety strap systems available, to which she replied, "I priced those--I'm going to buy you a rope instead."

Back to the Future

Last year is in the books and with it the end of the lives of two leaders whose polar opposition provides a clear definition of the term. They came to power in their nations during the seventies--one an opportunist; the other an opportunity. One would lead his nation into a nightmare; the other would lead his nation out of one. One's death was accompanied by the celebration of his enemies; the other had no enemies. One's funeral was brief and ignoble, the other's will demonstrate the greatness of a nation that honors its greatest.

Gerald Ford was the first presidential candidate for whom I ever voted. At the time, it was more of a defensive gesture than a vote of confidence in the man. I was not happy that Ford had let South Vietnam fall to the communists, but I KNEW I didn't want my country led by Jimmy Carter. I had a bad feeling about the man and unfortunately my misgivings were well-founded. Ford's failure to prevent the fall of Saigon was a national shame, but all the media concentrated on was the pardon of Nixon. Ford's reputation in my eyes grew enormously in the years after he left office. The more I learned about the man from sources other than the news media and Saturday Night Live, the more I became convinced that he was one of the greatest leaders our nation had ever produced. I especially appreciated his circumspection and his strict observance of the 11th commandment (applies only to past presidents and is broken continually by democrats): "Thou shalt keep thy mouth shut and thy face off the evening news."

Saddam Hussein's long overdue assumption of room temperature this weekend provided a glimpse into the future of Iraq. His executioners chanted the name of Muqtada al Sadr as they slipped the noose around Saddam's neck. Sadr is a Shiite cleric in the mold of the Ayatollah Khomeini, whose militia and their anti-American activities (car bombings, sniping, et al) are bankrolled by Iran. Time to leave Babylon.

Turns out Ford may have been right to let Saigon fall. The Vietnamese spent the next three decades just trying to re-emerge from the Stone Age. The Soviets were emboldened and invaded Afghanistan--the beginning of the end for the commies in the Kremlin.

Seems to me that Baghdad should be left to the Iranians to deal with. That should consume their time and treasure for long enough to allow a popular uprising to bring an end to the dictatorial clerics now in charge.

Let's bring our forces home and defend our country against the Mexican invasion.

What It Means

The old man didn't believe in much, and he certainly did not believe in anything he couldn't prove. He was too intelligent and too learned to allow himself the indulgement of beliefs that required faith--that was just too simple-mindedly uneducated for a college professor. He wasn't completely passionless--he did love his birds. As a trained biologist, he knew every detail of the physiology and behavior of animals in general, and, as a ornithological specialist, his knowledge of birds was particularly deep and broad. He was unabashedly vain in the surety that he knew practically everything there was to know about birds--he was darn near omniscient when it came to feathered fauna. He lived alone and kept several feeders in his backyard to attract the birds he loved so much--they were his company, and he often, embarrassingly, caught himself talking out loud to them.

He stood at the window as the light of the late December evening dimmed. It had snowed most of the day and several inches had accumulated. The temperature was dropping precipitously--it was going to be one of the coldest nights of the year. But, that hadn't deterred his neighbors from their annual ritual of asking him to join them at church for Christmas Eve services. He had politely refused, and even wished them "happy holidays," even though he considered it hypocritical to do so. His principled disbelief in the basis for the holidays prevented him from even recognizing Christmas in any way. There was no decorated tree in his house, no silly lights outside, and certainly no gift giving. He was no hypocrite.

As darkness fell, he heard the bells ringing from the church down the road, and he marvelled at the waste of time, energy, and resources devoted to Christianity. How could anyone with half a brain buy in to the immaculate conception fairy tale? If there was a God running this universe, and he was fairly certain there wasn't, why would he waste his time on the insignificant life forms on an insignificant rock circling a tiny star?

It was snowing again, and he reached over and turned on the outside light so he could watch the flakes fall. His attention was drawn to the ground just at the edge of the circle of light, where a flock of small birds was huddled motionless in the snow. He was immediately concerned. He had seen this kind of behavior before and it normally resulted in the death of all the birds in the flock. Stunned by the bitter cold, they would just sit there and freeze. He hated to see that happen. He loved his birds and it just tore at him any time he found one dead. He had to do something for this flock.

He quickly pulled on his coat and boots and stepped outside in the snow. He thought maybe he could scare them into some life-saving activity. Maybe he could chase them into the air and they would fly somewhere safe. He waved his arms and stomped his feet, but the birds just moved out of his way and continued to huddle in the snow.

He walked across the yard to his workshop at the back of the lot, opened the door, turned on the light, and stooped to turn on the space heater in the corner. He propped open the door and then stepped outside and into the shadows. He hoped that if he remained motionless and hidden the birds would see the light and warmth of the workshop and move inside. After a few minutes, it was obvious that the birds weren't going to take the initiative to move into the workshop on their own. He would have to try to move them himself. He walked over to the flock and bent to pick up a bird, but it fluttered away and landed on the other side of the flock. He tried several times to catch a bird, but the results were always the same. He tried to herd the birds toward the warmth of the workshop by stooping and waving his arms, but the birds just scattered in front of him and then rejoined to huddle in the snow. Again and again he tried to shoo the birds toward the lifesaving warmth, and he became increasingly frustrated at his failure to save them.

The temperature was perceptively dropping and he noticed that one of the birds had slumped lifelessly. He redoubled his efforts to herd them to the workshop. Another bird slumped in the snow. He was frantic now, speaking to the birds, trying to reason with them, and then caught himself, embarrassed. He said to himself aloud, "If I could just become a bird for one minute, I could lead them to the light and warmth of the workshop and save them from dying in the snow."

At that moment, the bells on the church down the road began to ring again. The old man sank to his knees in the snow and understood.

Guns and Butter: Recipe for Defeat

Commentators in the media noted recently that the Iraq Campaign in the War on Terror has now lasted longer than the US involvement in the Second World War. I think that is significant, but not in the way most of the superficial comparisons do.

First of all, most of the newsies got it wrong, claiming that the "War in Iraq has lasted longer than the Second World War." The historical fact is the Second World War lasted nearly eight years, beginning with the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938 (one could argue it started earlier than that--with Japanese operations in China) and our entry as an official belligerent came halfway through the war.

Second, the correct military way to view our current operations in Iraq is as a CAMPAIGN in a larger war--a la the Pacific, African, and European Campaigns in the Second World War. If our global military operations against terrorism were confined to Iraq, then we could (still not technically correct) call it the Iraq War (or some derivative term, thereof). But they are not; we have forces (some overt; most clandestine) in the fight in Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, the Philippines, Indonesia, Latin America, and in the "Stan" republics of the Former Soviet Union, to name a few of the many countries in which Islamo-fascists are fomenting hatred and plotting attacks against the interest of the US and our allies.

Third, the most important point to be drawn from the comparison of the current fight with the Second World War (and, inevitably, with our involvement in the Vietnamese Civil War of 1945--1975) is the level of commitment to absolute and rapid victory over our enemies. I've said it before, and it bears repeating (like the preacher who repeats the same sermon week after week until the congregation repents); we are fighting this war with one arm tied behind our backs and sitting in a rocking chair. President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld repeated the same mistake made by President Johnson and Secretary McNamara. Our involvement in the Vietnamese Civil War was (despite the 58,000 lives lost over a decade), for the most part, a limited application of the military and economic power of the re-United States. Unlike the 3 and 1/2 years of our full-scale involvement in the Second World War, there was no rationing or other shared privation during the 60s. Johnson did not want to jeopardize his "Great Society" goals, and he relied on McNamara's high-tech vision of future war (sound familiar?) to fight the Vietnamese communist insurgency.

If we had fought the Second World War like we fought in Vietnam, and are now fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, WWII would have lasted until 1950 and we would have probably met the Soviets at the Pas de Calais (check out a map) instead of at the Rhine. But, Roosevelt committed nearly the entire economic output of the re-United States to war-making resources necessary for victory, and we (once those resources reached the fighting fronts) quickly overwhelmed Nazi Germany and the Japanese. Americans on the homefront made sacrifices for the Second World War that are unimaginable today. There was virtually no new cars or trucks for three years. Sugar, gasoline, rubber, and other resources were strictly rationed. Most colleges and universities in the land did not field football teams in 1943. And, (a little known fact that casts our worship of the patriotism of the "Greatest Generation" in a different light) the proportion of draftees in the American Armed Forces during WWII was far higher than during our "unpopular" involvement in the Vietnamese Civil War a generation later.

If we had fought the Second World War like we fought most of the war in Vietnam, and are now fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, we would have not conducted the strategic bombing campaigns over the German and Japanese heartlands, but would have instead only pounded France (which is not necessarily a bad thing) to kill Vichy French, and Germans AFTER they crossed the Rhine.

The point is until we COMMIT to rapid and complete victory over our enemies, we are fighting a losing battle. To win this war, we must fight it like we fought World War Two. Our President needs to lead us in a crusade (I know that word makes Muslims mad--that's why I used it). He needs to quit trying to balance guns and butter. We need to put the Space Program on hold, devote one whole year of automobile manufacturing to building military vehicles, ration food so that we can overwhelm our Islamo-fascist sympathizers with American bounty for one year, and CALL on American men and women to join the crusade in uniform (either as fighters or as homeland support). We need to attack Iran and Syria, now, and end their support of Islamo-fascism.

I know that last paragraph sounds way over the top. It does to most who don't know the history of our empire in particular and world empires in general. Rome was at its zenith when its citizenry fought. Rome declined when its citizenry paid others to do the fighting.

I knew we were on the wrong track in this "War on Terrorism" by the late fall of 2001. I told Miss Brenda the morning of September 12th that I believed we were about to embark on the first world war of the 21st Century and that she needed to prepare herself for the agony of seeing her man and her sons go off to fight. I believed our president when he declared that we would make no distinction between terrorists and those nations that supported terrorism.

Turns out he didn't mean it.

Between Three Worlds

I think I packed about as much travel and adventure into last week as I have in a week in a long time. Miss Brenda and her folks drove to Houston the weekend before Thanksgiving to spend the week with my beautiful bride's ugly twin sister and her family, as has become somewhat of a tradition. In years past, all of our kids rallied in Houston as well, but this year that wasn't possible. Everyone was going to be with some family for the week, except for bachelor #2 son and I begged out of the trip to Houston with the excuse that he would be lonely if I didn't spend the week with him. To my surprise, everyone bought it.

We hit the road early Friday morning a week ago--they headed west and I headed north. I got to #2's house in North Mississippi in time to quickly change into hunting togs and slip into the woods near his home with my bow. #2 had given me orders not to shoot any young bucks, but to cull the doe herd a bit. Right at sunset I had a shot at a doe, and missed--twice! Not a very auspicious start to the week, but at least I was seeing deer.

We hunted hard the rest of the weekend and I finally dropped a mature doe Sunday evening at sunset for my first official deer with a bow and arrow. Anybody who thinks that deer hunting is not fair to the deer has never climbed three stories up a sweet gum, stood motionless for hours on a narrow platform strapped to the side of the tree, strained to tell the difference between squirrels bouncing around behind your tree and deer walking up behind you, moved ever-so-painstakingly slow to bring bow and knocked arrow into position for the draw, and fought the heart-pounding shakes off long enough to draw and hold a tiny sight pin steady on the four-inch square vital zone of an animal whose keen eyesight, hearing and sense of smell can pick up a gnat-fart in a cotton-ball at forty yards. And, all of the pre-shot exertions are the easiest part of a successful hunt. Lucky for me I had a son in the woods with me who thinks I'm too old to be dragging a deer out of the woods by myself. It is heartwarming to realize that he cares more about having me around to hunt with than having me drop dead and turn over his (meager) inheritance.

Monday morning required me to transition from camouflage-clad apex forest predator to business-suited corporate consultant and abandon my retreat in the back-woods of Mississippi for a flight from Memphis up into enemy territory. A night in a hotel room in Chicago is as close as I want to get to spending time in a POW camp. Following a three hour meeting the next morning (for which my client is paying an embarrassingly large sum for the kind of work I did as a second lieutenant), I boarded the next available flight for Southern sanity and escaped O'Hare before the Thanksgiving travel crush of inhumanity began.

Two more days of standing motionless in the tops of trees, broken only by a respite in which #2 and I swallowed a nine pound turkey whole (at least that's what it felt like afterwards), resulted in plenty of deer seen--but no shots. Friday evening at sunset, a cow-horn spike buck (one that #2 wanted culled from the gene pool because of its inferior antlers) stepped into the open 20 yards stage left and proved Darwin's theory of the survival of the fittest. He was laying motionless on the field when I finally climbed down out of my tree and began the long walk in the dark back to #2's house. When we got back to the field 30 minutes later, the deer was gone. No blood trail. It was as if Sasquatch had picked the deer up and walked away with it. We looked for sign in the dark for the next hour and then gave it up for the next morning's light. In the woods at daybreak, we found him several hundred yards away, where Sasquatch got tired of carrying him.

It being the Saturday after Thanksgiving (and we had tickets for the most bitter rivalry in college sports--Ole Miss and Mississippi State), we hustled the deer to the local venison processor, cleaned up, and headed to the home of hot beer and cold women--Lafayette County, Oxford, and the most gracious college campus in all of American academe. Under a cloudless sky and a perfect 68 degrees, we watched two 3 and 8 teams play a game that meant nothing to the rest of Division I, but meant everything to the state of Mississippi. My Rebels put in dominating performances against Georgia, Alabama, LSU, and Auburn this year only to fail to find a way to win. Against State, they did just the opposite. State dominated the line of scrimmage, time of possession, and total yards and yet the Blue and Red found a way not to lose--20 to 17--and took home the coveted Golden Egg. It was a special day for me--strangely enough, it was the first Egg Bowl I had been to since I became a Rebel 32 years ago.

Sunday morning, I strapped my pick-up to my backside and began the long drive back to my exile on the Redneck Riveria. Seven and a half hours (and several alternate developed plans for escaping the world of sand and sea oats for the world of hills and hay) I was back in Florida.

An hour later I was in a church business meeting, day-dreaming of deer and Rebel cheerleaders.

Rangel's Rangers

As if Mississippians, and, by extension, all southerners, didn't have enough reasons to despise and fear liberal yankee politicians, Charlie Rangel's latest disparaging remarks about Mississippi cemented the confederate contempt. Rangel played it off as really meaning that he loved New York (yet another reason to doubt his sanity and veracity) but it gave us a clear look into the mind of one of the most influential congressmen in the new Democrat controlled legislative branch. He speaks from the heart. He hates the south and southerners.

So be it. We speak from the heart as well. We hate uppity, snooty yankees.

And now, Charlie wants to bring back the draft. He floated this idea three years ago and no one payed attention. They will now.

I hope he is successful. Nothing will energize the spoiled students on America's campuses more than the threat of making them serve their country.

Stray Votage

What a spoiled, impatient lot we Americans are! But, that is our birthright. We were concieved as a nation by a bunch of spoiled, impatient (some would add: power-hungry) colonial elitists. The dirty little secret from our glorious revolution against the British crown is that the American colonists really had no basis for demanding independence. The truth, as most serious historians know, is that the average American colonist in 1775 enjoyed a higher standard of living, better health, a more sufficient diet, and far more liberty than his counterpart on the banks of the Thames.

Today, our economy is at one of its strongest points in the history of the American experience--we enjoy a higher standard of living and have more personal freedom than any other country on the planet. Yet to hear the detractors (power-hungry politicians and money-grubbing journalists, mostly) tell it, you would think that we were a third world nation. I've been to 3 times more countries than I have states in the re-United States (and I've been to a majority of the re-US) and I can tell you without hesitation that you don't want to live anywhere else on the planet.

I know that the American people are frustrated with the continuing combat operations in Iraq. But let's put that in perspective, shall we? We are fighting that battle in the War on Terror as if we were sitting in a rocking chair with one arm tied behind our back. The losses in Iraq, though each is precious, amount to but a fraction of a fraction of the losses we endure from alcohol-related accidents on our highways. I wish the lead on the news every day was the number of people killed by drunk drivers over the past 24 hours--we would quickly forget about Iraq!

It was politically expedient for politicians (and their journalist allies) to use the continuing battle in Iraq (that is not effecting 99% of the population in the least) as a means to drum up discontent with the incumbent government--just as it was politically expedient for a group of elitists and pamphleteers to use British taxation of the colonists (actually at a lower rate than what their counterparts on the Thames paid) as a means to drum up discontent with royal rule.

Well, we got what we asked for this time. At least 21% of the electorate did, that is. The national shame is only 40% of us took time away from our self-indulged and pampered lives to participate in the most important event in the life of our democratic republic. But, then again, that is about the percentage of the American colonists that actively participated (on both sides) in the decision to fight for independence from Britain in 1775.

Veterans Day

A continent exhausted by four years of one of the most costly wars in the history of man, found peace 88 years ago, today. The First World War, as it later became known, began like most wars; politicians underestimated and soldiers overestimated. But this war was a perfect storm of political entanglements, military miscalculations, and outdated battlefield doctrine fed into the meat grinder of advanced technology. It was the most horrible war Europe had ever seen. Americans had seen something that approached it in effect half a century before. The American War of Southern Seccession (not a true civil war--but that is grist for another post) had presaged many of the technologies and battlefield experiences (trench warfare, mass assaults against massed firepower, rail and telegraph communications; to name a few) that would mature in the maelstrom of misery on the killing fields of France.

An armistice between the warring parties took effect on the 11th of November 1918. America and its allies commemorated the date as Armistice Day for a couple of decades, until it became clear that the "war to end all wars" had done nothing of the sort. In fact, as has almost always happened in the history of man's wars, the First World War solved nothing, and in fact planted the seeds of conflict that would germinate into an even greater World War in less than a generation. Following that war, politicians eager to curry favor with the generation that fought it (I know, I'm feeling terribly cynical this morning), established the 11th of November as Veterans Day. As opposed to Memorial Day, a commemoration of the war dead that began as Decoration Day and was initiated by the fair ladies of Columbus, Mississippi at Friendship Cemetery in 1865 (yankees hate this and claim a northern town as the origin--grist for yet another post), Veterans Day was designed to honor the living veterans of America's wars.

It has always bothered me that Americans don't seem to understand the difference.

Corps Celebrations

One of the things I'm beginning to miss more and more since leaving active duty is the pageantry and celebration surrounding the birthday of the Marine Corps. After the first few years of it early in my career, I have to admit that the novelty of all the ceremony began to wear off. But, this is the 4th 10th of November in which I haven't participated in a Marine Corps birthday celebration of any kind, and I kinda miss it.

One of my favorite Marine Corps Birthday memories is from the time I served with the Air Force as an instructor at the Air Command and Staff College. We Marines made up barely a percentage point of the total students and faculty, but made an indelible scarlet and gold mark in a sea of blue around the first couple of weeks of November. We hosted a Marine Corps Birthday Ball at the Officers' Club and could have made a killing had we been more capitalistic--the Marine Corps Ball is recognized as THE social event of the year at Maxwell Air Force Base and an invitation and tickets were prized commodities. One year I served as the ceremonial adjutant for the Ball and took great pleasure in flashing sword work in the close quarters of the crowded ball room--I got comments about it the rest of the year. Actually, I got critiques from my Marine buddies, who pointed out the subtle mistakes in my close order drill and sword manual. But the zoomies didn't see the mistakes--just the business end of my sword flashing perilously close to the tips of bue-suiter noses.

A ceremonial cutting of the Birthday cake with the adjutant's sword, and delivery of the first pieces of cake to the oldest and youngest Marines present, is a traditional and time-honored component of every Marine Corps birthday celebration. Since it's just me here today, I'll have to settle for the first piece of coffee cake.

I'm just short enough to make sword manual work with a butter knife.

Happy Birthday, Marines! Semper Fidelis!

Looking on the bright side

Bad news for Bush and the Pachyderm Party could be good news for me. On my morning walk with Miss Brenda yesterday, I provided my assessment of the election and and what it meant for the future. I opined that I believed the democrats would harry W for the remainder of his term with countless, unending congressional investigations and hearings, the aim of which would be to further weaken the republican party and set up a return of the Clintonistas to power. At the prospect of Hilary as president, my bride exclaimed, "If that happens we are moving to Argentina!"

Better start brushing up on my Spanish.

Corps Novembers

November is an important month for Marines, and is particularly a month tied to memories for this Marine. The obvious reason for its importance to Marines is that we celebrate the establishment of our Corps on 10 November. On that date in 1775, nearly 9 months BEFORE the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a rebellious outlaw group of landed gentry, obstensibly acting in representation of the will of the people of the 13 British colonies in North America, and calling themselves the Continental Congress, resolved that two battalions of Marines be raised for service with an all but non-existent rebel fleet (a resolution for establishing a navy had only been passed less than 4 weeks previous). We Marines attach great celebratory import to the date 10 November, but few realize that the two battalions initially authorized by Congress were actually never raised.

You see, Congress had this great idea. They wanted to invade Canada. Mind you, we had just initiated open conflict with the greatest nation on the planet by skirmishing with its small occupation/constabulary force in America, and needed to be thinking about protecting the territorial integrity of the 13 Colonies against the sure to come full-scale British military operation to quell the rebellion. But, Congress wasn't thinking about border security (sound familiar?) and fancied themselves strategists of the first order. Part of their great invasion plan was an attack on the British naval base at Halifax, Nova Scotia. The two battalions of Marines the Continental Congress resolved to raise were to be the assault force of that naval raid. George Washington, in command of the Continental Army, objected to the diversion of resources, and the plan (along with the two battalions of Marines) never got past the drawing board.

But, an American navy of sorts was growing (converted merchant ships mostly) and the British naval model called for Marines on board to act as the captain's security force (18th Century sailors were an undisciplined lot), as sharpshooters during engagements at sea, and as a landing force for small-scale expeditions ashore. The American colonists were British after all, and they copied the Royal Navy right down to the printed regulations. There was an abundance of out-of-work able seamen in colonial seaports, and some of the more trustworthy were enlisted to serve as Marines. A tavern-keeper with scant martial or maritime experience was the first Marine officer commissioned by the Continental Congress. Samuel Nicholas was evidently prized for his recruiting skills and for the fact that he owned Tun Tavern in Philadelphia--a local watering hole frequented by the afore-mentioned idle able seamen. To this day, we Marines celebrate our birthday with a toast of rum-punch, supposedly the drink supplied by Nicholas to seal the deal on each enlistment. One has to wonder how many toasts were drunk BEFORE the afore-mentioned idle able seamen scrawled their X on the enlistment contract.

November is an important month for Marines for other reasons as well. On 10 November 1918, one hundred and forty-three years to the day after the Continental Congress had resolved to raise two battalions of Marines, two brigades (or the remnants thereof) of Marines prepared for the final assault of the First World War (that operation--the crossing of the Meuse River--occurred the night before the war ended with an armistice on 11 November 1918). That a United States Marine Corps even existed at that point is an amazing and twisted story of near-extinction, evolution of missions, and fighting spirit of Marine leaders who tenaciously fought to save their jobs. But, a Corps of Marines did exist when the US entered the War in France in 1917, and Marines quickly established a name for themselves (thanks in great part to Army censorship of their own exploits) at the bitter battles of Belleau Wood, Soisson, Chateau Thiery, and Mont Blanc. Not much of the two Marine brigades survived the war. What did survive was a reputation for battlefield ferocity, and perhaps more importantly, experience by senior Marine leaders in large scale military operations and staff planning.

The month of November has another Marine Corps red-letter date--20 November 1943. On that date at conclusion of the first year of our war with Japan, the Second Marine Division conducted the first full-scale test of amphibious assault doctrine developed by Marines during the interwar years. While amphibious landing operations had been conducted earlier in the war, most notably at Guadalcanal, the 20 November D-Day on Betio in the Southwest Pacific Tarawa Atoll, was the Corps' first truly opposed amphibious assault. It was a near disaster, plagued by poor intelligence regarding the tides and reefs surrounding the island, poor application of naval gunfire support, and horrible ship-to-shore communications. The Japanese commander of the island had boasted that his defenses were so formidable that it would take "a million men, a thousand years" to overcome. Five thousand Marines of the Second Marine Division took Tarawa in less than 4 days. The cost was horrific--1085 Americans gave their lives for that speck of coral--but the payoff was a treasure trove of lessons-learned that helped to perfect the conduct of amphibious operations and made possible successful Allied amphibious assault landings around the globe--across the Pacific to bring Japan to its knees and across the English Channel to force Hitler into his death bunker in Berlin.

From a force of 6 Divisions and a like number of Air Wings, the Marine Corps, following cessation of hostilities in 1945, dropped to less than a third of that size and was scattered in reserve when Kim Il Sung (the current North Korean Commie's daddy) sent his forces into South Korea in June of 1950. Scraped together quickly from mostly WWII veteran reservists, the understrength First Marine Division spearheaded MacArthur's bold 15 September 1950 Inchon landing that turned the flank of communist forces pinning the remnants of US and South Korean defenders holding the Pusan Perimeter at the southern tip of the peninsula. Two and a half months later, the First Marine Division had retaken Seoul, re-embarked on amphibious shipping and sailed around the peninsula to Wonson, and advanced to the North Korean border with China. In the bitter cold of one of the worst winters in a region known for bad winters (history is replete with battles fought in record-breaking winters, as if God is trying to cool off warring mankind's ardor), the First Marine Division was attacked, on 27 November 1950, by the ten divisions of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army Ninth Army Group. Battling sub-zero cold and 100,000 Chinese, the Marines conducted a fighting withdrawal back to the coast and survived, barely, as a fighting force. But, leave it to Marines to celebrate even a terrible defeat such as this (forever immortalized as the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir) as one of the crowning achievements of our Corps.

November is a red-letter month for me as well. The first of November 2003 marked the official end of nearly three decades of uniformed service.

Kerry Kiniption

Poor John Kerry. So misunderstood. So misunderstanding. So sure of his superior intelligence and right to be right. He's a brilliant man alright--ranks right up there with Hillary's philandering spouse. And the problem is they are both so sure of their intellectual superiority that they believe that it gives them the right to belittle everyone else; and they actually have the gall to react angrily when we take offense. I've said it before, and I'll say it again (for those of you who have such short memories that you forgot your brains on the way to the voting booth and actually voted for those two lying, whining, haughty, ego-maniacal, concieted mysoginists)--the fact that anyone at all voted for Clinton and Kerry is an amazing thing, and does severe damage to my hope for the future of these re-United States.

What is even more telling about the furor over Kerry's slam of our troops as uneducated, disadvantaged, and unsuccessful is the fact that the media is acting like they don't get it. In other words, they think Kerry was speaking an accepted fact--in their isolated little world, wherein they all form doggie daisey chains sniffing each others butts, only someone with no other option would actually volunteer to fight for his country. They certainly wouldn't "stoop so low" nor allow their sons and daughters to so "waste their lives."

All of these folks who think they are so superior because they are so much smarter than the rest of us show their complete ignorance of the very people about whom they think they know so much. The plain fact is our armed forces are composed of some of the smartest and most successful people in the country. I know this because I spent over 5 years of my career recruiting them. There are high schools and colleges in this country turning out future leaders of our communities, industries, and nation that rarely graduate someone who can score high enough on the military entrance exams to qualify for enlistment. How many companies in this country can say their employees are 90+ % high school graduates? How many companies on this planet can pull off operations equal to even the simplest of evolutions that our 19 and 20 year old troops conduct on a daily basis. I used to think that American business leaders were so much more capable than me and my military comrades--until I spent the last three years out of uniform and operating in the civilian sector. I haven't seen a corporate leader yet that most of the lance corporals in my infantry battalion couldn't out-think, out-decide, and out-lead.

Sadly, most Americans don't know who their liberty defenders are. The only people who know are those who have served. Maybe if John Kerry had actually served longer than most people take vacations, he would understand. But, he served only to get a PT-109 check in the box and then scampered home to malign his brothers in arms for political points.

That's all I got to say 'bout that.

It Ain't Mississippi, But It'll Have To Do

For six months out of the year, living on the coast in the Florida panhandle reminds me of the way the Norwegians take their saunas--only in reverse. Instead of lingering in the sauna and taking quick plunges in the snow outside, we hyphen-Floridians (there aren't any native Floridians left in the state--only New York-Floridians, Canada-Floridians, and this Mississippi-Floridian) linger in the cool of our air conditioned homes and vehicles and take quick plunges into the heatumidity (heat and humidity are one word down here) out of doors. But along about the end of October the air begins to cool slightly, the humidity drops below 80%, and it is actually pleasant enough outside to linger and survive.

The past two days have been as Fall-like as it gets around here and I spent each afternoon indulging my favorite hobbies--hunting and fishing. Actually, hunting and fishing is my life and work is my hobby. I once made the mistake of half-jokingly telling my Sergeant Major that hunting and fishing was my life and the Marine Corps was my hobby. He started breathing again and the red left his face when I added, "But I'm passionate about my hobby!" But, I digress...

Yesterday afternoon I sat on a field planted with brown top millet and scanned the skies for fleet-winged grey darting mourning doves. At least I remember that they are fleet-winged grey and darting. I didn't see any to prove the description yesterday. Typical of most of my forays afield, I saw everything but what I was hunting. A mature bald eagle flapped low across the field and at the far end swept up in a climbing turn that reminded me for all the world of one of the fighter planes attending the base on which our field was located. He seemed to know exactly where to catch the thermal that quickly vaulted him hundreds of feet up into a lazy upward spiral. When he drifted up and away so far that I strained to focus on his speck, I dropped my gaze back to ground level and caught site of movement entering the field to my right. Not fifty yards away a flock of hen turkeys and young of the year strutted on to the field and froze, a dozen pair of beady eyes locked on my form. We all remained motionless for a minute or so and then one of the mature hens put-putted and Ben Franklin's choice for our national emblem disappeared so quickly back into the brush that I wondered if I had really seen them at all.

This afternoon, the wind eased up enough to lure Semper Fish and me onto the water and we cruised boat docks and creek channels in the local bayou casting for reds and speckled trout. A pair of dolphins joined us as the sun began to set and I put down my rod to watch them frolic in the oranging light.

Most days I don't think I like Florida--most days, but not today.

Second Annual Gregory Men Weekend

If you belong to the "I believe Bambi was a real live animal and not a cartoon" set, you probably want to stop reading this particular blog at this point and go back to daydreaming about a world in which food magically appears on your plate, it's safe to swim with great whites, and grizzly bears let you pet them in the wild. If however, you understand that the natural order of the planet is that man occupies (if somewhat tenuously) an elevated position in the food chain (by virtue of larger brain-size and the ability to make and use tools), then you are probably safe to continue your waste of time reading this inane accumulation of electronic representations of the caffeine-induced thoughts emmanating from the wrinkled recesses of my grey matter. But, all of you squeamish girly-men (and women) out there have been appropriately warned.

This past weekend occasioned the Second Annual Gregory Men Weekend--an event steeped in the rich tradition of men freed from the bondage of shaving and conversing with women, released from the strictures prohibiting freestyle scratching, and given over to the pursuit of game animals occupying lesser positions on the food chain. My boys and I hunted deer every waking daylight minute of a 3-day weekend--interrupted only by the annual and inevitable ritual of watching the Rebels lose to Bama.

On Friday morning I was perched high in the leafy boughs of a poison sumac-enshrouded (another post will be devoted entirely to rash relief) tree overlooking a small field planted with a mixture of grass and clover guaranteed by its vendor to "attract deer by the droves." After two hours of slowly stiffening into a close approximation (complete with camoflague resembling its leaves and branches) of a large knot on the side of said tree, the one and only deer I was to see for the entire weekend walked onto the field, ambled over to a position front and center of my stand, and provided me the opportunity to draw my bow and miss, again. This, too, has become a well-respected tradition of the Annual Gregory Men Weekend.

Friday evening #2 son was perched in the same tree, and, in his words, was "covered up in deer," one of which he shot at and missed (he claims he was trying to make me feel better about my miss). I was sitting elsewhere, covered up in sumac, and no deer.

Saturday evening #1 son was perched in the same tree, and his aim with a bow was appreciably better than mine and #2's. He found us and breathlessly told us of the buck he had hit and in what direction it had gone. We followed a rapidly diminishing blood trail in the dark for a couple of hours, then lost the trail, and resolved to resume the search at first light the next morning.

The next day we picked up the trail again and followed it to the point at which we had lost it the night before. We puzzled over the tiny blood droplet clues that seemed to indicate that the buck had traveled in one direction, but following that azimuth led to nothing. We back-tracked and found a track that indicated the deer had planted and cut left like a reciever on an out pattern and followed in that direction for nearly twenty yards before we thankfully found the next drop of blood.

During this evolution, I lamented my poor eyesight and color-vision deficiency, but marveled at the ability of my sons to see the tiniest speck of blood and press on to the next. We followed the deer's trail for several hundred yards and then found him where he had expired on a wooded hillside. Much hooting, hollering, fist-pumping, high-fiving, knuckle-bumping and mono-syllabic grunting ensued.

#1 now has his "wall-hanger" and I couldn't be prouder.

The Race is On

The crazy commie personality cult north of the 38th Parallel popped a nuke underground yesterday. I'm not sure why the world has been hyperventilating about this occurrence--we have believed that the hermit kingdom had several nukes for nearly a decade. The only reason they tested one was to get our reaction--kind of like when my grandson makes sure I'm looking before he walks over and yanks on the leaves of one of Miss Brenda's house plants.

I guess we should be worried that this might have been a seller's demonstration of a product's capability. The cash-strapped Li'l Kim Kult could be hawking its latest war wares to would-be buyers like the jihadis. But, the reality is that having the basic technology to set off an atomic device is not the same as building a deliverable device. Remember how big our first atomic weapons were--it took the largest four-engine bomber in the world at the time (the B-29) to lift and deliver just one. Neither the north Koreans nor the jihadis have an aircraft or missile (yet) that can deliver something the size of a Buick. I'm not saying the kimche kommies couldn't eventually develop the delivery technology and miniaturize a nuke to the point that it would fit, but I don't think they have it now.

Of course, they could put an A-bomb on one of their "fishing boats" and smuggle it out to a buyer or to a target. But, my limited yet insightful experience "manning the wall" on the Korean peninsula tells me that we keep pretty good tabs on stuff getting moved around up north and on boats getting special attention. For a year, I spent every morning in an intel brief on how many of Kim's watercraft ("fishing trawlers", subs, etc...) were in port or at sea. If an nK boat leaves DPRK territorial waters, we follow it.

And, if a nuke were to pop in a western city somewhere, it would be fairly easy to determine (by the radioactive signature left behind) from whom we received the gift. Exchanging gifts is so much more fun when you have much more to give than to get.

But, the miniscule (probably smaller than what we dropped on Japan 61 years ago) nuke pop in north Korea yesterday will act as the starting gun for a race in the Western Pacific Rim. Using Kim's nukes as an excuse, Japan will probably begin building their own. Japan is already debating changing the offensive capability prohibitions in the constitution MacArthur wrote for them when he served as military governor of the defeated Nipponese nation. Having a nuclear capable Japan is probably not a bad thing in the short run--helps keep the Chicoms in check.

The real fear is whether the Nationalist Chinese on Taiwan will use Li'l Kim's weekend fireworks as an excuse to join the nuclear arms race. They would dearly love to have a nuclear deterrent against PRC aggression. The problem is China might be forced to preemptively launch the Taiwan invasion force it has been building for a couple of decades now in order to prevent the Nationalists from joining the nuke club. That event starts a real world war.

Fear not, gentle readers. The end of the world is not in man's hands.

Trend-bucker

Weird, almost surreal, business trip this week. One of my client's corporate convention is in Las Vegas this week and they invited me out to give a presentation on the progress of our project for them. Twelve hours in airports and airborne busses on Monday and Wednesday for a thirty minute brief on Tuesday afternoon. Seems like a waste of money, doesn't it? Doesn't bother me in the least--the client paid for it.

The client evidently has more money to spend than they let on when we were negotiating our contract earlier this year. After dinner last night, they brought in a special guest for intertainment--Jay Leno. I kid thee not. And, it was the best 1 hour monologue I have ever heard--not one blue word and every punchline was a side-splitter.

There is no doubt that you have landed in Vegas--there are rows of slot machines on every concourse in the airport. Perhaps most surreal is the fact that even literally surrounded at every turn by one-armed bandits, and with tons of time on my hands, I never dropped a coin in a slot the whole time I was in Vegas.

For my next trick, I will spend another year in Panama City, Florida, without ever going to the beach.

Forked-tongued

Hmmm... When was the last time we saw that kind of anger out of Slick Willie? Let's see... Oh yeah--when he pointed his finger at us and lied about his relationship with an intern. I have always admired the political skill and populist savvy of Mr. Clinton, but the truth is not in him. And, like the pathological liar that he is, he believes his own lies. You can always tell when Bill Clinton is fibbing--his lips are moving. You can always tell when he is dropping a real stinker--he gets all flushed and puts on his "holier than thou" face.

Looks like the only one in the camp of sanity with any gumption to call Clinton on his weekend fabrications is Condi Rice. Hope she starts wearing body armor--people have a habit of getting roughed up and/or killed for messing with the Clintonistas.