Archive for the ‘war’ Category

Veterans Day, a perspective

Posted: November 11, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news, war
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This year I went to the annual meeting of the Alumni association of my High school. I drove my mother there who went to the same school 40 years before me. Her class was the class of 1942. Just about every boy in that class served in the military and quite a few never made it back.

Because of the lateness of my birth I was surrounded by people who served. My Father Served in the Pacific for 4 years, My Mother’s brother served in Patton’s Army and won the silver Star under fire My Father’s oldest brother didn’t make it home till 47′ due to injury. My uncles and their friends served and when I went places with my father everyone he hung around with served.

Next to the entrance of my church is the Italian American Veterans monument dedicated to the men of the parish who didn’t make it back.

If you walk through Fitchburg you will find about a dozen scattered stones on various sidewalks. Each one has a small 4″ x 2″ plaque on top with the name of a WWI vet who didn’t come back. I’ve always presumed they were in front of or near the neighborhoods where they lived.

Like other towns the primary park in town has a huge monument to those who served in the Union Army. I would go up to that monument and read the name and wonder about those guys who would stand there in a line shoulder to shoulder while people were shooting at them.

There are other monuments. A smaller one commemorates those who served in the Spanish American War and in the Phillipino insurrection 100 years ago. Monuments have gone up for WWII vets and Vietnam vets.

But back to my mother, at a recent Knight of Columbus meeting I sat next to a classmate of her’s and he told me of his time in the Army from 42-45. Because of his fluent Italian his primary duty was that of a translator. I listened to every word…

…I can’t get those words from my class. I graduated in 1981 in a class of about 382, I’m not aware of any person in my class who served (if anyone has I’d love to know Update: There was one: Valerie Jackson) although plenty of my teachers did.

I mentioned the new monuments, other than they day those new monuments were put up and during the small veterans day & memorial day ceremonies I’ve never seen a person looking at any of them. At the veterans day ceremonies other than soldiers and boy scouts there are no young people there.

Fort Devens is a few towns away but is half the size it was and until recently was largely forgotten around here. The Military was once a big presence around here, now the footprint is very small.

But there are glimmers. Two men from our town died serving in the war on terror. If I walk down to Romano’s Market on Saturday’s Josh is usually working in his father’s shop. I’ve watched him grow up. He used to go to my comic book store at the head of his little brothers and sisters back in the 80’s. He is a teacher two towns over. He is also a Captain in the reserves who served both at Gitmo and a year in Iraq. He is likely the only exposure that the students he teaches history in public school have to a veteran who served or an active duty reservist. They sit on his every word.

Today all over the country, particularly around here you can find people who don’t know a vet, who never met someone who served except for maybe a very old man.

I never served, I was the fat boy who went to college I knew what I wanted to do with myself and I did it, but unlike the rest of my generation I had the reminders around me and the fact that I’ve never served has always weighed heavily on me.

Three years ago my youngest had a new friend in 8th grade who came to his birthday party. His father was a soldier who was briefly stationed in my area. We became friends and after his transfer out of the area in July we have kept in touch.

My association with him had two effects, the lesser of the pair was that I who rarely take more than a half dozen drinks in a year drank more in those two years than I had the rest of my life, he was a connoisseur of beers and had all different types.

The primary effect was I attended many veterans events and met more people who served in those two years than I had in decades. I found that the military is still alive and well and is a family that takes care of its own. At his farewell dinner I had the honor of sitting with a colonel, a decorated WWII vet and a Vietnam vet who got 3 purple hearts in under six months, (no it wasn’t John Kerry, when I brought up that similarity I got a look from his wife that is still cutting through me when I think about it.) It reminded me of my youth when I was surrounded by heroes and didn’t realize it.

Dr. Samuel Johnson once had this exchange:

“Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.” Boswell: “Lord Mansfield does not.” Johnson: “Sir, if Lord Mansfield were in a company of General Officers and Admirals who have been in service, he would shrink; he’d wish to creep under the table.”

I didn’t shrink but I felt the way a man feels when his work is being done by someone else, and that is I believe more than any other reason why Veterans Day and Memorial day have basically become retail holidays.

When we see a serving soldier we are reminded that there are a small group of men and women who are doing our work for us. They are part of a community that if you are not a part of it you may not understand.

This has been the price of the all volunteer army that was born in the desperate attempts of college students to avoid service in the 60’s. For decades our popular culture looked down upon these men, our movies have and still paint them as “broken”. Even after Sept 11th our popular culture still never caught up with the average man who recognized that maybe just maybe there is something more to the soldier than someone who is looking to pay for college.

C.S. Lewis once wrote that a man in sin will avoid signs of God because it reminds him of his current state. I think a similar thing has happened to Veterans Day and Memorial Day. We don’t want to think about it, we don’t bother to attend. It is safer to simply shop, because if we look at Veterans Day and Memorial Day for who they honor and what they do we look at ourselves and remember what we have not done.

Today there will be a Mass honoring Vets at my church. I suspect it will be sparsely attended. Later today there will be a ceremony honoring veterans at the local senior center. The fact that it is at the SENIOR CENTER says it all.

A country that is unwilling to remember those who protect it will rapidly become less worth protecting.

Which brings us in a round about way to the eleven-eleven campaign that launches today.1111_logo_blue_url_small.jpg

The eleven-eleven project hopes to change this, to remind people that Veterans Day and Memorial Day are sacred days to honor those who have made the relatively easy lives we live possible. From the site:

The objective of the Eleven Eleven Campaign is simple: to get 11 million Americans to donate $11 to support America’s Veterans.

To reach that objective, we’ve made it easy to give back to our Veterans. Americans can text the word “VETS” to 85944 to donate $10 to America’s Veterans – your $10 donation will be matched with $1 from Beyond Tribute. Or you can give online here.

The money will go to support veterans but if you are in a situation where money is tight there are little things you can do. Today is Veterans day. There is likely some sort of ceremony in your town. GO THERE. See the people there, give that couple of hours. Find out about your neighbors who served.

If you have kids take go with them to a monument and read the names, if they have a school project have them pick a name from a local monument and do a report on him. Where did he serve? How did he die? Why did your town decide what he did was important enough to put his name on the public square forever and why don’t people think so anymore?

I asked my friend who is still serving what can a person like me who never served do for someone like him who has twenty years of time and wounds in his leg from his service? He said just to be there and remember.

And as Col George Connell once said, even if we don’t honor them or remember them they will still serve and protect us.

It’s a small price, are we willing to pay it?

And if we are not what does that say about us?

Update: Forgot to include this video about the campaign:

This will stay on top, I’ll be out today.

Update 2: My wife reminds me that there is one from our class who served. Let me give a shout out to Valerie Jackson, the one who served.

Thank God for the English press…

Posted: November 9, 2009 by datechguy in Afghanistan war, war
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…for doing the reporting that the American media is afraid to say aloud:

Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the gunman who killed 13 at America’s Fort Hood military base, once gave a lecture to other doctors in which he said non-believers should be beheaded and have boiling oil poured down their throats.

He also told colleagues at America’s top military hospital that non-Muslims were infidels condemned to hell who should be set on fire. The outburst came during an hour-long talk Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, gave on the Koran in front of dozens of other doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington DC, where he worked for six years before arriving at Fort Hood in July.

You don’t say?

Over to you Violet and company.

Update: Exhibit B:

Nidal Hassan [sic] is a hero. He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people. This is a contradiction that many Muslims brush aside and just pretend that it doesn’t exist. Any decent Muslim cannot live, understanding properly his duties towards his Creator and his fellow Muslims, and yet serve as a US soldier. The US is leading the war against terrorism which in reality is a war against Islam. Its army is directly invading two Muslim countries and indirectly occupying the rest through its stooges.

Anyone? Bueller, Bueller?

Update 2: Ok lets say it all together. Major Malik Nadal Hasan is an Islamic killer. c’mon you can do it.

Islamic Terror? What Islamic Terror?

Posted: November 6, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news, war
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As the media continues to beat their breasts over the motives of Islamic Killer Major Malik Nadal Hasan. Victor Davis Hanson reminds us of a little history:

…one could instead see Hasan in a long line of killers and would-be murderers of the last decade that in some loose way express an Islamic anger at either American culture or the United States government or both, as a way of elevating their own sense of failure into some sort of legitimate cosmic jihad.

Prior to 2009, there have been at least 20 terrorist plots broken up after September 11, 2001—aimed at subways, malls, military bases, airports, bridges, and synagogues. Those foiled cabals are in addition to more common scattered murdering by freelancing angry killers, who in some very general way either evoked radical Islam, their own faith, the Palestinian cause, al-Qaedistic Islamism, or solidarity with worldwide Islam (from the Beltway sniper to the UNC and the San Francisco car murderers), and a number of lethal attacks on Jewish centers and temples resulting in numerous deaths (from the LAX attacks to the San Francisco and Seattle shootings).

In 2002, long ago, I wrote an article in which I called this al Qaedism and updated it with more recent examples in 2007.

In this year alone, aside from the recent mass murdering at Ft. Hood, there have been four more terrorist plots uncovered. Colorado resident Najibullah Zazi was recently indicted for conspiring to use explosives in the U.S., apparently as part of a plot to let off a bomb in New York on the anniversary of 9/11. In addition, North Carolina residents Daniel Patrick Boyd and Hysen Sherifi were arrested and charged with conspiring to murder U.S. military personnel at Quantico, Virginia. In Texas, Hosam Maher Husein Smadi—a 19-year-old Jordanian citizen who was in the U.S. illegally—was arrested and charged after he placed a would-be bomb near Fountain Place, a 60-story office tower in downtown Dallas.

Most recently in Boston, a Massachusetts man was arrested in connection with terrorist plots that included attacks on U.S. shopping malls and on two White House officials. Tarek Mehanna, 27, of Sudbury, Mass, was charged with plotting with other terrorists from 2001 to May 2008 to carry out overseas and domestic terrorist attacks— including killing shoppers and first responders at malls.

Time and time again we hear of this stuff, and lets give the Obama administration credit, they have foiled every one until this one so far. We are constantly being told how afraid people are of a backlash against Muslims in America, Hansen talks about it, or rather the lack thereof:

the narrative after 9/11 largely remains that Americans have given into illegitimate “fear and mistrust” of Muslims in general, rather than there is a small minority of Muslims who channels generic Islamist fantasies, so that we can assume that either formal terrorist plots or individual acts of murder will more or less occur here every 3-6 months.

At some point, if both these organized plots (see the most recent in Boston) and isolated acts of lone gunmen and homicidal drivers continue, and if the prevailing theme continues to be fears of American intolerance and unfairness to Muslims after 9/11, I think the public will resent the disconnect between what they are told to think and what they believe, on the basis of some evidence.

I’m going to go much farther. Simple mathematics suggests that sooner or later one of these plots are going to succeed and it will be a target where average Americans rather than soldiers gather. When Americans perceive that they are in danger anywhere they are the mood is going to change and it is going to be ugly.

If however we forthrightly acknowledge that there is a jihad problem and that there are those who are attempting to radicalize Muslims in America from within and take steps private and public to prevent it we will do several important things:

1. We will of course prevent attacks

2. We will put people planing attacks on the defensive rather than on the offensive, their focus will be on preventing capture and arrest.

3. It will become easier to compromise those less “devout” in order to catch the hardcore jihadists.

4. It will embolden actual moderate Muslims who want no part of this and came to American to escape Sharia law in the first place. They will no longer be cowed.

5. It will forestall much harsher measures that could come in the wake of an attack on the general public.

Kicking the can down the road for the sake of political correctness is a disservice to everyone. Until we take this seriously we will pay.

Update: Michelle Malkin and Robert Stacy and at least one Jag officer say the same thing.

MSNBC bump of the day:

Posted: November 6, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news, war
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Motive a mystery after Fort Hood Rampage

 

 

I had some weird dreams last night but I didn’t dream anything that weird.

Wasn’t this the same MSNBC that made fun of Pelosi yesterday over calling Tuesday’s election a win? (And did so today on Morning Joe)

I can’t imagine why some of us might think Jihad would have been the motive.

Doris Kerns Goodwin on Morning Joe says she can’t figure out what could drive to this. This is a Historian?

Gee maybe if she talked to the military friend I talked to last night she might get a clue from the earlier case of Sgt Hasan Akbar.

Its avoidance of reality has real consequences, increasing the dangers Americans face. “This country’s officials are in a state of denial and confusion that is almost as frightening as the terrorism they are supposed to be fighting,” observes Dennis Prager, only slightly exaggerating.

Second, the Akbar incident points to the suspect allegiance of some Muslims in government. The case of Gamal Abdel-Hafiz recently surfaced: an FBI agent whose colleagues say he twice refused to record conversations with suspected financiers of militant Islamic terrorism (“A Muslim does not record another Muslim”). [The Seattle Times reports three witnesses recalling that John Allen Muhammad, the man accused of the Washington, D.C.-area sniper murders last fall, had thrown a grenade into a tent during the 1991 war against Iraq.] Other cases are under investigation.

All of which reinforces what I wrote in January: “There is no escaping the unfortunate fact that Muslim government employees in law enforcement, the military and the diplomatic corps need to be watched for connections to terrorism, as do Muslim chaplains in prisons and the armed forces. Muslim visitors and immigrants must undergo additional background checks. Mosques require a scrutiny beyond that applied to churches and temples.”

Hasan now sits on death row.

BTW if you want to know how far LGF has fallen, none of his posts on the subject mention Islam or the fact that he is Muslim. So for the benefit of LGF readers who are convinced that this is another case of the Flemish Menace striking again, here is how you identify them.

know the flemish menace

Your guide to the Flemish Menace!

I guess Charles has joined the MSM, after all it was the same MSM that was ready to tag tea party sympathizers for the Bill Sparkman… Murder … suicide?

Investigators probing the death of a Kentucky census worker found hanging from a tree with the word “fed” scrawled on his chest increasingly doubt he was killed because of his government job and are pursuing the possibility he committed suicide, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press.

Two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case, said no final conclusions have been made in the case. In recent weeks, however, investigators have grown more skeptical that 51-year-old Bill Sparkman died at the hands of someone angry at the federal government.

The officials said investigators continue to look closely at suicide as a possible cause of Sparkman’s death for a number of reasons. There were no defensive wounds on Sparkman’s body, and while his hands were bound with duct-tape, they were still somewhat mobile, suggesting he could have manipulated the rope, the officials said.

That still seems a stretch to me but I’ll defer for now to Robert Stacy who actually reported from there.

That article had a dateline from Washington, D.C., where Barrett is based, so you can bet money that it was Barrett’s unauthorized source at the Justice Department — and not McMurray’s sources in Kentucky — who leaked the tidbit about “fed” scrawled on the chest and the “anti-government sentiment” motive.

OK, so here’s the deal with anonymous sources: The source who gives a reporter bad information automatically forfeits his right to anonymity. Barrett’s source misled him, so that the entire premise of that Sept. 23 article was bogus.

Remember the same papers (and Charles) who were POSITIVE that this was a tea party murder has no idea why Islamic Killer Major Malik Nadal Hasan did it.

Al-Qaeda got a win yesterday, the media is trying to give them a second one. It is an insult to our intelligence. As via Glenn Phillis Chester says:

The Jihadist Is Always the Victim

 

Update: MSNBC jumped away from the new conference to talk to Jim Miklaszewski. He is reporting that he shouted “Allah Akbar” while shooting. Mika looks like someone just peed in her cereal. They now bring up the possibility that is it a “political” killing…and immediately jump to the AARP endorsing Obamacare. That’s the story of the day apparently.

Update 2: Yes I know I can’t spell to save my life, but while I’m fixing that spelling error let’s link to the Newsbusters story that reminds us of some of the Sparkman speculation. You can find my coverage of it here.

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