"I think they are all homosexual communists in Satan's army...I espect as well they all live together and bathe together every morning and have the anal sex with one another, with the fisting and the guinea pigs." - Manuel Estimulo
"I can never quite tell if the defeatists are conservative satirists poking fun at the left or simply retards. Or both. Retarded satire, perhaps?" - Kyle
"You're an effete fucktard" - Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom
"This is the most pathetic blog ever..." - Ames Tiedeman
"You two [the Rev and el Comandante] make an erudite pair. I guess it beats thinking." - Matt Cunningham (aka Jubal) of OC Blog
"Can someone please explain to me what the point is behind that roving gang of douchebags? I’m being serious here. It’s not funny, and doesn’t really make anything that qualifies as logical argument. Paint huffers? Drunken high school chess geeks?" - rickinstl
I went to see the doctor of philosophy With a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knee He never did marry or see a B-grade movie He graded my performance, he said he could see through me I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind, got my paper And I was free. -- Ray and Saliers
When I turn to philosophy and pick up a new work, the technical stuff makes me think that perhaps the idea to burn the Great Library of Alexandria was not such a bad one after all. Langugae that serves only to drive the potential reader away deserves to be forgotten. Of course, doctoral disseratations don't succeed so much by provoking new thought as by providing variations on an accepted theme of bullshit. The great thinkers succeed in reaching us by doing other things that producing tomes suitable more for tombs that thought, realization and excited discussion.
Daniel Dennett is an interesting and provocative thinker; while I like his simile about human beings as "moist robots", he seems here to be edging away from that. The robot part takes us so far, and then there's an entirely different set of functions,problems and issues. Two things I liked here is the issue of intentionality -- free will requires philosophical intention, that is, conscienious direction and awareness and it requires the ability to recognize and prevent manipulation. The moral actor has to go into situations with eyes wide open and a poker face. The other, which I think is implied, is that the initial reaction to radically new perspectives seems to be to regard it as either naive or cynical, until you think about it.
My other thought is simple. I find Dennett's technical philosophy, the neuroscientist-philosopher stuff incomprehensible, but when he writes or speaks to communicate with actual living people, he's very good indeed. Is that a trend? Crispin's thought is much the same way, although since he doesn't babble about neurons and synapses and blood volume and all the rest, he's more approachable. Sartre was the same way -- you can read "Being and Nothingness", or you can read "The Words" or "No Exit and three Plays" and the first will drive you to distraction, solitary despair and isolated absinthe sucking through a sugar cube; the others will engage, provoke conversastion and maybe...cause thought.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand; A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? -- Willy Yeats
Hierophanies and...autoclaves and general madness PT II
Rational people with rational ideas can't function in our government these days, so PANIC!
Michael Farrell, Veterans Today Columnist
IN THE crowded field of Ebola alarmists, Rand Paul of Kentucky stands out. Before he was a Republican senator with presidential ambitions, he was an eye doctor. Apparently the Hippocratic oath does not cover panic-mongering: Dr Paul has popped up on talk-radio shows, alleging that when Barack Obama or his scientists say that Ebola is rather hard to catch, they are fibbing. Or, as he puts it, they are downplaying the risk that Ebola might spread across America for reasons of “political correctness”. Ebola is “incredibly transmissible”, Dr Paul has asserted, talking of doctors falling sick even after they suited up and took “every precaution”. The Economist, Oct 14, 2014
Hand to Hand with Ebola
No one is ever going to elect me to public office. First of all I wouldn't run and secondly, if I won, I'd demand a recount. And then defect to New Zealand. I think I'd be a great philosopher-king, but I couldn't put up with the continual salesmanship and bombast that our current situation demands. Although I think a lot of the folks who comment here and some of our writers could benefit from a few deep breathes, some relaxation exercises, and maybe a nice cold drink to calm down, Veterans Today isn't anywhere near as loony as lot of the right wing stuff we're seeing.
I think our editorial positions on a lot of stuff -- most things -- are "This is all screwed up and why can't anyone fix it?" I suspect for a lot of us -- left, right, center, floating above the fray somewhere -- are channeling St Ross of Perot and his rather simple "Don't ignore the crazy aunt in the basement...if the car doesn't work, you lift up the hood and you fix it!" Ross and Jimmy Carter were both Rickover boys in the nascent Nuclear Navy, and they brought an engineering approach to everything. Rational people with rational ideas who, despite differing ideological views, believe that with common sense, honesty and good faith you can accomplish a lot.
Which sadly, doesn't work a lot of the time in the world of government. Especially now, since engineering is based on scientific principles in a way that social science and things like politics and governance and economics are not. So just because there's evidence to support something doesn't mean we have a way to implement it. If you doubt that, I refer you to the last 3 and probably the next three Congresses. Like many observers and many economists, I keep waiting for the confidence fairy to appear and get us back to full employment, high 401Ks and a booming economy. I don't think it's going to happen, and there's some reason to think that the current stock market dip is a sign of another rough ride.
So, ISIL is either below the fold of newspapers or not the lead article on sights anymore. Rachel Maddow was primarily about Ebola last night; Shep Smith over at Fox has been forthcoming and honest in his coverage. This is a complicated problem and
This is tiring
who the hell knows what we're going to see happen in the world. What we're not going to see, in all likelihood, is a pandemic in the United States. But, the usual suspects can hope...and claim there is one. And it's obviously Obama's fault, and the Democrats and the women and the Gays and...no, not really.
Plagues and pestilence are pretty much in God's territory. He did it; or, to be theologically correct, the supreme being of the universe did it. There, does that make you feel better?
What we're arguing about is policy and that hasn't got a lot to do with the disease. For example, the Republicans, especially John "Why do we have all these Czars in the Obama Administration?" McCain demand that there be a Czar so there will be somebody in charge. Fine. Constitutionally, the Surgeon General of the United States, a Cabinet-level appointee is in charge at the direction of the President. We just don't have one. I seem to recall that one of the Bush appointees ultimately indicated that he wasn't so sure about the germ theory of disease, but that may be me oversimplifying again. Since the position has been vacant since 2013, we've had a nominee, Doctor Vitkek Murthy since late last year.
Yeah, we have a nominee, a physician with the usual long list of credentials, Yale Medicine and Business Schools, successful entrepreneur, attending physician and an instructor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School. He hasn't been confirmed because the NRA threatened to score the vote on his nomination because he would like to see more laws and regulations for guns in this country. Given the number of people killed by guns in the US and the damn near universal agreement in public health circles about some additional restrictions being a good idea, a public health expert and scientist who adopted any other position would probably also believe that the sun and planets revolve around the earth and the earth is flat...all those satellite photos being faked.
Since the Senate is adjourned, I don't exactly understand why the President hasn't done a recess appointment here.
Of course, lately I don't understand this President at all.
We don't know what Solomon would have done had neither claimant not opposed cutting the baby in half, but the point of the story was that the wise king knew that the real mother would do anything to save her child. President Obama would seem to be so wedded to some concept of rational discourse and fairness that faced with the same situation, he might still have the baby cut in half. Regardless, the solution here is simple -- if Doctor Murthy still wants to be Surgeon General, make him the damned Ebola Czar and then let him have authority over the empire of the Surgeon General in order to find a solution. Instead, they appoint Ron Klain, a somewhat anonymous White House and Democratic operative. What the hell are they thinking?
The administration has confused their duck-nibbling, gator-chomping swamp with a petting zoo.
Back in 2005, a group of friends and I started The Defeatists. Our basic approach was that defeat and disaster was inevitable so approach it with that in mind. I think we were being satirical, although at times I wonder.
Anyway, I think the correct response to this nonsense by the President and Vice President is to invite John Boehner and Mitch McConnell to the White House, offer them some Merlot or some Wild Turkey, and then hand to the two Republican leaders their resignations.
"You won't cooperate, you won't negotiate, you spread lies, despair, gloom and all for your own political advantage at the expense of the welfare of the nation and the people. To hell with you, you broke it, so you bought it..."
Then leave the room. Have Chief Justice Roberts dragged in and tell them to wait. Give them a half hour to think of what they want to propose as an alternative.
These guys aren't stupid. President-designate Boehner would probably really be in tears. McConnell would definitely be doing his turtle routine.
This would be the ultimate Defeatist karate -- the two leaders don't want to be in charge of the government and Roberts isn't really interested in trying to preside over a major constitutional crisis the government; they just want to piss on it.
Make them put some skin in the games, and see how they respond. Then maybe we might get around to getting something done about stuff...lots of stuff.
Getting the Damned Dogs of War Back in the Kennel –Trying to Retake the Moral High Ground, If Anyone Cares
It's hard times in the new milleniumGettin' by on just the bare minimum
Everything to lose and nothing to spare Going to hell and nobody cares
Ain't the future that Kennedy promised me In the 21st century
Finally come to the age of Aquarius And if we live through the Mayan apocalypse
There'll be pie in the sky above lemonade springs
A goddamn American utopian dream
If you believe that, you're more optimistic than me--Steve Earle
You know, events overwhelm me at times and the on-going military crises-circuses we have blasting around the world make my getting a handle on them especially difficult. It occurs to me, however, that the old Buffalo Springfield line about “There’s something happening here, what it is ain’t exactly clear/ There’s a man with a gun over there, Telling me I got to beware’ really telling in the 21st Century.
If you caught the John Oliver Show, Last Week Tonight, on July 27, you caught an excellent piece on the utterly screwed up US Nuclear Program. While the problems with officer morale and performance, failure to do systems maintenance or upgrades, and general nuttiness – talking about an Air Force General who was relieved for a variety of things culminating on his activities on a trip to Russia where he was pretty much continually drunk on his ass, Oliver pointed out that he’d been “too drunk for the Russians…the Russians!” Telling of one escapade when the general demanded that his staff accompany him to a Mexican Restaurant because he wanted to see the Beatles cover band there and then got them basically thrown out for demanding to be allowed to play guitar in the band, Oliver pointed out that we should consider the chain of bad decisions leading up to that event – drunk, in a Mexican Restaurant in Russia someplace, vomiting a half-eaten Chimichanga over the drum kit of a White Russian Ringo. Of course, his boss – a Vice Admiral -- had been relieved for trying to use counterfeit chips in a tribal casino in Council Bluff, Iowa. Oliver again pointed out that any Vice Admiral should be smarter than an Iowa Pit Boss.
The most telling point in the bit was a brief segment of Colin Powell saying that after 30 years of involvement with the planning, deployment and potential use of nuclear weapons, he had become convinced that they were useless. So, we have over 4800 of these things, capable of blowing ourselves and everyone else to ash, and we can neither protect, maintain, nor figure out a rationale for them.
Reminds me of the old Davy Crockett jeep mounted nuke – you’d orient the jeep so that you were facing away from the target with the missile pointed out the back of the trailer, light it off and drive like hell to try and get out of the blast zone…what exactly was the genius who invented it thinking?
Well, one thing he was thinking was that the actual use of the thing wasn’t his problem. When Generals and Colonels talk about the strategic corporals, they’re thinking that that two-striper is going to be doing their job and “Ain’t it Great?” However, the most critical tool for that grunt’s ruck sack, a strong moral compass, is probably missing, broken or poorly designed.
The United States Army used to be proud of its moral stance. We didn’t torture prisoners, we liberated them. We didn’t kill children, we fed them. We didn’t kill civilians, we freed, fed, clothed and took care of them. Somewhere that went wrong. We held ourselves up as a role model, and some people paid attention. That ethic matched where they were at – the IDF, for example, prided itself on minimizing collateral damage and civilian casualties. And then, they also lost the way.
There’s an interesting article in The Guardian this morning. Yuli Novak is a former pilot and operations officer in the Israeli Air Force, and she comments that when she was a young captain, the Israel Defense Forces prided themselves on being the “most moral military in the world.” She describes an incident where the Israeli Air Force employed a 1000 pound bomb on a house in Gaza to take out a Hamas military commander. She says that it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to consider what that weapon did to the building and the target. They killed him, but they also killed twelve civilians including eight children. She describes the outcome this way:
After the assassination, Israel shook. Even when the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) insisted that there was operational justification for the attack, public sentiment could not accommodate this assault on innocent civilians. Israeli intellectuals petitioned the supreme court, demanding it examine the legality of this action. A few months later a group of reservist pilots criticised such elimination actions....As soldiers and officers used to carrying out our missions without asking unnecessary questions, we were affected by the public reaction…my friends and I trusted our commanders to make the right moral decisions, and returned our focus to the “important things” – the precise execution of further operations.
She goes on to point out that such trust is utterly impossible today. She sees what’s happening in the Gaza Strip as nothing less than a series of war crimes originating at the operational planning level, with no effort to minimize casualties, collateral damage and maintain the moral high ground. Israel Armed Forces are to her mind no longer able to claim any moral suasion; they have become as amoral as any other invading force and are engaging in things that remind her of the SS or the Red Army rampaging in Eastern Europe.
Interestingly, she places the responsibility for regaining a moral force not on the shoulders of the military but on the public. That in fact makes a lot of sense in Israel, where everyone serves except those religiously exempt. Those exempt are largely the most bloodthirsty, which is something I find amusing, of course. In a nation that sees itself as living in a continual state of Total War, those most reluctant to find a peaceful solution are a permanent class of REMFs. Anyway, Novak sees it as a public as well as a military challenge:
I know how hard it is to ask questions during times of conflict as a soldier. The information that the officers get in real time is always partial. That’s why the responsibility for drawing the red lines, and alerting when we cross it, lies with the public. A clear, loud voice that says that bombing a house with civilians in it is immoral must be heard. These killings cannot be accepted without question. Public silence in the face of such actions – inside and outside of Israel – is consent by default, and acceptance of an unacceptable price.
Novak is now the Executive Director of “Breaking the Silence” an organization of Israeli veterans who have served during and since the Intifada and want to educate the Israeli public as to what the military is doing in their name. I find that admirable, and rather similar to a lot of what we do over at Veterans Today. I’m hoping they are more successful. But, I’m not terribly confident in either case.
One of the problems that we face is the inability to define end-states. What exactly is the end state for Israel and the Palestinians? What is the end state of our involvement in Iran or Afghanistan? What do the Russians want to accomplish in Ukraine? What do the separatists want to accomplish; what do the Ukrainians want to accomplish? If you have some sort of idea as to where you want to go, you might get there. But otherwise, you’ll get wherever you end up, and it will undoubtedly be pretty lousy.
For example, as I was writing this, news broke that the Israeli Air Force has targeted a hospital and a park where children were playing. Israel denies this, claiming that Hamas had hit these targets due to malfunctioning rockets. Frankly, I don't care -- my initial reaction was that the targeting team at IAF HQ was operating off some intelligence that the hospital was being used for storing rockets and ammunition, and that the kids playing in the park were really Taliban soldiers training on the monkey bars.
Based on the casualty data available from the Gaza authorities, I tend to think the Israeli story is probably correct, but the result will remain; they are already convicted in world opinion. This is really madness --
The Map Isn’t the Terrain, but if You Can’t Look at the Terrain, Better Look at a Damn Map
Gettysburg was the price the South paid for having Lee. The first day's fighting was so encouraging, and on the second day's fighting he came within an inch of doing it. And by that time Longstreet said Lee's blood was up, and Longstreet said when Lee's blood was up there was no stopping him... And that was that mistake he made, the mistake of all mistakes. Pickett's charge was an incredible mistake, and there was scarcely a trained soldier who didn't know it was a mistake at the time, except possibly Pickett himself, who was very happy he had a chance for glory. ...William Faulkner, in "Intruder in the Dust", said that for every southern boy, it's always within his reach to imagine it being one o'clock on an early July day in 1863, the guns are laid, the troops are lined up, the flags are out of their cases and ready to be unfurled, but it hasn't happened yet. And he can go back in his mind to the time before the war was going to be lost and he can always have that moment for himself…Shelby Foote
WikiMap -- Pickett's Charge
I just finished Allen C. Guelzo’s highly regarded book on Gettysburg, Gettysburg –The Last Invasionand from it relearned some lessons that are worth considering today. I’ve been quiet on a number of issues because frankly, I’m not a journalist but a critic and a commentator, and it’s embarrassing to be constantly overtaken by events. Best to shut about things like the emerging Defense Structure or the Ukraine until you have something to say.
But Guelzo’s book, which is somewhat revisionist and with which I don’t agree in part, makes some really cogent points worth considering as we try to understand what’s going on and as we consider what might happen next. Gettysburg is not something you can see in isolation as a battle, or as a phenomenon or as an event. It’s part of the general unfolding of the United States. There’s a great piece of dialogue cited in the book where a British Liaison officer comes on Longstreet after Pickett’s Charge and says something to the effect of what a great day, what a great event, I wouldn’t have missed it for anything, and Old Pete who was sitting on the top of a fence, watching the debacle he had foreseen said, “The Devil You Wouldn’t! I would have liked to miss it very much; we have attacked and been repulsed. Look there!” The British officer observes the field in the now fading smoke, sees the men limping and straggling back; the wounded horses seeking their now dead riders; the litter bearers carrying away those lucky enough to be found and evacuated; the psychologically overwhelmed and broken men who had gone forward expecting victory and found this; the leaders, like Pickett staggering around, lost and heartbroken, and realized that it hadn’t actually been so great a thing after all.
Guelzo spends a great deal of the text describing the search for a villain – who screwed up? Frankly, this was not a terribly new exercise; the North was actually fairly used to this drill, largely because the commanders of the Army of the Potomac had generally been so useless. Meade was only just appointed to command, and wasn’t all that interested in fighting at Gettysburg. Lee didn’t really want to fight at Gettysburg. It just kind of happened, and unfolded from there. Gettysburg needs to be understood not as planned campaign, since Lee’s campaign was intended to force the North to decide to sue for peace. His strategic goal was to bring the Army of the Potomac to battle on terrain favorable to him, with his Army intact and with the commanding terrain.
We forget that Lee was first and foremost an Army Engineer. He understood things like observation, fields of fire, cover and concealment better than most of his opponents and all of his own generals. If his forces had taken Culp’s Hill initially and then the ridges and Little Round Top and Big Round Top, things would have been different; quite possibly they wouldn’t have ended up fighting a battle there. However, Meade was also an engineer as was Hancock and most of the other Corps Commanders who had any business leading troops in battle. They saw the ground, the enemy and realized that if they could close and hold Culp’s, Seminary and Cemetery Ridge and as the battle unfolded, Little and Big Round Top, they’d beat Lee or force him to abandon the field of battle. Remember, Lee had to destroy the Army of the Potomac to accomplish his strategic aim; all Meade and the Army of the Potomac had to do to win was not lose. Normally, that is not the situation for the stronger force and certainly was not the way Lincoln saw it or the generals commanding until Meade. And, for political reasons, the destruction of the Army of Northern Virginia was critical to the war effort, just not important.
Lee realized this, and tried to remain focused on it. Unfortunately, after Stonewall Jackson was fatally wounded at Chancellorsville, the other Generals in Lee’s Army either did not understand that or did not accept it. Longstreet seemed to have a feeling that the Army needed to survive, but could not see the overall big picture as well as Lee, and that was his tragedy. It made no difference as to what Longstreet did; he was powerless. Escape and get back to Virginia, and the war would drag on until the Confederacy was exhausted, worn down sooner or later. Longstreet had a marvelous gasp of the tactical situation, and a great understanding of the operational realities. However, using the Calculus of Battle, the failures of Day 2 following the misfortunes of Day 1, made him unable to see any solution.
Jeb Stuart gets a lot of blame for not being there to provide Lee with a better screen and better intelligence. That would have helped, but at some point Lee’s intent was to bring the Army of the Potomac to battle, and destroy it. Despite the general uselessness of the Generals Lincoln had appointed to that point, Gettysburg presented the best opportunity. If Meade consolidated his command and had more than a week to be in charge, the odds are the Union Army would have been operating on a firmer operational basis. At Gettysburg, they had the objective of fighting a defensive battle and holding the commanding and ominous terrain. With the entire Army united in command and control and without idiots like General Dan Sickles commanding III Corps, it’s very possible that Lee might have faced a tougher opponent.
Lee’s time in Mexico and as a Cavalry Officer had been not periods of engineering but of reconnaissance, pursuit and aggression. He was probably most the aggressive General in his Army, with the exception of Stonewall Jackson. If I were to name the reason for the immensity of the defeat at Gettysburg, or select a villain, I would select the Confederate pickets who mistook Jackson and his aides for Northern Cavalry and fired on them without identifying them.
But, Jackson was dead. The meeting engagement, which are usually pretty sloppy and deadly affairs, was a draw leaving the union in occupation of the key terrain. Due to problems of communications, coordination and staff work as well as logistics, the maneuver phase trying to take Culp’s Hill, flank Cemetery Ridge and occupy Little and Big Round Tops failed. So, the Army of Northern Virginia was left on day 3 to try a frontal attack, across an open plain with unseen obstacles that would slow, disrupt and canalize attacking soldiers into killing grounds. It didn’t help that Pickett’s soldiers were exhausted; it didn’t make it simpler that George Pickett was a bellicose idiot, lacking even the reptilian sense of self-preservation that Dan Sickles exhibited. It didn’t help that Longstreet who had the option to cancel the attack if the Confederate Artillery was seen to not be successful in driving the Union Forces off Cemetery Ridge. It also didn’t really matter– the Union Army was struck by the grandeur of the Confederate forces, their unity and dedication. The 19th Century had a number of battles – the Charge of the Light Brigade for one with a similar although smaller result – where the comment “It’s magnificent but it’s not war!” was most appropriate but this one was probably the most obvious example. Gettysburg and Pickett's charge foreshadows the Somme to a frightening extent.
Several relevant learnings for our time are apparent here. First, the idea of the “ground.” Lee did not know what he was getting into in Pennsylvania. He hadn’t served there, didn’t know the ground and neither did most of his generals, although at least a couple had served at Carlyle Barracks, home today of Dickinson College and the Army War College. However, information didn’t flow well in the Army of Northern Virginia. There were a shortage of dependable maps for both sides, but the Army of the Potomac had a lot of Pennsylvania soldiers and had a better understanding of the terrain, the roads, the environment. Stuart would have done his chief a lot of good by dragging along some engineers to at least provide sketch maps had he been content to do what a Cavalry division should do in unknown territory – find and fix the enemy and report.
Next, after becoming used to Jackson and his ability to get his soldiers where they needed to be when they needed to be there, Lee was hamstrung by the inability of his generals to move their forces. Part of this was decreed by fate – his logistics was a very weak factor in his plan, and the Army had to advance into Pennsylvania and across it along a very wide front with a limited number of roads allowing them to link up as needed. One of the reasons for the exhaustion of Pickett’s division was that they had to march all night to get to the release point in the woods facing Cemetery ridge, arriving after twelve noon for an attack that was supposed to have happened closer to dawn.
There has been a great deal of discussion in other books and articles as to the reason for Lee’s indecision and failure to process information. He was a brilliant soldier with a lightning fast mind, but this battle was something else. There have been suggestions that he had a mild heart attack or a slight stroke sometime between day 1 and day 3. Various memoirists discuss his problems with diarrhea and headaches, and in the winter of 1862-63 after Fredericksburg he had suffered a mild heart attack. I suspect that he may have had a health incident; his health by this time was ruined and he piled work and stress on himself without mercy. However, he also saw what he needed to have happen possibly in front of him, and his soldiers hadn’t failed him before; how could they do so now. He saw what he wanted to see, there for the grasp. What could go wrong?
Well, the answer was the field between the woods and cemetery ridge. The difference was that neither McClellan nor Hooker nor Burnside was in command. George Meade may not be one of the great Captains of the Union Army – that probably would be the triumvirate of Grant, Sherman and Sheridan – but he was a competent general who had avoided getting in the way. So he did not panic.
It is my belief that Arnold’s Dover Beach captures the battle well despite being a predominantly daytime battle fought in the Pennsylvania summer – 'And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night... '
In a conflict that exemplified the military axiom that soldiering is 99 percent boredom and 1 percent sheer terror, the blue and the gray called timeouts from opposition to trade tobacco for coffee, share food, relate war stories and converse about home, or play cards during downtime on the battlefield.It is easy to see these truces as moments of humanity, when men demonstrated that despite their differences, something kind and brotherly remained inside them. “They forget that they are enemies and a kind of chivalric honor and courtesy are strictly observed,” meeting “in so friendly a way that one would have thought they were the best and most loving neighbors in the world,” according to The Soldiers’ Journal of Oct. 5, 1864. But according to Bearss, “the older the war gets, the more the soldiers move toward hatred.” By the time the war moved onto northern soil in Gettysburg, “They really don’t like the sons-of-bitches,” he says of the armies, and the powwowing dropped off. --Sue Eisenfeld, Disunion:Breaks in the Action" NY Times, Feb 7 2014
The New York Times has had a series commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War called Disunion running on the OPED pages a couple of times a week or more since 2010, and it's well worth reading. Most of the Times OPED series are well worth the effort, whether The Stone which addresses contemporary issues in Philosophy, Disunion, or Measure for Measure which allows various musicians, producers and critics to reflect on the craft of songwriting, traditions and so on. Occasionally, there are some weird juxtapositions that make you wonder if the OP-ED staff is prescient, incredibly lucky or just very good at what they do. In the Measure for Measure Piece, on February 7, 2014, Rosanne Cash discusses the problems inherent in approaching the past in song and art while providing some marvelous examples of how it's best done. In doing, she highlights one of the songs from her most recent album,The River and The Thread. In many ways, this album completes her period of mourning the death of her parents as well as June Carter and other members of the extended music family of Johnny Cash. At the same time, it addresses some fairly timeless and really important issues in the on-going history of the United States, and what in fact the relationship of the South to the North is, should and can be. She does so through a series of road songs of trips she and her husband-producer-co-writer and musical director John Leventhal took from her home town of Memphis in recent years; but in fact, it reflects a spiritual journey that she has taken through the history of her family. I consider it a masterpiece...a travelogue of miracles and wonders to steal a phrase from another New York based poet and writer, Paul Simon. Days of Miracles and Wonder.
I had been utterly unable to crack the code of how to write these kinds of narrative ballads myself until I was writing the songs for my new album, “The River and the Thread.” In the past, I was intimidated. I felt self-conscious drawing characters out of thin air, or presuming to reassemble the life of a real historical person. I couldn’t find my way in. In the fall of 2012, my son was working on an eighth grade Civil War project. I mentioned to him that he had Cash ancestors on both sides of the Civil War, and I went to the Civil War database to research it with him. There materialized before us a photograph of one William Cash, lieutenant in the Massachusetts Eighth Infantry. He had enlisted on April 30, 1861. April 30 is my wedding anniversary. A little spark of an idea. I looked further and found William Cashes in several Southern regiments as well: Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee. This all made sense, as my family genealogy records the arrival of the first Cash, also a William, in Salem, Mass., in the 17th century, and the next generation spilling down to Virginia, where my direct line begins. -- Rosanne Cash, Time Travel and the Ballad Tradition, NY Times, Feb 7, 2014
Rosanne Cash has written in number of other places about her relationship with the south. She was born in Memphis, moved as a child to California, visited John during the summers, bonded with June and the Carters, lived in Nashville until her marriage to Rodney Crowell disintegrated and then moved to New York City where she met John Leventhal and has become a member of the singer-songwriter-artist-knitting community of Manhattan... So her relationship to the South is intriguing at least. She sees herself as a New Yorker (she got to sing Tumbling Dice at a well known annual concert in NYC benefiting local charities, and blogs from Zone Five.) but she is by blood, birth and mind a Southerner, with a broader, and somewhat amazing perspective. The cover of the album was taken by John Leventhal standing behind her on the Tallahasse Bridge. She sings of starting at the beginning in a world of strange design.
Well you’re not from around here/ You’re probably not our kind It’s hot from March to Christmas/ And other things you’ll find Won’t fit your old ideas/ Their line is shifting sands, You walk across a ghostly bridge/To a crumbling promise land If Jesus came from Mississippi/ If tears began to rise I guess I’ll start at the beginning/ The world of strange design
So, the album is an American with Southern Roots dealing with what it means to be "American by Birth and Southern by the Grace of God" as the old T-shirt put it. I think she might reverse them, but the issue is there to be dealt with, by her and by all the rest of us. She acknowledges how hard this can be metaphorically by discussing the writing of the song. John Leventhal and Rodney Crowell collaborated on a number which she finds hard to explain. (I actually don't find it at all hard; Crowell often tells the story of Johnny Cash looking at him unhappily when he drunkenly challenged the old man about not being willing to act like "no damn hypocrite" with the response, "Son I don't know you well enough to miss you when you're gone." Crowell always prefaces it with a statement of respect to Rosanne and John Leventhal, adding that if you ever want to sober up a man, think of him weaving drunkenly in front of Johnny Cash and hearing that. Kind of like God telling you that you were really kind of irrelevant to the conversation, weren't you?)Robert Hilburn mentions how John tried to be loyal to his daughters when their marriages dissolved with people he'd become fond of by keeping his distance but that illusion always broke apart. He proudly claimed that if he could get his son-in-laws and ex-son-in-laws to agree, he could form a hell of a band. -- Crowell, John Leventhal, Marty Stuart, Nick Lowe for starters.)
In an January 2014 interview with American Songwriter, Rosanne addressed the issue of being Southern.
There’s part of me that’s always cared about the South and felt at home there. During these trips, as I said, the physical and geographical connections to place came alive again. The rich, beautiful, dense, and weird South is the South I love. Do you ever read that magazine Twisted South? (laughs) I love that magazine because it captures these aspects of the South. This new album explodes the stereotypes about the South and embraces them at the same time. You know, all these things happened that made me feel a deeper connection to the South that I ever had. We started finding these great stories, and the melodies that went with those experiences.
Rosanne mentions that her daughter, Chelsea Jane Crowell who is making a lot of noise in Alt Country circles also wrote a civil war ballad entitled and it has a unique and special feel, discussing the effects of the war on people trying to survive in the world..."Momma took a gamblin' man and let Daddy hit the fan/And Salty bet our land and lost it all on one hand...All that's left is one oak tree, a swaybacked mule and a cotton see, and where the hell is Robert E. Lee?" This is a sharper, angrier song that raises the question what the hell was this war all about...and, even 150 years later, it's hard to separate the results from the purpose on both sides.
Roseanne's song, When the Master Calls the Role, is less about anger and more about sorrow, love and resolve. When it was ready to record, friends worked sang with her while John manned the producer's desk and got it together. The song is a superb piece of historical balladry and a great performance by Ms. Cash, Mr. Crowell, John Prine, and Kris Kristofferson. The link is to a performance she did during a 2013 residency at the Library of Congress. (After the song, John Leventhal resolved the whole issue of his relationship with Rodney Crowell, saying that Rodney is his "husband in law...")
Girl with hair of flaming red Seeking perfect lover/ For to lie down on her feather bed Soul secrets to uncover/ Must be gentile, must be strong With disposition sunny/ Just as faithful as the day is long And careful with his money And so the open letter read The news boy did deliver/ Three months later plans were made to wed Down by the King James river
Know the season may come Know the season may go When love is joined together With whoever be made whole When the master calls the roll
Oh my darling will you leave? Take me to the altar/ I don’t have strength to watch you as you leave/ But my love will never fault her Oh my darling Marry Anne The march to war is calling/ Somewhere far across these southern lands/ The bands of brothers falling
My tender bride, the tides demand That I leave you with your mother With my father’s riffle in one hand Your locket in the other
Know the season may come Know the season may go Beware the storm clouds gather Take heat in warm of soul When the master calls the roll
But can this union be preserved? The soldier boy was crying / I will never travel back to her But not for lack of trying It’s a love of one true heart at last That made the boy a hero/ But a riffle ball and a cannon blast Cut him down to zero Oh Virginia once I came I’ll see you when I’m younger/ And I’ll know you by your hills again This town from 6 feet under
Know the season may come Know the season may go A man is torn asunder But someday we may know When the master calls the roll
I knew this was going to happen, as did a lot of us. Theoretically, it was the stuff of public health discussions and philosophy of science and ethics for a long time. First clue that the end was coming was probably when MRSA became a big issue. But, a friend of mine with too much time on his hands Facebook-ed this earlier today with the note that it was time to start singing the doom song. Since he's a system administrator for start-ups by profession, he's used to everyone running around saying the world will end tomorrow...in this case, it might.
Another reality is there’s not much money to be made in making new antibiotics, so we saw a lot of drug companies who left the field of antibiotic development because of this combination of factors, that it was getting really hard to discover, to develop new antibiotics, and you don’t make a lot of money in selling these drugs, so the market really wasn’t there. …I can’t tell a patient who has a resistant infection, “If we can get you through this next six months or this next year, there’s going to be a great drug that’s coming.” Or I can’t tell oncologists, for example, “Well, six months from now we’re going to have therapies to offer you; we’re going to have something to combat these infections.”
The drugs aren’t there. And we know it takes a long time to get drugs from the development stage through testing and into the market. Right now, I can’t tell you when you’re going to have a new antibiotic to treat these highly resistant Gram negatives. The best I can say is it’s probably going to be several years, but I can’t point to one that’s in development and say, “We’re going to have that one in three years.”
There is a temptation to be snarky here. "We don't have effective antibiotics? No problem--get some turtle dung, eye of newt and blood of frog and go to town. Maybe some fire...yeah, lots of fire." Unfortunately, this is actually kind of real and is another reason why we should be spending a lot of taxpayer money on developing new therapies. Instead, the Rs are worrying about a bad software site. Bengazi. The fucking national debt that they exploded, TARP that they demanded. Here's the thing -- if we have a succession of plagues caused by diseases we could have treated but now can't, everyone is vulnerable. EVERYONE. The weaker and less healthy will get sick first, but everybody will be at serious risk. This demands a systemic response to which the Ryan-Boehner-Barton-McKeon response will be something along the lines of denial, blaming Obama, scheduling days of prayer and perhaps having Teddy Cruz's dad, the faith-healing Cuban minister (Santeria, anyone?) do some TV faith-healing. After all, it's OK in their minds to swear in to the Congress by TV?
Of course, the Randian-Markets are Magic crowd can indicate the cited interview. After all, this was on PBS, on Frontline. Commie bastards! And the guy in question is a government scientist. Pointy-headed, drone! A damn take wants us to worry...ok, how about the head of R&D from Pfizer, Dr. Charles Knirsch? The drugs aren't there. They're not even working on them...
Q. But did that mean that you had to close down the antibiotic thing to focus on vaccines? Why couldn’t you do both?
A. Oh, good question. And it’s not a matter of closing down antibiotics. We were having limited success. We had had antibiotics that we would get pretty far along, and a toxicity would emerge either before we even went into human testing or actually in human testing that would lead to discontinuation of those programs. Again, the science was difficult, and we have these other platforms, these vaccine platforms that are state of the art that we think that the prudent allocation of capital addressing very, very important medical need, we would devote the resources to those programs.
Q. So you decided essentially to shift the capital away from antibiotics and toward vaccine platforms.
A. Yes.
Q. And there were, according to people we’ve talked to, promising compounds at that time. You certainly had what some people described to us as the best and the brightest in the world working on some of these things at Pfizer. But you just said to me that there were problems with them and that there were difficulties, so I just wonder, was this program not the best and the brightest and one of the best in the world?
A. I don’t know which programs you’re referring to. Could you be more specific? Some of these programs right now haven’t even been moved into animal testing.
Now, I want any reader to understand this -- Pfizer is doing this not because they're greedy bastards, or at least, not solely because they are greedy bastards. They're doing because they see antibiotics as a dead end and they need to do something else which is going to require some hard and expensive research, development and clinical trials taking years. They didn't see the "return on innovation," and saw too much risk due to the difficulties of the science involved and the "uncertain regulatory pathways." In other words, things cost too much to do, too much risk of failure and then it just takes time to get a drug through testing, even if it's fast tracked. Should the new antibiotic cause serious side effects that outweigh the benefits, the legal liabilities are incredible. "So, get the divining rod out, Myrtle, we need to find a new well and different magic beans."
I'm honestly not knocking big Pharma so much as capitalism -- the unchecked Capitalism and greed advocated by the Republican Party of the "de-regulate, we're sorry BP, Enron didn't do anything wrong" era. Dr. Krnirsch speaks about public-private partnerships involving government research, universities and what really amounts to cross-fertilization between the various big and small pharmaceutical firms as scientists move between academe, government and business. Frankly, this is one place where the revolving door is not only not a problem for the nation, but where it works to our advantage. But, the fact is that scientific research is part of that "discretionary" funding thing shut down as non-essential during the latest Tea Party led unpleasantness. We're spending a lot less on pure science than we used to, and people like Palin, Cruz, Lee, Bachmann, Demint, Anne Coulter, Hannity and O'Reilly and so on delight in laughing at research studies and the boundary-less nature of what government has funded in the past.
Basic research costs more and more because it's less and less basic, and science is pretty much boundary-less by it's nature. If you are a PhD in biology specializing in primates, you have a deep understanding of math, statistics, chemistry, and some familiarity with physics, earth science and other more esoteric things besides how monkeys work.
Basic science and hard science is not something best left to the private sector because the private sector, even the hugely financially successful Pharmaceutical industry, is not designed to take on high risk, low return efforts.
The ideal drug for Pfizer is Viagra,which was initially developed as a tool for hypertension. The physiological effect of lowering blood pressure in the male reproductive organs those allowing better circulation was a side effect that became the reason for the drug's existence. As it came closer and closer to going off patent, Pfizer began to look at it as a mechanism for combating teenage hypertension. In fact, lower doses of the drug are marketed for some types of hypertension but are off patent; the primary money-making purpose for the drug is ED and those patents do not expire until 2019. However, there's nothing to prevent a physician from subscribing the lower dose and less expensive and possibly generic version for ED. They'd just have to prescribe multiple pills...When Canada allowed manufacture of generic Viagra, Pfizer countered by lowering the prices for the real stuff and then appealed saying that the Canadian legal system had erred. As a result, Canada invalidated all the patents on Viagra in Canada.
Scientific and medical research is not about making money; pharmaceutical firms are about making money. As we shift funding for research more to the private sector and less to the public sector, there will be less of the hard science and more of what might be considered technology, which can be described reasonably as the effort to take some scientifically known elements and apply them to resolve engineering problems of one type or another. Writing computer code is an example of a technological use of known scientific processes (coding, math logic, binary math, etc. etc. etc.) some of which is invisible to the writer and can be. But, re-designing the structure of micro-processors to depend on some as yet unknown principle of quantum mechanics or organic as opposed to inorganic chemical compound is science; the basic science lies in discovering that as yet unknown principle or compound.
Business excels at technology because the risk is an engineering solution; not so much at the other aspects of the continuum. The firm answers to the shareholders who may not be willing to absorb the losses of failed experiments trying to turn peanut butter into jet fuel. (That image is homage to Jerry Harvey and the Abilene Paradox, a great explanation for what's going on in Congress and the Republican party. Thank you Dr Harvey for again helping us all understand.)
S
o, how do we get the hard science done? Lots of it is done in the great research universities around the world, funded by foundations, Pharma and government. In this country, the only organization that can absorb the cost and the risk of this sort of research -- consider it to be a form of scientific infrastructure -- is the Federal Government. Not funding that risks not having the next great innovation; more to the point, in this incredibly complex organism that is the human community, it risks not being able to respond to the next crisis because no one has even thought of the problem.
The return on investment for a firm in basic science is really limited; the return for the nation on all infrastructure -- intellectual, technological, industrial, transportation, communication -- is incredible largely because the nation is the only one who can afford to do it. To those who worry about burdening future generations with debt, I suggest they consider if the future generations would like to have a future based on eye of newt and fire in hovels and caves connected by goat carts where strep throat and pneumonia kill 50% of the population before age 12, or something marvelous. If it all falls apart, the debt is going to be not an issue; survival will be questionable. We are a community, all in this together; failing to act that way as our right wing compatriots recommend is infuriating, and amusing, and really just an awful idea. The good news is when the universal pandemic comes, like the black death, plutocrats and senators and their families and supporters will suffer as much if not more than the poor, hungry, weak and those who serve them. However, it's cold comfort -- doing something now seems a far better approach than this when it's too late.
Ok, I admit that I can be a sucker for a lot of things. But, water and spray and rivers and such aren't usually a big thing with me. Well, hell -- if the world's oceans actually just rolled off the edge of the world in the pre-Columbus cosmology, this view of Niagara Falls is what it might look like. This amateur use of technology and art is the sort of thing that I suspect gets Ms. Sasha and my other colleagues over at the SASM institute all flustered, as it should. As it should. Absolutely spellbinding, although the music could be a bit less blah...Clannad must have something that would be a better fit.
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I received this note this morning from the only general I’m on a First Name basis with – I call him General or Boss and he calls me Mike. Anyway, I’ve written about Larry Lust before, but I think this note from him was pretty apropos of what we’re facing as the soldiers come home from this debacle…
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Should you ever wondered what valor looks like, go to the website below and watch the video of MGS Roy Benavidez's remarkable story.
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If you’re not familiar with Master Sergeant Roy P. Benavidez, read the following citation…
The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, March 3, 1863 has awarded in the name of the Congress the Medal of Honor to:
MASTER SERGEANT ROY P. BENAVIDEZ
UNITED STATES ARMY
for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty West of Loc Ninh on 2 May 1968:
Citation: Master Sergeant, then Staff Sergeant, United States Army. Who distinguished himself by a series of daring and extremely glorious actions on 2 May 1968 while assigned to Detachment B-56, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne). 1st Special Forces, Republic of Vietnam. On the morning of 2 May 1968, a 12-man Special Forces Reconnaissance Team was inserted by helicopters in a dense jungle area west of Loc Ninh, Vietnam to gather intelligence information about confirmed large-scale enemy activity. This area was controlled and routinely patrolled by the North Vietnamese Army. After a short period of time on the ground, the team met heavy enemy resistance and requested emergency extraction. 3 helicopters attempted extraction, but were unable to land due to intense enemy small arms and anti-aircraft fire. Sergeant Benavidez was at the Forward Operating Base in Loc Ninh monitoring the operation by radio when these helicopters returned to off-load wounded crew members and to assess aircraft damage. Sergeant Benavidez voluntarily boarded a returning aircraft to assist in another extraction attempt. Realizing that all the team members were either dead or wounded and unable to move to the pickup zone, he directed the aircraft to a nearby clearing where he jumped from the hovering helicopter, and ran approximately 75 meters under withering small arms fire to the crippled team. Prior to reaching the team's position he was wounded in his right leg, face and head. Despite these painful injuries he took charge, repositioning the team members and directing their fire to facilitate the landing of an extraction aircraft, and the loading of wounded and dead team members. He then threw smoke canisters to direct the aircraft to the team's position. Despite his severe wounds and under intense enemy fire, he carried and dragged half of the wounded team members to the awaiting aircraft. He then provided protective fire by running alongside the aircraft as it moved to pick up the remaining team members. As the enemy's fire intensified, he hurried to recover the body and classified documents on the dead team leader. When he reached the leader's body, Sergeant Benavidez was severely wounded by small arms fire in the abdomen and grenade fragments in his back. At nearly the same moment, the aircraft pilot was mortally wounded, and his helicopter crashed. Although in extremely critical condition due to his multiple wounds, Sergeant Benavidez secured the classified documents and made his way back to the wreckage, where he aided the wounded out of the overturned aircraft, and gathered the stunned survivors into a defensive perimeter. Under increasing enemy automatic weapons and grenade fire, he moved around the perimeter distributing water and ammunition to his weary men, reinstilling in them a will to live and fight. Facing a buildup of enemy opposition with a beleaguered team, Sergeant Benavidez mustered his strength, began calling in tactical air strikes and directed the fire from supporting gun ships to suppress the enemy's fire and so permit another extraction attempt. He was wounded again in his thigh by small arms fire while administering first aid to a wounded team member just before another extraction helicopter was able to land. His indomitable spirit kept him going as he began to ferry his comrades to the craft. On his second trip with the wounded, he was clubbed with additional wounds to his head and arms before killing his adversary. He then continued under devastating fire to carry the wounded to the helicopter. Upon reaching the aircraft, he spotted and killed 2 enemy soldiers who were rushing the craft from an angle that prevented the aircraft door gunner from firing upon them. With little strength remaining, he made one last trip to the perimeter to ensure that all classified material had been collected or destroyed, and to bring in the remaining wounded. Only then, in extremely serious condition from numerous wounds and loss of blood, did he allow himself to be pulled into the extraction aircraft. Sergeant Benavidez' gallant choice to voluntarily join his comrades who were in critical straits, to expose himself constantly to withering enemy fire, and his refusal to be stopped despite numerous severe wounds, saved the lives of at least 8 men. His fearless personal leadership, tenacious devotion to duty, and extremely valorous actions in the face of overwhelming odds were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service, and reflect the utmost credit on him and the United States Army.
Famously, when the Medics got to Benavidez at Loc Ninh, they took one look at the hunk of hamburger that remained of the guy, and started to put him in a body bag. Conscious but unable to move or speak, he let them know he was still alive by spitting blood at them. Interesting to think of Benavidez this week. A lieutenant I served with from South Texas when I was in exile from the active duty to the reserves back in the days of "Capstone" knew the guy when he'd been in JROTC. Quiet man, friendly, and serious PTSD. Well, duh...but, quiet, friendly and interested in talking to young people about their future. Like fajitas, Pearl Beer and Norteno music. Loved his country, family and home town.
There is something incredible about these men, and I suspect sooner than we might think, women. They didn't get up that morning to be heroes. They didn't wrap themselves in the flag and run around proclaiming themselves to be something great. They found themselves in a situation, they did their duty because that was what they figured they were supposed to do, and then are universally pretty humble about the whole thing.
This is an excellent time to watch the old Audie Murphy "To Hell and Back." (My first day as First Sergeant of the 9th Chemical Company, 9ID (Motorized) I spent on that airfield parade strip at the end of the film followed by a division run...Hooah...first one led by MG Taylor after MG Shallikashivilli gave up command. ) And, I was miserable all over the terrain shown in that film at Lewis). Guy wanted to take care of his family, protect his buddies, do his job, maybe get an education and serve his country. While his performance in The Red Badge of Courage was classic, TH&B presented the GI as GI. His life was tragic in a lot of ways, but Murphy remained humble about his service and loved nothing more than to be with soldiers. Not bragging or dominating, although those stars tend to do it when you’re around on of these guys, but just to BS and listen. Murphy was awarded the Medal as the result of an incident where he stopped a German Tank with Infantry attack, firing the M2 from the deck of a burning Tank Destroyer after calling in Artillery fire directly on his position. When the FSE asked him how close the enemy was to him, he said, “Hold on a second and I’ll let you talk to them…” It’s worth revisiting Murphy’s citation as well.
CITATION: On January 26th, 1945 2ND Lt. Murphy commanded Company B, which was attacked by 6 tanks and waves of infantry. 2ND Lt. Murphy ordered his men to withdraw to prepared positions in a woods, while he remained forward at his command post and continued to give fire directions to the artillery by telephone. Behind him, to his right, 1 of our tank destroyers received a direct hit and began to burn. Its crew withdrew to the woods. 2ND Lt. Murphy continued to direct artillery fire which killed large numbers of the advancing enemy infantry. With the enemy tanks abreast of his position, 2ND Lt. Murphy climbed on the burning tank destroyer, which was in danger of blowing up at any moment, and employed its .50 caliber machine gun against the enemy. He was alone and exposed to German fire from 3 sides, but his deadly fire killed dozens of Germans and caused their infantry attack to waver. The enemy tanks, losing infantry support, began to fall back. For an hour the Germans tried every available weapon to eliminate 2ND Lt. Murphy, but he continued to hold his position and wiped out a squad which was trying to creep up unnoticed on his right flank. Germans reached as close as 10 yards, only to be mowed down by his fire. He received a leg wound, but ignored it and continued the single-handed fight until his ammunition was exhausted. He then made his way to his company, refused medical attention, and organized the company in a counterattack which forced the Germans to withdraw. His directing of artillery fire wiped out many of the enemy; he killed or wounded about 50. 2ND Lt. Murphy's indomitable courage and his refusal to give an inch of ground saved his company from possible encirclement and destruction, and enabled it to hold the woods which had been the enemy's objective.
I was out at Fort Irwin earlier this week. NTC is at its usual delightful summer weather, 110+ and dry as a bone, with a light 20 knot wind. Because of the Sequester, they'd cancelled a number of rotations at the National Training Center and cut back on civilian services, so when I got to the gate, MPs were manning it. Not a lot of traffic, so I struck up a conversation with the soldiers. Turns out that after all that time in the desert in Iraq and Afghanistan, the installation decided to not provide any way to cool the water for these guys. They see the commander of the relief about every four hours, and have him bring out ice that they buy themselves. For some reason, this got me mad...kids asked me not to mention their names and assured me that "Hey, First Sergeant, we can take care of ourselves..." Told them that I knew that we'd always had to do that because nobody else would but that didn't make it right.
Since my congressman is that troll who heads the house defense committee, Buck McKeon, I'll send him a note. Not that it will do anything, since the Specialists and PFCs of the garrison MPs don't contribute to his campaign, but in between sending me emails about how he's fighting for jobs by passing anti-abortion legislation and has our soldiers backs by supporting more money for contractors, I'll appeal to his conscience. That should be interesting.
As for me, I’ll drop a note to the garrison CSM which is more likely to accomplish something. And, make a point of checking to see if they need any ice or anything when I drive through the gate for a visit to drop off when I head back to Barstow. If we all did stuff like that, all of those of us who wake up every day and wish we could put on the uniforms again and go mess around with soldiers, I wonder what the impact would be?
When I got to wear a uniform every day, I was intimately invested in the lives and futures of the 200 or so soldiers in my company. My soldiers. Well, now they are all my soldiers. They are now all your soldiers. We need to take care of them, their families, their dreams, and aspirations. But, at the very least, we should be able to make certain that they have cool water to drink occupying a freaking guard post in the Mojave Desert in June.
I admit I’m assuming the best case – the McCaines and Grahames will fail and we won’t end up neck deep in a Shiite-Sunni war of mutual annihilation in the Middle East. Of course, we’re not masters of our fate on that…events have a way of steamrolling us. We'll get our soldiers home finally, and they'll be pretty quickly forgotten. And we'll have soldiers doing their duty, taking care of their brothers and sisters by pooling money to buy ice and space heaters and who knows what else, and the nation will forget. I've quoted Kipling more than once at the blogs I write for...probably time to do so again...
Speaking of the Sequester, I was walking from the grocery store this afternoon in the blazing Barstow sun in 113 degree temperatures. Guy in his 30s approached me with a bottle of Windex and asked me to let him wash my windshield for spare change. He told me he had just been laid off without any notice at Fort Irwin’s Nonappropriated Fund Program at the Shock Zone of something. The haircut still gives me away, but I have no idea what that might. If you find yourself at Irwin, be assured they have a shock zone. The guy had no understanding of why he was laid off, just that he needed to make some money to keep his family fed. I gave him some cash, and wished him luck. Wasn’t a lot of cash, but he was grateful and asked if I’d let him wash my car windows. Shit. I told him to skip it, and wished him luck again; he asked God to bless me.
Now, if you’ve been looking at my stuff, you know that doesn’t have much impact on me. I’m the guy who says sincerely that if there is a god, she and I have some issues to work out. But it got me thinking; I have no reason to be alive, semi-prosperous, pretty healthy and comfortable. I’ve done enough stupid stuff that I should be dead. In jail perhaps; in an insane asylum. Yet, here I am. I don’t believe in god, but life has been pretty good to me. Now, if life would get me out of Barstow that would be helpful. Regardless, however, the reason this guy is now begging for scraps right now is the Sequester. I really don’t feel badly that the executives at the defense contractors won’t get the same bonuses they would get if they got bigger new contracts. In fact, I think most of them probably should be in jail along with the bankers, bond traders, rating agencies and hedge fund managers. From whom much is given, much is owed and much is expected. Haven’t quite lived up to that in American business for a while. But, damn it, the Sequester is hurting people who aren’t concerned about how they’ll get by if Mercedes stops making Maybachs or if they can pay for another dancing horse. It’s hurting those soldiers trying to drink hot water to stay hydrated in 110 heat at Fort Irwin. It’s hurting this guy, Pedro F. Rodriguez, who is just trying not to be a bum in Barstow. It’s hurting our present, it’s hurting our future, and it’s betraying our past.
It’s our time. There’s nobody else here; just us. If it’s going to be right, it’s our time to make it right. I have little trust in the good intentions of most of the elected officials in this country. But, they do care about their jobs. Their money. Their pensions. Their perks. We can take that away from them. We need to serve them notice that until every American who wants a job can have one based on their skills, abilities and dreams; that until every American has adequate housing, food and medical care; that until every child in this country goes to bed full, healthy, with clothes and supplies for schools; when everyone has some reasonable level of safety, security and hope, that the elected classes and the 1% for and by whom they largely seem to be employed are at risk of a radically less lucrative future. Otherwise, we join the betrayal -- of present, past, future and any concept of the United States as the last best hope for mankind.
MG Larry Lust representing the United States Army at a Ceremony in the Republic of Ireland.
The Great Larry J. Lust, Major General, US Army (Retired) was one of my commanding officers. He and I occasionally communicate and while he made me crazy at times when I worked for him, I appreciate his honor, integrity and kindness greatly. And, in addition to being a royal pain in the ass, I have to acknowledge that his requirements resulted in my doing some of my best work as a First Sergeant and eventually figured out that was actually the idea for all of the COSCOM.
The boss and I stay in loose contact. He sends out some weekly bits of advice, and frankly, some of them are kind of weird, but most of them are both relevant and worth thinking. The weirdness I attribute to him being from Kansas and a Republican. Anyway, he recently sent a couple, and I have incorporated them into my rules for living.
So, here are my rules for living. I invite comment. Citations provided where they exist and are not syntheses from my fevered mind.
1. Don't be a jerk.
2. Nobody has to be in charge, but if the situation requires and nobody else wants to be in charge or can do it well, take charge but do it as well as possible.
3. In the face of jerks, see rule 1.
4. In anger, take a deep breath, close your eyes and turn away for a minute. Gain composure and return to conversation. Scares the hell out of the bastards...and makes your point.
5. Somethings are worth dying for; most things are not. Choose wisely. No mere job is worth an aneurysm.
6. There are only two things in life -- things we can control, things we can't. Focus effort on what you can control but watch the other stuff carefully. (My loose translation from Epictetus.)
7. Things are always screwed up. So, any improvement, no matter how slight, is a meaningful accomplishment. (My loose translation from Marcus Aurelius)
8. Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living; I say, the unexamined life is not led. (Kierkegaard, The Concluding Unscientific Postscript)
9. The true measure of an individual is how he or she treats others who can do him or her absolutely no good. (L.J. Lust, MG, USA)
10. Anger is an honest emotion. William James) You have the right to be angry; you don't have the right to be cruel. (L.J. Lust, MG, USA)
11. I beseech thee, by the bowels of our Lord Jesus Christ, to remember that thee may be wrong! (Noted Liberation Theologian and Democratic Activist, Oliver Cromwell)
12. Some days you do things that change the world; some days, you pardon a turkey. (Barrack Obama) So, do what you are doing as best you can without regard for the consequences. (Ignatius Loyola)
Not Lust, but Cromwell
After retirement, General Lust went off to war again, this time in Iraq as a senior Manager with KBR. We communicated occasionally, and I got the strong feeling that he wasn't happy with the situation, but thought that he could make a difference. I do know that stress, heat, and the fact that retired generals are by definition old farts caught up and he had some severe health problems. On home leave, he had a serious health issue, and his wife and high school sweetheart dragged his reluctant old ass off to the emergency room and he got to leave KBR. He's never shared with me, but I got the strong impression that he ultimately decided that was a better result than going back. He now is a faculty member at the Command and General Staff College and I shudder to think of his attention to detail, wit and directness applied to a paper of mine. Fortunately, I'm not one of his students or subordinates today; just a friend.
As the Army returns to full spectrum warfare which used to be called High Intensity warfare which was called Airland Battle which was called Warfighting...anyway, in 2006 General Lust pointed out to me that he was meeting lots of Armored Battalion Officers who had never qualified a company at Tank Gunnery who were now Battalion S3s or XOs as well as Brigade Commanders who had never qualified a battalion at Gunnery. I was finding tank mechanics who had never worked on a tank after AIT that we were hiring at the NTC to work on tracks. Kind of an interesting conundrum there, ehh?We both politely indicated that we thought this was just a helluva problem and worried about what was going to happen to our Army. Guess we still do. Well, neither one of us is in the Defense Contracting business anymore, and I doubt the Russians are going to invade Western Europe anytime soon. But...
I think the old man will be happy with the company. Well, maybe not Obama and Cromwell. Maybe Cromwell -- in addition to regicide and religious dictatorship, Cromwell started off as a pretty strong Cavalry Commander. So did Lust.
As for the Music, well, probably the Allison Krause. Maybe not Traffic. But, we're all about the same age and he's surprised me before.
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