DENVER, COLORADO- The July 17 Law Enforcement Appreciation Day festivities could barely be heard above the din of bullhorns blasting Denver police for being the second most murderous in the nation. TV reporters hoped to record Occupy Denver’s enthousiasm for that morning’s killing of three police officers in Baton Rouge by disturbed Marine Corps veteran Gavin Long. Law enforcement claimed to be investigating what drew the Micah Johnson second act to Baton Rouge, though their public execution of African American Alton Sterling might be the place to start. Denver attendees didn’t have a clue why ordinary citizens would want to be so disrespectful of their relatives in blue. Blue lives matter, they shouted. Yeah? Blue Lives Murder was the response.
Tag Archives: Marine Corps
Posse Comitatus violated in your face
COLO. SPRINGS- Find out how your government circumvented the Posse Comitatus Act which forbade America’s soldiers being mobilized against its own citizens. The Advisory Panel on Dept. of Defense Capabilities for Support of Civil Authorities after Certain Incidents will meet on Nov. 24. This session will discuss the mission and activities of the U.S. Marine Corps Chemical-Biological Incident Response Force, the National Guard Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Conventional High-Explosives Enhanced Force Package, and National Guard Civil Support Team.
That’s Tuesday, Nov. 24 from 8:30 am – 12:30 pm, at Doolittle Hall, Association of Graduates Bldg, US Air Force Academy. The meeting is free and open to the public on a first-come basis. You should arrive at the Academy in sufficient time to present photo ID at the gate. Vehicles may also be subject to search.
Atomic’s one handed coders rebrand Fallujah game as Six Hours in My Lai
NMT has obtained screenshots from Atomic Games ‘Six Days in Fallujah,’ traded p2p and remarketed as Six Hours in My Lai. There was no budget to modify the OIF coalition uniforms to resemble the Vietnam GIs, but who’s looking at the clothing? Nostalgic vets will find the rape reenactments unremarkably familar. In reality the mayhem of My Lai and My Khe lasted 28 hours, not six, but industry research indicates that cyber ejaculators rarely have more than a six hour window before a landlady looks in on them.
Gaming studies remain inconclusive about whether virtual sex stimulation augments with cumulative scorekeeping. It will require a scientific leap before computer health levels can fortify a real-world refractory period. Otherwise virtual serial binges cannot build on themselves like the longer pyramid games of Civilization or World Of Warcraft.
Japanese game publisher Konami, forced by civilian outcry to drop a distribution deal for Atomic’s Fallujah first person shooter, is pleased that the salient gangbang modules will find their way to end-user Marine Corps wannabes. Konami already has a bestselling Raper II title, an Okinawa schoolgirl adventure for American servicemen. Konami’s own one-handed programmers are set to adapt the Atomic code for the Japanese market. The human trafficking of Iraqi orphans into US contractor Army brothels becomes Korean Comfort Women; US combat depravity becomes The Rape of Nanking.
Deprived of being able to cash in on the Fallujah atrocity allure, Atomic Games is looking for sympathy from the Support the Troops crowd. Atomic laid off the soldiers on its staff, issuing this statement:
“We wish to assure the dozens of Marine veterans who have collectively invested hundreds of hours in this project that, while we have been badly wounded, we will fight on. The stories of your brothers’ courage and sacrifice in Fallujah must be shared with the world.”
By historical accounts, are they referring to the virtual sequences between the levels of action which act like silent movie inter-titles to link the running and jumping to a bigger story? Where the plot points are inviolate can be the only teaching moments in an otherwise chose-your-adventure killing spree. Where will there be opportunity for gamers to show courage and sacrifice with only a menu of rape and murder?
Let’s be clear. The Fallujah video game was not about soldiering. It did not mean to replicate the experience of 99.9% of the American soldiers who served in the battle for Fallujah. A first person shooter is not about following orders, falling in, or self-sacrifice. An FPS is about four wheeling a personal path of personal destruction. Atomic’s Six Days in Fallujah was a spring break for Grand Theft Auto sex tourists.
NMT is equally concerned about the lost Fallujah stories which may have been the narrative of the gameplay. The world should hear of the turning back all male refugees, of the White Phosphorous and sniper Free Fire Zones. The lost Fallujah action sequences no doubt exploited the armored vehicles crushing the Iraqi wounded, and the role of the helicopter gunships over the river, Red Bridge and the Fallujah hospital.
US Marines embed officer in Daily Show
NPR just outed Rob Riggle! Maybe you knew it already, I did not, but Comedian Rob Riggle of the Daily Show is a Marine Corps Reserves Officer! The news story this Memorial Day being that Riggle just got promoted. His duty in the Marines? Public Relations Officer! On the DAILY SHOW, handling public relations, and he earned a promotion WTF!
We think of reservists like dry-season firefighters: in theory, volunteering to assist in times of crisis. Certainly “putting out fires” defines the challenges of media relations too.
Since when has it been okay to spend defense funding on making palatable what the military does? Defense Department propaganda aimed at the home front public used to be forbidden, when Josef Goebbels was still a bad example. Now we accept paying soldiers to kill civilians, and we need soldiers stationed in LA to keep us in a laughing mood about it.
So which is Rob Riggle’s day job, and which is his reservist post? Riggle’s reserve duty is mentioned in his Daily Show bio, as if he is a soldier. Basically Riggle is a military propagandist embedded with the Comedy Network.
The reasons for Military Service, Training and Recruitment Programs…
Such as the Youth Programs which the Right WingNuts are so upset because we compare them (correctly) to the HitlerJugend.
I am fully aware that everything I write here will be denied and called false, simply because the Pentagon says differently.
But the reasons many have put forth about the mission of the Military and Paramilitary Youth groups as to what their Training Programs are set to accumplish are purest bullshit.
Joining the Military to get health benefits, education, build a career or to get your life together, for instance.
The military doesn’t care about your health beyond what is necessary for you to complete your mission.
And that mission is to Kill when you are ordered to do so.
The Military likewise doesn’t care if you remain uneducated, in fact, Education is contrary to the training mission.
People who are educated, who think independently, are a liability to the mission of the Military, which is to Kill when you are ordered to do so.
Thinking for yourself would make you question your orders.
The Military does not exist as a Career Opportunity, if you can make a career of the Military they won’t object, but the primary mission is for you to Kill when you are ordered to do so.
If it’s done by Career people or people who are in only for one enlistment it doesn’t matter.
The Military does not exist as your own publicly funded private counseling service.
They don’t care if you “become a man” or “straighten out your life” by or through their training.
The training is to make you accept, without ever questioning orders, their mission, which, once again, is to Kill People when you are told to do so.
After you complete your “duty” to Kill People when told to do so, and you are out of the Military either through being killed, wounded so badly that you are no longer of any use to the Military and their mission, if your enlistment is finished or you retire, the Military no longer has any reason to care about your Education, your health care, your career goals or your lifestyle.
The “goals” you set as a reason for Military service are your own affair.
The so-called Benefits are a Recruitment Pitch, and remember, the Recruiter gets paid more for every kid he gets to join the service.
Paid more directly in bonuses and paid more in promotion in rank, rank being your Pay Grade.
The Recruiter is literally selling you to the Army/Navy/Air Force/Marines.
The training regimen is designed to make you obey without thinking and without question.
Whether in the Marine Corps, other branches of the Military such as the Air Force, or the Kiddie Korps like Devil Dogs, the fundamental part of the training is a technoque politely called Pavlovian Conditioning.
Other groups who use this Conditioning Technique are Cults, Dictatorships, Torturers, and Prisons.
When Cults do the same technique, it’s called Brainwashing.
When the Red Chinese did the same thing in order to SUCCESSFULLY control the prisoner of war camps in the Korean War, it was called Brainwashing.
Did you know, there was not ONE prison insurrection nor even ONE escape from the Chinese prison camps?
The level of severity of the training regimen doesn’t make any difference.
The end result is the same if you’re in the Marines or in the Air Force or The People’s Temple or in Devilpups.
Devilpups would have the least Intensive training of them because they’re working with children, and that does NOT mean that they’re “going soft on the kids”.
It simply means that kids are easier to train to follow orders.
They’re more prone to accept “groupthink”.
It’s the same reason Reverend David Wilkerson said in his book “The Cross and the Switchblade” that they YOUNGEST gang members were the most dangerous.
And in truth, they ARE.
It’s the same reason the United States Army Office of Special Services, the precursor to today’s C.I.A., wrote in training manuals for Resistance Groups in Axis-occupied countries that children as young as 12 make the most effective recruits in these organizations.
It’s the reason the U.S. Government Claims to oppose “terror” groups like Hizbollah and the Resistance in Gaza and Iraq and Afghanistan.
They feel so bad for these poor kids that they imprison them, torture and kill them the same as though they were adults.
In other words, crocodile tears.
It’s the reason Military Recruiters are allowed to ply their Sick Trade among Elementary School kids.
Indoctrination, propaganda, advertizing, what’s the difference?
The name of the client paying for the services.
When we pointed this out in relation to, for instance, the WalMart Anti-Workmans alliance of thieves, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps recruitment into their killing machine and the training thereof, the Very Similar British, Nazi and Israeli Military Regimes, we’re called “stupid” or “unhinged” in a vain attempt to shout down the truth with pointless insults.
Insults, by the way, that clearly show the indoctrination of the writers.
Hey, y’all, we actually have Science backing up our claims, what do you have?
The techniques used to indoctrinate you to buy a product or buy into a political organization or Military Organization and techniques used to brainwash prisoners, HitlerJugend and Cult Members are all the same techniques defined and described by Pavlov.
If they weren’t effective then the U.S. Government or their Puppets in the Knesset wouldn’t buy them. Nor would Corporations like WalMart or the makers of Halls Cough Drops.
Before it became fashionable for Darth Cheney to adopt the term, one of my Right Wing Namesakes, Jonah Goldberg, postulated that Americans were tired of hearing the term “Big Brother”…
Meaning that he echoed what his Masters told him to say, what they trained him to say in his Indoctrination and Reinforcement Sessions.
Some others, who like him adopt a Non-Religious stance and only trot out their Jewish affiliations when it’s convenient for them to do so, are currently “arguing” that Baby-Killing for corporate profit is somehow justified, and, sadly, using their Reinforced Indoctrination as a jumping off place for what they say.
They exhibit the same zeal and unquestioning obedience to and belief in “Authority” that the Nazis exhibited.
There’s a link near the top right corner of the page to a picture of one of the tragic consequences of Always Obey, Never Question…
Yet, we’re called “insane” or “stupid” or Ignorant by the brainwashed minions.
One drunken fellow even made the outrageous insinuation that he wipes his arse with his computer.
I guess it was merely impotent rage, that somebody had made a statement his Indoctrination would not allow him to accept but he had no real answer as to how it was wrong.
The alcohol or other consciousness suppressing drug(s) he was taking only made it more obvious.
Dr Pavlov rings the bell, and the Dog drools…
Semper Fi, Ollie- Again…
You know, this whole scene in Israel and Palestine right now has the marks of Bush double dealing again, playing all sides against the middle.
The cowboy-looking swarthy fellow who identified himself as a Jew AND a Marine. last night as he was cursing us…
…brought this back to mind.
I wonder, sometimes, how much guilt does the U.S. government share, in our name and with our tax dollars of course, and our kin on the ground… and under the ground.
Why, exactly, did the “smart money” give arms to Hizbollah?
Knowing of course that Hizbollah doesn’t like them and would do their level best to strike, but you notice, the so-called Patriots who struck the deal, they didn’t get killed.
Over 300 Marines, mostly the scions of the “lower” classes, got killed.
Likewise, when the deals were struck with the Medellin Cartel, same time, yeah? There was a “Massive Crackdown” on the southern borders, for those of us who smoked marijuana, it was a Famine in the Land.
Suddenly, though, “black tar” and smokeable cocaine were everywhere.
You might say, tongue firmly in cheek, there was a massive “smack” or a “crack”, down on the southern border.
When I was stopped by the Border Patrol and they were waving guns in my face, screaming in Spanish, there were actually death squads in El Paso at the same time.
And since they didn’t offer any badge or insignia type evidence to the contrary, at least primarily, yeah, I thought that was who it was.
The idea that these Drug Militia were financed at least partly by Yankee Government donations crossed my mind more than once.
Fortunately, a bullet hasn’t crossed my mind, not yet at least.
Then, Bush comes off with the strangest ever response to the 9/11 strikes… his operatives start saying that the Colombians in particular were funneling money to al Qa’eda…. and no explanation of why exactly they would know that.
The one that fits most perfectly is the connection between Saddam Hussein and Bush, Manuel Noriega and Bush… as in Bush the Elder and “Saint Ronnie the Incredibly Teflon Nice”…
USMC Lt. Colonel Oliver North.
I would say, and Mr North should listen, he’s been playing with some incredibly BAD boys.
North is now the biggest link left between Bush Junior and al Qa’eda.
He should look to what happened to the Other Major Links.
Probably with his assistance. Because he’s not averse in any way to lying, stealing, killing or betrayal…
Perhaps his “loyalty” to the Bu’ush Regime lies in his innate cowardice, he’s scared to testify.
How about it, Ollie? You’ve got friends“associates in town here who monitor this website and our activities, and our writings.
Somewhere under all that slime with which you coated yourself, maybe there’s a little bit, a spark, if you will, of actual Patriotism.
Truth, Ollie, truth… it’s the only path left for you,
I’ve looked down the barrels of your comrades guns before. The only way I survived was by standing my ground.
Semper Fi.
You know what it means. “faithful forever”.
You haven’t been faithful yet, not to the Marine Corps, nor to America nor to God Himself.
Nor to yourself. You’ve let yourself become the Lap-dog of the Empire.
Make that stand for the first time in your life.
Wal-mart drives its chariot of predatory commerce over bones of Civil War dead
WAL-MART wants to build a Virginia super-center on the edge of the memorial site of one of the most consequential battles of the Civil War. The Wilderness marked the first engagement between Generals Lee and Grant, ignited a forest fire which the soldiers fought through, and left 24,000 dead and wounded. Now 253 historians have joined in asking Wal-mart to reconsider.
Mr. Lee Scott, President and CEO
Walmart Stores, Inc.
702 SW 8th Street
Bentonville, Arkansas 72716-8611Dear Mr. Scott:
I urge you in the strongest possible terms to pursue alternate building locations for the Walmart Supercenter proposed in Orange County, Virginia. The site currently under consideration lies within the historic boundary of the Wilderness Battlefield and only one quarter mile from the current boundary of the Wilderness Battlefield unit of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park.
The Battle of the Wilderness was among the most significant engagements of the Civil War. It marked the first time legendary generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant faced off against one another on the field of battle. During two days of desperate conflict in a harsh, unforgiving landscape tangled with underbrush, 4,000 Americans lost their lives and nearly 20,000 were wounded.
The proposed location will greatly increase traffic through the area and encourage further development to encroach upon and spoil the battlefield. This, in turn, will seriously degrade the experience for the many tens of thousands of heritage tourists who visit this National Park every year. The Wilderness Battlefield is easily the biggest tourist attraction in Orange County, with visitors coming from around the world to experience its serenity and contemplate its history and significance.
As a historian, I feel strongly that the Wilderness Battlefield is a unique historic and cultural treasure deserving careful stewardship. Currently only approximately 20 percent of the battlefield is protected by the National Park Service. If built, this Walmart would seriously undermine ongoing efforts to see more of this historic land preserved and deny future generations the opportunity to wander a landscape that has, until now, remained largely unchanged since 1864.
The Wilderness is an indelible part of our history, its very ground hallowed by the American blood spilled there, and it cannot be moved. Surely Walmart can identify a site that would meet its needs without changing the very character of the battlefield.
There are many places in central Virginia to build a commercial development, but there is only one Wilderness Battlefield. Please respect our great nation’s history and move your store farther away from this historic site and National Park.
Signed,
* Terrie Aamodt, Walla Walla University
* Edward D. Abrahams, Silver Spring, Md.
* Sean P. Adams, University of Florida
* Garry Adelman, History Associates, Inc.
* Nicholas Aieta, the Marlborough School, West Springfield, Mass.
* A.J. Aiseirithe, Washington, D.C.
* James Anderson, Ashburn, Va.
* Adam Arenson, University of Texas
* Jonathan M. Atkins, Berry College
* Arthur H. Auten, University of Hartford
* David Bard, Concord College
* Alwyn Barr, Texas Tech University
* Craig A. Bauer, Metairie, La.
* Erik Bauer, West Hollywood, Calif.
* Dale Baum, Texas A&M University
* Edwin C. Bearss, Historian emeritus, National Park Service
* Caryn Cosse Bell, University of Massachusetts at Lowell
* Jeffrey R. Bennett, Waterford, N.Y.
* Shannon Bennett, Ellettsville, Ind.
* Melvyn S. Berger, Newton, Mass.
* Arthur W. Bergeron, Shippensburg, Pa.
* Edward H. Bergerstrom, Port Richey, Fla.
* Eugene H. Berwanger, Colorado State University
* Fred W. Beuttler, Deputy Historian, U.S. House of Representatives
* Darrel Bigham, University of Southern Indiana
* John Bloom, Las Cruces, N.M.
* Frederick J. Blue, Youngstown State University
* Christopher Bobal, Lees Summit, Mo.
* Thomas Bockhorn, Huntsville, Ala.
* Keith Bohannon, University of West Georgia
* Phillip S. Bolger, San Diego, Calif.
* Patrick Boyd, the Pomfret School, Pomfret, Conn.
* Vernon S. Braswell, Corpus Christi, Tex.
* Roger D. Bridges, Bloomington, Ill.
* Ronald S. Brockway, Regis University
* Col. George M. Brooke, III, USMC (Ret.), Lexington, Va.
* Bruce A. Brown, Cypress, Calif.
* Norman D. Brown, University of Texas, Austen, Tex.
* David Brush, the Pomfret School, Pomfret, Conn.
* Jim Burgess, Manassas National Battlefield, Va.
* Ken Burns, Walpole, N.H.
* Brian Burton, Ferndale, Wash.
* Victoria Bynum, Texas State University-San Marcos
* Peter S. Carmichael, West Virginia University
* Marius M. Carriere, Christian Brothers University
* Katherine Cassioppi, National-Louis University
* Gary Casteel, Lexington, Va.
* Jane Turner Censer, George Mason University
* William Cheek, San Diego State University
* John Cimprich, Thomas More College
* Thomas G. Clemens, Hagerstown Community College
* Leon F. Cohn, Plantation, Fla.
* Thomas B. Colbert, Marshalltown Community College
* James R. Connor, Chancellor emeritus University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
* William J. Cooper, Jr., Louisiana State University
* Janet L. Coryell, Western Michigan University
* Charles E. Coulter, Yankton, S.D.
* Robert E. Curran, Richmond, Ky.
* Thomas F. Curran, Saint Louis, Mo.
* Gordon E. Dammann, National Museum of Civil War Medicine
* Guy Stephen Davis, Atlanta, Ga.
* William C. “Jack” Davis
* Joseph G. Dawson, III, Texas A&M University
* Mary DeCredico, United States Naval Academy
* James Lyle DeMarce, Arlington, Va.
* Charles B. Dew, Williams College
* Steven Deyle, University of Houston
* Richard DiNardo, Marine Corps Command and Staff College
* Luis-Alejandro Dinnella-Borrego, Warwick, N.Y.
* Richard R. Duncan, Alexandria, Va.
* Kenneth Durr, History Associates, Inc.
* David Dykstra, Poolesville, Md.
* Mark Elliott, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
* Robert F. Engs, University of Pennsylvania
* C. Wyatt Evans, Drew University
* Daniel Feller, University of Tennessee
* Rex H. Felton, Tiffin, Ohio
* Paul Finkelman, Albany Law School
* Jeff Fioravanti, Lynn, Mass.
* Joseph C. Fitzharris, University of Saint Thomas
* J.K. Folmarm California, Minn.
* George B. Forgie, University of Texas Austin
* Lee W. Formwalt, Organization of American Historians
* Janet B. Frazer, Narberth, Pa.
* Gary W. Gallagher, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.
* Jonathan Gantt, Columbia College
* Jason Gart, History Associates, Inc.
* Louis S. Gerteis, University of Missouri, St. Louis
* Kate C. Gillin, the Pomfret School, Pomfret, Conn.
* Mary Giunta, Edinburg, Va.
* Martin K. Gordon, Columbia, Md.
* Cathy Gorn, University of Maryland
* Thomas M. Grace, Amherst, N.Y.
* Susan W. Gray, Severna Park, Md.
* A. Wilson Greene, Pamplin Historical Park and National Museum of the Civil War Soldier
* Debra F. Greene, Jefferson City, Mo.
* Jim Griffin, Frisco, Tex.
* Linda J. Guy, Clearville, Pa.
* Edward J. Hagerty, American Military University
* Alfred W. Hahn, Midlothian, Va.
* Judith Lee Hallock, South Setauket, N.Y.
* Jerry Harlow, President, Trevilian Station Battlefield Foundation
* D. Scott Hartwig, Gettysburg National Military Park, Pa.
* David S. Heidler, Colorado State University
* Jeannie Heidler, United States Air Force Academy
* John S. Heiser, Gettysburg National Military Park, Pa.
* Earl J. Hess, Lincoln Memorial University
* Libra Hilde, San Jose State University
* T. John Hillmer, Jr., Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield, Mo.
* David Hochfelder, State University of New York – Albany
* Sylvia Hoffert, Texas A&M University
* Patrick Hotard, Philadelphia, Pa.
* Richard Houston, Harwich, Mass.
* Randal L. Hoyer, Madonna University
* Richard L. Hutchison, Fort Worth, Tex.
* Brian M. Ingrassia, Georgia State University
* Perry D. Jamieson, Crofton, Md.
* Jim Jobe, Fort Donelson National Battlefield, Tenn.
* Willie Ray Johnson, Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, Ga.
* Vivian Lee Joyner, New Hill, N.C.
* Whitmel M. Joyner, New Hill, N.C.
* Walter D. Kamphoefner, Texas A&M University
* Amalie M. Kass, Harvard Medical School
* Philip M. Katz, Washington, D.C.
* Brad Keefer, Kent State University
* Brian J. Kenny, Denver, Co.
* Victoria A. Kin, San Antonio, Tex.
* George W. Knepper, University of Akron
* Christopher Kolakowski, National Museum of the U.S. Army Reserve
* Carl E. Kramer, Indiana University Southeast
* Arnold Krammer, Texas A&M University
* Robert K. Krick, Fredericksburg, Va.
* Michael E. Krivdo, Texas A&M University
* Benjamin Labaree, Saint Alban’s School, Washington, D.C.
* Dan Laney, Austin, Tex.
* Connie Langum, Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield, Mo.
* William P. Leeman, Coventry, R.I.
* Kevin Levin, Charlottesville, Va.
* Richard G. Lowe, University of North Texas
* Robert W. Lowery, Jr., Newport News, Va.
* M. Philip Lucas, Cornell College
* R. Wayne Mahood, Geneseo, N.Y.
* Daniel Martin, Lancaster, Pa.
* William Marvel, South Conway, N.H.
* Matthew Mason, Brigham Young University
* Dinah M. Mayo-Bobee, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
* George T. Mazuzan, Springfield, Va.
* Nathan McAlister, Hoyt, Kan.
* David McCullough
* Dennis K. McDaniel, Washington, D.C.
* James M. McPherson, Princeton University
* Kathleen G. McKesson, Eighty Four, Pa.
* James G. Mendez, Chicago, Ill.
* Brian Craig Miller, Emporia State University
* Roger E. Miller, Eagle River, Alaska.
* Wilbur R. Miller, State University of New York – Stony Brook
* Eric J. Mink, Fredericksburg, Va.
* Robert E. Mitchell, Brookline, Mass.
* John Moody, Orange Park, Fla.
* Richard Moore, Woodbridge, Va.
* Richard Morey, Kent Place School, Summit, N.J.
* Geoffrey Morrison, Saint Louis, Mo.
* Brenda Murray, North Pole, Alaska.
* Richard J. Myers, Doylestown, Pa.
* Eric Nedergaard, Mesa, Ariz.
* Robert D. Neuleib, Normal, Ill.
* Kenneth Noe, Auburn University
* Justin Oakley, Martinsville, Ind.
* Kristen Oertel, Millsaps College
* Marvin Olson, La Crescenta, Ca.
* Beverly Palmer, Claremont, Ca.
* John T. Payne, Lone Star College
* Graham Peck, Saint Xavier University
* William D. Pederson, Louisiana State University, Shreveport
* William E. Pellerin, Santa Barbara, Ca.
* Don Pfanz, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, Va.
* Michael Pierson, University of Massachusetts, Lowell
* Kermit J. Pike, Western Reserve Historical Society, Mentor, Ohio
* Ann Poe, Alexandria, Va.
* Kieth Ploakoff, Rossmoor, Ca.
* Lawrence N. Powell, Tulane University
* Adam J. Pratt. Baton Rouge, La.
* Gerald Prokopowicz, East Carolina University
* John Quist, Shippensburg University
* Steven J. Rauch, Evans, Ga.
* S. Waite Rawls, III, Museum of the Confederacy
* Carol Reardon, Pennsylvania State University
* Douglas Reasner, Durant, Iowa
* Michael Reis, History Associates, Inc.
* Robert V. Remini, Office of the Historian, U.S. House of Representatives
* James Renberg, Southern Pines, N.C.
* Gordon Rhea, Mount Pleasant, S.C.
* Jean Richardson, Buffalo State College
* Jeffrey Richman, Brooklyn, N.Y.
* Harris D. Riley, Jr., M.D., Nashville, Tenn.
* James I. Robertson, Jr., Virginia Tech
* Stephen I. Rockenbach, Virginia State University
* Sylvia Rodrigue, Baton Rouge, La.
* Rodney A. Ross, Center for Legislative Archives, Washington, D.C.
* Jennifer Ross-Nazzal, Johnson Space Center
* Jeffrey J. Safford, Montana State University
* Frank Scaturro, New Hyde Park, N.Y.
* Mark S. Schantz, Hendrix College
* Laurence D. Schiller, Deerfield, Ill.
* Christopher A. Schnell, Springfield, Ill.
* Glenna R. Schroeder-Lein, Springfield, Ill.
* Frederick Schult, Jr., New York University
* Donald L. Schupp, Warrenton, Va.
* Richard D. Schwartz, Morristown, N.J.
* Cynthia Seacord, Schenectady, N.Y.
* Tomas Seaver, Woonsocket, R.I.
* Diane Shalda, Chicago Military Academy
* Peter D. Sheridan, Torrance, Ca.
* Mark Snyder, Akron, Ohio
* John Sotak, O.S.A., New Lenox, Ill.
* Clay W. Stuckey, DDS, Bedford, Ind.
* Carlyn Swaim, History Associates, Inc.
* Andrew Talkov, Virginia Historical Society
* Robert A. Taylor, Florida Institute of Technology
* Paul H. Tedesco, Northeastern University
* James Thayer, Milford, Mass.
* Emory M. Thomas, University of Georgia
* JoAnne Thomas, Peoria, Ill.
* Joseph Trent, Worcester, Mass.
* Tony R. Trimble, Plainfield, Ind.
* I. Bruce Turner, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
* Edwin C. Ulmer, Jr., Feasterville, Pa.
* Charles W. Van Adder, Forked River, N.J.
* Charles Vincent, Baker, La.
* Joseph F. von Deck, Ashburnham, Ma.
* Brent Vosburg, Elizabethtown, N.J.
* Robert Voss, Lincoln, Neb.
* George N. Vourlojianis, Lorain County Community College
* Christopher R. Waldrep, San Francisco State University
* John Weaver, Tipp City, Ohio
* Robert Welch, Ames, Iowa
* Lowell E. Wenger, Cincinnati, Ohio
* Jeffrey Wert, Centre Hall, Pa.
* Bruce E. Wilburn, Glen Allen, Va.
* Diana I. Williams, Wellesley College
* Mary Williams, Fort Davis National Historic Site, Tex.
* Terry Winschel, Vicksburg National Military Park, Miss.
* Roger Winthrop, Lansing, Mich.
* Eric J. Wittenberg, Columbus, Ohio
* Ralph A. Wooster, Lamar University
* Donald Yacovone, Harvard University
* Shirley J. Yee, University of Washington
* Mitchell Yockelson, National Archives and Records Administration
* William D. Young, Maple Woods Community College
* Mary E. Younger, Dayton, Ohio
* Jack Zevin, Queens College, City University of New York
TopGun saves self sooner than SanDiego
COS- Having our own Air Force jets flying overhead constantly, I’m surprised more of Colorado Springs isn’t reacting to the F-18 crash in a San Diego residential area. The pilot ejected safely, but left his plane to plow into American homes.
Where did the skin-saving ingrate think he was? Iraq? Our schools have got to place more emphasis on Geography.
This pilot’s military mindset was clear: the plane may be expensive, but the most important piece of ordnance is himself. More specifically, his TRAINED self. The time and training invested in him. In San Diego, the Marines saved a pilot, the multi-million dollar plane was lost, and there was some collateral damage. But this time it was AMERICAN.
Is that just like a video game player, press SAVE GAME, without regard to averting catastrophe? Because you don’t get any credit for saving the health points of other players, especially not the lives of the non-players in the simulated background. Outside virtual reality, it’s the same thing: in American wars, usually those background lives are foreign anyway. Collateral.
Where are we supposed to train our Top Guns? They need open skies like those of Afghanistan, where they can experience the real combat environment, where they can bail out and abandon their flying bombs into people who don’t matter.
Or have University City non-combatant Americans living too close to the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar become that too?
In fact, the only one whose life seems to matter is fighter jet pilot. Investigators can find a fourth body in the home, can find three homes and four vehicles destroyed, and find the F/A-18D Hornet suffered a loss of power, but investigators can’t identify the perpetrator beyond that he’s a 20-something lieutenant with an Attack Squadron.
Going down with the ship means accepting responsibility. Do they do that anymore? Going down with a plane is even more vital. It means using your last breath to steer the dangerous projectile you’ve become away from others.
Have I read somewhere that the military has lowered its requirements for who can be a pilot? Before Top Gun, film audiences were led to believe to be an officer meant you also had to be a gentleman.
They had to condemn several homes just for the toxic residue. Support the Troops.
Colo. Springs celebrates underage vets
COLORADO SPRINGS- The average age of a uniformed participant in this year’s Veteran’s Day Parade was underage! The high school Junior ROTCs, the Young Marines, the Devil Pups, and the scouts, pulled the age downward against the ever diminishing number of retired combat vets. I think the Hussar-clad HS marching bands brought the mean down too.
While officially the youthful paraders were there to cheer the old vets, it’s hard to imagine the cries of “thank you” were not intended for the ears of those in attendance who were still part of the military. Actually a large number of those involved in the Veteran’s Day Parade are active duty, when not on deployment.
Belonging to a pro-militant fan club such as the Colorado Springs Young Marines does not make you a soldier, nor I should hope a soldier-to-be. But their recruits are already veterans of US militarism and the warrior indoctrination process.
The Young Marines are sponsored by the Marine Corps, a rather audacious recruiting beachhead considering Colorado Springs is an Army and Air Force town. Note: the Marines have no JROTC program here, and the fewest nationwide. What does that say about the age they target?
Not to be outdone by the Young Marines, the Colorado Springs Youth Marine Club goes by the name DEVIL PUPS, although it offers its conscripts the chance to “learn code of conduct from Godly Veterans.”
Note the better fitting uniform and helmet, sized for infants. The Devil Pups are affiliated with a Camp Pendleton Devil Pups Inc. Though They claim to be neither a mini-boot-camp, nor a para-military outfit, the Devil Pups require that children “must pass a Physical Fitness Test, cannot be on any type of medication for any reason, [and] cannot have asthma (no exceptions).”
Do you doubt the Boy Scouts are a para-military organization? These scoutmasters don’t. STILL SERVING THROUGH SCOUTING read one banner. Another read RETURNING TO THE VALUES SCOUTING NEVER LEFT. Were those the values of Kit Carson to which you’re alluding?
Here are elementary school students riding on a float sponsored by the Globe Charter School. They hold posters celebrating the four branches of the military, plus the National Guard and the Coast Guard.
Rampart High School’s marching band, the “Rampart Regiment” costumed in deaths-head Hessian uniforms.
Our land-locked state also has a JROTC for students interested in the Navy. Three out of the four Colorado high schools enrolled in the Navy program are in Colorado Springs. They are Mesa Ridge, Wasson and Widefield. Oddly, none of Colorado’s 21 Army JROTC high school programs are in COS. The Air Force has five of seven participating high schools: Harrison, William Mitchell, Air Academy, Falcon and Sand Creek.
The parade of vintage cars provides a suitable reminder that all modern wars, post WWI, like these models, have been fought over the resource needed to fuel them.
Unafraid to make that point directly, the Military Vehicle Collectors Club solicits donations to KEEP ‘EM ROLLING.
This 40s staff car ferried former Waves who served the Navy in WWII. Resembling what most of us expect from a parade for honored veterans.
Pope says, ‘Piss in the jar, Please.’
New scientific ‘advances’ are being made by God these days! The Pope has just ordered that all priest applicants must now pass psycho-illogical profiling tests! The BBC reports that wannabe Priests to face ‘sex drive tests’ What next? Peeing in the cup? Lie detector tests for archbishops of the Liberation Theology category?
If they take out all the pedophile, gay, and heterosexual masturbating men that apply (apparently there was no hair openly growing in the palms of these men’s hands making more intensive testing necessary), they will have to allow lesbian nuns into the priesthood, and that would certainly change the nature of the Catholic Church all for the better…. but still?
Plus, this move encourages the Marine Corps to start doing these tests on their ever so normal American youth recruits. Then we would only have nice young normal men torturing and shouting ‘KILL! KILL! KILL!’ This seriously shows the dangerous wave of communism that is moving like a tsunami towards our Atlantic Coast from Rome by way of Barack Obama. I am now more likely to vote for John McCain. Also to mention that I had a wet dream just last night about Sarah! She was whipping America!
By the way… That picture above is an art work that shows Jesus Christ crucified on a cross in a jar of urine, which I find very personally offending. See how bad these communist artists can get? John McCain is the type of leader than can bomb the beJezus out of these American communist art centers, and YES, even those abroad. He’s for real change! And I think that he could work quite well alongside The Pope to help make the universe a much safer place and help reunite the EpiscoPalin Church back with the Catholic.
Why prosecute the little guys when the top guns get heiled
The Marine Corps is going after a whistle teller grunt for murder! Isn’t that what the Marines do? They murder others on command… Marine’s graphic interview describes killing of prisoners in Iraq They follow the orders of murderous thugs like Congress and the President and Vice President of the United States. That’s a Marine, is it not?
People’s Republic of Higher Education
Fair enough, the Berkeley City Council is being asked to reconsider whether it really meant to tell US Marine Corps recruiters to go fuck themselves. I hope it’s just a chance to say it again.
Maybe the People’s Republic of Berkeley is due for a new honor. Keeper of the Flame of Freedom. The United States of Berkeley. It used to be the joke to send the Statue of Liberty back to the French, because America wasn’t using it. How about we install Lady Liberty off the shores of Berkeley? They’re showing the temerity to claim her. Berkeley is standing up for everything America used to. What do you make of the vociferous accusations of treason being leveled at Berkeley in the name of patriotism? What fault can you find with the clear headed resolutions being pronounced by their City Council?
The only thing which differentiates Berkley from the rest of the country is level of education. I wouldn’t want to be caught poking fun at, much less belittling, someone smarter than me, especially for taking a more principled stand than I -err- me. You can tease them about inarticulate athletic ability, but the last thing you’d want to do is to presume to correct a grammarian.
How are dumbfuck Americans like Move Forward America so easily goaded to speak derisively of their own who know better? It’s one thing to question authority, another even to be skeptical in general. But Berkeley isn’t filled with the social engineers who’ve got a boot on your throat, it’s full of students, your children, who you sent to acquire an education. Not your education in fact, a better education. A world view beyond your own, a comprehension you were not afforded. That’s Berkeley.
Berkeley is not unique, though perhaps it has the highest visibility. Regionally there are other college towns that fit the leftist stereotype. Boulder and Ann Arbor for example. These are home to progressive populations, teachers, students and alumni which color the demographics significantly to affect the local politics. Why are better educated people always leftists? A dolt could only hope to chance upon the inspiration to ask himself such a doozy.
This dolt would ask the reverse: AS left EQUALS education, SO less-left MUST EQUAL less-education.
Why aren’t more college campuses like Berkeley? What’s going on that our educational institutions are producing idiots to mock the product of real education? It’s a terrible portent.
The face of legally blind patriotism
Gunnery Sergeant Nick Popaditch lost his eye in the assault on Fallujah. His new glass prosthetic features a holographic emblem of the US Marine Corps.
This Veterans Day, Sergeant Popaditch was awarded a medal for pioneering an innovative combat technique. Presuming an ambush, Popaditch called in an airstrike, then drove his tank forward under cover of the C-130 gunship before its firestorm had subsided. As a result Popaditch was injured, but in his words: “(We were) just inflicting a devastating number of casualties on the enemy, and we did it in a way that no one had ever done before.”
This is the same tank commander immortalized on magazine covers in 2003 smoking his cigar as he assisted in toppling Saddam’s statue in Firdos Square. Articles told later of Popaditch’s tank named “Carnivore” storming Fallujah in retaliation for the contractors killed by jubilant Iraqis. Now he’s grabbing attention with his Few-The-Proud cornea. When we recoil at WWII accounts of the Death’s Head Regiment and other unthinkably morose nomenclature and regalia of the enthusiastic Nazis, can we fathom the imaginative horrors of our own X-Box-born killers?
Popaditch acted courageously by venturing into an ordnance maelstrom to certain injury. But whose kind of hero?
Eisenstein at the Colo Springs symphony
I’m really impressed that
the Colorado Springs Philharmonic was able to attract a nearly full house for a screening of Sergei Eisenstein’s BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN, the 1925 Soviet revolutionary call to arms that became even too subversive for Stalin’s taste.
The newly restored version adds more graphic pieces to the Odessa steps sequence, but my favorite scene remains aboard the battleship deck, when the rebellious sailors cower under a tarpaulin, awaiting the bullets of the firing squad.
It reminds me of my favorite story about the few proud Marines. The Marine Corps, now its own branch of the Defense Department, evolved from a very particular function in every nation’s navy. (Like MARINE biologists, their function has obviously to do with the sea.) On warships since the Napoleonic Wars, marines were the only enlisted men entrusted with guns. Their role, beside serving as landing parties, was to protect the officers from mutiny by the sailors; a function they were prepared to serve on the Potemkin until thankfully the revolutionary rhetoric held sway.
I wonder if our few proud US Marines will have brains enough to side with their families and comrades when Bush orders them to fire on his insurgents.
In promoting the Toons film collection, I’ve made a preoccupation with data mining for every poster incarnation of our diverse films. Since the Toons website has been down for a bit, I thought I’d represent here our gathering of Potemkin posters.
Kudos to the Pikes Peak Center team for delivering Eisenstein to the Rocky Mountain art Bourgeois. We showed up three generations deep, each age this evening running into others they knew. And everyone loved it.
A highlight of the event for me occurred when the battleship fired its salvo into the city. After the sailors had rebelled, the city populace had risen in support. To subdue the masses, Tsarist Cossacks marched down the Odessa steps, shooting into the crowd. In angry response, the crew of the Potemkin aimed its big guns at the headquarters of their Tsarist oppressors, or so explained the inter-title cards, further specified in the text as the Opera House! We were Colorado Springs symphony-goers, at the town’s premiere performing arts center, rooting for the Russian workers as they united against their ruling class.
Department of Defense and History
Bush is invoking the lessons of Vietnam as a reason to persevere in Iraq, highlighting opinions of historians apparently. The media describes them as heroic revisionist historians who are opposed by anti-war historians. Has academia betrayed history?
Who is historian Mark Moyar, author of Triumph Forsaken (how we could have won in Vietnam etc)? Associate professor at the U.S. Marine Corps University.
Who is historian Lewis Sorley, author of A Better War, Honorable Warrior (and other favorable accounts of Vietnam)? Civilian official of the Central Intelligence Agency, then Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Army Historical Foundation and Executive Director of the Association of Military Colleges and Schools of the United States.
Who are the anti-war historians? Everybody else.