The weekend starts today. Over the Memorial Day Weekend I will be posting a number of articles, pictures, and videos to commemorate Memorial Day. Here is our first–The Homecoming for Robert Bayne. He gave all.
Calvin and Kenneth Bayne stood silently among Army officers, watching their brother’s remains transferred from a plane to a waiting hearse. Kenneth kept his hand on his heart. Calvin saluted and then walked directly to the flag-draped casket and kissed it.
The somber ceremony on a tarmac at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport offered the two men the first tangible contact with their older brother in more than 66 years. Pfc. Robert B. Bayne went missing in action in 1945 as he fought along the Rhine River near Mannheim, Germany. The Army officially identified his body in March of this year, largely spurred by the constant urging of the 83-year-old fraternal twins who were teens when the man they called “Buddy” enlisted.Read More
The mayor of Virginia Beach wants to honor the Navy Seals who killed Bin Laden. The secret military unit deploys out of a tiny military installation at Dam Neck, Virginia, right outside Virginia Beach. The problem with the mayor’s plans is, the unit is too secretive for the mayor to know who they are or how to find them. That’s just the way that unit works.
The Washington Post had a very interesting article about Navy SEALs:
But while such discretion is a prerequisite for covert operations, it raises practical hurdles for a mayor who is used to the cheering crowds that welcome home aircraft carriers to the naval base in Norfolk.
“This community is extremely proud. I’d like to come up with a way to have a city celebration of some kind. If we can!” said Sessoms, whose initial thought was to include the SEALs in the city’s “Patriotic Festival” in June. “But it’s challenging.”
Other Virginia politicians were able to overlook such details, satisfied with the knowledge that that men who killed bin Laden had a connection to the Old Dominion state. Former Republican Senator and current candidate George Allen tweeted: “As Virginians were hit at the Pentagon on 9-11 & USS Cole, it is appropriate that a VA-based SEAL team brought justice directly to #Osama.”
I just finished watching Restrepo. It is available on Netflix. It will also be shown again on NatGeo Monday night at 9 pm. We have been so protected from our wars. Only military families have suffered. Industry and defense contractors have gotten rich. The rest of us have basically remained untouched.
The war in Afghanistan is costing 2 billion dollars a week. Our troops are being asked to be social workers. Meanwhile, those same troops are suffering death, horrible brain injuries, loss of limb and overall life-altering injuries. Military families have suffered because also because of the multiply deployments. Children have grown up without a parent and spouses have spent 10 years with partners popping in and out of their lives.
Fox News’ defense correspondent, Jennifer Griffin, reported on Monday that the British army had been due to fire seven missiles at Gaddafi’s compound. But the attack was held off, she said, because Libya had brought journalists from CNN, Reuters, the AP, the Times of London and other news outlets to the compound for what, in the government’s words, was a press tour. According to Griffin, the actual reason for bringing the journalists to the compound was to “effectively use them as human shields.”
Speaking to Fox News’ John Roberts, Griffin said that Fox News had kept its correspondent in the region, Steve Harrigan, away from the tour because the network was “concerned they could be used as human shields.”
In an interview with Wolf Blitzer later on Monday, CNN’s senior international correspondent, Nic Robertson, who was one of the reporters on the tour, lashed out at Fox News. He called the report “outrageous and absolutely hypocritical,” and said that, when you come to somewhere like Libya, you expect lies and deceit from the dictatorship here. You don’t expect it from the other journalists.”
Robertson’s report certainly differs a great deal from Faux News’ report. Why would they lie?
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen provided an update regarding the military situation in Libya. “I would say that the no-fly zone is effectively in place,” said Mullen, outlining the ultimate goal as being threefold: successfully establishing the no-fly zone, arresting Gaddafi’s ability to massacre his own people, and making possible the entry of humanitarian assistance into Libya. “While the United States leads this right now,” said Mullen, “we expect in the next few days to hand that leadership off to a coalition-led operation, and the United States recede somewhat to the background in support.”
So where do we stand? What do we hope to achieve? Are we leading the pack or are we part of a coalition? Who is the boss? Who pays the bills? Humanitarian assistance sort of says ‘boots on the ground’ doesn’t it? Are we trying to take Gaddafi out or not? If not, then why are we bombing his compound?
All of this is very confusing. Don’t we think most wars will be over in a week or 2?
Remember last week when the Frank Buckles, the only surviving veteran of WWI died? His death is not without controversy. From Foxnews.com:
CHARLES TOWN, West Virginia — The daughter of Frank Buckles, who was the last American veteran of World War I, is urging lawmakers to let him lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C., the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported Sunday.
Susannah Buckles Flanagan said her father, who served as a military ambulance driver, wanted to lie in the rotunda to honor the memory of all WWI veterans.
“He looked upon this as his final duty, which he took seriously,” she said.
“If the last American soldier surviving is not suitable to serve as a symbol around which we can rally to honor those who served their country in the Great War, then who can serve that purpose? There is no one left,” she said in a letter released Saturday.Read More
The last living WWI veteran Frank Buckles of West Virginia died Sunday at age 110. His death was not unexpected. Buckles was born in Missouri. At age 16, he wiggled his way into the military by lying about his age. 90 years later, he had the distinction of being the only surviving WWI veteran,
In 1917 and 1918, close to 5 million Americans served in World War I, and Mr. Buckles, a cordial fellow of gentle humor, was the last known survivor. “I knew there’d be only one someday,” he said a few years back. “I didn’t think it would be me.”
His daughter, Susannah Buckles Flanagan, said Mr. Buckles, a widower, died of natural causes on his West Virginia farm, where she had been caring for him.
Buckles’ distant generation was the first to witness the awful toll of modern, mechanized warfare. As time thinned the ranks of those long-ago U.S. veterans, the nation hardly noticed them vanishing, until the roster dwindled to one ex-soldier, embraced in his final years by an appreciative public.
“Frank was a history book in and of himself, the kind you can’t get at the library,” said his friend, Muriel Sue Kerr. Having lived from the dawn of the 20th century, he seemed to never tire of sharing his and the country’s old memories – of the First World War, of roaring prosperity and epic depression, and of a second, far more cataclysmic global conflict, which he barely survived
Another piece of living history has been lost to the annals of time. There are no living survivors of WWI. How long before we will be forced to say the same about those who served in WWII?
A starving North Korea is begging for food from foreign nations. Flood, a brutal winter, and livestock disease has made the situation worse in a country where malnutrition is already a way of life. The North Korean government has ordered its embassy personnel to basically beg. It is currently betting from Japan, a country that North Korea usually threatens.
The United States cut off food aid several years ago over concerns about nuclear transparency. It has said it has no plans to start up again. The UN Food Program has said it will only contribute food for another month.
The request has put the United States and other Western countries in the uncomfortable position of having to decide whether to ignore the pleas of a starving country or pump food into a corrupt distribution system that often gives food to those who need it least.
We have always been a generous nation, even with our enemies, at least in the 20th century. North Korea is simply too much of a problem to start giving hand outs. A country that won’t play by the rules and issues threats all the time is in no position to be asking favors. On the other hand, there are starving people. The question we must ask ourselves is, would the starving people even get the food? I would give food only if I could distribtute it to those in need. If our troops went anywhere near there to give food, they would probably fire on them.
What do you think we should do?
Notice North Korea at night. The people have no electricity:
Richard “Dick” Winters, the Easy Company commander whose World War II exploits were made famous by the book and television miniseries “Band of Brothers,” died last week in central Pennsylvania. He was 92.
Winters was a humble man and very respected by the men under his command. He asked that his death not be announced until after his funeral. He lived in Hershey, PA.
BEDFORD, Va. (AP) — The National D-Day Memorial plans to reinstall a bust of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin that drew opposition from veterans groups, local officials and some lawmakers.
Memorial President Robin Reed told The News & Advance that the bust will be included in a new Allied leaders section. The new exhibit also will include busts of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Harry S. Truman, Charles de Gaulle, Clement Attlee and Chiang Kai-shek.
The exhibit is expected to open in 2011. Reed says memorial officials are still working on the design.
The Stalin bust was originally installed at the memorial in June. The bust was removed in September after veterans groups and others protested its display.
I dislike Stalin as much as the next guy. My father, a WWII vet, also hated Stalin. The family joke around the house was always if only people had listened to Churchill, Patton and my father, we would not have the problems we are having (cold war). However, to deny his existence in WWII is a little much. There is also the point of view that we might not have won had Stalin not been in the picture.
Countries are often morally compromised in wartime. They often find themselves in alliance with dubious characters. In times of war, most countries aren’t in the position to take the high road.
This new area of the D-Day Memorial sounds like a good plan and a compromise. Donations were down significantly because of the Stalin bust. It was removed after much controversy. We can’t ignore the fact that the dictator was an ally((well, sort of) and we also don’t want to allow his wretched presence to stand over a memorial to our heroes and our war dead.
Stalin was a killer. Historians make a good case for him being worse than Hitler in sheer number of people killed under his orders. No glory or honor for him is deserved. Let there be a ‘leaders’ section.’ That will just have to do. Perhaps the controversy has been good for the country. We need to not forget the evil that some men do.
If some of this looks familiar…it is. That’s the neat thing about anniversaries. You can recycle them.
The Greatest Generation spent their childhood in the roaring 20′s. As teenagers they weathered the Great Depression of the 30′s. Reaching adulthood in the 40′s looked bright until that fateful Sunday afternoon in early December. Every one from the Greatest Generation remembers where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news, much like those who followed now can tell you where they were and what they were doing when they heard of the Kennedy assassination or 9/11.
Many people had no idea where Pearl Harbor was or that our Naval Fleet was berthed there. Yet upon hearing of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, most Americans were filled with rage and a sense of betrayal because of the sneak attack. The Greatest Generation would have their lives unalterably changed forever.
On December 8, 1941 they listened to their president, Franklin Roosevelt, make the following address to Congress:
To the Congress of the United States of America
Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with the government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.
Over 3,000 lives, both civilian and non-civilian were lost in the attack on Pearl Harbor. America had a decimated navy. The politics of war had kept FDR’s hand off the trigger and had kept us out of the war raging in Europe. All but one member of Congress voted to declare war on Japan and within a week war had been declared on Germany and Italy. The United States was fully at war, from the youngest child to the oldest citizen.
On this day, please give a second of your time to remember those who perished and a second to pay homage to that generation who gave so much. Where would we be today without the Greatest Generation? Soon they will be lost to the ages and the annals of time. Those boys who went off to war are now staring down 90 if they are even still with us. That is a sobering thought.
Totally insane! WHAT are we thinking? The New York Times exposé of Afghan contractors guarding our military bases is beyond anything stupid. We are wasting billions of dollars a year in a war that has no goals and we have given the fox the keys to the hen house.
Afghan private security forces with ties to the Taliban, criminal networks and Iranian intelligence have been hired to guard American military bases in Afghanistan, exposing United States soldiers to surprise attack and confounding the fight against insurgents, according to a Senate investigation.
The Pentagon’s oversight of the Afghan guards is virtually nonexistent, allowing local security deals among American military commanders, Western contracting companies and Afghan warlords who are closely connected to the violent insurgency, according to the report by investigators on the staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The United States military has almost no independent information on the Afghans guarding the bases, who are employees of Afghan groups hired as subcontractors by Western firms awarded security contracts by the Pentagon. At one large American airbase in western Afghanistan, military personnel did not even know the names of the leaders of the Afghan groups providing base security, the investigators found. So they used the nicknames that the contractor was using — Mr. White and Mr. Pink from “Reservoir Dogs,” the 1992 gangster movie by Quentin Tarantino. Mr. Pink was later determined to be a “known Taliban” figure, they reported.
In another incident, the United States military bombed a house where it was believed that a Taliban leader was holding a meeting, only to discover later that the house was owned by an Afghan security contractor to the American military, who was meeting with his nephew — the Taliban leader.
Several folks have asked about the status of the War Museum. Need to Know, a regular contributor at Moonhowlings.net has been following this initiative and has kindly offered his findings for a thread:
[Disclaimer: All guest posts are the opinion of the poster and do not necessarily represent the views of moonhowlings.net administration. M-H]
Regarding the proposed War Museum:
The land belongs currently to the Hyltons. They are “donating” it but the package the BOCS will consider October 5 includes new development rights that will benefit the Hyltons. They, Stewart and their proponents are waving the flag for a museum to honor veterans to garner support but it’s nothing more than a land deal to benefit special interests and campaign contributors. The “donation” of land will not go through unless the BOCS approves the entire package.
Note that this staff report reads like a promotional brochure for the project, lacking any semblance of due diligence and analysis as to whether the project is in the interests of PWC taxpayers or not.
A few more details:
The supporters state that the project will need $50 million and that they will raise all of that from private sources. Note, however, that after allegedly working on development of the project for nearly a decade they have, as of the last Form 990 filing, less than $1 million in real assets. Form 990 is the annual tax filing required by the IRS for non-profit organizations. You can see them by clicking on this link:
The 2009 Form 990 shows total assets of a little over $4 million, but over $3 million of that is in the form of pledges and grants receivable that their statements have carried for at least two years. It’s not real money.
There’s not a chance in h*** they are going to be able to raise enough money, especially in an economy such as we have now, to build this thing without extensive taxpayer support.
