Memorial Day Weekend

At a time when our president and other politicians tend to apologize for our country's prior actions, here's a refresher on how some of our former patriots handled negative comments about our country.

JFK'S Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France in the early 60's when
DeGaulle decided to pull out of NATO. DeGaulle said he wanted all US
Military out of France as soon as possible.

Rusk responded,
"Does that include those who are buried here?"

DeGaulle
Did not respond.

You could have heard a pin drop.


When in England, at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the
Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of 'empire building' by George Bush.

He answered by saying,
"Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return."

You could have heard a pin drop.


There was a conference in France where a number of international engineers
Were taking part, including French and American. During a break, one of the French engineers came back into the room saying, "Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intend to do, bomb them?"

A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly:
"Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?"

You could have heard a pin drop.

A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies. At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a French admiral suddenly complained that, whereas Europeans learn many Languages, Americans learn only English. He then asked, "Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than peaking French?"

Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied, "Maybe it's because the
Brit's, Canadians, Aussie's and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't have to speak German."

You could have heard a pin drop.

And this story fits right in with the above ...

Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane.

At French Customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport inhis carry on.

"You have been to France before, monsieur?" the customs officer asked
Sarcastically.

Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously.


"Then you should know enough to have your passport ready."

The American said, "The last time I was here, I didn't have to show it."

"Impossible... Americans always have to show their passports on arrival in France!"

The American senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he quietly explained, ''Well, when I came ashore at OmahaBeach on D-Day in 1944 to help liberate this country, I couldn't find a single Frenchmen to show a passport to."

You could have heard a pin drop.

Who killed Bin Laden?

Here's a Marine's answer:
"America is not at war, the US Marines are at war; America is at the mall."
Let's be clear on this: OBAMA did NOT kill Bin Laden.
An American sailor, who Obama, just a few weeks before, was debating on whether or not to PAY, did!
In fact, if you remember a little less than two years ago, his administration actually charged and attempted to court-martial three Navy Seals from Seal Team Six, when a terrorist suspect they captured, complained they had punched him during the take-down and bloodied his nose.
Obama's administration further commented how brutal they were. The left were calling them Nazi's and Baby Killers.
Now all of a sudden, the very brave men they vilified are now heroes when they make his administration look good in the eyes of the public.
Obama just happened to be the one in office when the CIA finally found the guy and our sailors took him out.
Essentially, Obama only gave an answer, Yes or No, to him being taken out.
This is NOT an Obama victory, but an AMERICAN victory!!
Ed Schreiber
Col. US MC (Ret)
"Semper Fi"
OBAMA'S OWN WORDS TRAP HIM:
2008: "Navy Seal Team 6 is Cheney's private assassination team."
2011: "I put together Seal Team 6 to take out Bin Laden."
2008: "Bin Laden is innocent until proven guilty, and must be captured alive and given a fair trial."
2011: "I authorized Seal Team 6 to kill Bin Laden."
2008: "Guantanamo is entirely unnecessary, and the detainees should not be interrogated."
2011: "Vital intelligence was obtained from Guantanamo detainees that led to our locating Bin Laden."

Basement Poem

Trees are trimmed, wreaths are hung, which means it's time for the annual White House "basement poem," written and recited with limited fanfare each yuletide season by one of the correspondents confined to the basement press room of the White House.

This year, Greg Clugston of the Salem Radio Network did the honors (and yes, we can confirm that White House spokeswoman Dana Perino ducked downstairs for the reading). Here's a shortened version:

'Twas the night before Christmas and in the White House,

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

Stockings were hung in the West Wing with care,

In hopes a war supplemental soon would be there.

The president was asleep, all snug in his bed,

While visions of vetoes danced in his head.

Clashes with Democrats he won again and again,

Squashing their bills with a stroke of his pen.

S-CHIP and stem cells were both turned away,

And Bush rejected timetables for troops in harm's way.

The president "surged" more troops into Iraq,

Helping lower violence and suicide attacks.

He lobbied for FISA to connect terrorist dots,

Tying Speaker Pelosi and Reid up in knots.

Bush's low approval numbers remained a bitter pill,

Except when comparing them to leaders on the Hill.

All of a sudden there arose such a clatter,

Dubya jumped up to see what was the matter.

And what to wondering eyes did appear?

A man wearing nothing — but holiday cheer.

There stood Musharraf, risking laughter and scorn,

Making good on a pledge to take off his uniform.

Next, Santa arrived on his toy-laden sleigh,

With a top-secret document from the C I of A.

Bush read the intel: no nukes in Iran,

So much for launching a military plan.

And I heard him exclaim after reading the NIE:

"Merry Christmas to all, forget World War Three!"

Washington Times
"Inside The Beltway"
December 17, 2007

Progressive Deadening Of Conscience

"It is sometimes discouraging to see how small the Christian peace movement is, and especially here in America where it is most necessary.
But we have to remember that this is the usual pattern, and the Bible has led us to expect it.
Spiritual work is done with disproportionately small and feeble instruments.
And now above all when everything is so utterly complex, and when people collapse under the burden of confusions and cease to think at all, it is natural that few may want to take on the burden of trying to effect something in the moral and spiritual way, in political action.
Yet this is precisely what has to be done.

[T]he great danger is that under the pressure of anxiety and fear,
the alternation of crisis and relaxation and new crisis,
the people of the world will come to accept gradually the idea of war,
the idea of submission to total power, and
the abdication of reason, spirit and individual conscience.

The great peril of the cold war is
the progressive deadening of conscience.

[I] rely very much on your help and friendship. Send me anything you think will be of service to the cause of peace, and pray that in all things I may act wisely."

-- Thomas Merton,
"Letter to Jean and Hildegard Goss-Mayer,"
The Hidden Ground of Love. Letters, Volume 1: 325-326

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It is the feast of St. Hilary [January 14], Doctor of the Church, who said:

"The best way to solve the problem of rendering
to Caesar what is Caesar's is to have nothing that is Caesar's."

-- Thomas Merton,
The Hidden Ground of Love: 337

'Supporting the troops' means withdrawing them

From my email today, a former shipmate sent this to me and I pass it along without additional comment.

'Supporting the troops' means withdrawing them

COMMENTARY July 05, 2007

Gen. William Odom writes that opponents of the war should focus public attention on the fact that Bush’s obstinate refusal to admit defeat is causing the troops enormous psychological as well as physical harm.

By William E. Odom

Every step the Democrats in Congress have taken to force the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq has failed. Time and again, President Bush beats them into submission with charges of failing to "support the troops."

Why do the Democrats allow this to happen? Because they let the president define what "supporting the troops" means. His definition is brutally misleading. Consider what his policies are doing to the troops.

No U.S. forces have ever been compelled to stay in sustained combat conditions for as long as the Army units have in Iraq. In World War II, soldiers were considered combat-exhausted after about 180 days in the line. They were withdrawn for rest periods. Moreover, for weeks at a time, large sectors of the front were quiet, giving them time for both physical and psychological rehabilitation. During some periods of the Korean War, units had to fight steadily for fairly long periods but not for a year at a time. In Vietnam, tours were one year in length, and combat was intermittent with significant break periods.

In Iraq, combat units take over an area of operations and patrol it daily, making soldiers face the prospect of death from an IED or small arms fire or mortar fire several hours each day. Day in and day out for a full year, with only a single two-week break, they confront the prospect of death, losing limbs or eyes, or suffering other serious wounds. Although total losses in Iraq have been relatively small compared to most previous conflicts, the individual soldier is risking death or serious injury day after day for a year. The impact on the psyche accumulates, eventually producing what is now called "post-traumatic stress disorders." In other words, they are combat-exhausted to the point of losing effectiveness. The occasional willful killing of civilians in a few cases is probably indicative of such loss of effectiveness. These incidents don't seem to occur during the first half of a unit's deployment in Iraq.

After the first year, following a few months back home, these same soldiers are sent back for a second year, then a third year, and now, many are facing a fourth deployment! Little wonder more and more soldiers and veterans are psychologically disabled.

And the damage is not just to enlisted soldiers. Many officers are suffering serious post-traumatic stress disorders but are hesitant to report it – with good reason. An officer who needs psychiatric care and lets it appear on his medical records has most probably ended his career. He will be considered not sufficiently stable to lead troops. Thus officers are strongly inclined to avoid treatment and to hide their problems.

There are only two ways to fix this problem, both of which the president stubbornly rejects. Instead, his recent "surge" tactic has compelled the secretary of defense to extend Army tours to 15 months! (The Marines have been allowed to retain their six-month deployment policy and, not surprisingly, have fewer cases of post-traumatic stress syndrome.)

The first solution would be to expand the size of the Army to two or three times its present level, allowing shorter combat tours and much longer breaks between deployments. That cannot be done rapidly enough today, even if military conscription were restored and new recruits made abundant. It would take more than a year to organize and train a dozen new brigade combat teams. The Clinton administration cut the Army end strength by about 40 percent – from about 770,000 to 470,000 during the 1990s. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld looked for ways to make the cuts even deeper. Thus this administration and its predecessor aggressively gave up ground forces and tactical air forces while maintaining large maritime forces that cannot be used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sadly, the lack of wisdom in that change in force structure is being paid for not by President Bush or President Clinton but by the ordinary soldier and his family. They have no lobby group to seek relief for them.

The second way to alleviate the problem is to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq as soon as possible and as securely as possible. The electorate understands this. That is why a majority of voters favor withdrawing from Iraq.

If the Democrats truly want to succeed in forcing President Bush to begin withdrawing from Iraq, the first step is to redefine "supporting the troops" as withdrawing them, citing the mass of accumulating evidence of the psychological as well as the physical damage that the president is forcing them to endure because he did not raise adequate forces. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress could confirm this evidence and lay the blame for "not supporting the troops" where it really belongs – on the president. And they could rightly claim to the public that they are supporting the troops by cutting off the funds that he uses to keep U.S. forces in Iraq.
The public is ahead of the both branches of government in grasping this reality, but political leaders and opinion makers in the media must give them greater voice.

Congress clearly and indisputably has two powers over the executive:
the power of the purse and the power to impeach. Instead of using either, members of congress are wasting their time discussing feckless measures like a bill that "de-authorizes the war in Iraq." That is toothless unless it is matched by a cut-off of funds.

The president is strongly motivated to string out the war until he leaves office, in order to avoid taking responsibility for the defeat he has caused and persisted in making greater each year for more than three years.

To force him to begin a withdrawal before then, the first step should be to rally the public by providing an honest and candid definition of what "supporting the troops" really means and pointing out who is and who is not supporting our troops at war. The next step should be a flat refusal to appropriate money for to be used in Iraq for anything but withdrawal operations with a clear deadline for completion.

The final step should be to put that president on notice that if ignores this legislative action and tries to extort Congress into providing funds by keeping U.S. forces in peril, impeachment proceeding will proceed in the House of Representatives. Such presidential behavior surely would constitute the "high crime" of squandering the lives of soldiers and Marines for his own personal interest.

Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army (Ret.), is a Senior Fellow with Hudson Institute and a professor at Yale University. He was Director of the National Security Agency from 1985 to 1988. From 1981 to 1985, he served as Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, the Army's senior intelligence officer. From 1977 to 1981, he was Military Assistant to the President's Assistant for National Security Affairs, Zbigniew Brzezinski.

The Service Of Peace

Peace is Shalom --- well-being of mind, heart, and body, individually and communally.
It can exist in the midst of a war-torn world, even in the midst of unresolved problems and increasing human conflicts.
Jesus made that peace by giving his life for his brothers and sisters.
This is no easy peace, but it is everlasting and it comes from God.
Are we willing to give our lives in the service of peace?

--Henri Nouwen

Am I willing to give my life in service of peace?

Don't Enlist

Finally, someone recommending the people take the power to end the war or fight it right – if there is such a thing or way. I pray everyday that the young men and women serving our country are keep from harms way. To bad the government does not – especially the madness on Capitol Hill.

Until the war ends, my prays will continue.

I also include another story about soldiers. Check it out:

http://countrycontemplative.wordpress.com/2007/05/17/soldiers/


From The Dilbert Blog:

Don’t Enlist:

http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/05/dont_enlist.html

By Scott_Adams on General Nonsense

I was reading an article about the newish armored vehicles with V-shaped hulls for withstanding IED attacks. Apparently no one has ever been killed by an IED blast in one of these particular vehicles despite thousands of encounters. The military bought 300 of them. They have 35,000 regular Humvees.

Does it seem like we’re trying hard enough to protect the troops?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-10-30-iraq-buffalos_x.htm

I realize it probably isn’t easy to build these special vehicles in mass production. And it’s absurdly expensive. But are we putting a war-level effort into increasing production capacity? I don’t recall seeing a story to that effect.

My recommendation to young people: Don’t enlist.

The majority of the country opposes the war in Iraq, but we don’t seem to have much power to do anything but wait out the clock. 18-to-21 year olds could end the war in six months. All they have to do is stop enlisting. In the short term, it wouldn’t have much impact on military capacity or the defense of the nation. But the threat of a future impact would shock the system and cause some sort of immediate action.

If young people want a career in the military, they could put it off a year, or at least until the government gets serious about building more IED-resistant vehicles. If enlistment drops to near zero, the government has to consider a draft. And it won’t do that because they have too many kids of their own who are draft age.

It’s ironic that people between the ages of 18 and 21 are the only American adults not allowed to drink. And yet they are the only ones who can stop the war in Iraq in the near term. Or if they prefer, at least cause more IED-resistant vehicles to be built.

That’s a lot of power.