A friend emailed me this link to a video of a baseball play that now has been recorded as one of the top 100 plays made….but…it’s not really about baseball.

In Apr, 1976, Rick Monday made a play that saved a flag from being burned on the field. Enjoy the clip with Rick telling the story this year of that incident 30 years ago.

Last year I came across an article about a group of women who are an institution, and like their mostly hidden existance: The Arlington Ladies.

Here is my post, copied from the archives, as my Memorial Day tribute to those who serve in a quiet, but special way:

The American Spectator of May 2005. A “random” pick up from the magazine rack. Memorial Day approaching. Page 12 – Humbleness defined. I know nothing is coincidental. The article is “The Arlington Ladies – American Voluteerism at Its Most Moving.”

By Shawn Macomber Published 5/27/2005 12:09:54 AM THE STORY OF THE ARLINGTON LADIES stretches back to a day in 1948 when Air Force Chief of Staff General Hoyt Vandenberg happened upon the funeral of an airman at Arlington. What he saw disturbed him: There wasn’t a soul at the service, save the chaplain and the Honor Guard members conducting it.”
At the link above, you can read the article. Here’s the short version: Beginning in 1948, the wife of Air Force Chief of Staff, General Hoyt Vanderberg, Gladys, began attending funerals of the fallen at Arlington National Cemetary so no one would not have someone at their funeral, and, even if they did, the Arlington Ladies would be there to support the family as necessary. In 1972, the Army Arlington Ladies “stood up.” In 1985, the Navy began it’s “watch.” The Marines will always have a representative from the Commandant’s Office at every Marine funeral at Arlington. Compassion comes to mind. The women who have done this seek no recognition in these forums. They are there for the fallen, not for us. It is but one more example of the bond of the military family so many of us have been a part of, or are still. It is a read fitting for such a weekend, to show how the spouses of our military have honored our dead.

This year, The American Specator presents another fine article, quoting Ben Stein as he spoke to families who have lost service members.

A bad day for me is when I get stuck in traffic or have a toothache or notice that I have gained weight or my teenage son is surly.

A bad day for you is realizing that the only man or woman you have ever loved is gone for this lifetime.

There are more fine words in this article. Read and consider the message for us all in it.

Update: Greyhawk published some last letters home from those who aren’t with us. Iwth that post are also links to contirbute to the family members left behind.

Smash has a lengthy and excellent post about taking the Scouts to the National Cememtary at Ft Rosecrans in San Diego today. He had the opportunity to make a headstone into a living memory to a Scoutmaster while he was there.

H/T: Eagle1 from a MilBlogs post.

Thanks to Little Green Footballs for the opportunity to share such information with his readership.

Many a navigator of the US Navy, having a beer, or two, or an adult beverage while on Shore Leave, may have been sucked into the evil plot of napkins pretending to be navigational charts in foreign, or maybe even domestic waters (not to be confused with domestic beer, unless its a “lite” variation).

I will assure you readers, that you don’t know me from press releases while I was a Navigator aboard a warship. I never fell for this insidious plot of the enemy to cuase us to ground our vessels due to outdated and inadequate charts….

More wierd waring labels can be found here, courtesy of the Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch.

HT: 1492.

Thanks to Mudville Gazette for the Open Post!

An open letter to all of the members of Congress

Dear Congress People;

I think I once learned I was one of those “We the People” in some document about this country. I may be wrong, but I’m going on that premise, so please bear with me.

I believe you are also some of those people and that would mean all of use are working within the game rules of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitiution of the United States (as modified by the Bill of Rights and other ratified amendments).

What’s the big deal about the FBI searching one of your offices? Most all of you are lawyers, so I think there should be more of you that understand the rule of law better than us “little people” who aren’t popular enough to have been sent to do the business of a Nation, and at this point in history, the best one there is. So, when there is a crime being committed in your very midst, why shouldn’t a judge use his judgement, when he is presented the case, in authorizing a search where there is the reasonable cause to believe the evidence is there?

Unless you have become completely detached from reality, it certainly seems most everyone in the country seems to not want criminals in their presense, most particulalry when they are actively participating in such activity.

we (us little people) have heard some of you, very emotionally, complain that you thought the President (several of them by the way) was acting as thought they were above the law. While I haven’t heard it said, it seems to me that someone who would claim there was some sort of illegal activity that interefered with the authority of one branch of the Government by another branch, it almost sounds to me like there is something to hide. You make laws that require the common person to have some of their data retained and then chide those who complain with statements like “If you’re not doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide?”

I’d ask that question of you (collectively). If there’s nothing wrong being done, then there would not have been an opportunity to have this discussion in the first place. By grandstanding about this issue of law maker’s offices being searched being bad, you aren’t really building a lot of confidence in me that all is right in your world.

My humble advice: Act like you are part of the “we the People” like the rest of us. That means if you are doing something wrong, face it and the consequences that follow.

Oh, and better yet: Follow the very laws of the land that you craft and send forward for the President’s signature. Big hint here: It keeps you from having to face ugly consequences.

I’ll trust you a lot more if you begin doing that and I suspect your approval ratings, which are kinda tanked right now, will get much, much better.

I feel pretty embarassed to be giving such common sense advice to people of your exeperience and education, but the current events make me think you’ve lost your common sense.

Thanks for letting me share, but I feel better thanking a bunch of dead men, who had real character and foresight, for seeing the freedom of expression was a vital thing for a healthy society. It was them who gave the rights to me, not you.

While listening to Bill Bennet’s talk show enroute work this morning, he said this:

“You remain an alien to your culture if your history is denied.”

I believe he said that was said by someone named Kolkowski, but I might be mistaken.

It certainly rings true. Consider that fact the school boards all around the country are busy purging non-“PC” text books from use.

Consider how politicians and other public figures can stand before us in person and in the media and make blod faced lies about history, for the education system has long since ceased teaching history in favor of other subjects.

If you don’t have a clue as to what’s being talked about, then they can say anything. Thanks, NEA, for the dumbimg down of the American youth. ANd BTW, NEA members, don’t complain about the workload caused by standardized testing, which controls the flow of federal funds to you, for you willingly accepted less from the students, so as to not hurt their feelings, and now the tests are just a logical consequence of trying to hold you accountable for earning your paycheck now…

The MSM seems stuck on a diet of fear, which has the ability to cause readers to pay more attention, and therefore more attention is also paid to the advertizing. Once those things are connected, then the MSM can show the potential advertizers just how much more they can make, so they should pay for more/larger ads….

New Orleans. A Cat 5 storm headed in. People stranded and then isolated. Cries that the government didn’t protect them, feed them, or even care about them as bands of criminals roved about, doing what they do with impunity. I know, you know all that, because CNN/seeBS/NBC, etc told you all about the horrors.

Then, strangely enough, the stories of the bands of criminals is debunked, and reported, but in muted stories from the MSM.

So, if you’re interested in how much more wrong the media was, in their reporting of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina coming to the Gulf Coast, get a cup of coffe, find a comfortable chair and get ready to see the record set straight.

Lou Dolinar lays it out over at Real Clear Politics in the post Katrina: What the Media Missed.”

Maybe it’s more aptly titled: “Katrina: What They Wouldn’t Report for Fear of Losing Their Grip on Your Aversion to Fear.”

I hope you have taken (or will take) the time to read that the greatest rescue in history was affected by members of the regualrly belittled federal government, as well as hard working people locally, particularly the first responders. They deserve acknowledgement, yet I suspect that won’t happen in the open press, for someone might raise the question: “Why didn’t you tell us this before?”

H/T: Castle Argghhh!

I picked this up from Little Green Footballs this morning.

It seems a man named Jessie MacBeth has done an interview regarding his time in Iraq as a Ranger. The interview is done in three parts over on YouTube and are quite interesting to listen to, if only to hear a clear echo of testimony from the 1970’s by a man named John Kerry.

As far as looking at details that provide indications as to the supporting facts, Uncle Jimbo, with his tag team partner, Matt lend their life experience of many years of Army life (with much time spent in the Special Operations world between them) and…they think the dude is a fake. They and their cxommenters point out dramatic irregularities with the photo Jessie has on the net. It seems many uniform infractions are noted, and that, wouldn’t be allowed in one of those official pictures.

Me? Well, I’m a Navy guy who went to an Amry school. I will say I spent time playing agressor against the Army ROTC guys, at the urging omy my Army ROTC classmates, who did go to Ranger School during summer time. From the stories they told, and having spent four years with these men, Jessie sure doesn’t seem to be the type that would have lasted in such training, let alone a Ranger field unit.

I found it strange that Jessie never seemed to digress into a worl of what most civilians would consider a strange language, full of acroynms and codewords. There are at least four “dialects” spoken, with the uniquness a relation to the service branch, and then there is also “Chief” or “Sargent” subdialects, but I digress. Jessie used the term “hooah” once in the early part of the interview, and, as I reflect on that, it didn’t seem like more than a word to him. I’d have thought a Ranger would use it as though it was a natural part of his vocabulary, with a noticable “accent” to it. Throughout the rest of the speaking, he spoke English that just about anyone could follow, except for his stutter. I think his stuttering would have also been a major problem with him getting into any unit where rapid and consise communications demark the difference between life and death.

Lisening to him talk, I heard:

• The war was based on lies;
• The war was for oil;
• Our country has become the terrorists;
• Our men had killed, in cold blood, Iraqi civilians “I didn’t keep count, but at least 200 by my hand;”
• He loved his country;
• He would fight for this country, but not for the President;
• The only fighting he would do was to get George Bush out of office.

Pardon me, but aren’t almost all of those sentiments/statements the same ones used by John Kerry in the early 70s? The model is even the same, where a service member claims the military is commiting genocide, and he even was a part of it. He needs a great lawyer, if his statements are true, for he is what we would call a serial murderer, and, if he had bothered to spent a few moments reading history, specifically the reports of the Nuremburg Trials, he would know that following orders of your superiors is no defense at all for your immoral actions.

Jessie seemed pretty calm when discussing the entire issue. I have a good friend who is working thru PTSD from his days as a Marine in Vietnam. He still tells me, even within his group therapy, it is difficult to discuss many things that happened back then, and he is a strong man. Jessie seems to be a wallflower, and not really affected by the brutality of killing 200 people himslef, let alone the many others he claims to have witnessed in the building the Air Force bombed.

The bottom line to me: His story is superficial to the point I’d say he may never have been in the service, but if he was, he was an administrative or logisitcs worker, far, far from the front. In addition, he doesn’t have the demeanor of ex-service personnel.

I think this young man got handed a script, prepared by anti-war activists, and he memorized it. I think he got sold down the river and the blogosphere will soon have cross-examined enough of Jessie’s life to proclaim this is just one more hoax in a series.

Update 5/23/2006: As Jim Neighbors would have said….”SURPRISE!, SURPRISE!, SURPRISE!!!!” It seems Jessie’s Army service record is not found in the US ARMY records. The many of “An Army of Davids” chimed in well within 24 hours and ferreted out the truth based on their discrete knowledge. BZ!

On the other hand, the interview didn’t have to be around long in this counrty, only long enough to get loose, like a bad case of the swine flu. I’m sure many people in the rest of the world have downloaded the three parts from YouTube and they are making their rounds to whip up anti-US opinion.

All we need now is Dan Rather to come back to comment on how the Jessie MacBeth videos were fake, but accurate…

I was in the Staff Office early that morning, as I was Duty Officer. I hadn’t been in the door but a few minutes when the phone rang. The voice was all too familiar, barking orders as soon as I said my name into the phone. Capt Wes Jordan, Chief of Staff at COMNAVSURFLANT began ordering me to pull all the MEFEX (Middle East Force Exercise) training records from the previous summer.
He told me the news of the STARK being attacked, in his to the point manner, and told me to get the files down to his office right away. This order, while not from my current Commodore, was easily interpreted as one of priority.

Capt Jordan, no longer the DESRON 32 Commodore, retained a tremendous amount of info on just about everything, including the record keeping he had required when we had sailed on our work up exercises for a Med deployment. The USS STARK (FFG-31) had tagged along with the battle group to get her training in, as there wasn’t a dedicated fleet exercise for those few ships then deploying to the Middle East force AOR. That being the case, we had her daily exercise completion reports filed along with those of the rest of the ships on the FLTEX.

I opened one of the classified safes and began retrieving the thick folders of exercise messages. As I Was involved in this process, the Commodore, Capt Joe Lopez, and the Chief Staff Officer, CDR Dewey Collier arrived. I recall turning around from the tall stand up safe and telling them about the phone call. Capt Lopez’s expression was one that indicated he wasn’t too happy with the chain of command being jumped over (about three steps to be exact) and then he told me to get the files and get them down to SURFLANT.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the “junior blog” a few days ago, I posted a proposal for pulling together lessons learned to be passed on to those who are getting ready to enter “the real world,” particularly those headed for entry into the service. I think it’s time to get to work.

If you’re not following this well, check the post on the archives to see if that helps fill in the understanding gaps.

I have set up a rough cut blog for the purpose of posting articles or links to widom gathers from the “Old (fill in your name or nickname for your branch of service here)” and to collect them in a sinlge places for others to come along and peruse them.

http://operationforwardpass.com is the place I decided to launch from, and then it may grow to it’s own domain from there. It will take a few hours for the domain name to go through, and then I’ll connect the dots and make it viable for use. The first cut will be cave-man basic, but functional.

If you have stories, emails, letters, etc, etc, etc, that helped you survive your “re-education process, please submit it to me, either by a link, or as the text you’d like shared.

I’m going to work off the premise the general topic areas will fall into a few main areas:

• Boot Camp
• Officer Indoctrination
• Officer Commissioning (Academies, ROTC, OCS)

I’m looking forward to reading the collected wisdom and enthused that the ‘net gives us a vehicle to keep it from being lost for all time. If you can recall the purveyor of the wisdom, please pass that along and I’ll make sure it’s highlighted to honor that person’s contribution to the military members who followed them.

Questions? Email, or post comments here….

Disgusting and that’s not strong enough a word for this blatant effort by the Islamic terrorists to make even more people cringe and turn against the war in Iraq. In fact, they want you to step back from the entire GWoT. The only problem is as you step back, they step forward.

I have regularly asked (in a virtual rhetorical format via this blog) just where are all the NOW women, and I now call to the male “feminists” as well. What’s your response to the throat slitting of Atwar Buhjat?

At some point, you whiny liberal, “peace loving” people, I have bad news for you:

If you persist in your efforts to derail the free world from taking this group of criminals and sadists down, who have not perverted their religion, they are just strict adherents of the teaching of Mohammed, one day your back will be against the wall and your throat will be next.

How ironic, you call for peace, it is peace through weakness. These people were breed in a part of the world where to show a lack of strength is not only losing face, but also designates you as a target for attack. You have to study the cultural issues before you pontificate from your safe place, having grown up in a society that is full of compassion for those around them and that doesn’t resort to killing anyone who sends a signal that they are a threat to the current person in power.

Most unfortunately, you cannot stop improperly used strength by having none of your own. It’s a nice thought that one day we could, but while the president of Iran threatens to build nuclear weapons, and use them for no other reason then to destroy a culture he has been raised to blame for his own countries ills (sound familiar? Yep, same argument Mr. Hitler used to get into power in Germany in the 1930s….study it…it is happening again), I’d think you’d be buying plane tickets to go to hold up your daiseys in Teheran and also Sadr City, but there haven’t been any news reports of a mass migration of “peace loving people” in the news. What’s wrong? Afraid you’ll be carted off to prison and your lawyer friends won’t be able to get you out on bail before you are tortured (maybe with an electric drill) before you are summarily beheaded or shot in cold blood?

Go ahead…keep it up, they’ll be sure to thank you by shaking your hands for your efforts to defeat George Bush, and any other president who will do the hard and right thing to protect us, before they place a hand around you, in order to keep you still while they take their 8″ blade to your jugular arteries.

Now, a solution, for I hate “idea men” who can only complain, but not give you a way to fix it:

Your only hope, in the long run, is to not only support the troops, but to support the war. Thank the young men and women who daily sit 6000 miles from their family just for you. They may not know you, but they know you love freedom as they do, and they have the courage to raise their right hand and make the commitment for all of us.

In the short term, get your letter writing campaign to the terrorist leaders and the president of Iran. Tell them to stop, and boycott their products and services (oops! Pardon me, but just what is it they produce other than death, slavery and mahem?). How about booking your plane tickets to Israel, where you can be human shields to prevent another major event of genocide.

As for the women of the world, and Alan Alda, time to (SU)³!

Little Green Footballs reports the same story, but the comments on posts there are always good reading.

H/T: Mudville Gazette.