“It was the first time I’d ever seen death like that. I never realized you could die so easily. It’s something that can haunt you. I never forgot.” - Edward Davis, 90-year-old Army veteran stationed at Pearl Harbor during the attack. (T.J. Kirkpatrick/The Washington Times)

It was seven decades ago when the paradise island of O’ahu turned into hell, assailed by a surprise attack from the Imperial Japanese Navy. Today, the Department of Veteran Affairs estimates we are losing the WWII generation of military at a rate of approximate 1000 per day. Out of the 16 million that served, only about 2.5 million still grace us with their presence. Those who can say they survived Pearl Harbor’s attack number only around 8000.

It’s taken some time for survivors of that war, and this battle, to open up and speak of their experiences. Most say they had a war to fight, and they just tried to put the experience of this attack behind them. Others may have found the trauma to much to relive. But now they speak more freely, fearing future generations may not remember and that part of history will be lost.

Edward Davis – a 90-year-old Army veteran with Parkinson’s disease – is one of those elite few. Even now, living at D.C.’s Armed Forces Retirement Home, he has vivid recall of that day of infamy, and wonders why he returned home without a scratch when so many were maimed or killed.

The USS West Virginia

Steve Krawczyk, a member of of the Army Air Corps 22nd Material Squadron, was en route to church when the attack began.

“When the attack came, it was like going 180 degrees from a serene setting to being attacked,” Mr. Krawczyk said.

As he watched a Japanese plane heading right for him, he squeezed underneath a raised sidewalk, fearing the worst. The plane ultimately bombed a target behind him, and he escaped unharmed.

“That was as close as I ever came to being terrified,” he said.

“The thing that carried us through that raid was the fact that the service people we had at that time averaged about 19 years of age,” he said. “And it was the resiliency of youth, you might say, that carried us through that trying period.”

USS Utah Memorial

Ms Soucy is only one of five who’s final wishes will be granted at the same time.

The ceremony is one of five memorials being held this week for servicemen who lived through the assault and want their remains placed in Pearl Harbor out of pride and affinity for those they left behind.

“They want to return and be with the shipmates that they lost during the attack,” said Jim Taylor, a retired sailor who coordinates the ceremonies.

~~~

Most of the 12 ships that sank or were beached that day were removed from the harbor, their metal hulls salvaged for scrap. Just the Utah and the USS Arizona still lie in the dark blue waters. Only survivors of those vessels may return in death to their ships.

The cremated remains of Vernon Olsen, who served aboard the Arizona, will be interred on his ship during a sunset ceremony Wednesday. The ashes of three other survivors are being scattered in the harbor.

Pearl Harbor Survivors Association Logo

For those with a love and respect of history, I invite you to cyber walk thru the Naval photo gallery of Pearl Harbor.

For interactive history, National Geographic has put together a stellar timeline of the Japanese attack map. If it were embeddable, I would have done so.

Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day isn’t a nationally recognized federal holiday. There are no “nearest Monday” days off to make it a convenient long weekend… no BBQs, the mail moves as usual and banks are open. As we lose this greatest generation, I fear we will also lose marking this day with the import in history it has. For most, it’s just another passing day. Yet, in impact, it is that generation’s September 11th… and one more lesson for the US that we are not immune from enemies attacks.

1942 poster by Allen Saalburg

A great blog read…

http://www.bookwormroom.com/2011/12/07/my-mothers-war-courtesy-of-pearl-harbor/”>Bookworm Room, with a story of his mother during WWII.

When this day rolls around annually, it’s difficult to pick a single unit, battle or warrior to honor. And despite all attempts, the story is only fractionally told. Truly all Veterans, from all wars, are to be honored, respected and given heartfelt thanks for their contributions to our freedoms. But this year I decided to zero in on Patton’s Tiger’s Division, serving in his Third Army, and single out only one of their remarkable accomplishments…Combat Command B’s Herculean efforts in WWII’s Siege of Bastogne in the war’s largest, and bloodiest, battle – the Ardennes-Alsace campaign. Or as it is more commonly known… the Battle of the Bulge.

Before I do narrow the focus to just the 10th, let me start with a brief overview of just some of the days, in one segment of the world, of the largest US involved land conflict that was crucial to Allied success. The nickname, Battle of the Bulge, came from the growing westward shape of the Allied forces advance towards Germany following the D-Day assault. More than a million men fought in that battle — 600,000 Germans, 500,000 Americans, and 55,000 British. American casualties over the approx 45 day siege, from mid Dec 1944 to the end of Jan 1945, stand at 19,000 with over 89,000 wounded. Two regiments of the 106th Infantry Division, cut off and surrounded in the mountain tops of Schnee Eiffel, surrendered after only brief fighting – make it the largest battlefield surrender of U.S. troops in the war.

The success of D-Day’s landing, and the ensuing Allied advance, also created a new strategic supply difficulty for the troops. There was a dearth of deepwater ports for supply routes in the initial months following the landings. Cherbourg, the only port under Allied control early on was virtually unusable since the Germans had destroyed the facilities and mined the harbor prior to Allied seizure. This meant vital supply lines to fatigued troops, spread thin in the battlefield, were mostly dependent upon the Normandy beach landing sites. The Allied capture of Antwerp a month after D-Day still did not become functionally operational until almost the beginning of December, 1944.

Eisenhower took command of the Ardennes area to guard the Antwerp supply line, and considered it an area that required minimal manpower in a war that was crunched for troops. The terrain was difficult, roads scarce, and it was in a region that the German’s only objective seemed to be some rest and refitting of troops.

Hitler, suffering setbacks on both the eastern front with the Soviets, and the western front with the US/British allies, was desperate to neutralize the western front… something he saw as more feasible than confronting the sheer numbers of the Soviets with his dwindling troops and equipment. He also underestimated the American’s determination in warfare, as he would soon learn.

Opting for one of two plans, Hitler designed his blitzkrieg for the Battle of the Bulge. The objective was to split the US and British troops, negotiate surrenders/truces outside of the Soviets, and recapture Antwerp. Trying to piggy back on his success in 1940 with France in the Ardennes, Hitler settled on a plan in the same region that was to prove his undoing.. but at great cost to American and British forces.

Four of Hitler’s SS Panzer armies were tasked with assaults. The northernmost tact was entrusted with the offensive’s primary objective, Antwerp. The middle route, assigned to the 5th Panzer army, was going for Brussels… but not before capturing Bastogne – the town where all major roads from the Ardennes intersected. The southernmost track was assigned to the 7th Panzer army to protect the flank.

Hitler’s plan required stealth, and Panzer movements under the cover of night to avoid being spotted by the Allied forces. Human intel was scant since the French Resistance network dried up this close to German borders. Also integral for Hitler’s plan was poor weather conditions that would ground the Allied forces superior aircraft. Since this was a region not on the Allied forces radar as a German objective, and these areas were less than optimal fighting terrain, the Allied forces were caught unaware of the assault… exactly what Hitler wanted them to think.

On the 16th of December, Hitler launched his attack first in the north with the 6th Panzer Army … a battle that the Americans erroneously assumed was a localized counter attack to the dent US forces had made in the Wahlerscheid sector to the north. Three days later, December 19th, Eisenhower knew this was part of something larger.. and he called senior Allied commanders – including Patton – together in a Verdun bunker for strategic counteroffensive planning.

According to the Patton Saber, part of the archives of General George Patton – the General was a surprised as everyone else at the scale of the assault… perhaps more because he did not have the access to the intel available to higher headquarters. General Omar Bradley’s initial order that Patton send his 10th Armored division north was not received well… until Patton recognized this was a completely new aspect to the war.

So even before the bunker conference, Patton was a step ahead, and had already set into motion a rapid relief response by his treasured division. By the 17th of December, Patton had already started the 10th’s Combat Command B forces towards Bastogne. When Ike asked Patton how long it would take to divert his forces to face the Panzer units, he was stunned when Patton told him within two days. It took less than that, since the Tigers Combat Command B unit’s Sherman’s commenced rollling into Bastogne, under the command of Col. William L. Roberts, the evening before.

Before leaving his headquarters for Verdun that morning, Patton had viewed the entire front and had foreseen what would be the outcome of the meeting – or at least one of three possibilities. Before climbing into his jeep he gave his chief of staff, General Hobart Gay, three possibilities, each with a codeword. When the decision was made – Patton was sure that it would be one of his alternatives – he would merely have to pass that codeword to Gay, and the machinery at Third Army could begin to function.

The meeting that morning was monopolized by the two old friends, Patton and Eisenhower. Once Ike had announced his decision to turn Patton’s Third Army northward toward Bastogne, deferring his attack in the Saar, the two men discussed the strength and the timing of the attack. Patton was a bit more optimistic than Ike, but they settled on a three-division attack to be executed in three days from Arlon toward the beleaguered town of Bastogne. Once they had agreed, Patton excused himself form the meeting, went to the telephone, and gave his codeword to his chief of staff. The Third Army was on the move.

Patton did not have to rely completely on his staff. Turning an army in a right angle direction was a difficult move – plans for road nets, supply depots and, above all, communications had to be changed. But Patton had these matters straight in his own mind. He dictated his instructions as he bounced along in his jeep.

At the time of Hitler’s initial assault, Bastogne and the surrounding region was being defended by the 28th Infantry Division, the VIII corps, under the command of Lt. General Troy Middleton, also in Patton’s Third Army. When Hitler launched his attack, the The 106th Division, located in the most exposed positions along the corps line, along with 28th Division, took the brunt of the attack From the Wiki version of Middleton’s Battle of the Bulge siege:

While two of the 28th Division’s regiments survived the German onslaught intact, the 110th Regiment, commanded by Colonel Hurley Fuller, was directly in the path of the massive advance. On 17 December Fuller counterattacked, but his lone regiment was up against three German divisions, and when Fuller’s command post was attacked his escape was thwarted and he was taken prisoner. Middleton next heard from him in April when he was released. Though the 110th Regiment was shattered, the stubborn resistance given by them and other VIII Corps units greatly slowed down the German timetable.

Middleton and his battle weary troops were supposed to leave Bastogne on the 18th of December. But he stayed behind to brief the new replacement commanders, Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe of the 101st Airborne, and Col. Roberts of the 10th’s Tiger Division. Patton’s CCB troops arrived first, pouring thru the city thru the night. The last standing order Middleton gave to Airborne’s McAuliffe on the morning of the 19th was to “Hold Bastogne”.

By noon of the 19th, the 28th Division had moved it’s command post to Wiltz, a small village to the southeast. They were overwhelmed with the Panzer assault, and retreated back to the city, blowing up a bridge behind them. Despite the fact they were spread so thinly, and easily bypassed, their valiant resistance – along with the bad weather hindering German progress on the ground – slowed the German advance in the south towards Bastogne.

It was the troops of the CCB of the 10th who alone defended the next eight hours holding the 5th Panzer Army’s march to the west at bay until 101′s Airborne reinforcement arrived later. For the first time since the assault began, Hitle’s 5th Panzer Army was stopped in it’s tracks at Bastogne. As more reinforcements started heading to the area, the Panzer corps decided to surround Bastogne from the south and southwest while the American focused their limited combat resources in the north and east. By noon on the 21st, all Airborne and Infantry forces were surrounded by the Panzer armies.

According to the far more complete and complex story of the Siege of Bastogne from Hugh M. Cole’s book, “The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge” published early circa 60s, prior to the 20th, McAuliffe (Airborne) and Roberts (10th Tigers Division) commanded independently. But as of that day, Middleton gave McAuliffe “the say” in superior commend. But Robert’s presence and prior history would prove invaluable.

Early in the war he had been the armored instructor at the Army Command and General Staff School, where his humorously illustrated “Do’s” and “Don’ts” of tank warfare showed a keen appreciation of the problems posed by armor and infantry cooperation. The paratroopers were in particular need of this advice for they seldom worked with armor, knew little of its capability, and even less of its limitations, and-as befitted troops who jumped into thin air-were a little contemptuous of men who fought behind plate steel. (During the Bastogne battle Roberts developed a formal memorandum on the proper employment of armor, but this was not distributed to the 101st until 28 December.) On the other hand the tankers had much to learn from commanders and troops who were used to fighting “surrounded.”

The 101st had suffered a severe loss the evening before with a German raid. Only eight officers and 44 men escaped, and the loss of doctors, aid men, and medical supplies was one of the most severe blows dealt the 101st. McAuliffe knew he was isolated, and had not made contingency plans for airlifted supplies.

It was about this time that McAuliffe’s infamous line as a response to the Nazi’s demand for surrender was delivered:

What may have been the biggest morale booster came with a reverse twist-the enemy “ultimatum.” About noon four Germans under a white flag entered the lines of the 2d Battalion, 327th. The terms of the announcement they carried were simple: “the honorable surrender of the encircled town,” this to be accomplished in two hours on threat of “annihilation” by the massed fires of the German artillery.

~~~

Excerpt from Wiki version
When General Anthony McAuliffe, acting commander of the 101st, was told of the Nazi demand to surrender, a frustrated McAuliffe responded “Nuts!” After turning to other pressing issues, his staff reminded him that they should reply to the German demand. One officer (Harry Kinnard, then a Lieutenant Colonel) recommended that McAuliffe’s initial reply would be “tough to beat.” Thus McAuliffe wrote on the paper, which was typed up and delivered to the Germans the line he made famous and a morale booster to his troops: “NUTS!”[75] That reply had to be explained, both to the Germans and to non-American Allies.[notes 3]

~~~

The rest of the story has become legend: how General McAuliffe disdainfully answered “Nuts!”; and how Colonel Harper, commander of the 327th, hard pressed to translate the idiom, compromised on “Go to Hell!” The ultimatum had been signed rather ambiguously by “The German Commander,” and none of the German generals then in the Bastogne sector seem to have been anxious to claim authorship.14 Lt. Col. Paul A Danahy, G-2 of the 101st, saw to it that the story was circulated-and appropriately embellished-in the daily periodic report: “The Commanding General’s answer was, with a sarcastic air of humorous tolerance, emphatically negative.” Nonetheless the 101st expected that the coming day-the 23d-would be rough.

Needless to say, Hitler’s notion that a sound defeat would deter American warriors bore no resemblance to reality.

Renee LaMaire - Angel of Bastogne

The Americans, refusing to surrender and still far from being well supplied, fought the the battles on Christmas Day. Due to weather, supplies would not arrive until a day later… gifted also with the arrival of Company D, 1st Battalion, 37th Armor Regiment of the 4th Armored Division, reached Bastogne, officially ending the siege of Bastogne.

Patton awards DSC to McAuliffe

At the conclusion of the Battle of the Bulge, the 10th Armored Division’s, 21st Tank Battalion and Combat Command B were awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for their extraordinary heroism from 17 to 27 December 1944… along with the 101st Airborne division. But the price was great…

The 101st Airborne Division suffered battle casualties numbering 105 officers and 1,536 men. CCB of the 10th Armored Division had approximately 25 officers and 478 men as battle casualties. There is no means of numbering the killed, wounded, and missing in the miscellany of unrecorded tankers, gunners, infantry, and others who shared in the defense of Bastogne. Nor can any casualty roster now be compiled of those units which fought east of Bastogne prior to 19 December and gave the 101st Airborne Division the time and the tactical opportunity to array itself in the defense of that town.

Tho it was McAuliffe’s command in the Siege of Bastogne, years later he would lavish praise on the 10th Tiger Division, saying:

“In my opinion, Combat Command B of the 10th Armored Division was never properly credited with their important role in the Bastogne battle.”

The “last reunion” of the Tiger soldiers was in 2006. At that time, the 10th Armored Division historian, Klaus Feindler, assembled and presented an honor roll of all division members killed in European Theater Operations. In the Tiger’s 124 days of combat, they participated in campaigns in Ardennes, Rhineland and Central Europe, taking a total of 43,208 prisoners of war. Tentative statistics put their division at 710 killed, 3400 wounded, 586 missing, and one captured.

Last month, veterans of the 10th Armored Division and their families returned to Bastogne for a MilSpec pilgrimage tour. It must have been a bitter sweet experience. Perhaps the 2008 pilgrimage of the son of Tiger soldier, CWO Howard S. Liddic, Service Company, 21st Tank Battalion, 10th Armored Division, gives us a glimpse to life in Bastogne today, thanks to those American soldiers. These are the memories of his own visit, as posted on the Tigersblog: McAuliffe Square, and portraits of the General in the local Bastogne establishments reveals a town in a foreign nation who, even 67 years later, still honors what those Americans who helped preserve their own freedoms. And perhaps there is no higher honor for serving than seeing those who value what was fought, and preserved, by others in their service.

As always, my utmost respect and endearing thanks to our veterans. May we remember them not only today, but every day.

I had a Labrador and my best buddy Knarley Manners had a Chesapeake. The dogs were given to us by people in town, people who found that big dogs make a big mess in small backyards. That was fine by us, we usually had stock dogs and dogs for lion and bear, these bird dogs were exotics to us and really special. There was only one problem; we weren’t bird hunters. Oh sure, we shot prairie chickens (grouse and ptarmigan) for dinner out in the bush, but that was always with a pistol or a 22 and not all that sporting. Head shots at thirty feet or less was the rule, but the skills for shooting ducks and geese had eluded us. Why hunt ducks and geese when you can hunt moose and elk?

Now that we had dogs, we needed to learn how to hunt waterfowl. We made plans, oh how we made plans for weeks and months we made plans; the sort of plans that 13 year old boys make when they are hiding an expedition from their dads.

There was nothing wrong with us going hunting or trapping, but wasting time and ammunition with ducks and geese didn’t make a lot of sense to hard nosed ranchers who operated very close to the bottom line during WWII until 1948. In Canada, there was a prohibition on selling beef to anyone but England for the ruinous price of six cents a pound. In the states beef on the hoof was selling for twenty-four cents a pound and American ranchers were getting rich. My dad was in the Pacific with the US Navy and my grandfather couldn’t get ranch help because everyone was off fighting a war in either the Pacific or Europe. Our seed stock was sold at the artificial low prices to keep the ranch at just below poverty levels. Once the ban was lifted in 1948 and after the men came back from the war, there was a slight hope for recovery.

When I was old enough to trap, the fur prices were high and my fur money helped the ranch become solvent. I was actually regarded as an important part of ranch revenue. There was still no money for the extra things. I bought a Mouser 8×57 surplus rifle because it was a cheap good rifle, I still have it, my only weapon after all these years, I suppose it will be passed on when I cross over. I hate to think that my rifle might have killed allied troops, but that is an enigma that I will always have in the back of my mind.

Consequently, under those conditions, you can see why our fathers didn’t encourage extravagances for us boys. I usually rode or drove a team into town to get supplies several times a year. I was allowed to go to the movie house if there was a western playing, it was usually a double feature. I paid my quarter and watched the same movies over and over, until my dad came looking for me. You could say, I was there to get my money’s worth.

If Knarley or I managed to find a hunting magazine with duck or goose hunting we studied the pictures for hours and made lively conversation on the techniques and skill involved in hunting water fowl. Both of us became hunting guides and professional trappers later on and would live a lifetime of adventure in a few short years. Knarley stayed behind and was a trapper and outfitter for the rest of his life: I became a horseman and traveled the world. I knew his world, but he has no idea of the life I have lived. All things considered, I should have stayed at home and guided and trapped the rest of my life.

But it was ducks and geese that had us fascinated at this time in our young lives. We had almost everything we needed, full choke single shot shotguns, bird dogs, but we needed decoys. You had to be very lucky to get the geese to fly over if you had a boat in a lake. We had no decoys and there was no way we could afford the cost of several decoys, but I had a plan. Knarley’s dad had a pen of white turkeys. We could use turkeys for decoys. I figured we could tie one leg on each turkey to the leg of the next turkey and we would have our decoys. It was a foolproof plan, the decoys in magazines were artificial, our turkeys would be live and swimming, they’d be sure to attract some geese and we would rise up and shoot them.

We had made our own plywood boat out of weathered plywood, it leaked slow enough that it was fairly safe if you kept bailing. I drove Tom and Geraldine over to Knarley’s in the evening on the pretense of us sitting at a moose lick overnight, the plywood boat in the back of the buckboard looked a little incongruent, but my dad didn’t say anything. We loaded up the turkeys in burlap feed sacks; Knarley’s dad would never know they were going hunting. We would return them the next day, it was a perfect plan.

A couple of weeks earlier, we got into a bit of trouble over another foolproof plan of mine, it was simply a mistake in judgement and we both got into hot water over the deal. We were out on a camping hunting trip and Knarley shot an old baloney bull. That’s an old bull moose with a big rack, they aren’t really good for roasts or steaks; it best to just make them into sausage and hamburger, I never really heard of someone making baloney. We only had three horses and it would take all three to pack out the bull. That meant we would need to walk the twenty miles home. I didn’t want to stop hunting, so I suggested we field dress the moose and leave the hide on. We could borrow some harness from a nearby logging camp, there was no one there and they wouldn’t start logging until after freeze up. They wouldn’t know we were borrowing the harness and we could return it before freeze up.

Elsie was terrified of Moose, but I figured if we hid the moose under leaves and grass and hooked the harness up to the hind legs of the moose, Elsie wouldn’t stop until she arrived in the ranch yard. They would realize what had happened and hang the moose until we got back home. It was a perfect plan.

Elsie was nervous, she could smell the moose and she was very skittish as we hitched the single tree up to the moose carcass. We clucked to her to move forward. She took one step and saw the dead moose rise up out of those leaves and took off like a race horse out of the starting gate. Knarley and I looked at each other as the cold feeling that we had just made another major mistake settled over us. Elsie ran until she was out of sight. Actually she ran all the way to the barn yard. There wasn’t much left of the moose carcass and Elsie was a nervous wreck for months.

We were in big trouble after that great idea of mine. Our fathers were beginning to doubt the wisdom of letting us go into the mountains armed with weapons and ideas.

We tied the team and wagon a hundred yards or so from the lake and carried the plywood boat with our sacks of live goose decoys. I was the best rower, so Knarley tied the turkeys together and we went out aways to set up our decoys. It was fairly noisy as Knarley threw the birds into the lake, but the birds settled down once they were comfortable in the darkness and floating on the water. We rowed silently through the dark to our blind in some cattails. The turkeys were quiet until morning. We looked for them, but they were nowhere in sight. No geese flew within shooting range so we rowed out in the middle of the lake to gather up our decoys. We looked and looked and suddenly we saw a strange sight just below the surface. All six decoys were underwater; actually they were all drowned. We didn’t know it, but turkeys are one of the few animals that can’t swim. The situation was looking grim and we were going to need to do a lot of explaining later on that day.

President Obama is now in a similar situation; he is looking down into the water at his failed economic policies. They are drowned and hopeless. Unfortunately, he won’t own up to his mistakes. Knarley and I had to do some fast talking and promising to keep from getting a two by four on the backside like we did from my dad after the moose incident. After the turkey incident, our fathers were wondering if they had raised up a couple of nincompoops and it was hopeless. I think the public has reached that same point with Obama.

There is a major difference in how we handled the disaster and how Obama is handling his situation. We admitted our mistake and promised to make up the loss of six turkeys to Knarley’s dad. Obama is blaming earthquakes, tsunamis, the Euro, and bad luck. If we would have used such lame reasoning we would have not been trusted again for years.

He has promised a new plan to get the country working once again, but the new plan is only a repeat of the old failed plan with mega-taxes thrown in to pay for it all. In the mean time, the country is sitting in a leaky boat staring at the drowned turkeys below just below the surface.

After the propaganda effort by the MSM to elect the empty suit called Obama, everyone is extremely suspicious of efforts to promote this man of no accomplishment. Thus when the White House gave Sony (a company that just hosted another fund raiser for the eternal campaigner) the supposed top secret details of the mission to assassinate Osama, the paranoia strikes deep; but seriously, is this president that ignorant to publicize top secret data on the wide screen to the world? I don’t think so

There is paranoia over Sony’s movie on Bin Laden; I am not sure it is worthy of our attention. Scheduled to be released a month before the presidential election, Conservatives are convinced it will be an attempt to cast Obama as a commander of commandos type role who couldn’t have been closer unless he was in the chopper and Liberals are hoping against common sense, it will portray the president in a positive light and will make the American public forget the failures of the past.

There are several factors within this dynamic that we as Conservatives and Liberals are ignoring. Propaganda films in the tradition of Goebbels are painfully obvious and laughable by standards of a literate viewer. The films of Michael Moore come to mind and they certainly swayed a segment of the cerebrally challenged, but now they have become cult films for those who are intrigued by the bald faced lies.

We are now comparing directors, Goebbels and Moore, they are considered caricatures of serious film directors. Robert Redford is a serious director who lets his political convictions overwhelm his artistic talent and his legacy will reflect his compromises.

Kathryn Bigelow is scheduled to direct the Bin Laden Film. She directed The Hurt Locker, if you recall there was no political motive expressed in that movie. It portrayed the characters who defuse the bombs in Iraq and she portrayed them in a manner that left the viewer breathless during the intense drama of the action scenes; at least I was breathing hard and my hands were shaking during those scenes. She did it, she showed us the men who do an unsung job and portrayed them as heroes. She didn’t promote the BS like the typical Hollywood Liberal of the Meryl Streep, Robert Redwood tradition of hating everything about America but the money.

In other words, she relied on artistic talent rather than Leftist rubbish to portray our heroes, a rare quality for our movie people.

She has a following and a name that can be developed. Do you really think she will jeopardize her future to make a propaganda movie for a failure like Obama.

A propaganda movie can also backfire on the Liberals and Obama leaving them shattered for decades. The world is not the naive place it was when Gore and Moore promoted their lies to the world.

I may be the only Conservative who feels this way, but I say let Bigelow make her movie. She, the Liberals, and Obama know the gamble of not portraying this mission accurately and the inevitable result of a propaganda movie becoming the laughingstock of the world.

There are many former service men and active military who will be watching this movie with the most critical eyes in the world. You aren’t going to fool these patriots. Let the cameras roll or should I say let the heads roll if you mess up.

Arleen Ocascio, director of the VA cemetery in Houston, has decided to take the Marxist Revolution a step further and has decreed that there will be no references to God or Jesus and that all ceremonies must be written and submitted to her for pre-approval. Obviously, this low level bureaucrat has decided Obama’s Revolution is stalled and she must pick up the standard and impose her will on the veterans who come to the cemetery to bury their loved ones.

According to her, there will be no mention of a Christian or Jewish God at future ceremonies, she has spoken and her feelings reflect the Democrats and their antagonism against God. There seems to be no antagonism against Allah, at least he has not been mentioned in Ms Ocascio’s demands that religion or God not be mentioned in the ceremonies taking place in her cemetery.

Marilyn Koepp, Secretary of the National Memorial Ladies, a volunteer group that attends every funeral at this particular cemetery, was told by Arleen Ocascio that they could not mention God while on the cemetery grounds.

It’s true that Obama’a Democrats wants to erase all traces of God from public buildings and our schools, but why must they insist that the veterans who pay the ultimate sacrifice or old heroes from the wars of yesteryear deny the presence of God before being interred with their brothers. Why is this tyrant being allowed to impose the Socialist creed against religion on the grieving families of our patriots. Is Obama’s hatred of our military, going to be allowed to force undue suffering on our Goldstar families when they are at their most vulnerable time.

There is a movement calling for the firing of Arleen Ocascio, not a reassignment, a termination. It is imperative that we demand her termination; otherwise, similar encroachments by Obama’s Socialism will continue to erode away our freedoms and the Constitution. If we allow every Marxist ideologue with a bit of power to usurp our freedoms at their whim, we will lose our Liberty.

This woman must be terminated, not transferred to sow other cushy job, but terminated without benefits. We can no longer stand around and watch these petty tyrants throw their weight around and cower in fear. They are petty Marxists who think they have power over the Constitution because of Obama’s disregard for the Constitution.

We have been pushed, it is time to show these pathetic little Marxists how the brotherhood of patriots regards their disregard and disdain of our basic rights and freedoms.

Don't Mess With Our Vets

Survivors of a sunken troop transport wade ashore on Omaha Beach

D-Day isn’t one of those dates most Americans remember easily. It’s not associated with bank holidays, BBQs, parades or other high profile celebrations. There’s no Hallmark cards and socially mandated gifts for spouses and lovers associated with the day. It’s not even a date in history that is marked with any specific, large scale memorials or tributes. Most occasions, it slips quietly by, virtually unnoticed, save for a few token stories…. like this one… and brief mentions in between the tabloid news we’re spoon fed and hyped up on these days.

But June 6, 1944 was not one of those days that would so quietly slip by. On this day, the Allied forces crossed the English channel to storm five beach heads along the French Normandy coast. The US forces landed at Utah and Omaha, while the Canadians and British attacked attacked Sword, Juno and Gold beaches. But it was not just the beaches that were a’buzz with allied activity.

On the morning of June 5, 1944, U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe gave the go-ahead for Operation Overlord, the largest amphibious military operation in history. On his orders, 6,000 landing craft, ships and other vessels carrying 176,000 troops began to leave England for the trip to France. That night, 822 aircraft filled with parachutists headed for drop zones in Normandy. An additional 13,000 aircraft were mobilized to provide air cover and support for the invasion.

By dawn on June 6, 18,000 parachutists were already on the ground; the land invasions began at 6:30 a.m. The British and Canadians overcame light opposition to capture Gold, Juno and Sword beaches; so did the Americans at Utah. The task was much tougher at Omaha beach, however, where 2,000 troops were lost and it was only through the tenacity and quick-wittedness of troops on the ground that the objective was achieved. By day’s end, 155,000 Allied troops–Americans, British and Canadians–had successfully stormed Normandy’s beaches.

The massive endeavor and coordination between the Allies was anything but smooth… with delays due to weather, most allies forces landing only a fraction of their supplies and vehicles they intended, paratroopers landing far off course and units split in different areas and, of course, the beach most famous for it’s dramatic attack, difficult terrain and high casualties incurred just in the landing (pictured below to the right).

Troops from the First Division landing on Omaha Beach - photograph by Robert F. Sargent

To date, there’s no official count of the lives lost, and sources differ.

–The D-Day Museum in Portsmouth, England claims a total of 2,500 Allied troops died, while German forces suffered between 4,000 and 9,000 total casualties on D-Day. –The Heritage Foundation in the U.S. claims 4,900 U.S. dead on D-Day–The U.S. Army Center of Military History cites a total casualty figure for U.S. forces at 6,036. This number combines dead and wounded in the D-Day battles–John Keegan, American Historian and Author believes that 2,500 Americans died along with 3,000 British and Canadian troops on D-Day

Paul Reed - creator of D Day Ancestors website

The official site for the American National D Day Memorial is in Bedford, MD. The memorial came under fire in 2010 for it’s display of a bust of Stalin, and it’s interpretative plaque citing his crimes against humanity, within the Memorial. Under the bust is the inscription:

In memory of the tens of millions who died under Stalin’s rule and in tribute to all whose valor, fidelity, and sacrifice denied him and his successors victory in the cold war.

The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation started a petition last year to lobby for removal of the bust. The Memorial responds in their official statement:

The Foundation would never seek to “honor” such an individual. The interpretative plaque accompanying the Stalin bust clearly acknowledges his crimes against humanity. Illuminating Stalin’s role in the planning of Operation Overlord is not to “honor” him as a person, but to recognize him and his country in a coalition effort to win the war. D-Day after all was multinational in scope. To be good stewards of history, the Foundation is charged with telling the full story. History is a “messy business” and too often, is sanitized, highlighting only what we wish to remember. By not acknowledging Stalin as an ally, as some would have us do, we erase an important part of history and do an injustice to future generations who attempt to learn from the past.

Stalin had a great deal to do with the Invasion. Stalin had been pushing for the opening of a second front since the summer of 1941. During the 1943 Teheran Conference he was determined to make Operation Overlord the focus of their talks. The “Big Three” (Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin) spent the majority of their time discussing when and where that effort should commence. Teheran marked a turning point in the war. It was the Invasion plan (D-Day/Overlord) that completely sealed their alliance. Stalin made clear that the Invasion of Western Europe had to be the primary military focus in 1944. There would not have been a D-Day without this political component.

Bagration also clearly demonstrates Stalin’s response to the coalition. In April 1944, the Soviets were informed that the landing was taking place in June. The Allies pressed the Soviets for actions that would further relieve pressure in the West. The Soviets embarked on the Belorussian Operation which in effect destroyed seventeen German divisions and three brigades while inflicting heavy losses on fifty other German divisions. By tying up these troops, the allies were successful in moving inland in the weeks following the invasion. On September 27, 1944 Churchill wrote to Stalin and noted that he would let it be known in the House of Commons “that it is the Russian Army that tore the guts out of the German military machine.”

The Stalin bust has not been removed, and instead wisely has been moved to a separate museum display about the four Allied leaders, and their political contributions (both good and bad) towards history. There is truth in the Memorial’s belief that whitewashing the tyrants and despots out of our history only leads to the danger of complacency when history, again, repeats itself. And then there is the wisdom in preserving truth of the atrocities of war so that Hollywood, who has a tendency to rewrite history for their box office reception, cannot become the new “history text book” for current generations.

For example, Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” was loosely based on the story of Sgt. Fritz Niland, who lost two brothers, and another – Edward – was presumed dead when his B-25 was shot down on May 16th. The two confirmed deaths were brother Robert on D-Day in Neuville-au-Plain, and Preston on June 7th in the vicinity of Utah Beach. It was fortunate for the family that Edward was found to be alive, and had been held in a Japanese POW camp for over a year.

Unlike Hollywoods portrayal, no units were tasked with tracking down Fritz Niland to escort him home.

When Father Francis L. Sampson, chaplain of the 501st, learned that two of Niland’s brothers were dead, and that a third was presumed dead, he began the paperwork necessary to send Niland home.

Niland remained with his unit for some time, but once the paperwork cleared he was forced to return to the States, where he served in New York as an MP for the rest of the war.

We are rapidly losing the generations who participated in this strategic battle that altered the course of WWII. It is from their lips, and not from Hollywood or politically correct cleansed textbooks we should learn and remember. You will find the History Guy has links to two personal accounts by LTC John G. Burkhalter (The Big Red One on Omaha Beach), and Jim Wilkins (The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada, Company B). To close this post, I’m going to post some excerpts from Steven Ambrose’s book, “D-Day: June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II” .

Capt. Oscar Rich was a spotter for the 5th Field Artillery Battalion. He was on an LCT with his disassembled L-5 plane. He came to Easy Red at 1300. “I’d like to give you first my impression of the beach, say from a hundred yards out till the time we got on the beach,” he said.

“Looking in both directions you could see trucks burning, tanks burning, piles of I don’t know what burning. Ammunition had been unloaded on the beach. I saw one pile of five-gallon gasoline cans, maybe 500 cans in all. A round hit them. The whole thing just exploded and burned.

“I’ve never seen so much just pure chaos in my life. But what I expected, yet didn’t see, was anybody in hysterics. People on the beach were very calm. The Seabees were directing traffic and bringing people in and assigning them to areas and showing them which way to go. They were very matter-of-fact about the whole thing. They were directing traffic just like it was the 4th of July parade back home rather than where we were.”

continue to read full excerpts and more

American D-Day’s site has some pictures of some of the low key ceremonies that take place around the world this year, and in past years.

Wounded Aboard The USS Liberty After Being Attacked By Israel

It is painful to say, but so many of us don’t understand the difference between ‘Intelligence’ and ‘Mis-Information’. This article will illustrate several factors that escape our consciousness of thought; unfortunately, most of us are victims of mis-information. I served in counterterrorism and counterintelligence for 27 years. Most people think because they have served in the military or in the government they actually have a true grasp of what is actually happening; nothing could be further from the truth!

Sadly, most of us will go to the grave, without ever really knowing the truth. Every government of the world is involved in intelligence and mis-information. Here is a simplified version of who is responsible for what:

Intelligence

1. Private Contractors
2. Intelligence agencies
3. Military personnel
4. Private Individuals

Mis-Information

1. Mis-Informed Politicians
2. News Media
3. Military Personnel
4. Foreign Governments and Diplomats
5. General Public
6. Religious Institutions
7. Terrorist Groups
8. Law Enforcement Agencies
9. Government Agencies
10. International Agencies (United Nations, etc.)

Within the United States Government, the majority of people who actually have a grasp of what and why things are actually happening are appointed, contracted, and are government employees. Elected officials are often the least informed. If a Senator or a Commanding Officer makes a statement concerning official policy, the reality is they often don’t have a clue.

Presently, because of our president’s favoritism toward the Palestinians at the expense of Israeli security, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has been positioned in the forefront. I worked in intelligence and counterintelligence for both countries, with apologies to no one, but if you will analyze these next few paragraphs, you may begin to question what you think you know and get a glimpse of what really happened or is happening. You need an open mind and the ability to admit misconceptions.

We shall start at the beginning of Israel, 1947-48. I will provide background and commentary on the key players of that era: you will be free to draw your own conclusions after reading the article.

Britain and the United States needed a base of operations for naval, air, and ground forces in the Middle East for strategic and economic reasons. The United States State Department was instrumental in proposing and lobbying for the proposed Jewish State of Israel before the newly formed United Nations.

The United States and Great Britain were supplying armaments and supplies to the Arab states: while Britain tried to prevent the importation of armaments to Israel.

Britain and the United States wrote an agreement to help the new born Jewish State become established and another agreement that would divide it after failing to defend itself against numerically superior Arab militias. The United States would take the Northern area and Britain would have the Southern section. Thus the U.S. and Britain were not overly concerned with defensible borders or a large land mass for Israel, the area was sufficient for their strategic and economic plans; they didn’t expect Israel to last over a couple of weeks.

The Arab nations also felt Israel would fall within a week or less. The Arab leaders felt they would be able to tap into the economies for vast sums of money from the U.S. and G.B..

To some of you, this may be upsetting; since, you were probably taught differently, but I will point out some verifying factors.

The Georgetown University Center for studies of peace in the Middle East…..Who paid for it?

Who heads the educational system for all of our State department officials?

With every group that is sponsored by our government on studies of the Middle East who teaches and heads up those divisions?

How many translators does the United States military have enlisted who were trained to speak Arabic?

And why are we depending on Iraqis to serve as translators in Iraq?

Does our Military undergo any type of training as to the customs and mentality of the Arabic speaking people? Very little to none! I could write a book in explanation of why all of this is the way it is; however, this is not my objective.

The USS Liberty incident.

The public information available and the naiveté of the amateur historian is laughable and the willingness of the public to believe what they read or have been told defies logic.

Following the USS Liberty incident, Israeli intelligence asked the United States if they wanted the pilot radio logs and the intercepted radio transmissions that were intercepted and recorded to be made public to help clarify the issue.

The reaction by the U.S. was to sweep everything under the carpet.

It is reasonable to ask why.

Perhaps, there was intelligence being transmitted to the Egyptians. Israel was indeed in a desperate struggle for survival and had no alternative but to stop the source of that intelligence to the Egyptians.

Now, we must ask, when in the history of the U.S. was an attack on an American Military vessel swept under the rug?

Why would the U.S. government take such an action?

When in the history of the United States did diplomatic relations become stronger after an attack on a military vessel?

We have only two allies who have paid back their debts to the U.S., Israel and Taiwan; yet, they have been repeatedly stabbed in the back through the diplomatic process by Liberal administrations.

Israel, has two great enemies, the Zionist and the Liberal; they have been Israel’s greatest enemies from the beginning.

To survive this system of Intelligence and Mis-Intelligence, it is imperative to start over with new people who have vision and objectives. It is written ” the people who have no vision will perish!”

Shimon Perez and Obama are from the same philosophical family; they see history as an empty slate to be manipulated for political advantage. They want to remain in power, even if it tears the very core of their countries apart and destroys the foundations of those countries.

Our politicians have no vision and we will perish as a nation if we cannot produce a complete change of government and establish a government that serves the people and not a political agenda: ” the people that have no vision will perish”.

The history of the race, and each individual’s experience, are thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal.

Mark Twain

Never try to estimate the heat in a raging fire until you have actually been caught in one and never under estimate the ability of you enemy as long as he is still alive!

Captain John W. Wells USN

Liberals and Communists can only be trusted when they have no office and even then, from no less than 3 feet away!

J.V. Hoffman

Epilogue: The attack on the USS Liberty has been obfuscated by our government, that is obvious. If some of you are dissatisfied with the facts in this post, feel free to dispute them with more precise facts, but as Chill has cautioned us, don’t rely on emotion, that is a fool’s technique. Verify your facts and present them in an organized and precise debate. I am merely the messenger, who can present this episode with fewer errors; other than that, this tragedy has bothered me for a long time and I just want the truth. Right now, this is the most plausible scenario I have heard, but I am open to reason and logic. Emotional attacks, heavy breathing, drooling, and name calling; the methods we see on Liberal blogs is demeaning and wont be tolerated.

Ready on the right, ready on the left, commence firing!

Some Of The Damage Sustained By The USS Liberty

Last year, I wrote a Memorial Day article that was posted on an internet magazine I write for. Here it is, and after revisiting that article, I would like to add a thought or two to it:

As we mark Memorial Day this year, let us reflect on why we set aside one day to show our gratitude to the brave men and women who have sacrificed so much to preserve our freedoms and the American way of life. United States soldiers have gone into battle in each and every corner of the world to meet the call and pay the price for freedom. Every since our great country was founded, we have enjoyed a unique place in the world. For our country is markedly different in that we are, as Ronald Reagan in his first Inaugural Address in 1981 said, “….a nation that has a government-not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth.” This is not to be taken lightly and many times in our nation’s history we have sent our young men and women into harm’s way in order to preserve our place in the world. At other times, our military has gone to face the evils of the world to liberate others. And when natural disasters strike, no matter where in the world, the United States always responds with humanitarian efforts, often delivered by our military.

One must stop and think that but not for the strength, resolve, compassion and courage of the United States military Europe would be vastly different than it is today. Not only would the lines on the maps quite probably be changed but many, many more lives would have been lost to the evils that plagued our world during WWII. Again, to point to Ronald Reagan, ours is a “shining city on a hill,” and on this day, let us take the time to thank our military personnel for their service to this great country. I know that I will, for my family knows what it means to have loved ones go off to battle. My father served in WWII and my younger brother served during the first Iraq war. Thankfully they both came home to us. Not all families are that fortunate, so let us not also forget that the soldiers are not the only ones to feel the sacrifice that comes with service to our country So as we go about grilling our hamburgers and getting a cold drink from the cooler, let’s take the time to show our gratitude to our service personnel. Thank a vet. Offer a friendly word to the family of a soldier. The next time you are in line at the grocery store or post office and you see one of our military people, let them know how much they mean to us. Let them know that we thank them from the bottom of our hearts, because freedom isn’t free and they, more than anyone else know just how true that is.

Ronald Reagan knew very well what our brave young men and women have done for our country and on the 40thAnniversary of the Normandy D-Day Invasion, he related a heartfelt and touching letter written to him from the daughter of a D-Day veteran. A letter in which she explained her father’s desire to return to the beaches of Normandy; a letter in which Private First Class Peter Robert Zanatta, of the 37thEngineer Combat Battalion says, “Someday, Lis, I’ll go back. I’ll go back, and I’ll see it all again. I’ll see the beach, the barricades, and the graves.”

Reagan was so moved by this letter and by the fact that Private Zanatta had succumbed to cancer 8 years earlier and thus, was deprived of his chance to return to Normandy. President Reagan so eloquently related this story to those in attendance that day in France.

“Lisa Zanatta Henn began her story by quoting her father, who promised that he would return to Normandy. She ended with a promise to her father, who died eight years ago of cancer, “I’m going there, Dad, and I’ll see the beaches and the barricades and the monuments. I’ll see the graves, and I’ll put flowers there just like you wanted to do. I’ll feel all the things you made me feel through your stories and your eyes. I’ll never forget what you went through, Dad, nor will I let anyone else forget. And Dad, I’ll always be proud.”

Through the words of his loving daughter, who is here with us today, a D day veteran has shown us the meaning of this day far better than any president can. It is enough for us to say about Private Zanatta and all the men of honor and courage who fought beside him four decades ago: We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free.

Thank you.”

I think the best line from that speech was when Reagan said:

“We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free.”

Thank you to all who have sacrificed to make the United States of America the greatest country the world has ever known.

Baltimore Sun photo by Chien-Chi Chang

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Medal of Honor didn’t exist because there were no wars and we could all live in peace?’’-Paul J. Wiedorfer, WWII Medal of Honor Recipient

Born July 17, 1921 in Baltimore, he was the last surviving WWII Medal of Honor recipient in Maryland and died at the age of 89 this past Wednesday from heart failure at Loch Raven Community Living and Rehabilitation Center.

Part of his story...

Like so many of his countrymen, Mr. Wiedorfer didn’t seem the heroic type. He was working at a responsible job for Baltimore Gas & Electric in the early years of World War II, and, because it was a war industry, he didn’t go into the Army until 1943. He ended up in Europe, in the long, bloody slog to Germany that followed D-Day.

Assigned to Company G, 318th Infantry, 80th Division, his unit was part of General George S. Patton Jr.’s Third Army. They were sent in to rescue American troops who were trapped in Bastogne, Belgium; and on Christmas Day, 23 year-old Wiedorfer saw combat for the first time…

On Christmas Day 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge, Mr. Wiedorfer’s platoon was ambushed in Belgium by two concealed German machine gun emplacements. Pinned down, helpless, the unit seemed in danger of suffering heavy casualties, when Mr. Wiedorfer took the initiative. “I was probably a little nuts when I did it,” he told the Baltimore Sun in an interview a half-century later. “But someone was going to die if something didn’t get done.” He ran as best he could across a 120-foot stretch of open, snow-covered ground toward the guns. “Miraculously escaping injury,” as his medal citation put it, he got to within 10 yards of the first machine gun nest, threw in a hand grenade, and shot and killed the three German soldiers manning the gun. He then attacked the other gun, killing one of its crew. Six more quickly surrendered to him.

Wiedorfer was given a battlefield promotion to sergeant that afternoon. Minutes later, he had to assume command when his platoon’s leader and sergeant were wounded.

Less than two months later, in Germany, Mr. Wiedorfer was badly wounded by mortar fire. The soldier next to him, Pfc. Milton C. Smithers of Huntingdon, N.J., took the brunt of the explosion and was killed.

According to the Baltimore Sun:

Three days before V-E Day on May 8, 1945, Mr. Wiedorfer, who was 24, was recuperating at the 137th U.S. Army General Hospital in England from severe wounds he suffered in a mortar attack while crossing the Saar River earlier that year.

In the attack, a fellow infantryman near Mr. Wiedorfer, who was a staff sergeant, was killed instantly by an exploding mortar shell. Shrapnel ripped into Mr. Wiedorfer’s stomach, broke his left leg and riddled his right. Two fingers on his right hand were seriously injured.

“That was Feb. 10, 1945. The sergeant’s back was blown wide open, and he was dead when he hit the ground. I was just lucky, I guess,” he said in the 2008 interview. “I spent more than three years in hospitals recovering from those wounds.”

Another patient was reading Stars and Stripes when an item caught his eye, and he asked Mr. Wiedorfer, “How do you spell your name?”

“It really was funny,” he said in the 2008 interview. “I said, ‘W-i-e-d-o-r-f-e-r,’ and he said, ‘You just got a medal.’ I said was it the Bronze Star, and he said no, ‘Congressional Medal of Honor.’

“To be perfectly honest with you, I wasn’t really sure what the hell it was, because all I was was some dogface guy in the infantry,” he told the newspaper.

“All the officers and nurses were wearing their Class A uniforms and there was a band. Gen. E.F. Koening came into the ward and presented the medal,” he recalled. “I really was embarrassed by all the fuss.”

He was made to give a “little speech” and said he was so nervous because he had never given a speech before in his life (and apologized to the mayor for getting his name wrong).

Here is the full text of his Medal of Honor citation. In addition, Wiedorfer was also awarded 2 Purple Hearts and the Bronze Star.

A little more:

He separated from the military in 1947 as a master sergeant and was a power station operator with Baltimore Gas and Electric when he retired in 1981.

In the early 1990s, a man came to Mr. Wiedorfer’s home and offered to polish his Medal of Honor. The man took the authentic medal from its ceremonial shadow box and replaced it with an imitation. Mr. Wiedorfer’s stolen medal was returned to him in 1995. Stephen Pyne, who was charged with the theft, was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Mr. Wiedorfer’s wife, the former Alice Stauffer, died in 2008. A daughter, Nancy Mazer, died in 2010.

Survivors include three children, Randee Wiedorfer of Parkville, Md., Paul J. Wiedorfer Jr. of Baltimore and Gary Wiedorfer of Cocoa, Fla.; six grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

As he aged, Mr. Wiedorfer said he prayed for the day there would be no living recipients of the Medal of Honor.

“Because,” he once said, “it will mean that we have learned to live in peace.”

Today, 84 recipients remain.

Who is this Obama, who asks us to accept both his ethnocentric Narcissism and his anti-Semitic vision, a vision tempered by hatred and honed with prejudice. He stands invincible, a knight in silk suits; a legend in his own mind who knows no defeat or wrong decisions.

“There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.”

- Moby Dick, Herman Melville

On an international stage, our President manipulates the truth with such audacity and imprecision, without challenge or ridicule, that even rational literate men can begin to question their own logic.

While the world tries to decipher and separate the dubious metaphor with lofty expression from concrete policy reflecting reality from within Obama’s latest speech, a speech that was primarily meant to bolster sagging polls and his image as a sage and distinguished diplomat of the world, the damage from his message will inevitably cause more bloodshed and turmoil in the Middle East and compromise the position of the United States.

Obama was self-ingratiating as he described his accomplishments in facilitating the stage for Democratic reform in the Middle East. Accomplishments that seem bizarre when viewed in light of recent history; especially, when anti-theocracy marchers were slaughtered, arrested, and tortured in Iran. Obama’s commitment to Democracy was not to meddle in the affairs Islamic states that are committing atrocities against their own citizenry. While Bashar Assad was killing his own people by the hundreds if not thousands with automatic rifles and machine guns, Obama hailed him as a reformer. In Obama’s convoluted logic, Iraq has become an example of success due to his diplomacy; yet, within recent history, he called for the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq by 2008 and wrote off the Surge and the war itself as dismal failures. Unfortunately, history and the truth follow relentlessly and closely on the coattails of a prevaricator; especially, one who wallows in hypocrisy to avail himself of fleeting glory from actions he had previously condemned.

Middle East authoritarian governments blame the US and Israel for their problems and failures as contributing nations of the modern world. Sponsoring terror has become a convenient conduit for striking back at their straw men or scapegoats to show progress on the sources of Middle East problems and to appease the semi-literate mind, thus the tribal barbarian vents his rage over celebrations of senseless bloodshed and misery, that defines the method of the terrorist, rather than looking at the root causes of their malfunctioning societies: tribalism, religious intolerance and fundamentalism, statism, totalitarian government, the virtual slavery of women, and perpetuating ideas and hatreds from the Dark Ages. Obama excuses these problems and refuses to even mention the word Islam in his speech; instead, he gallantly carried the Middle Eastern banners of hatred and blame toward the US and Israel.

Is it a coincidence, other than the rather bizarre attack on Libya, a former enemy that had been neutralized as a terror threat, but steadfastly refused to tolerate the radical Islamic fundamentalists, that the only dictatorships Obama has turned on, have been allies of the US and could be considered marginal Islamic theocracies that were semi-tolerant of other religions. He neglected to explain why Qadaffi received our wrath for threatening his people, but a homicidal maniac like Assad, who actually kills thousands of unarmed marchers is without blame.

Our most notable Arab ally in the ME, Saudi Arabia, was ignored except for an indirect plea to pump more oil; presumably, to help with the pump price at home; although, he promised skyrocketing energy prices in his initial election campaign, the reality of the situation is that he wanted to raise the price with restrictive taxes not higher crude prices. Thus he faces the negativity of skyrocketing energy prices with no confiscatory tax gain for a federal government that is anxiously awaiting to expand and encompass an ever growing share of the economy.

Again we are faced with the illogical logic of Obama: the ME can relieve oil prices by pumping more oil and Brazil can relieve the cost of energy by drilling in the Atlantic, so it is necessary to give them billions so that they can sell us oil, but it is foolish to think that Americans drilling in America and off our coasts can affect the cost of oil or decrease our dependence on foreign oil.

Now, President Obama is proposing that the US give billions to ME governments and indirectly to Hamas for some obscure reasons that we as Americans are compelled to accept, for we often equate lunacy as sound foreign policy and we ignore the obvious fact that these oil rich nations who relish greed as a way of life, could much more easily afford to promote terrorism against the US than expecting the US to pay for the terror that will be unleashed against the US and Israel. The president assumes by enriching Hamas, an organization that is about to become part of the Palestinian government and is unashamedly sworn to the annihilation of Israel, will see the error of their ways and come to love Obama and decide not to cut the throat of every Jew in the world.

The president assumes that by instructing Israel to reform the pre ’67 borders, Palestinians will lose their hatred of Israel and the Jew: the problem is not the boundaries or the humiliating defeat of the Arab world in the Six Day War, it is the failure of the Palestinian people to establish a workable constitutional government in the modern sense of a governing body in the modern world of nations. While the Palestinians and Jew haters salivate at the thought of pre ’67 borders, we who have normal cerebral function, trust it is hardly a prelude to peace and love for the Jew; not at all, it is merely seen as a way to stage an attack, to weaken Israel and to deliver the killing blow to the Jew. Do any of us in our wildest imaginations believe president Obama would stop the second Holocaust? Hell no, he would dither and wait to see how it played out, while his beloved Muslim Brotherhood governments and Palestinians obliterate the Jewish people. And are our American Progressive Socialists naive or stupid enough to think after the destruction of Israel, the homicidal maniacs would rest content and stop their blood lust? If they are that stupid they deserve the knife of the Islamic Fundamentalist, but the rest of us don’t.

The president is free with US dollars to Muslim nations who hate America, but ignores the disasters like unemployment, flooding, exorbitant energy prices, and fires at home; again, we are expected to accept the illogic logic of Obama by some convoluted process that is hard even for his state directed media to justify. Perhaps Obama should remember the old paradox, “you can’t buy friends or the friends that you buy, you don’t want”.

Unfortunately, this paradox of friends and money defines the thugocracy that is the precept of Obama philosophy: you buy loyalty and you buy friends, and the best way to accomplish it, is with other people’s money.

The president promoted the concept of Democracy in the ME and without exception, he will be promoted as an outstanding orator and statesman by the state directed media and the emptiness and naiveté of his blathering will be hailed with awe and wonder; only to be forgotten after the absurdity and irrelevance of Obama’s illogical logic is used for as much advantage and leverage as possible by his propaganda bureau.

Rather than believing his own press like the proverbial empty headed fool, Obama would be well served to read the old Polish proverb: “Watch the faces of those who bow the lowest.” The homicidal maniac of the ME is cunning and recognizes weakness; he will faun over Obama until it is time to strike.

The epitasis (denouement or climax, just before catastrophe in Greek theatre) is building in the ME. We may regard Obama’s speech as a faux Ciceronian effort to be pitied for it’s circumlocution and naive pandering, but for the semi-literate mind, caught up in the Middle Ages, it indicates weakness and capitulation that serves to embolden and strengthen their resolve. Thus the speech isn’t inconsequential in the sense of anemic posturing; no not at all, it is seen as a great morale builder for the disaffected of the Muslim World, a confirmation of their hatred and prejudices. Thus Obama perhaps gains a self-serving, but false standing in the ME, literally at the expense of the American taxpayer and by compromising the Jewish state and eventually America itself.