A Rememberance for Rememberance Day 2025

 "Nevermore shall I see the Sun, for I fell to a German's gun. "  -- Joseph Kilna Mackenzie, "Sgt Mackenzie." (2000.) 

(it was a lament written to honor his great-grandfather, who was killed in WW1.)

On the Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month of 1918 all fighting on the European Western Front ceased, bringing a final halt to a war which had been fought on battlefields around the world since 1914. 

My Statement Regarding Our Exit From Afghanistan.

 We, the United States of America, are currently in the progress of leaving Afghanistan after some two decades of being the country's police force and army. 

We initially went in there in 2001 after the origin of the 9/11 terrorist attacks was traced back to Al Qaeda, and the origin of the attackers was traced to Al Qaeda bases in Afghanistan. In this cause we were right to go in. Let that be known. We were attacked, and we responded, as a nation must so respond. 

It is now some twenty years later, and the USA is now removing itself from Afghanistan. As I knew we would do. We've cut and run, as we did before in Vietnam. People whom we promised to stand by have and are as we speak being left to the not-so tender mercies of the Taliban. My Statement : This is a black day for America. But I don't blame Joe Biden. The mechanics that led up to this day were born by "W" Bush, carried on by Barack Obama (who did try to fix things, but it really wasn't going to happen.) and the last knives were driven in by TFG. He set things up so this would happen on Biden's watch. He hosted the Taliban leaders here at Camp David, and basically gave them everything they asked for. The people at the top of the Afghani government were (and are) crooks and liars who own the lion's share of the blame for this. Had they been honest, and dealt fairly with their troops, and seen to it they got paid, supplied and occasional leave to see their families, perhaps then the ASG wouldn't have collapsed under the Taliban attacks. I also want to mention the Taliban, and the situation there in the region. The Taliban were never, ever going to deal honestly with the USA. They are religious zealots with a power addiction who need to be lording it over someone else, and nothing short of a total control of the country was ever going to satisfy them. There is no bargaining with people who believe that it is okay to break their word when that word is given to a nonbeliever or infidel. We should have expected this, and taken steps to protect those whom we need to help leave the country. Now, dozens of them have died, and thousands are in immediate peril of their lives. We are not doing enough to help them. We will wear the blood stains of this for a long time, and we should. My final comment: We MUST never make war unless we are willing to go the full distance, fight to the last, kill the enemy until he surrenders unconditionally or we wipe them off the face of the earth. No safe spaces. No havens. Even if it means pissing off the Russians, Chinese or whoever. IF WE DO NOT HAVE THE STONES FOR IT WE SHOULD NOT BE DOING IT. No half measures. No more wars of containment. No more Police Actions. We're either ALL IN or we STAY HOME.

Once more, the missing man formation.

 I'm not one to idealize people. Everyone, boyhood heroes included, puts their pants on one leg at a time. 

But because my childhood was not more special than anyone else's, I'm not going to bother you with stories from my childhood. One man I knew of from my childhood was Gen. Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager. Yeager didn't just cultivate the image of a maverick, he was one. He was of the breed of pilots who learned to fly by instinct, by the seat of the pants. He flew combat missions over Europe in WW2, flying a Lockheed P51D mustang, "Glamorous Glenn" (for Glennis, his girlfriend and later his wife.)Yeager would go on to become "An Ace in a Day" shooting down 5 enemy aircraft in one day. If there was an aircraft type in service with the United States, odds were Yeager flew it. In a now-famous incident, with a broken arm and using a sawn-off broomstick for extra leverage, Yeager climbed down into the cockpit of a Bell X-1 ("Glamorous Glennis"), levered the canopy shut and in a few minutes was released into the air from the B-29 "Mother-ship" and shot off on a rocket-powered flight that broke the sound barrier. A first in aviation. (others may or not have exceeded mach 1, but Yeager did so under controlled circumstances.) In another well-known, possibly apocryphal incidence, Yeager is said to have declined participating in the Mercury Astronaut program, believing that the astronauts would be mere passengers, which was not his bag. In 1997 then-retired General Yeager would repeat his mach 1 flight in an F-15D Eagle fighter ("Glamorous Glennis III"), escorted by longtime wing-man and friend Bob Hoover, who had been Yeager's chase pilot on the day in 1947. Yeager's wife Glennis passed away in 1990 of ovarian cancer. The General re-married in 2007, much to the consternation of his family, who believed the woman was alienating his affections in order to make off with his money. I make no judgement on that, only to say a judge in California found in Gen. Yeager's favor, ruling that his daughter Susan had misused her authority as Trustee. Charles Elwood Yeager passed away on December 8, 2020, in Los Angeles California. He was 97. 

Another hero passes into those gates which all must enter.

Unhappy New Year.

Unhappy New Year.

what a crummy way to start the new year. In recent times, unless you live under a rock, you know that Iranian-proxy militia-men rocketed an American installation in Iraq, killing an American "Contractor". (odd how nobody says what he was contracting to do, but as Contractor has become a synonym for mercenary, I think it's safe to say we know what kind of man he was. )
The United States retaliated by pulling off a Tom Clancy level scheme to assassinate Iranian Major General and commander of the Quds force wing of the Iranian Republican Guards corps Suliemanei.
Iran in turn replied to this by launching some number of IRBMs loaded with conventional warheads at American installations in Iraq. No Americans were killed in the rocketing. We can thank our luck and our advanced warning systems for that.
And now, The Ball is back in Trump's court. He has as of this AM said that we do not want war, and we're  stepping back from the brink. Trump actually said the Iranians were standing down. but then, I don't trust two words out of Trump's mouth. If The Dear Leader Trump tells you it's raining out, better go look out a window. Some of my thoughts on this matter below the jump.

On this day, 75 years ago.

75 Years ago today, men got down into landing craft, and sailed into history. 

     June 6, 1944. The Second World War is coming to a crisis point. If the Allies, led by Eisenhower (interestingly, his surname is German for  ice cutter -- someone who cuts blocks of ice for use in early refrigeration. ) succeeded in landing in France, the Germans would now be faced with a war on three fronts. The South, where the Allies were driving slowly up the spine of Italy after the Italian capitulation. The Russians were pushing inexorably Westward, with the aim of taking up as much of Europe as they could before the hated Nazi enemy were destroyed. The Britsh, French and Americans all wanted to drive to Berlin, and as General Patton would later quip, "personally shoot that paper-hanging son of a bitch!" For France, it was a true existential crisis. Vichy France was a joke -- the prostrate Vichy were little besides errand-boys for the Nazis, and they knew it. For Britain, it meant an end to the Blitz, an end to privation, a chance to be able to live their lives without blackouts, rationing and constantly looking over their shoulder for (more imagined than real) fifth columnists. For the United States, it meant an incredible expense in Blood and Treasure but also a task to be taken up, not because of continued national existence, but because rule by dictators like Hitler and Tojo was wrong. Perhaps many of them didn't quite understand the finer points of the issue, but to them, liberty meant much, and liberty was always worth fighting for. Not so much in these times, but back then, people seemed to understand the difference. So, those men got down into the boats, or strapped on their parachutes and got in the planes, or loaded up into the gliders, and they prepared to carry the fight to the enemy. Casualties were expected to be high. Some of the planning staff estimated a minimum of 20% losses. Some wanted to wait and go with more men. But Eisenhower was sure that the more they waited, the more the enemy would be prepared to throw the troops back into the sea. The invasion was delayed, and then the weather closed in. Storms -- the early beginning of the Channel summer storms -- made them put off the invasion for a month. It was a matter of needing a confluence of tides, weather and lunar phase. They wanted darkness to cover the first hour or so of the invasion, proper tides and weather good enough that the waves wouldn't swamp the landing craft. Finally, weather predictions aligned with everything else for the three day period June 5th thru June 8th, closing in by the 9th. (a westerly gale of immense proportions would cause havoc, but not until after the initial invasion had been decided. ) Eisenhower stepped out of his quarters, stepped to the staff planning table and queried his staff . Some hesitated, but in the end, all agreed, the invasion was on. Eisenhower, it is said, kept two pieces of paper in his breast pockets. One, his speech that the invasion had gone off successfully, and the other, a speech in which he took full responsibility for the disastrous failure. In the days before the invasion began, Ike made his now-legendary "Great Crusade" speech to the troops.
 Eisenhower's Great Crusade speech. 
The men got on the ships, most of them already seasick.  A moderate gale blew in from the south, making the soldiers even sicker. The final "go" order didn't come until late on the 5th. Then, in the pre-dawn hours of the 6th, the first wave went in.

It was the largest Armada ever assembled

They were all afraid. Every man-Jack of them. But they climbed down into those boats anyway. They got down in the boats and went in.
The fighting was vicious. The men on Omaha beach had it the worst. They may not have gotten off the beach were it not for the work of destroyers who sailed in some instances within 800 yards of the Beach, at risk of grounding themselves, to engage the German positions with direct fire from their guns. No matter if it was Omaha or Juneau, the day was no walk in the park. I could go on, regaling you with tales of bravery and sacrifice, but I'm going to close this year's D-Day memorial post by saying this : War is never pretty. It's terrifying, ugly, bloody and brutal. So let's try to limit how many wars we have. Let's honor those men who bravely went in on June 6 '44. Let's honor them by staying out of wars of convenience, like Mr "W" Bush's Invasion of Iraq. Let's try using diplomacy to maneuver clear of various causa belli.  Try settling not the problems, but the issues which become problems if not addressed. With thanks to those who engaged in the Great Crusade.

     Most Sincerely,
DLC.

Another poem for the day.

Whenever veteran's day (Remembrance day elsewhere) comes around, I cannot help but think of this poem. I'm just going to leave it here for you. 

Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries

By A. E. Housman

These, in the days when heaven was falling,

The hour when earth's foundations fled,

Followed their mercenary calling

And took their wages and are dead.

Their shoulders held the sky suspended;

They stood, and the earth's foundations stay;

What God abandoned, these defended,

And saved the sum of things for pay.

Wikipedia entry for AE Housman

As sung by Gillian McPherson (for the film The Dogs of War)

(contrary to the use in the movie, Housman was using "Mercenaries" ironically, describing the professional soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force in WW1)

We like to talk today about anything but 11/11/18 @ 11:00 AM.

The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

We like to talk today about everything but the end of the First World War. 

But I'm going to, for just a few minutes. 

     We love our holidays here in the United States. We also at least mouth the words that we appreciate those who sacrificed their time, money and even their lives for this nation.
We throw parties, parades, football games (gridiron) and solicit donations in exchange for American flags of dubious manufacture or paper poppies. Most of you don't even know why the poppies.
Not to worry, I'm going to tell you. But first, a bit about War.
     Warfare is one of mankind's oldest activities. For most of known history, it was men only (not really, but we'll pay lip service to the official history for now.) War began with rocks, sticks and fists, feet, elbows knees and head-butts. In the earliest times, War was bad, but relatively manageable. Sometimes people got killed, but mostly they yelled at each other and beat on each other until one side or the other ran away. Along with this developed the concepts of Honor, Bravery and Heroism. Most probably the first one to run away in a battle would be dishonored, the last to run honored and those who bothered to show up bravery, and those who made the other side run away first heroes. But the problem is, while medical technology developed, so did killing technology. We went from fists, rocks and sticks to arrows, spears and rock-clubs or hatchets. But the first world war was uniquely ugly because it was the first major Industrial Age war, and we brought industrial age weapons to it. But the world wasn't ready for Industrial age warfare yet. We were still fighting as if it were the Boer war -- with rifles, trenches, non-recuperating artillery and swords and bayonets. Except it was not the Boer war. We had recuperating artillery (cannon that don't need to be re-laid between salvos), machine-guns and worst of all, gas. We didn't know how to cope with those. We didn't know how to cope with sappers who used TNT by the ton, either. In short, the war was a horror raised to an exponential fever pitch.  Indeed, so grim was it that the United States feared a global societal collapse and a global pandemic. We got the second of those two, a pandemic of influenza, which killed more than double those killed in the war. 
     In WW1, men died by the millions. Historians would later reckon that an entire generation of the English upper class was wiped out by the war. The casualties were horrific. It was also the first time the psychological effects of warfare were recognized. Men came home devastated. Physically and emotionally wrecked. It would take years for them to recover, and some never did. We did not learn from that grim lesson. Men who came home were often treated poorly. Few benefits were granted them. Once the war was over, it was over. Bonuses that were promised to be paid "in the future" often didn't happen. The poppy became the symbol of the peace, because of a poem by Col. John McCrae, titled "In Flanders Fields."
I include a copy from Wikipedia:

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
    Between the crosses, row on row,
  That mark our place; and in the sky
  The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
  Loved and were loved, and now we lie
      In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
  The torch; be yours to hold it high.
  If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
      In Flanders fields. 

So, remember these people who fought and died in the first world war. The first war of the Industrial age. The horror war. Remember it and don't be fooled when some thieving politician tells you we need to go fight another war. The United States should not ever fight a war of choice. So remember those men, but also remember the horrors they perpetrated on each other, In Flanders Fields.

Something I thought about while I couldn't sleep.

(this post is fiction.I was not an army brat, and am not an army officer. it's offered as written, by me, as an emotional exercise, specifically on this day, for this day. It is told in the voice of a character of mine called Claire McClellan. She's a 27 or 28 year old graduate of the United States Military Academy, and in this context, the first ever female Green Beret officer. (the Special Forces are, as of this writing, still a boys club, although Delta allegedly as some women in it.)

     I'm an Army Brat. I grew up as a dependent of an army officer. The good part about being an Army Brat is, you get to go to so many places. The bad part is, you have to go. But today I want to talk about one part of being an Army Brat that they don't tell you about on TV or in the papers:  (click thru to read the rest )